Russia Makes New Threats Over U.S.-Poland Missile Deal

Plan Said to Defend Against Regimes Like Iran, but Some See It as Shield for Poland Against Russia
By TOMEK ROLSKI and JONATHAN KARL
MOSCOW, Aug. 20, 2008

Russia's foreign ministry today threatened to go beyond diplomatic protests in response to the signing of a U.S.-Polish deal to base part of an American missile defense system in Poland, which borders part of Russia.

The latest threat came after a top Russian general said Poland would risk a military strike if it allowed the base and as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed Russia's saber rattling, saying the threats "border on the bizarre."

"When you threaten Poland, you perhaps forget that it is not 1988," Rice said, according to The Associated Press. "It's 2008 and the United States has a ... firm treaty guarantee to defend Poland's territory as if it was the territory of the United States. So it's probably not wise to throw these threats around."

But in addition to the threats, Russia may be making a more concrete move. Norway's defense ministry claims Russia has told it that it plans to cut all military ties with NATO, The Associated Press reports.

The United States insists that the missile defense deal signed with Poland today is meant to protect the West from rogue states like Iran and North Korea. Poland, however, sees this as defense against Russia, a closer, and much more powerful, potential adversary.

Hours before inking the pact with Rice, Poland's President Lech Kaczynski addressed his nation on TV and declared, "No one will ever again tell Poland what to do and what not to do."

He was likely referring to Russia, which invaded Poland in 1939 and asserted control over the Polish government until the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1990.

Kaczynski's defiant speech came a week after Russia angrily warned that allowing U.S. missile interceptors on Polish soil put Poland at risk of a military strike.

"If Poland allows elements of the U.S. missile shield to be placed in its territory it will expose itself to a strike ... and that's a hundred percent sure," threatened deputy head of Russia's General Staff Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn.

Nogovitsyn's comment was particularly menacing, since it came days after Russian forces invaded its neighbor Georgia in a spat over the province of South Ossetia.

"It's Georgia today, Ukraine tomorrow and Poland may be next," Kaczynski said.

Today, Russia's foreign ministry issued a new threat -- implying that Russia was the target of the new missile base and not some "imaginary Iranian danger."

"Russia in this case will have to react, and not only through diplomatic protests," said a statement from the ministry, according to Reuters.

The statement described the missile shield as "one of the instruments in an extremely dangerous bundle of American military projects involving the one-sided development of a global missile shield system."

According to the deal, the United States will construct a military base at Redzikowo on the Baltic coast. There, on an area no larger than the size of a football field, will be 10 silos with missiles ready for possible launch by 2012.

The relatively small missile defense system could be easily overwhelmed by Russia's vast force of long-range missiles, but under the deal the United States also agreed to provide a Patriot missile defense system that could be used to defend Poland against a short-range missile defense threat that could potentially come from Russia.

In today's pact, the United States and Poland agreed to a "mutual commitment" to come to each other's assistance "in case of military or other threats."

Aleksander Szczyglo, defense minister in Poland's previous government, went so far as to call today's signing one of three significant "milestones" since Poland regained full independence in 1989.

"First was NATO membership, then joining the European Union and now a tangible tightening of our alliance with the U.S.," he said.

Russia's renewed assertiveness and its invasion of Georgia has fortified fears that the Kremlin may attempt to regain its spheres of influence and meddle in Polish affairs.

"Russia wants to regain influence over Poland, similar to influence Russia enjoyed during the time of the Warsaw Pact," military analyst Michal Fiszer told ABC News. "Any increase in Polish defense and security goes against those plans."

It would seem that as a member of NATO and the European Union Poland should feel it has enough security guarantees. But many Polish politicians express frustration with Western Europe's approach to Russia as too submissive and vulnerable to Russian oil and gas blackmail.

Only weeks ago, the 18 months of Polish-U.S. missile talks appeared on the verge of collapse. The Poles suspended negotiations after the United States refused to meet their demands and public opinion polls found that 70 percent of Poles were against the missile shield on their territory. Poles began protesting the plan.

All that changed on Aug. 8, when Russian armor rolled into Georgia.

"When Russia performs military operations that are perceived as aggressive and brutal, even relatively far from our borders, people in Poland fear," political analyst Grzegorz Kostrzewa-Zorbas told ABC News.

"The war in Georgia very quickly and suddenly changed the mood of Poles," Kostrzewa-Zorbas said. "In a week, a strong majority emerged supporting the American missile shield in Poland."

Now, 63 percent support American military presence on Polish soil and feel that the closer ties enhance Poland's security.

The American side also had a large shift in opinion.

"The Americans were unwilling to give Poland any anti-missile and air defense system optimized to defend Polish airspace and territory. They did not want to give Poland Patriot missiles," he said. "Now it is different."

Pawel Zaleski, a member of the Polish parliament, told ABC News that it is clear that Russia is trying to "create an area of domination around its borders."

"People in Poland do remember history, and they understand what it means to have such a neighbor returning to his old ways," Zaleski said. "People see the war in Georgia ... so of course it creates an impact on people's thinking."

Marek Ostrowsk, an analyst for the Polityka weekly, told ABC News that Poland traditionally has more confidence in the United States than its European alliances.

"Traditionally and historically, we think America is more reliable than Europe," Ostrowsk said. "In 1918, we regained independence thanks to the U.S. When World War II began in 1939, we were let down by our allies, Britain and France. But the U.S. has never failed us."

Seven Questions: Bernard Lewis on the Two Biggest Myths About Islam

He is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Islam and the Middle East. Bernard Lewis shares his thoughts on Iraq, “Islamofascism,” the roots of terrorism, and the two biggest misperceptions about the Muslim faith. ....

Islamic finance banking window approved in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has granted Hong Leong Bank approval to open the city’s first Islamic finance banking window, Finance Asia reports.

This will allow Hong Leong to expand its existing portfolio of Islamic finance products into mainland China, West and North Asian markets from its current base in Malaysia.

Malaysia is trying to establish itself as the Islamic finance hub of the region. Islamic finance is based on Islamic law, or Shar’iah, which prohibits the collection of interest and includes aspects of ethical banking, for example avoiding investments in pork, prostitution or gambling. ....

Russian fighting in Georgia putting area’s nuclear materials stocks in jeopardy for theft

When the breakaway region of Abkhazia split from Georgia in 1993, the world's only known case of enriched uranium going missing was reported after up to 2 kilograms of extremely dangerous material was stolen from the region's I. Vekua Institute of Physics and Technology in Sukhumi, which is not safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Georgian authorities have previously reported they believe some radioactive materials that had been stored there - including highly enriched uranium - have been sold to terrorists, an assertion the local government in Abkhazia has denied.

There are now fears that the organised criminal gangs that are rife in the region, or even Russian troops themselves, say the Georgians, could exploit the confusion of the current conflict to loot other stocks, officals have told Bellona Web.

Also of security concern and more general environmental worry is Georgia’s unknown quantity of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs – remotely stationed strontium 90 powered energy stations, which served as navigation beacons.

