Surviving Mumbai Gunman Says in Confession He Planned to Take Hostages in Rooftop Standoff

MUMBAI, India — The gunman captured in last month's Mumbai attacks had originally intended to seize hostages and outline demands in a series of dramatic calls to the media, according to his confession obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab said he and his partner, who massacred dozens of people in the city's main train station, had planned a rooftop standoff, but abandoned the plans because they couldn't find a suitable building, the statement to police says.

Kasab's seven-page confession, given to police over repeated interrogations, offers chilling new details of the three-day rampage through India's commercial center that left 164 people plus nine gunmen dead.

He said the assault, which started Nov. 26, was initially set for Sept. 27, though he doesn't explain why it was delayed. The gunmen had been told by their handlers to carry out the attacks during rush hours when the station is teeming with commuters.

After reaching Mumbai, Kasab and his partner, Ismail Khan, the group's ringleader, headed to the train station by taxi.

"Ismail and myself went to the common toilet, took out the weapons from our sacks, loaded them, came out of toilet and started firing indiscriminately toward the passengers," Kasab told police.

As a police officer opened fire, the two militants retaliated with grenades before entering another part of the station and randomly shooting more commuters.

The men then searched for a building with a rooftop where they had been told to hold hostages and call a contact named Chacha, whom Kasab identified as Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the suspected mastermind behind the attacks.

Click here for photos.

Chacha, which means "uncle" in Hindi, would supply phone numbers for media outlets and specify what demands the two should make.

"This was the general strategy decided by our trainers," Kasab said.

Taking heavy fire from police, the two had trouble finding a "suitable building" and stormed a hospital they mistook for an apartment building. There, they searched for hostages and traded more gunfire with security forces. It's unclear if they ever held hostages.

When they left, a police van pulled up and the two tried to take shelter behind a bush during the shootout. Kasab was hit in the hand as Khan returned fire.

"They got injured and the firing from their side stopped," he said.

Police have confirmed the van was carrying top police officials, including the head of the anti-terror squad who was killed.

In the confession, Kasab, 21, describes his conversion from an aspiring street criminal to a loyal soldier for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group banned by Pakistan in 2002 and blamed by India in the attacks.

He came to the organization last year while looking to buy guns to commit robberies after quitting a low-paying job at a catering business. The search led him to several Lashkar "stalls" at a bazaar in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, he said.

Kasab went on to receive rigorous training in weapons handling and other skills, attending at least six Lashkar camps and visiting his parents twice during breaks, he said. Lashkar operatives even lectured recruits on India security and intelligence agencies, and taught them how to evade pursuing security forces.

He said they were shown "clippings highlighting the atrocities on Muslims in India," images of Mumbai locations on Google Earth, and film footage of the train station.

"We were instructed to carry out the firing at rush hour in the morning between 7 to 11 hours and between 7 and 11 hours in the evening," he said. The attacks ultimately started around 9:30 p.m.

After Kasab and nine others were picked among a group of 32 recruits, they headed to Karachi in September and practiced traveling on speed boats.

On Nov. 23, the group was transported to a ship called the Al-Huseini far out at sea.

Shortly after boarding, "each of us was given a sack containing 8 grenades, one AK47 rifle, 200 cartridges, two magazines and one cell phone for communication," he said.

The Al-Huseini's crew, he said, later hijacked an Indian vessel, killing all but one crew member who was temporality kept alive and held at gunpoint to guide them into Mumbai's coastal waters.

"When we were at some distance from the shore, Ismail and (another militant) killed the Indian seaman" before the group boarded a dinghy and came ashore "per the instructions received earlier."

Police said Saturday that Kasab, who's facing a criminal case in the attacks, has written to Pakistani officials to request legal help.

In a letter written Thursday, he asked for "legal aid" from the Pakistani consulate and requested a meeting with a consular representative, said Rakesh Maria, Mumbai's chief investigator.

The letter was forwarded to India's government to relay to Pakistani officials, but it was unclear whether it had been delivered, Maria said.

Pakistani officials were not immediately available for comment.

A number of Indian lawyers — including a prominent group of Mumbai attorneys — have refused to defend Kasab against criminal charges amid outrage over the attacks.

