Closing Gitmo Requires Tough Judgments on Inmates

by AP

President-elect Barack Obama's planned review of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, a prelude to closing the detention center, must weigh the threats posed by an extraordinarily diverse group, from die-hard jihadists to innocent men swept up in war.

Two presidential transition team advisers said Monday that Obama is preparing to issue an executive order in his first day or week in office setting in motion the extensive survey needed to close the US military prison in Cuba.

His team faces a daunting task.

Some cases are clear cut. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, brought to Guantanamo in 2006 from CIA custody, has claimed responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks. He said he wants to be executed to achieve martyrdom.

On the other end of the spectrum are men even the Pentagon acknowledges are no threat -- 17 Uighur dissidents who remain detained over fears for their safety if returned to their homeland in China.

Most of the roughly 250 remaining prisoners lie in the murky middle....

What Do You Do When The Guy Across the Negotiating Table Wants to Destroy You?

by Newt Gingrich

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearings are underway in the Senate today. A good question for any senator who is interested in being honest about the real problem in the Middle East is this:

“Senator Clinton, imagine that you’re the Israeli Foreign Minister: What do you do when the other party at the ‘peace table’ is openly committed to your destruction?”

This is the question that all our political and foreign policy elites who are demanding that Israel immediately agree to a “cease fire” with Hamas in Gaza should be asking.

And this is the fact that the anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic mobs that are taking to the streets in London, Edinburgh, Berlin and Washington, DC should know:

Hamas is openly, publicly and proudly committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. This is a negotiating partner?

“There is No Solution For the Palestinian Problem Except Through Jihad”

These are the words of the Hamas charter:

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.

And here is how the founding document of Hamas treats the concept of “negotiations”:

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

Two Facts of Violence in Mid-East: Hamas and Iran

There are two main facts of the violence in the Middle East that all Americans -- and particularly our leaders -- should be aware of:

The first is that Hamas exists to destroy Israel. Its leaders wake up every morning with one goal -- to eliminate what they call the “Zionist entity.”

The second fact of violence in the Middle East is the ongoing effort by Iran (using Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas as its proxies) to undermine pro-American governments in the region.

“A New Emphasis on Respect” in Relations with Iran?

On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, President-elect Obama repeated his campaign pledge to negotiate with Iran.

He also promised that there would be a “new emphasis on respect” in his administration’s dealings with Tehran.

President-elect Obama may want respect.

But Iran’s theocratic rulers want victory.

This is a dangerous mismatch of goals for America and a potentially nuclear, aggressor regime to have.

To Understand Iran and Gaza, Obama Should Look to Lincoln

President-elect Obama has expressed a welcome fondness for Abraham Lincoln. To understand the regimes in Iran and Gaza, all of us should read more Lincoln.

When the southern states began to secede from the Union with Lincoln’s election in 1860, Lincoln concluded that negotiating with the South would be futile. There were only two options:

To make it impossible for the South to leave the Union.

Or to allow the Union itself to be destroyed.

Lincoln choose to “preserve, protect and defend” the Union and 620,000 Americans died implementing his policy.

But in doing so, Lincoln saved the Union. And the “mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone” endure to this day.

The Policy of the United States Must Be That Israel’s Right to Survive is Unequivocal

Similarly, there are no easy solutions in Gaza. But there are a few milestones that Israel should achieve -- and the United States should support -- before any ceasefire with Hamas is granted:

1) Hamas’ capacity to inflict violence on the state of Israel must be destroyed, or at least significantly reduced.
2) No missiles -- period -- must be fired from Gaza into the sovereign state of Israel.
3) The border between Gaza and Egypt must be sealed and verified by an Israeli and/or independent verifier.

The policy of the United States of America has been and must be that Israel’s right to survive is unequivocal. Therefore, the greatest danger to Israel in the long run is for it to experience violence followed by a false truce which allows its enemies time to rearm and initiate yet another cycle of violence.

Iran and Hamas will not voluntarily end this cycle of violence. They must be brought to the point where they have no choice.

Smart Spending Versus Dumb Spending

As Democratic and Republican politicians in Washington busy themselves with the task of spending hundreds of billions more of your tax dollars to stimulate the economy, it is high time Washington realize that not all spending is equal.

There is smart spending, and there is dumb spending.

I’ve talked before about what I consider smart spending to be. It’s spending that improves the long-terms health and productivity of the economy, that attracts new investment to America, and that allows taxpayers to keep more of what they earn.

Then there’s dumb spending.

This often takes the form of pork barrel projects; spending, not in America’s interest, but in the narrow, political interest of a politician or interest group.

$22 Million to Fund Two Downtown Harrisburg, Pa., Hotels

In other words, dumb spending is typically political spending. And it’s hard to see how politicians in Washington can be expected to pass the $750 billion stimulus bill advocated by President-elect Obama without a lot of politics creeping in.