The Soviet-era nuclear authority Minatom populated remote and coastal areas with these radioactive generators and lost track of thousands of them when the Soviet Union fell.

In the late 90s, Georgian shepherds began turning up with radiation poisoning after warming themselves nears the highly radioactive units, according to Bellona research.

The units are also routinely dismantled for their strontium 90 cores or scrap metal – an eventuality that will likely become reality as the region’s current military crisis with Moscow depends and spreads poverty, Georgian interior ministry and radiation safety authorities told Bellona Web in interviews Monday. ....

US and British security services are worried that terrorist organisations could purchase weapons grade uranium in the bustling black market Region of South Ossetia – an eventuality currently compounded by the tense and deadly struggle between Tblisi and Moscow for predominance in the region - and mix it with a detonator as basic as fertiliser to make a deadly device, British defence officials told the Telegraph.

While an estimated 15 kilograms of uranium is needed to make a nuclear bomb just a small amount is needed for an unconventional device – or dirty bomb, which disperses radioactivity over a limited area by using conventional explosives.

No nuke bombs to come, but terrorist weapons likely

"There is no fear of a nuclear bomb coming out of this region but the bigger danger is that a small amount of uranium combined with conventional explosive terrorists could make a dirty bomb that would make an area the size of a square mile unusable for 30 or 40 years," said a Defence Department source in an interview with Bellona Web and the Telegraph.

"The economic impact would be catastrophic."....

Six Questions About the Anthrax Attacks That the Public Should Demand

(Compiler's note: The questions and the discussion prove to a long but most interesting read. rca)

By Tom Engelhardt

The media's already losing interest on the anthrax story, but there are plenty of simple questions that really deserve answers. ....

....Here are my top six questions about the case:

1. Why wasn't the Bush administration's War on Terror modus operandi applied to the anthrax case?....

2. Why wasn't the U.S. military sent in?....

3. Once the anthrax threat was identified as coming from U.S. military labs, why did the administration, the FBI, and the media assume that only a single individual was responsible?....

4. What of those military labs? Why does their history continue to play little or no part in the story of the anthrax attacks?....

5. Were the anthrax attacks the less important ones of 2001? ....

6. Who is winning the Global War on Terror?....

.... The media's already losing interest on the anthrax story, but there are plenty of simple questions that really deserve answers.

More recently, Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has done superb work on the anthrax story. In 2007, he wrote a striking column, "The unresolved story of ABC News' false Saddam-anthrax reports," on some crucially bad reporting by Brian Ross and ABC, and he followed up after Ivins's suicide with a piece, ("Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation,") that has more unsettling questions about the anthrax case than any other 16 pieces I've seen. It's a must read. Jay Rosen, at his always interesting PressThink blog, took up Greenwald's challenge to Brian Ross and ABC on its reporting and pressed the point home in two recent posts, here and here.

Finally, Elisa D. Harris, a senior research scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, had a fine, thoughtful op-ed last week in the New York Times, "The Killers in the Lab" ("Our efforts to fight biological weapons are making us less safe"), which laid out in an impressive way the expansion of U.S. bio-weapons research since 2001.]

Iraq deal sets a pullback

By Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Robert Burns

BAGHDAD — Iraqi and U.S. negotiators have completed a draft security agreement that would see American troops leave Iraqi cities as soon as June 30, Iraqi and American officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

In Washington, a senior military official said the deal is acceptable to the U.S. side, subject to formal approval by President Bush. It also requires final acceptance by Iraqi leaders, but some members of Iraq's Cabinet oppose some provisions.

Also completed is a companion draft document, known as a strategic framework agreement, spelling out in broad terms the political, security and economic relationships between Iraq and the United States, the senior military official said. The official discussed the draft accords on condition that he not be identified by name because the deals have not been publicly announced and are not final.

In addition to spelling out that U.S. troops would move out of Iraqi cities by next summer, the Iraqi government has pushed for a specific date — most likely the end of 2011 — by which all U.S. forces would depart the country. In the meantime, the U.S. troops would be positioned on bases in other parts of the country to make them less visible while positioned to assist Iraqi forces as needed. ....

Scientists design shield to prevent deadly pacemaker hijack

A 'cloaking' device that stops computer hackers maliciously hijacking pacemakers' radio signals could save lives, say scientists.

Doctors are increasingly using wireless pacemakers to monitor the regulation of patients' heartbeats, and can even adjust the settings remotely.

But earlier this year a team of US scientists using a radio signal were able to simulate interference with the devices and claimed that, in theory, hijackers could shut them down or deliver potentially lethal electric shocks to millions of heart patients.

Now Dr Tamara Denning, a computer scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, has devised a cloaking device that is designed to resist any instructions that come from anyone other than the doctor. ....

Russia warns of response to US missile shield

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia says its response to the further development of a U.S. missile shield in Poland will go beyond diplomacy.

Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the U.S. missile shield plans are clearly aimed at weakening Russia.

The U.S. says the missile defense system is aimed at protecting the U.S. and Europe from future attacks from states like Iran. ....

The Real World Order

By George Friedman

On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed Congress. He spoke in the wake of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the weakening of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. He argued that a New World Order was emerging: “A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.”

After every major, systemic war, there is the hope that this will be the war to end all wars. The idea driving it is simple. Wars are usually won by grand coalitions. The idea is that the coalition that won the war by working together will continue to work together to make the peace. Indeed, the idea is that the defeated will join the coalition and work with them to ensure the peace. This was the dream behind the Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, the United Nations and, after the Cold War, NATO. The idea was that there would be no major issues that couldn’t be handled by the victors, now joined with the defeated. That was the idea that drove George H. W. Bush as the Cold War was coming to its end. ....

.... We would expect the Russians to get traction. But if they don’t, the Russians are aware that they are, in the long run, much weaker than the Americans, and that they will retain their regional position of strength only while the United States is off balance in Iraq. If the lesson isn’t absorbed, the Russians are capable of more direct action, and they will not let this chance slip away. This is their chance to redefine their sphere of influence. They will not get another.

The other country that is watching and thinking is Iran. Iran had accepted the idea that it had lost the chance to dominate Iraq. It had also accepted the idea that it would have to bargain away its nuclear capability or lose it. The Iranians are now wondering if this is still true and are undoubtedly pinging the Russians about the situation. Meanwhile, the Russians are waiting for the Americans to calm down and get serious. If the Americans plan to take meaningful action against them, they will respond in Iran. But the Americans have no meaningful actions they can take; they need to get out of Iraq and they need help against Iran. The quid pro quo here is obvious. The United States acquiesces to Russian actions (which it can’t do anything about), while the Russians cooperate with the United States against Iran getting nuclear weapons (something Russia does not want to see).