Kasab is being held on 12 offenses, including murder and waging war against the country, but has not yet been formally charged.

Islamabad has refused to acknowledge Kasab's nationality, complaining that India has yet to furnish any evidence.

Thousands advise electors to check eligibility

from WorldNetDaily.com

If documents someday prove Barack Obama is not eligible to be president under the U.S. Constitution, none of the 538 Electoral College members who vote him into office Monday will be able to claim ignorance.

That's after 3,653 citizens had enough concern over the allegations, they participated in a WND effort to deliver letters to every elector, urging them to investigate.

The campaign followed an earlier campaign among WND readers that sent more than 60,000 letters by overnight delivery to the U.S. Supreme Court when a case contesting Obama's eligibility for the Oval Office was pending.

The latest letters were sent FedEx to all 538 members of the Electoral College.

As WND has reported, serious questions remain over whether Obama is "a natural born citizen," as specified in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. While he claims to have been born in Hawaii in 1961, two Obama family members have told WND they were present at his birth in Mombasa, Kenya.

Further, Obama has steadfastly refused to release publicly his full birth certificate that would identify the hospital of his birth, the attending physician and other details. Instead, the campaign posted a document purporting to be a birth certificate devoid of these details.

Joseph Farah, founder and editor of WND, explained the significance of the letters to electors.

"If there is any doubt, electors have a sworn duty to find out. And, no matter what you hear from my colleagues in the press, elected officials who chose not to investigate this matter and not to insist that safeguards and checks were in place on a matter so urgent and fundamental, there is doubt – grave doubt.

"In fact, unless we're going to live under an honor system in the future, one that relies solely on what a candidate says about his own eligibility, there is no reason to believe Obama is. There is simply no valid evidence to prove it, and there is plenty to raise doubts," he wrote in a commentary on the program.

That "honor system" apparently is exactly what some electors want. One Colorado elector who told the Aspen Times she spends some of her time "teaching Marxist theory at a university," Camilla Auger, said she was upset that anyone would raise concerns about Obama.

Auger will vote for Obama Monday along with Colorado electors Margaret Atencio of Denver, Polly Baca of Denver, Ann Knollman of Arvada, Terry Phillips of Louisville, Pam Shaddock of Greeley, Don Strickland of Centennial, Jennifer Trujillo-Sanchez of Colorado Springs and Wellington Webb of Denver.

She ridiculed those with concerns about Obama's eligibility.

"I took them seriously enough that I was concerned that there are that many nutty people in the country making depressing, absurd allegations," she told the Denver Post. "There are so many problems in the country right now, we need to work together."

The Post itself, in fact, claimed the "allegations have been repeatedly debunked by the Obama campaign and news outlets."

The Times report said Auger has been a social sciences professor and vice president of an oil company, Tosco Corp.

"I think I was probably the only person in country to be executive vice president of an oil company and teaching Marxist theory at a university," she told the Times.

Others, however, have another view, and columnist Randall Hoven of AmericanThinker.com is one.

"Unfortunately, the facts are not clear. Multiple witnesses say Obama was born outside the U.S., that his father was not a U.S. citizen and his mother was a minor. If those are the facts, he was not 'natural born' per the laws in place at the time. Other cases have advanced different arguments challenging Obama's eligibility under the natural born citizen clause," he wrote.

Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, sign up now!

More than a dozen cases have been brought into courtrooms around the country over Obama's eligibility, many of which have been dismissed summarily. However, three already have reached the U.S. Supreme Court and others still remain in the pipeline that could lead there.

The Supreme Court has declined to act in one case, which alleged Obama held dual citizenship because of a father who was a British subject, and is being asked to rule on a motion in a second case. A third case, scheduled for conference among the justices, also raises questions about Obama's lineage, citizenship and eligibility, because of his British-subject father and a mother who was a minor.

Last month WND reported how the situation could create a "constitutional crisis." The concerns were raised in a lawsuit in California, with lead plaintiff former presidential candidate Alan Keyes asking state officials to prevent Electoral College members from voting for Obama until they investigated his eligibility in the case being handled by the United States Justice Foundation.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi went to both Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, Obama hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born. There have been other allegations that Obama actually was born in Kenya during a time when his father was a British subject.