One of the interesting concepts of the New World Order was that all serious countries would want to participate in it and that the only threat would come from rogue states and nonstate actors such as North Korea and al Qaeda. Serious analysts argued that conflict between nation-states would not be important in the 21st century. There will certainly be rogue states and nonstate actors, but the 21st century will be no different than any other century. On Aug. 8, the Russians invited us all to the Real World Order.

Hizballah training assassination squads in Iran

Training to kill Iraqi officials. "Hezbollah Training Hit Squads In Iran: U.S.," from NewsMax, August 18 (thanks to Mackie):

WASHINGTON — Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran's elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as U.S. and Iraqi troops, according to intelligence gleaned from captured militia fighters and other sources in Iraq.

A senior U.S. military intelligence officer in Baghdad described the information Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

The officer on Wednesday provided Iraq's national security adviser with several lists of the assassination teams' expected targets. ....

Obama's Backbone Deficit

LAST week raised important questions about whether Barack Obama is strong enough to be president. On the domestic political front, he showed incredible weakness in dealing with the Clintons, while on foreign and defense questions, he betrayed a lack of strength and resolve in standing up to Russia's invasion of Georgia.

This two-dimensional portrait of weakness underscores fears that Obama might, indeed, be a latter-day Jimmy Carter. ....

Democratic Platform's Hidden Soros Slush Fund

(Compiler's note: Now this is a description of internal terror to this nation!! rca)

The Democratic Party platform is like a bag of pork rinds. You never know what high-fat liberal government morsel you're gonna get.

Buried in the 94-page document is a noble-sounding proposal to create a "Social Investment Fund Network." The program would provide federal money to "social entrepreneurs and leading nonprofit organizations [that] are assisting schools, lifting families out of poverty, filling health care gaps, and inspiring others to lead change in their own communities." The Democratic Party promises to "support these results-oriented innovators" by creating an office to "coordinate government and nonprofit efforts" and then showering "a series of grants" on the chosen groups "to replicate these programs nationwide."

In practice, this Barack Obama brainchild would serve as a permanent, taxpayer-backed pipeline to Democratic partisan outfits masquerading as public-interest do-gooders. This George Soros Slush Fund would be political payback in spades. Obama owes much of his Chicago political success to financial support from radical, left-wing billionaire and leading "social entrepreneur" Soros. In June 2004, Soros threw a big fundraiser at his New York home for Obama's Illinois Senate campaign. Soros and family personally chipped in $60,000. In April 2007, Obama was back in New York for a deep-pocketed Manhattan fundraising soiree, with Soros lurking in his shadow.

No doubt with Soros' approbation (if not advice from the hands-on "progressive" activist or his advisers), Obama fleshed out his Social Investment Fund Network plan last December. In concert with his mandatory volunteerism pitch and $6 billion anti-poverty plan, Obama called for the creation of a "Social Entrepreneurship Agency" to dispense the funds in unspecified amounts. The agency would be a government-supported nonprofit corporation "similar to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," which runs public television. (And we've all seen how fair and balanced that lib-dominated, Bill Moyers-boosting private-public enterprise turned out.)

Obama cites the Harlem Children's Zone, which provides after-school activities and mentors to children in New York, as an example of a program that should be funded. (HCZ's former senior leader Shawn Dove is now an official at Soros' Open Society Institute.) The problem with such initiatives, as Mitchell Moss pointed out in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal several years ago, is that these private-public partnerships formed under the guise of economic renewal often become nothing more than fronts that coordinate "an enormous safety net for social services." Private donations give the illusion of self-help and philanthropic independence, but in reality, the "clients" are never weaned from the teat of the welfare state. They simply learn how to milk it more efficiently.

Even more troubling is how the Democratic Party/Obama plan would siphon untold millions or billions of public tax dollars into the Soros empire without taxpayer recourse. Obama promises "accountability" measures to ensure the money is spent wisely. But who would assess effectiveness of the spending? Why, experts in the social entrepreneurship community, of course. Fox, meet henhouse.

Soros has donated some $5 billion of his fortune to left-wing nonprofit groups through the Open Society Institute -- an institution committed to Soros' militant ideology of toppling the "fascist" tyranny of the United States, which he says must undergo "de-Nazification" in favor of "justice." The mob at Obama-endorsing MoveOn, purveyors of the "General Betray Us" smear against Commanding General, MNF-I, David Petraeus, is the most notorious Soros-backed political arm. But scores of other activist nonprofits have received Soros funding under the guise of doing nonpartisan "community" or "social justice" work -- and it is exactly such leftist activist groups that would be first in line for the Democratic Party/Obama's "social investment" seed money.

Point in case: ACORN. As I've reported before, Obama's old friends at the Chicago-based nonprofit now take in 40 percent of their revenues from American taxpayers. They raked in tens of millions in federal antipoverty grants while some of their operatives presided over massive voter fraud and others were implicated in corporate shakedowns and mortgage scams across the country. Soros has donated at least $150,000 to the group, according to Investor's Business Daily, and "heads a secretive rich-man's club called 'Democracy Alliance' that has doled out $20 million to activist groups like ACORN."

Once the spigot is turned on, there's no turning back.

Where are fiscal conservatives on this far-left boondoggle? Well, if you're wondering why the McCain campaign doesn't raise hell over this proposed left-wing nonprofit/government pipeline, it's because McCain himself is a Soros beneficiary. His "Reform Institute," a tax-exempt, supposedly independent 501(c)(3) group focused on campaign finance reform, was funded by the Soros-funded Open Society Institute and Tides Foundation.

Birds of a Big Government feather flock together -- and look out for each other. Watch your wallet.

Some Democrats urge delay in building a U.S. missile system in Eastern Europe

WASHINGTON: As the Bush administration speeds ahead with plans to construct a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, some Democrats in Congress want to put on the brakes, saying it has not been adequately tested.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to be in Warsaw on Wednesday to sign an agreement on the missiles with Poland, which agreed to the basing of 10 interceptors last week, after the Russian attacks on Georgia. Justified as a defense against a missile attack on Europe by a rogue nation like Iran, the installation has provoked outrage from Russia. ....

DHS: Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at University of Southern California National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of...

.... today's speech, which really focuses on the issue of protection, deals with one particular, I would argue, special challenge that we face on the eve of the 21st Century and it's a challenge that lies at the core of a great deal of what we do inprotecting homeland security. It also lies at the core of a great deal of what we do protecting our financial security, our personal security, and our reputational security, and what I'm referring to is how we manage and protect our personal identities because I'm going to submit to you that in the 21st Century, the most important asset that we have to protect as individuals and as part of our nation is the control of our identity, who we are, how we identify ourselves, whether other people arepermitted to masquerade and pretend to be us, and thereby damage our livelihood, damage our assets, damage our reputation, damage our standing in our community. ....

There is a difference between being liberal and being blind

As we are all tucked into our beds for a sound night’s sleep, there are security professionals working diligently around the clock for our protection.

If we, the American public, knew about all the threats, disrupted terror plots, and near misses that have been uncovered since 9-11, we probably wouldn’t sleep at all, so say those who work in the anti-terrorism and emergency preparedness fields. ....

2006 ISNA Convention: wife-beating breakout session (10 days until ISNA convention in Columbus)

With less than two weeks before the Islamic Society of North America lands in Central Ohio for their 2008 national convention, we continue our look at past ISNA conventions to see what brand of Islam they will be bringing to our city.

At their 2006 convention, ISNA hosted a curious breakout session: “And Beat them Lightly. . .” An Analysis and In-Depth Discussion of Verse 4:34.

For the uninitiated, here’s verse 4:34 in the Quran:

Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is high, supreme.

You’ll notice immediately that there’s nothing here about beating women “lightly”. One of the speakers in this ISNA breakout session was none other than Muzzamil Siddiqui, former president of ISNA and current ISNA Board of Directors member. ....

Fitzgerald: Mosques behaving badly

"'There are the bloodstains on the wall, and here it is dried on the floor,' says Abu Muhanad as he walks through a torture chamber in a Baghdad mosque where more than two dozen bodies have been found." -- from this news article

A Master-List of Mosques Behaving Badly should be compiled. It should include, from U.S. military records, all the shoot-outs in Iraq (and Afghanistan) with people who fired on American soldiers from mosques, or who ran to mosques in order to avoid capture and used them as places from which to attack Americans (until the Americans stopped, as they eventually did, from holding back).

It should also include all of the mosques in Western Europe that have been found to contain false papers (sometimes in false ceilings, as in the mosque in Milan on Viale Jenner), including forged passports. And don’t forget the mosques that have been discovered to contain AK-47s, explosives, and videocassettes of beheadings of Infidels, and audiocassettes to whip up the Believers to even greater deeds of derring-do against the Infidels. Yes, all that stuff has been found in mosques, that weaponry, those forgeries and counterfeits, those hysterical whippings-up of hatred for Infidels -- see what Saudi-supplied "literature" has been found in American mosques. By now the security services of the Western world are so used to all of that that they practically yawn at what they find, but that the rest of us have to piece it together from a story here and a story there. ....

Murtha-inspired Haditha charges called 'feckless'

By WorldNetDaily

Reinstating or restarting charges against a Marine officer over the military firefight in Haditha, Iraq, in which two dozen Iraqis died could do serious damage to the public's confidence in the military system of justice, according to lawyers for the officer.

"Unlawful command influence is 'the mortal enemy of military justice.' It is the acid that erodes an accused's right to receive a fair trial and the public's confidence in the fairness of the system," says a legal brief filed by lawyers working on behalf of Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani.

"Remarkably, throughout the court-martial proceedings in the case, the government utterly failed to apprehend the seriousness of a charge of unlawful command influence. This colossal failure is evidenced by the half-hearted ... way in which it treated the matter ... and the feckless arguments it has presented ... in an attempt to reverse the well-supported and well-reasoned ruling of the military judge," the law firm said.

Chessani had faced charges that he failed to investigate properly the Nov. 19, 2005, incident in which 24 Iraqi men, women and children were killed after U.S. Marines were attacked by insurgents.

The charges – four Marines were charged with murder and another four with not properly investigating the attack – came about after the case was publicized in the media, where it was compared by war critics to the infamous My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

Defense lawyers contend insurgents deliberately attacked the Marines from hiding places where they surrounded themselves with civilians to use as shields. The defense insisted Chessani promptly reported the events to his superiors and that nobody in the chain of command believed there was any wrongdoing on the part of the Marines.

A Time magazine story alleging a massacre by the Marines, according to defense lawyers, was planted by an insurgent propaganda agent. Publishing of the story was soon followed by a May 17, 2006, news conference by Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa. The congressman announced he had been told by the highest levels of the Marine Corps there was no firefight and Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

"All the information I get, it comes from the commanders, it comes from people who know what they're talking about," Murtha told reporters at the time.

But the military judge assigned to the case, Col. Steve Folsom, dismissed the counts June 17 without prejudice, citing defense documentation of unlawful command influence – or the idea that a military judge may be influenced by what a commanding officer may have determined. Under those circumstances, prosecutors then must prove that the influence did not exist.

"The nature of the military makes its system of justice extremely vulnerable to improper influences and pressures; influences and pressures that are systemic in a military command environment," said the appeal brief filed by the Thomas More Law Center, which is defending Chessani.

"This is an important case not only for Lt. Col. Chessani, but for military commanders whose battlefield decisions should not be second-guessed by lawyers and for the military justice system as a whole. Indeed, the Haditha cases have caused a noticeable erosion of public confidence in our military system of justice," said Richard Thompson, president of the Law Center. "Affirming the military judge's ruling will go a long way to restoring the public perception of fairness in the military courts."

The appeal is being heard by a three-judge panel of the Navy and Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in Washington. The Law Center has requested oral arguments in the case, but that ruling hasn't yet been issued.

Chessani has been under investigation and prosecution since March 2006 for his role at the battalion commander of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines during the battle of Haditha. Of the seven other cases filed after the military investigation, cases against Lance Cpls. Stephen Tatum and Justin Sharratt, Capts. Randy Stone and Lucas McConnell and Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz have been dropped. First Lt. Andrew Grayson has been acquitted, leaving only the case of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich untested in court and the appeal of Chessani's case.

The appeal brief said prosecutors are treating the issue of unlawful command influence as "a simple pushover."

"Indeed, Gen. James T. Mattis, USMC, the former consolidated disposition authority/convening authority responsible for referring the present charges to a general court-martial, testified under oath in this case that he was not concerned with appearances," the law firm said.

However, "It is a very serious matter, one going to the very heart and core of the military justice system."

The appearance of such influence was raised by the fact that Col. John Ewers, who was assigned to develop the prosecution in the case against the Haditha Marines, also was ordered to attend meetings at which members of the military judiciary decided how to handle the cases – multiple times.

"It is without serious contradiction that Col. Ewers' presence at these meetings was for the purpose of providing legal advice," the appeal brief said. "It should be noted that these meetings did not include defense lawyers for any of the accused; Appellee's defense counsel were never invited to any of these meetings, which inevitably took on a prosecutorial atmosphere."

Even Ewers expressed concern about the appearance of influence, at one point during his testimony saying, "I just didn't think it was a particularly good idea for me to get involved on giving advice on these cases. ... Just because from the appearance, in a nutshell."

Folsom's ruling said the government failed to prove that there was no inappropriate influence, resulting in the dismissal of charges.

Jihadis shift attention to war in Afghanistan

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - In the wake of setbacks suffered by Al Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan is becoming the preferred destination for Muslims, particularly from Arab nations, seeking to wage jihad against the West.

"You can predict that Afghanistan is reemerging as a battlefield," says Nicole Stracke, a security and terrorism researcher at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. ....

U.S. at risk of cyberattacks, experts say

The next large-scale military or terrorist attack on the United States, if and when it happens, may not involve airplanes or bombs or even intruders breaching American borders.