The California case for which Keyes is a plaintiff states: "Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the office of president of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the president of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal."

Hoven writes, "As much as we wish the bad thing to go away, the 'evidence' brought forth to prove Obama's natural born status is next to non-existent, despite what you might have read or heard."

Several of the online "fact" websites have stated Obama's documentation proves his citizenship and eligibility, some even citing sources within the Obama campaign staff.

"Yes, there was a birth announcement in the Honolulu newspaper at the time. Yes, the state of Hawaii said his birth certificate has been verified. Yes, we've seen Obama's birth certificate and it says he was born in Honolulu," Hoven writes.

But, he said, "Each of these claims falls apart upon the slightest examination."

A birth announcement published in a newspaper, for example, "means nothing."

"The announcement is not exactly informative. It says 'Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy, son. Aug 4.' That's it. It ran on page B-6 of the August 13, 1961 edition of 'The Sunday Advertiser.' It is not an official document of any kind and makes no claim of the location of his birth in any case. It announces a birth, period," Hoven writes.

Then there's the issue of the affirmation by the state of Hawaii regarding Obama's birth certificate.

"The actual quote from the Department of Health director is: 'I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures,'" Hoven said.

"All they did was verify that Obama's original birth certificate is on record. But that doesn't tell us what we need to know. What we need to know is where he was born," he said.

"The state of Hawaii did not say what was on the certificate and it won't release a copy out of privacy considerations. The state of Hawaii simply verified that Obama has a birth certificate on record; it did not verify that he was born in Hawaii," Hoven said.

Another point is Hawaii's provision, he said, that provides "certificates" for children born outside Hawaii.

The online image of a "certification of live birth" posted by Obama's FightTheSmears.com website, also, falls into that category, leaving many questions.

"Most importantly … this is not Obama's original birth certificate (the 'long form') and thus does not tell us what we need to know. Even if totally genuine, it is not the document necessary to prove he was born in Hawaii," Hoven wrote.

He continued, "In this case, the Constitution is very clear. Article II, Section 1 states, 'no person except a natural born citizen ... shall be eligible to the office of president.' No fuzz there. No need to look into penumbras and emanations. If a guy ain't natural born, he can't be president."

GOP presidential candidate John McCain during the campaign responded when his eligibility was questioned, due to the fact he was born to two U.S. citizens outside the boundaries of the 50 states.

A petition drive also has collected more than 175,000 signatures – so far – from people who want to know the truth.

Auger told the Times she recognizes the importance of the Electoral College.

"You would say that it's a ceremonial role except for the fact that, as we know, we have presidents who have been elected by the Electoral College and not by the popular vote," Auger told the newspaper.

The report said she was careful to note that should something, "like a scandal," happen to Obama before the Electoral College vote, they technically could elect someone else.

Farah also launched a petition drive on WND three weeks ago that calls on all controlling legal authorities to ensure the Constitution is followed on the question of eligibility and for full public disclosure of the facts of Obama's birthplace and parentage. More than 175,000 people have signed on to the petition in that time.

Obama has claimed in his autobiography and elsewhere he was born in Hawaii in 1961 to parents Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Kenyan national, and Stanley Ann Dunham, a minor. But details about which hospital handled the birth and other specifics provided on the complete birth certificate have been withheld by Obama.

WND dispatched private detectives to every hospital in Hawaii to see if there were any records of the birth of the first black man elected president. But, as yet, no hospital is claiming that distinction.

The letter told electors: "As is evident not only from lawsuits, but from news stories and the actions of millions of Americans signing petitions, this constitutional issue has not yet been addressed, even at this late hour.

"Unfortunately, there isn't enough time for our slow-moving legal process to deal with this before the Electoral College meets next week. Only you, our Electors, have the power and responsibility – and the obligation under the Constitution – to use your authority to establish, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Barack Hussein Obama Jr. qualifies for the office under that standard.

"There is grave and widespread concern throughout the American public that this constitutional requirement is being overlooked and enforcement neglected by state and federal election authorities. There should be no doubt whatsoever that America's next president was truly born in the United States.