Instead, such an assault may be carried out in cyberspace by shadowy hackers half a world away. And Internet security experts believe that it could be just as devastating to the U.S.'s economy and infrastructure as a deadly bombing.

Experts say last week's attack on the former Soviet republic of Georgia, in which a Russian military offensive was preceded by an Internet assault that overwhelmed Georgian government Web sites, signals a new kind of cyberwar, one for which the United States is not fully prepared.

"Nobody's come up with a way to prevent this from happening, even here in the U.S.," said Tom Burling, acting chief executive of Tulip Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia, Web-hosting firm that volunteered its Internet servers to protect the nation of Georgia's Web sites from malicious traffic. "The U.S. is probably more Internet-dependent than any place in the world. So to that extent, we're more vulnerable than any place in the world to this kind of attack," Burling added. "So much of what we're doing [in the United States] is out there on the Internet, and all of that can be taken down at once."....

Energy told to tighten cybersecurity policies

By Katherine McIntire Peters

The Energy Department's inspector general on Thursday released an audit of the department's certification and accreditation procedures for national security information systems that revealed a number of potentially serious weaknesses.

Auditors concluded that the problems were similar to those that led to the theft of classified information at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2006. "In our judgment, the findings in the report suggest the department could be at risk for similar diversions," they wrote.

Specifically, auditors found that the department had not fully developed and implemented adequate cybersecurity policies, and federal and contractor officials did not always use effective mechanisms to monitor the performance of security controls.

Auditors reviewed 65 systems at six major sites, the locations of which were omitted from the public version of the report for security reasons. The systems were managed by various components of Energy, including the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Office of Environmental Management and the Office of Science. Many of the systems reviewed were not appropriately certified and accredited for operation.

Inspectors found that information security officers for 31 of the 56 systems reviewed at five of the sites were granted system administrator access in violation of department policies. Such an arrangement is an inadequate separation of duties that essentially allows employees to supervise and approve their own work, which is why the practice is prohibited. What's more, the practice could be far more widespread, since officials at two sites told auditors similar situations existed for many of their systems that weren't selected for review.

Auditors also found that classified and unclassified systems were operating in the same environment at some locations, which raised the possibility that classified data could be transferred to unclassified computer systems. Additionally, employees at one site were allowed to manually change computer-generated passwords without oversight. User-created passwords are more vulnerable than computer-generated ones, which is why they are not permitted on national security systems.

Besides system risks, auditors found weaknesses in security and contingency planning. One of the most significant problems was that several sites did not have accurate inventories of hardware associated with and permitted for use with various systems.

"As a demonstration of the harm that can be caused by unapproved devices, we specifically identified an unapproved network device during our previous review at the Los Alamos National Laboratory that may have contributed to a significant theft of classified information," auditors noted.

The IG report recommended that Energy update its policies to reflect current security requirements. It also said the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, undersecretary of Energy and undersecretary for science should immediately implement controls to protect classified information systems.

Energy officials concurred. Auditors modified other recommendations after program officials provided more technical data.

"Without improvements, the department lacks assurance that its classified data and systems are secure from both internal and external threats," the auditors wrote.

Complex risks call for well-managed IT solutions

By Robert Charette

Information technology can help agencies meet their most important mission - protecting the public.

Nearly 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson said, "The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government."

According to Jefferson's theory, government's first duty is to manage the public's risk, giving everyone the opportunity to pursue individual happiness — the second duty of good government.

Government manages people's risk in three fundamental ways: first, as a regulator when individuals or businesses impose risks on others; second, as a risk manager, when individuals or businesses cannot manage risk themselves; third, as a provider of services to the public, which often entails risks that the government itself needs to manage effectively.

Consider the Securities and Exchange Commission. Its duty is to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation. Without SEC's regulatory authority, how comfortable would people feel about investing?

Or take the Food and Drug Administration, whose duty is to protect and promote public health. Since May, FDA has tried to track down a salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 1,100 people. No private organization could easily take on that role.

The risks agencies manage today are more varied and complex than Jefferson ever imagined. FDA, for instance, is responsible for monitoring potential dangers involving food, drugs, medical devices, cosmetics and radiation-emitting products, to name a few.

Consider food safety. Risks have changed as the food supply has expanded globally and the amount of imported food FDA regulates has more than tripled in the past decade, straining its ability to conduct adequate inspections. In addition, more foods are genetically engineered, increasing from just one in 1994 to more than 50 today. FDA must ensure they all are safe to eat.

With risks becoming more complex, the use of information technology is essential for managing the public's safety. For instance, to improve health care and reduce costs, the Bush administration set a goal to provide interoperable electronic health records for most Americans by 2014.

While technology can help agencies manage risk, the IT solutions themselves frequently are not managed well. The FBI's first attempt to develop a virtual case file system is one example. The bureau canceled the project in 2005 after repeated budget overruns, missed deadlines and performance issues. The snafu with developing handheld computers to support the Census Bureau's 2010 count is another example. The agency canceled its plan to use the devices when it became clear that it wouldn't be able to properly test them by census time and development costs began to increase.

When the agency announced in April that it would not use handheld computers in the next decennial count, top officials blamed poor communication between the government and its contractor, Harris Corp. But that explanation is merely a euphemism for enterprise risk mismanagement.

With so many IT project blunders, it's not surprising that federal agencies have been slow to embrace enterprise risk management. More businesses, however, are using ERM, a holistic approach to managing the full spectrum of risks. They are integrating strategic, operational, financial and insurance risk management practices to better understand the risks that confront them. That way, risks become transparent to everyone in the organization, and a coordinated and cost-effective approach to managing them is possible.

ERM also helps with managing the strategic and financial risks associated with major IT programs, which many agencies typically don't take into account. At Census, a strategic decision was made to use handheld computers for door-to-door census takers to capture and transmit data for the 2010 count. This was a reasonable decision. But the risks it created — operational, financial, contingency and, especially, how those factors interacted with one another — were not accounted for.

A robust ERM approach would have increased the chances that the bureau's handheld project would have been successful. Given all the types of risks the project faced, however, it is doubtful that even a robust IT risk management plan would have been sufficient to ensure success.

Adopting ERM at a federal agency is much harder than in business. While the fundamental business of government is the management of risk, its basic practice revolves around politics, which is about power and control. Also, identifying risk in government is viewed as a negative. Who wants to be on the Government Accountability Office's high-risk list? So, making myriad risks transparent isn't a priority for most agencies.

Still, launching ERM in government is possible. The best way is to take a middle-out approach that concentrates on managing operational risks - those posed by people, processes and technology. Chief information officers, in cooperation with chief financial officers, are well-placed to begin the process because IT touches on not only operational, but financial and strategic risks, too.

CIOs can help identify the different types of risk IT creates and mitigates. With help from CFOs, they can begin to create the underlying processes necessary to manage risk not only within IT, but throughout the agency.

Agencies will find it progressively difficult to create the complex solutions necessary to protect the public without an agencywide approach to managing risk. Without one, Jefferson's goal of good government — the public's happiness — will be at risk as well.