"Remember, if the Constitution doesn't mean precisely what it says, then America is no longer a nation under the rule of law. And a nation no longer under the rule of law is, by definition, under the rule of men."

Rampant fraud puts stop to U.S. refugee program

DNA confirms fewer than 20% telling truth about family ties

State Department officials have suspended a program that allows refugees in the U.S. to bring family members into the country after an investigation revealed widespread fraud in the system.

Since the 1980's, the State Department has granted refugee family members who are left behind in war-torn countries priority-3 access to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program on a case-by-case basis.

After suspicions of fraud were raised last year – often involving unrelated children being claimed as family – the State Department conducted DNA testing of 3,000 applicants to the program, to see if they were actually related to the family members they claimed.

In more than 80 percent of the cases, the applicants either refused to take the tests or were discovered to have DNA that didn't match their reported family members.

"We were alarmed that the rate was so high," a State Department official – who spoke on condition of anonymity as a matter of departmental policy – told the Washington Post. "In fewer than 20 percent of cases did the applicant take the test and it checked out."....

Protecting America in the New Missile Age – Chapter Three: The Costs of Failure

(Compiler's note: Must read and heed!)

by Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Editor’s note: This is the third in an 18-part series of excerpts from Protecting America in the new Missile Age – A Reader. Published by The Heritage Foundation with a number of prominent contributors, its purpose is to inform and educate all Americans about the security challenges we face in an ever-changing world.

Failure to provide an effective defense against ballistic missile attack could prove extremely costly to the United States and its citizens. Just how high that cost might be can be found in the threat leveled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly declared his goal of bringing about “a world without America” – a goal that he says is “not only desirable, but achievable.”

As a practical matter, the only way to realize such a horrific prospect would be through a nuclear attack against our country using ballistic missiles.

In the absence of a highly capable U.S. anti-missile system, an arsenal such as the one fielded by the former Soviet Union, Russia’s current arsenal, or the arsenal that Communist China is building could destroy our main population centers and key military installations. The result would be devastating. Millions of Americans would be killed, and millions more would be displaced, injured, and otherwise unable to sustain themselves. America would cease to exist. The cost of not being able to prevent such an attack would be literally incalculable.

Neither Iran, North Korea, nor any other hostile, emerging nuclear power has much prospect of amassing such formidable missile and weapons capabilities. Nonetheless, they could achieve a capacity to bring about a world without America: As all of our adversaries know, a few nuclear-armed ballistic missiles – possibly just one or two – could inflict catastrophic damage on this nation through electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

Detonating a nuclear weapon in outer space could unleash an extremely powerful burst of energy – an electromagnetic pulse perhaps a million times more powerful than the most powerful radio transmitter on Earth – upon the territory below. Unless electronic devices within line-of-sight of the blast are carefully shielded against EMP, they would likely be significantly damaged if not utterly destroyed. The higher the altitude of the blast, the larger the affected area would be.

The problem, of course, is that practically everything in our 21st century society depends on electronic chips and other pieces of electronic equipment. Most especially, America’s electrical grid relies on a small number of transformers that manage the flows of energy within and among the country’s various regions. We no longer manufacture transformers, and replacing one from overseas suppliers can take up to a year.

Hurricane Katrina was a vivid example of what can happen when the electrical system goes down – even briefly. The result is a cascading impact that seriously disrupts the telecommunications, transportation, food, water, sanitation, and health care infrastructures. Within days, if not hours, the ripple effects reach virtually every facet of society. The cumulative impact of one failure after another makes returning any of these systems to service – to say nothing of restoring all of them – vastly more difficult.

Without power, nourishment, clean water, and other vital services across large areas of its territory, the United States would quickly be reduced to a pre-industrial country. Or perhaps it would no longer be a country, just communities struggling to cope with the necessity of meeting the most basic human needs with none of the modern conveniences that allow concentrations of large populations in urban areas to function.

Unlike a massive nuclear attack, unleashing this sort of strategic electromagnetic pulse would not cause a huge loss of life – at least not immediately. Over time, however, malnutrition, dehydration, the lack of heat, and the unchecked spread of diseases would take their deadly toll. Eventually, the costs from the aftermath of an EMP attack would probably approach the costs from a full-scale nuclear attack – the former means of ridding the world of America. Either way, the costs would be incalculably high.