Requirement to scan all inbound sea cargo sparks security concerns

By Gautham Nagesh

The legislative mandate to scan 100 percent of oceangoing cargo bound for the United States without additional resources could actually reduce security, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office on Monday.

The 2007 9/11 Act requires the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection directorate to scan 100 percent of U.S.-bound cargo by 2012, with possible exceptions for specific seaports. According to the report, the requirement could redirect the current focus on high-risk containers.

"Officials from the European Commission and CBP stated that unless additional resources are made available, 100 percent scanning could not be met … it is unclear who will pay for additional resources -- including increased staff, equipment and infrastructure — needed to implement the statutory requirement to scan 100 percent of U.S.-bound container cargo at foreign seaports," the report said.

The 2006 Security and Accountability for Every Port Act required CBP to test the feasibility of scanning 100 percent of U.S.-bound containers. The 9/11 Act then made it a requirement, much like it directed CBP to scan all cargo on passenger planes. More than 11 million containers arrived at U.S. seaports in fiscal 2007, an average of 30,000 per day.

Under the current risk-management system, CBP officers posted at foreign seaports focus on containers at high risk of containing weapons, explosives or other items that could compromise national security. This approach is called targeting.

The method relies on an automated targeting system that assigns a risk score to all cargo shipments before they depart for the United States, based on their shipping information. The system allows agents to identify containers potentially connected to terrorists or other criminals. CBP scans the cargo using nonintrusive inspection equipment, including large-scale imaging machines that use X-rays or gamma rays to create images of the contents. Officers also search the containers before they depart for the United States

"According to CBP and [World Customs Organization] officials, if the scanned images of all containers must be reviewed, the reviews may not be as thorough because customs officers could lose focus due to the sheer volume of work. If images are not properly or thoroughly analyzed, a degradation of security could result," said the report.

A European customs official added that 100 percent scanning also could hinder the flow of international commerce, with the requirement disproportionately affecting trade with developing countries.

In addition to embedding U.S. officials at foreign seaports, CBP is working with international customs organizations to establish common security standards to identify high-risk containers globally. That includes expanding a customs-to-business program that expedites processing for companies that comply with predetermined security measures all along the supply chain. So far, 154 countries have pledged to adopt international customs security standards.

How secure are your systems?

By Allan Holmes

Ever since Congress passed the 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act to improve the security of federal networks, security analysts and federal information technology managers have complained that the law has failed to make government systems more secure. The reason, they say, is that it is largely a reporting exercise that agencies must follow certain processes such as certifying and accrediting systems. What it doesn‚'t do is require agencies to measure how secure their systems actually are by taking actions such as conducting penetration tests to identify holes in networks that allow hackers in -- and then fixing them quickly.

For those reasons, security analysts say the report cards agencies receive on their compliance with FISMA are meaningless. In fact, Congress and others have charged that FISMA simply hasn't worked.

To begin a dialogue on potentially better ways to measure how secure an agency's systems are, Nextgov and the SANS Institute, a nonprofit cybersecurity research organization in Bethesda, Md., have teamed up on a Web-based tool. It's designed to provide federal officials a means to compare how secure FISMA says their systems are to what professional security analysts would say. As Alan Paller, director of research at SANS, points out, an agency can get an A on FISMA compliance, but receive an F from security analysts on how secure its systems are.

To find out how your FISMA grade stacks up with a grade that a SANS security consultant would give you, we invite you to take the FISMA vs. Security Perspective Test. The first part of the test grades your compliance with certain FISMA requirements. The second measures how well you follow what security analysts say are some of the best practices to secure systems. You'll receive a grade for each test and at the end you can compare which the two.

After taking the test, let us know your opinions about and insights from the test by going to The Forum to discuss your results and those of others. Just follow the link at the end of the test, or go The Forum by clicking here.

Commission finds U.S. vulnerable to electromagnetic pulse attack

(Compiler's note: I'm telling you this is describing "the big hit" that we must defend against about. rca)

By Katherine McIntire Peters

In the early 1960s, engineers in nuclear weapons testing programs in the United States and the Soviet Union noticed an unexpected phenomenon when warheads were exploded high above the Earth's surface. The electromagnetic fields produced by the detonations often resulted in damage to electrical systems on the ground. One test 400 kilometers above Johnston Island in the South Pacific destroyed a commercial telecommunications system in the Hawaiian Islands 1,400 kilometers away.

Now, a new report by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack warns that a nuclear attack aimed at crippling the nation's technological backbone could be greater today than it was during the Cold War. Such an attack also would be easier to orchestrate, and potentially more devastating, than a direct hit to a major metropolitan area.

"The electromagnetic pulse generated by a high-altitude nuclear explosion is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences," the commission found.

To thoroughly understand the threat, the commission sponsored analytic tests to examine the specific vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure, including: electric power systems; telecommunications; banking and finance; petroleum and natural gas pipelines; transportation systems; food and water infrastructure; emergency services, space systems; government operations; and communications for keeping the citizenry informed. As a result, the 208-page report details the daunting complexity of modern life.

"The separation of these infrastructures into different domains tends to obscure the real interdependencies that sustain the effectiveness and daily operation of each one," the report found. To illustrate the point, the commission noted that the accidental severing of a single fiber-optic cable in New York City in 1991 resulted in a power failure that blocked 60 percent of phone calls into and out of the city, disabled air traffic control functions in the Washington-Boston flight corridor (the busiest in the nation) and crippled the operations of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"The increasingly pervasive use of electronics of all forms represents the greatest source of vulnerability to attack by EMP. Electronics are used to control, communicate, compute, store, manage and implement nearly every aspect of U.S. civilian systems," the commission reported.

"Should significant parts of the electric power infrastructure be lost for any substantial period of time, the commission believes that the consequences are likely to be catastrophic, and many people may ultimately die for lack of the basic elements necessary to sustain life in dense urban and suburban communities," the report noted. Such is possible, the commission said, because some critical electrical system components are no longer manufactured in the United States, and acquiring them in routine circumstances can take a year.

In July, the House Armed Services Committee received a preview of the report's findings in testimony by William R. Graham, chairman of the commission. "Our vulnerability is increasing daily as our use of and dependence on electronics continues to grow in both our civil and military sectors," Graham said.

"What is significant about an EMP attack is that one or a few high-altitude nuclear detonations can produce EMP effects that can potentially disrupt or damage electronic systems over much of the United States, virtually simultaneously, at a time determined by an adversary," Failure to address the vulnerability could both invite and reward an attack.

Graham noted that an adversary wouldn't have to have long-range ballistic missile capability to deliver an EMP attack. Such an attack could be launched from a freighter off the coast of the United States, using a short- or medium-range missile loaded with a nuclear warhead.

"Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism, has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea," Graham said. "Iranian military writings explicitly discuss an EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States. While the commission does not know the intention of Iran in conducting these activities, we are disturbed by the capability that emerges when we connect the dots."