Available evidence suggests that the Islamic Republic of Iran could pull off such a feat after it acquires nuclear weapons. Tehran not only seeks this capacity, but is acquiring the required capabilities. Worryingly, not only would the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that Tehran is developing permit an EMP attack, but the mullahs could attack America long before they have ICBMs to launch from their own soil.

By launching relatively short-range missiles (e.g., Scud or Shahab–3 missiles) from merchant ships off America’s coasts, a nuclear-armed Iran could mount a strategic EMP attack at practically any time. If the ships’ crews martyred themselves by scuttling their vessels post-launch, the U.S. might have no sure “return address” for a retaliatory strike, assuming that the U.S. could retaliate in a post-EMP environment.

Is such a seemingly outlandish scenario, with its attendant devastation of our country, possible if we lack the means to shoot down “Scuds on a tub”? According to a blue-ribbon congressional commission charged with studying the EMP threat, this scenario is a distinct possibility. This is especially true given that the Iranians have demonstrated the ability to launch missiles from ships and have tested the Shahab-3 in a manner that seemed designed to detonate a weapon in space.

The good news is that we possess proven and cost-effective means of intercepting the sort of EMP missile attack that an Iranian regime might launch to destroy the United States. Adapting the Navy’s Aegis ships to shoot down shorter-range and longer-range ballistic missiles offers the nation a countermeasure to meet this present and growing danger.

The bad news is that we have not yet deployed these sea-based defenses in anything approaching the numbers and configurations required to protect the homeland against attacks that could bring about a world without America. Unless and until we do, the costs of failing to defend ourselves will remain unimaginably greater than the costs of defending ourselves.

Sound Advice!

This says it all...this should be carved over the front door of the Capital in Washington!

"The budget should be balanced,
the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced,
the arrogance of officialdom
should be tempered and controlled,
and the assistance to foreign lands
should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.
People must again learn to work,
instead of living on public assistance."

by: Marcus Tullius Cicero

How Can We Make the Dog Bark?

by Bill Warner


In a Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze, the clue to the crime was that "the dog did nothing." The dog in question was a farm dog that would have barked had a stranger approached.

In the same way we have guard dogs that are supposed to warn us of danger: our government, intellectuals and the media. But we are finding out that our dogs never bark if the intruder is Islamic violence. In the media reporting about Mumbai the words Islam and jihad were noticeably absent. Dhimmis always use nationality and culture to refer to Islam. The Islamic invasion of Spain was by Moors, not Muslims. The Islamic invasion of the Middle East was by Arabs, not Muslims. The invasion of Eastern Europe was by Turks, not jihadists. So it was only natural for the dhimmi media to report that Pakistanis were the murderers. Dhimmis have been avoiding the words Muslim, Islam and jihad for 1400 years. Only the most neutral words may be used to describe the jihad and the jihadists. "Gunmen", "militant," or some other soft word can be used, but never "jihadist".

After the reporting with "soft" words comes the next stage-blame the victims. Surely the Hindus and the others were slaughtered for good reasons. Hindu extremists must be involved. And the Muslims are poor in comparison to Hindus. So the Muslims must be being cheated in some social ill (Muslims are never responsible for any of their own suffering-at least, according to Muslims). And there is always some failure of American foreign policy. All of those things must have caused the poor "gunmen" to kill kafirs.

The next media stage is worrying about the poor Muslims who did not play an active role in the jihad. Here is a possible headline: Dirty Bomb Explodes in LA. Muslims worried about being stared at in grocery lines.

But the Muslims need not worry. Islam does not have any corporate guilt. What one Christian does affects all Christians. Every German shared the guilt for Hitler. But what a few wild and crazy Muslims do does not affect any other Muslim. Besides, the "gunmen" were not real Muslims.

The next stage is for the victims to call for dialogue and making plans to do better by ignoring the doctrine and history of Islam. There will be calls for understanding.

Chabad has called for Jews to do a mitzvah, an act of kindness, and to adhere more to their doctrine. But, notice that Chabad does not call for any action, such as learning about Islam's doctrine and history, which would help prevent another such attack.