The commission found that large-scale, long-term consequences of an EMP attack could be reduced below the level of catastrophe through a coordinated effort by the government and private sector. In November, the commission will report on the progress of protecting the nation from an EMP attack.

Georgia: Terror fears over whereabouts of region's nuclear material

When the breakaway region of Abkhazia split from Georgia in 1993, the world's only known case of enriched uranium going missing was reported after up to 2kg of the potentially devastating material was stolen from a laboratory.

There are now fears that the organised criminal gangs that are rife in the region could exploit the confusion of the current conflict to loot other stocks.

Security services are worried that terrorist organisations such as al-Qa'eda could purchase weapons grade uranium and mix it with a detonator as basic as fertiliser to make a deadly device. While an estimated 15kg of uranium is needed to make a nuclear bomb just a small amount is needed for an unconventional device.

"There is no fear of a nuclear bomb coming out of this region but the bigger danger is that a small amount of uranium combined with conventional explosive terrorists could make a dirty bomb that would make an area the size of the City's Square Mile unusable for 30 or 40 years," said a security source. "The economic impact would be catastrophic." ....

DEVIL SENT DOWN TO GEORGIA

(Compiler's note: Received this material from a friend. rca)

The website is Russian so the captions are in Russian Cyrillic but the photos pretty well speak for themselves. Some gruesome pictures so be forewarned. http://www.navoine.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?p=551

RUSSIA UNLEASHES CHECHEN THUGS THE DOGS OF WAR: A ragtag group of mercenaries from this Vostok Battalion has made its ominous presence known in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

OVER the weekend, photographic proof emerged that the Russians used
murderous Chechen mercenaries to do their dirtiest dirty work in
Georgia: The ragtag unit in question is so vicious that, last April,
Chechnya's Russian-installed "president" demanded it be disbanded.

War snaps taken by Russian photojournalist Arkady Babchenko have been
circulating among intelligence personnel. The shots reveal far more to
the West than Babchenko realized.

Amid photos of the horrors of war, grateful South Ossetians and
triumphant Russian troops, one series leapt out at me as a former intel
officer: Bearded irregulars riding atop Russian-built armored vehicles
(old BMPs, for the military-hardware buffs). The vehicles had been
splashed with white lettering.

What did the scrawls announce to the world? These thugs proudly
proclaimed that they're Chechens serving in the Vostok ("East")
Battalion commanded by Badrudin Yamadaev - who shares a reputation for gangland violence with his brother, Ruslan.

Last spring, mercenaries from the Vostok Battalion indulged in a bloody
gangland shoot-'em-up in the city of Gudermes, near their home turf. The
mafia-on-steroids brutality was too much even for the Chechens (which is
quite a standard). The province's puppet president publicly begged the
Kremlin and its generals to disband the unit.

The generals refused. At the time, their stubborn support for the outlaw
Yamadaev Brothers seemed baffling - a quiet Chechnya was a longstanding
Russian goal. But last week, it all made sense: Putin's military, which
had been planning the invasion of Georgia for many months, intended to
unleash the worst criminals in uniform it had on the Georgian people.

Why?

Two reasons: First, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants the Georgians to
suffer - to really suffer. And Chechens are the world's subject-matter
experts in atrocities.

Second, this gives the Russian army itself a veil of deniability: When
Putin's spokesmen insist that the Russian military isn't involved in the
worst savagery in Georgia, they're technically telling the truth (if we
don't count air attacks and artillery bombardments), since the Chechen
thugs on their payroll are on the job.

But why would those Chechens paint up their armored vehicles to tell the
world they'd arrived in Georgia? First, they're proud of their fearsome
reputation. Second, they didn't want Russian regulars to mistake them
for the enemy and pull the trigger.

The result?

Contrary to Russian claims that "volunteers" from the North Caucasus
rushed in to aid their South Ossetian brethren, we now have proof that
the Kremlin sent in hired guns. It's no accident that Putin's code-name
for this operation is "Scorched Earth."

And there's plenty else to be outraged about - not all of it Russia's
fault. Images of dead and disfigured Georgian soldiers show them wearing
US-surplus canteens, boots and helmets, or equipped with antique US
anti-tank weapons. After the Georgians did all their tiny country could
to support us in Iraq, all we gave them was cast-off junk - thanks to
Congress and the State Department.

Our military was only allowed to train the Georgians for peacekeeping,
anti-terrorism and small-unit tactics. The Georgians gave us all they
had, and we gave them crap. The Bush administration should hang its
wobbly head in shame.

Meanwhile, Chechen rapists and butchers are celebrating - and picking
over the US gear the Russians captured and didn't even want.

Stories of Russian Atrocities in Georgia Mount: Where's the US Media?

Rick Moran
Giving credit where credit is due, the European wire services AFP and Reuters as well as the BBC, Times of London, and even the Guardian have been giving extraordinarily good coverage on the entire Russian-Georgia conflict.

It was Reuters reporters who first uncovered the fact that the Russians were lying about Georgian attacks on the city of Tskhinvali. The Russians claimed 2000 civilians were killed and the city nearly razed to the ground by Georgia. In fact, Reuters got a couple of reporters in the city and saw immediately that Russia had wildly misstated the number of casualties while downplaying the fact that it was their artillery that did most of the damage.

The BBC has been doing a bang up job reporting on the diplomatic ins and outs - the unbelievable naivete of the French who keep getting the Russians to sign pieces of paper on a cease fire and withdrawal and then promptly ignoring what they just promised to do.

Now the Times Online informs us that Russians have been forcing the people of Gori - an extremely important rail and road junction that is the lifeline for the capitol Tblisi - to leave. And they are killing them if they stay:

"We didn't have any guns, so he shot Georgi in front of me without saying a word," she said. "A neighbour helped me to bury him in our garden and then I just fled."

Manana Galigashvili, 53, whose husband Andrei stared vacantly from a bed behind her, said that Ossetian soldiers had returned later and torched the house. They, too, had left after a soldier threatened to slit their throats.

Frightened refugees told similar stories all over the city of Gori yesterday as the Russian army extended its reach deep into Georgian territory despite a ceasefire agreement signed by President Medvedev that requires them to withdraw.

Troops and tanks moved to within 25 miles (40km) of the capital, Tbilisi, setting up roadblocks and digging in defensive positions in the hills above the highway. A line of tanks faced towards Tbilisi outside the village of Kaspi, a day after soldiers had blown up the railway line linking the capital to Georgia's main port of Poti.

It has been 48 hours since President Medvedev signed an agreement that Russian troops would stop their movements and leave Georgia. But Putin sees no need to obey what is an unenforceable agreement so he continues his threats against the Georgian capitol, putting enormous pressure on President Saakashvili while the world waits and wonders whether Putin will take it upon himself to overthrow the Georgian leader.