And of course Islamic organizations will issue statements about how sorry they are that kafirs have been hurt and how Mohammed may have murdered all the kafirs who would not submit, but the jihad is not real Islam. Oh wait, they don't mention Mohammed's jihad.

But our media, intellectual and government guard dogs will never bark about Islam. Newsletters like this or any of the other articles written on the web only affect the web citizens who read this type of writing. The NY Times, CNN, the State Department or the universities are not going to change because a few stupid bigots on the web are not happy with them.

How can we make the guard dog bark? We must stop waiting for a big enough catastrophe to wake up our dogs. September 11 was not enough to wake up NBC.

We must form political units that work in unison. Our nation started with conventions. Kafirs must get together in forums, groups and conventions. Before any government goes to war against political Islam, it must be pressured to do so by its citizens. Any convention must form an intellectual basis for war. That is, it must define the enemy. It is the purpose of the enemy, Islam, to annihilate our kafir civilization. Islam's goal is to control all public speech, education, finance, laws, art, literature, entertainment, the media and customs.

After the enemy is formally defined, then we must train our dhimmi guard dogs. We must be confrontational, since a mitzvah won't do the job.

The only organization that seems potentially to be able to host such an event would be ACT for America. Professor Paul Eidelberg has a wonderful article ( http://www.pauleidelberg.com/articles/2008/12/4/how-to-save-america-from-its-enemies.html ) on how such an event might be managed.

But our guard dogs will never bark until they are trained to do so.

The Impatient Mr. Fitzgerald

(Compiler's note: What we have here is a picture coming into focus of a number of what I call real "balls of slime." Read this and see what you think.)

Paul Hollrah

As Democrats inside and outside the Obama camp struggle to circle the wagons around The One (Rush Limbaugh noted that, while Jesus walked on water, Obama seems to walk on cesspools), there are two critical questions that arise. First, why did Obama resign so early, and finally, why was U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald so uncharacteristically impatient to arrest the Governor of Illinois and his chief of staff? What was so compelling about this scandal that makes it different from the scandalous behavior of every big city Democrat machine in America?

Obama resigned his senate seat on Sunday, November 16th, just twelve days after becoming the presumptive president-elect and sixty-six days before his scheduled inauguration. His timing would not have been critical were it not for the fact that the Congress is attempting to deal with the greatest financial crisis since the Carter Administration and an automobile industry that is on the verge of total collapse. So why would Obama resign in mid-November, leaving his caucus perhaps one vote short of the super-majority required to overcome a Republican filibuster?

Had Obama waited until the last week of December to resign, Gov. Blagojevich could then have appointed a replacement just days or hours prior to the swearing in of the 111th Congress, giving his replacement seniority over all of the members of the incoming freshman class… but he didn’t do that. Why? Was there some inherent interest in giving the governor the maximum amount of time in which to “horse trade” for the appointment?

When questioned about the matter, Obama said, “I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so we were not – I was not aware of what was happening… ” This is in stark contrast to what Obama’s principle advisor and strategist, his alter-ego, the man who knows everything and makes no strategic mistakes, David Axelrod, had to say in a Fox News interview on November 23rd. Referring to Obama, he said, “I know he’s talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names, many of which have surfaced.”

In his response, Obama paused in the middle of a sentence to change the word “we” to “I.” Why? Was he demonstrating that he already understands the value of “plausible deniability?”

Is there anyone alive who truly believes that the junior senator from Illinois, who has just become the presumptive president-elect of the United States, would not have at least several conversations with a longtime associate, the Governor of Illinois, whose job it is to appoint his replacement? Is anyone truly that naïve? But then, after Obama was caught in what was clearly a lie, Axelrod attempted damage control, issuing a statement saying that he had misspoken in his November 23rd statement. He said, “They did not then or at any time discuss the subject.”

(There, there now… Daddy Axelrod has kissed the “ouchie” and it won’t hurt Obama any more. All the bad reporters and all the bad Republicans will soon go away.)

Then comes the question, why was the U.S. Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, so anxious to arrest the governor. Following the arrests, Fitzgerald said there were “a lot of things going on that were imminent… we were in the middle of a corruption crime spree, and we wanted to stop it.”

Those “imminent” things were, in order, Blagojevich’s appointment of Obama’s successor and Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States. So the question arises, what interest does the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois have in insuring that Barack Obama’s inauguration is not tainted by scandal? And why would Fitzgerald go out of his way to make the point that Obama, himself, was not implicated in the case? How about Obama’s closest aides?

If Fitzgerald had waited to spring his trap until after Blagojevich had made his appointment, knowing that the appointment process had been corrupted, how many more Illinois Democrats could he have sent off to prison? And how many members of Obama’s staff would have joined them? What is needed is an immediate subpoena of the telephone logs for the governor’s office, the governor’s home, Obama’s home, the Office of the President-Elect in Chicago

, and all the appropriate cell phones. And since Fitzgerald has already demonstrated that he allows political events to influence his decisions, those subpoenas should be issued by an independent counsel.

Patrick Fitzgerald is not lacking in patience. On December 30, 2003, Fitzgerald was appointed special counsel, charged with determining who it was that had leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, to columnist Robert Novak.

Shortly after his appointment, Fitzgerald learned that the source of the leak was Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a “rogue” political appointee and no friend of the Bush Administration. However, Fitzgerald was not satisfied with bringing his investigation to a quick conclusion; he was after bigger game… someone close to the president. His number one target was presidential advisor Karl Rove.

Finally, after nearly two years of grand jury harassment, demanding that Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff, recall precisely every word of conversations they’d had with reporters more then two years earlier, Fitzgerald used Libby’s “imperfect memory” to charge him with five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice. And when Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson said, “I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality.”

In response, Fitzgerald said, “That talking point won’t fly… The truth is the engine of our judicial system. If you compromise the truth, the whole process is lost… if we were to walk away from this, we might as well hand in our jobs.” So where was Fitzgerald when Bill Clinton committed, not “technical” perjury, but actual perjury, and every Democrat in the United States Senate voted to let him get away with it?

On March 6, 2007, “Scooter” Libby was found guilty of four of the five charges. He was fined $250,000 and sentenced to 2½ years in prison and two years probation. The cost of Fitzgerald’s pursuit of Rove and Libby came to more than $1.5 million.

Now Fitzgerald has before him a far “juicier” case of political corruption, with much bigger fish to fry, and it remains to be seen whether he will pursue it with the same tenacity with which he pursued poor “Scooter” Libby. Fitzgerald can make by far the largest political crime bust in American history and, being a Chicagoan, he won’t even have to leave home to do it.

As Chicago Democrats gathered for a victory celebration at Blagojevich’s campaign headquarters on election night in 2002, he announced to the crowd, “Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Illinois has voted for change.”

Seems I’ve heard that same thing in more recent times… either that or there’s one hell of an echo in here.

U.S. troops' new mission: America's 'special events'

(Compiler's note: A must read article.)

Proposal would allow civilians to activate Army to prevent 'environmental damage'

By Bob Unruh

New rules published in the Federal Register would allow certain civilians to call American soldiers into action inside the U.S. to prevent environmental damage or respond to "special events" and "other domestic activities."

The alarming warning is contained in proposed rules published last week for the Department of Defense's

"Defense Support of Civil Authorities" plan.

Under the U.S. Constitution, soldiers inside the country essentially are tasked with the responsibility of quelling "insurrections" and repelling invasions as well as making sure each state has access to the republican form of government.

But the new rules go far beyond that, essentially establishing a plan to activate the U.S. military inside the country to deal with social issues under provisions that appear to be devoid of any connection to the Constitution, according to an expert.

"I think the thing that's of concern with respect to this set of rules is it appears to have no constitutional foundation, no reference whatsoever of any constitutional structure. It's totally missing," said Herb Titus, a onetime candidate for vice president for the Constitution Party and a longtime constitutional professor.

Herb Titus

Titus, whose biography includes teaching at five different American Bar Association-approved law schools and service as founding dean of the College of Law and Government at Regent University, reviewed the federal proposal at WND's request.

The multi-page plan is to establish policies and assign responsibilities "regarding military support for civilian law enforcement."