But this move on Gori is perhaps the biggest threat to Georgian sovereignty. It basically cuts the country in two leaving the capitol defenseless and desperately in need of relief supplies. The Russians have also apparently blown up a railroad bridge that was a major link to the Black Sea port of Poti. In effect, Tblisi is isolated and ripe for Russian plucking any time they choose.

Back in Gori, the forcible depopulation of a city under threat of death represents an escalation in Russian brutality. So where's the American media? All we are getting from the New York Times is story after story that this is our fault, or Georgia's fault, or NATO's fault - anything but face the fact that Russia is raping and pillaging a tiny neighbor.

The Washington Post is doing slightly better in that they have been on top of the diplomatic representations by the EU and pointing out how incredibly ineffective they have been in getting the Russians to stop. But when it comes to the situation on the ground, the American media is nowhere to be found.

If Reuters and AFP can get the story, one would think our own media would be capable. Instead, for the most part, they seem much more eager to parrot Russian talking points than attempt to tell what is going on in the Caucasus.

Before Salmonella Outbreak, Disease-Ridden Mexican Peppers Repeatedly Stopped at Border

(Compiler's note: Now explain this one more time why the gov't solution to this problem took so long to find. rca)

Fresno, Calif. - Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies.

Yet no larger action was taken. Food and Drug Administration officials insisted as recently as last week that they were surprised by the outbreak because Mexican peppers had not been spotted as a problem before.

But an Associated Press analysis of FDA records found that peppers and chilies were consistently the top Mexican crop rejected by border inspectors for the last year. ....

U.N.-funded school honors infamous terrorist

....The Al Quds Open University dedicated the ceremony last weekend at a major campus in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya to the memory of female suicide bomber Dalal al-Mughrabi, who led an attack in March 1978 that killed a total of 36 Israelis.

According to a faculty member who helped lead the graduation, the master of ceremonies announced the year's graduation cycle was dedicated to the "hero" Mughrabi, who planned and led an attack in which she and 10 other Palestinians infiltrated Israel by sea, landed on a beach, killed an American photographer and then hijacked and blew up a crowded bus. ....

Corsi rejected '9/11 Truther' arguments

Jerome Corsi, author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," has rejected the arguments from "9/11 Truthers" who allege the U.S. government brought about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

That Corsi supported those theories was an allegation made by the campaign for Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, in a 40-plus-page response to Corsi's book. Obama's campaign staff titled the treatise "Not Fit for Publication," a play on Corsi's earlier best-seller, "Unfit for Command," about John Kerry.

"That the Obama campaign has chosen to portray me as a 9/11 Truther just shows how sloppy and inaccurate the research going into their rebuttal was," said Corsi, a senior staff writer for WND. "Let me make clear that I fully accept and endorse the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission that the Islamic hijackers who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the sole cause of the attack." "There is no credible evidence that the U.S. government had any responsibility in the attack and it is irresponsible to suggest otherwise," he said.....

Court: Lesbians' desires trump doctors' religious rights

A state Supreme Court today ruled that constitutional freedom of religion does not permit doctors to refuse services to homosexual clients, even when those services would violate doctors' moral and religious convictions.

In a unanimous decision, the California State Supreme Court ruled against two Christian doctors at a San Diego area fertility clinic who refused to provide a medical procedure for artificial insemination to a lesbian couple.

According to court documents, the doctors claimed their religious convictions prohibited them from using intrauterine insemination (IUI) on any unmarried woman, regardless of sexual orientation.

The court, however, agreed with the lesbian couple that Dr. Douglas Fenton and Dr. Christine Brody had refused the treatment because of the lesbian couple's homosexuality and ruled that in doing so, the doctors violated California's Unruh Civil Rights Act.

Some lauded the decision as a victory for civil rights, while others lamented it as a loss of basic constitutional freedoms. ....

Report: Snipers sparked Russian-Georgian war

(Compiler's note: Most interesting. rca)

Sources in Georgia say the massive Russian onslaught into South Ossetia was prompted by Georgian snipers who apparently were picking off separatists in response to the killing of seven Georgian peacekeepers, then ran into a team of Russian peacekeepers and killed all but three, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

It happened in the days before Aug. 7, when Russian forces penetrated sovereign Georgian territory, the highly reliable sources said. South Ossetians, under fire from Georgian snipers, were not aware of where the shots were coming from and began shelling Georgian positions outside South Ossetia.

But the fleeing Georgians killed a number of Russian peacekeepers, triggering the conflict, according to the Georgian sources. ....

For years, Russian peacekeepers have occupied the so-called conflict areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which are are recognized by the international community as belonging to Georgia. Up until the latest flare-up, Georgian peacekeepers worked with Russian peacekeepers to police the conflict regions.

Knowing of the Russian troop buildup and the warnings issued the month before, the question arises as to why the Georgians responded to initial South Ossetian artillery fire with its own that hit the South Ossetian capital.

Some analysts suggest that the Georgian government did not think the Russians would go beyond South Ossetia, since there had been prior skirmishes between Georgian and South Ossetian forces.

Other analysts, however, suggest that it may have been a calculated effort to force Russia's hand and thereby draw attention from the West to Georgia's relations with Russia and desire to be part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.

U.S. gives flak jackets to terrorist-saturated forces

Part of multimillion dollar taxpayer-funded training program

....

The U.S. flak jacket transfer is part of a larger, multimillion-dollar American training program for Fatah forces.

Since the late 1990s, the U.S. has run training bases for PA militias. The U.S. also has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid and weapons to build up the PA militias.

U.S.-run courses are currently training a new advanced police force billed as the most professional, capable Palestinian security force ever assembled. The police units are being built up to assume security control of the West Bank following the planned creation of a Palestinian state and any Israeli evacuation from the territory.

The U.S. runs training bases for the PA police in the West Bank city of Jericho and also at U.S.-operated bases in the Jordanian village of Giftlik.

Gen. Keith Dayton, the U.S. security coordinator to the Palestinian territories, last year initiated the U.S. taxpayer-funded advanced program, which trains 500 to 600 PA cadets at a time at the American bases.

The course in Jordan lasts for three months and includes training in the use of weapons, conducting ambushes, fighting street crime, fighting terrorism and dealing with hostage situations, among other things, according to informed security officials.

After the cadets successfully complete the training in Jordan, the students continue with more advanced training courses at the U.S.-run base in the West Bank city of Jericho. ....

Shock admission: Italy made deal with terrorists

Ex-president reveals nation allowed bases, free movement for jihadists in secret pact

JERUSALEM – In an astonishing admission, the former president of Italy has confirmed his country provided Palestinian terror groups with sanctuary and the ability to establish internal bases in a secret pact in which the terrorists pledged not to target Italian interests.

"I always knew, though not by official documents and information kept from me, about the existence of an agreement based on 'don't harm me and I won't harm you' between the Italian Republic and organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the PLO," Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga revealed in a letter to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Cossiga was responding to an interview the newspaper conducted last week with Bassam Abu Sharif, a top Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, leader who claimed Italy provided his group in the 1970s with safe haven in a non-aggression pact. ....