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The plan states, "This proposed rule will allow civil authorities access to the correct procedures when they are seeking assistance from the Department by establishing updated policy guidance and assigning the correct responsibilities within the Department for the Defense for support of civil authorities in response to requests for assistance for domestic emergencies, designated law enforcement support, special events, and other domestic activities.

Titus, who has testified before Congress on constitutional issues and is authorized to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and a long list of federal court districts, said, "All of this is based on the assumption that government was created for the purpose of preventing things from happening in our lives."

A plain reading of the law, he said, would allow drastically different actions than what Americans probably expect.

"Instead of prosecuting somebody charged with murder, we should profile people who are likely to commit murder, round them up and prevent them from endangering lives," he said, citing the plan's apparent permission for the government to restrain liberties when there is concern about potential damages or injury.

A contact at the Department of Defense did not return a WND call requesting comment on the proposal.

But the plan itself says the person calling for soldiers' actions could be either a military official or civilian leader. And it renews questions about Barack Obama's stated plans for a National Civilian Security Force that is at least as powerful and well-funded as the U.S. military.

Even Obama's new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, says there will be a mandatory "force" for Americans.

"If you're worried about, are you going to have to do 50 jumping jacks, the answer is yes," Emanuel told a reporter who was podcasting for the New York Daily News.

WND also reported when the official website for Obama, Change.gov, announced he would "require" all middle school through college students to participate in community service programs.

That proposal, however, was changed suddenly after a flurry of blogs protested children being drafted into Obama's proposal. The new wording reads, "President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in under served schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps.

WND previously reported on a video of a marching squad of Obama youth.

Obama, meanwhile, also has yet to clarify what he meant during his July "Call to Service" speech in Colorado Springs in which he insisted the U.S. "cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set" and needs a "civilian national security force."

A video of his comments is here:

Joseph Farah, founder and editor of WND, used his daily column first to raise the issue and then to elevate it with a call to all reporters to start asking questions about it.

"If we're going to create some kind of national police force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn't this rather a big deal?" Farah wrote. "I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together?

"Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that? If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?" Farah wrote.

The Obama campaign has declined to respond to WND questions on the issue.

The newly proposed Department of Defense rules leave a virtually wide open door for what could be cited as a reason for military intervention.

It defines "Imminently Serious Conditions" as "Emergency conditions in which, in the judgment of a military commander or responsible DoD civilian official, immediate and possibly serious danger threatens the public and prompt action is needed to save lives, to safeguard public health or safety, or to prevent or mitigate great property or environmental damage."

Repeatedly the rules cite "special events."

"Special event support to non-governmental organizations is a DSCA activity," it states under policy issues.

That, Titus contemplated, could even be a Democratic National Convention in Denver.

He said it's important to keep the foundations of the nation in mind and that many of the principles of justice and government for America were derived from the pulpits of the 1700s.

"If you go back and look at Romans 13, the civil government was authorized to punish evil doing, not to prevent it from happening," Titus said.

The new proposal specifically states it applies to a "potential or actual domestic crisis" and even confirms that conditions not always will allow "prior authority" before "action is necessary for effective response."

"All this is really designed to do is legitimize by rule essentially a broader discretionary power," Titus said.

It also reverses the role of the boss, he said, because of the repeated references to a situation "manager."

"It's the image that's being created. A manager. You're supposed to do what the manager tells you. Contrast that with civil authorities who are our servants. They're supposed to do what we want them to do," he said.

Barack Obama

Many state constitutions were specific in that area, he noted. Virginia's, for example, declared that all powers derive from the people, and in Pennsylvania the constitution specifically reserved the right to regulate police to the people.

Although many would argue such military occupation of the U.S. would be reserved only for such "emergencies," the Washington Post reported just a few days ago on plans by the U.S. military to have 20,000 uniformed troops stationed inside the U.S. by 2011.

The plan has been lauded by some in the Bush administration and Congress as a reasonable response to the threat of terrorism, despite concerns over how it would undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that restricts the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

At word of the plan, the ACLU warned of expansions in "presidential and military authority," while the Cato Institute called it a case of "creeping militarization," according to the Post.

Gene Healy, Cato vice president, told the newspaper, "There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green … and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

The DoD says it will accept comments on the proposal until Feb. 2 at the federal government's link.

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