Especially when the nation’s mayors have compiled a wish list of over 15,000 local projects they’d like Uncle Sam to fund.

Exhibit A is a proposed Museum of Organized Crime in Las Vegas, Nev. As I said on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" (watch it here), one would think the mob has enough money to build their own museum.

Exhibit B on the dumb spending list is the request by the mayor of Harrisburg, Pa., for $22 million to build two downtown hotels.

This isn’t stimulating the economy. This is stimulating the mayor’s friends in Harrisburg – and hurting the private entrepreneurs who own and operate hotels in the area.

For the sake of the taxpayers footing the bill, and the entrepreneurs struggling without a government bailout, this kind of dumb spending must end.

Your friend,

States continue spending sprees

As a federal bailout takes shape, many states continue to spend money at boom-time rates even though revenue is sinking.

The mismatch between spending and revenue has left states facing projected shortfalls of up to $80 billion over the next six months, equal to as much as 10% of what states had planned to spend.....

Obama to order Guantanamo Bay prison closed

President-elect Barack Obama plans to order the closing of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay as early as his first week in office to show a break from the Bush administration's approach to the war on terror, according to two officials close to the transition.

In Foreign Policy, a New Trio at the Top

By Anne E. Kornblut and Glenn Kessler

When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) gavels the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to order today and welcomes Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to her confirmation hearing as President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to be secretary of state, he will mark the ascendance of a new triumvirate dominating the foreign policy arena.

The hearing will also call attention to a particularly awkward tangle of relationships.....

Homeland Security Approves $450M 'Bio Threat' Lab

The Department of Homeland Security has approved a site at Kansas State University for a $450 million lab to study livestock diseases and some of the world's most dangerous biological threats.

Is the Trans-Texas Corridor dead?

Gov. Rick Perry and TxDOT want you to think so

.... the Trans-Texas Corridor project includes a 4,000 mile network of four NAFTA Superhighway truck-train pipelines that TxDOT plans to build over a 50-year period.

"Still," Corsi says, "close examination shows Perry's declaration from Iraq involves yet more public relations efforts by the governor and TxDOT to defuse criticism from voters and reposition a hugely unpopular initiative by dropping the designation 'Trans-Texas Corridor,' or 'TTC,' while still allowing TxDOT to proceed with the components of the original TTC plan that had been scheduled for implementation now."

TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz said major corridor projects will be scaled back to comprise several small projects closer to 600-feet wide than the originally planned 1,200 foot-wide TTC design. Perry has also confirmed that a new corridor parallel to Interstate-35, previously known as TTC-35, and projects like Interstate 69 will continue.....

From each group that backed Obama, an agenda

(Compiler's note: Hmmmmm - food for thought.)

by Joe Garofoli

Nobody disagrees that passing an economic stimulus package is the top priority for the incoming Obama administration and the new Congress. Then what? Tighter emissions standards for cars? Easing the rules on organizing for labor unions? Universal health care? Ending the wars? Net neutrality?

The flipside of knitting together a winning coalition of techies, anti-war activists, women, labor unions, young voters and the like is: (a) everybody thinks they were most instrumental in sending Obama and more Democrats to Washington, and (b) they want Obama and the Democrats to make their policy wish lists reality - first. Or, at least, right after a stimulus bill is passed.

"But since Obama won by such a wide margin, no one group can claim credit for his victory," said Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Even before it addresses the stimulus package, Congress has to consider nine appropriations bills left from the last Congress, Lilly said. And, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi anticipates having a stimulus bill ready for Obama to sign by the Feb. 16 Presidents Day holiday, Lilly, a former staff director for the House Appropriations Committee and a 30-year veteran of Capitol Hill, said "that sounds to me to be extremely ambitious."

After a stimulus package is approved, the legislative runway will get really crowded. Health care reform is near the top of many lists, but not all.

The problems facing the country are so severe that Obama is not going to be able to favor one group over another because they were major contributors to his election, Lilly said. "And there is probably an international situation that will take up a lot of the president's time and attention after the stimulus gets done."

Here's a look at some of the proposals, wish lists and demands that await the president-elect and the 111th Congress:

Anti-war activists

After spending almost eight years toting George W. Bush effigies through the streets, the anti-war movement is confident that Obama will address its issues. But even before Obama has taken the oath of office, he has already disappointed some.

"Obama has been missing in action on the massacre of people in Gaza," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war organization Code Pink. It makes little difference to her that Obama has avoided making broad policy statements before becoming president for fear of giving mixed signals to foreign governments. "It makes me tremendously worried about what he'll do when other situations like that come up. It took him until (last week) to say he was concerned, and he didn't even call for a cease-fire."

Code Pink has compiled a list of "President Obama's Promises to Keep" from his campaign statements. Among them:

-- End the war in Iraq.

-- Close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

-- Reject the Military Commissions Act, which critics say violates the civil rights of people held as enemy combatants.

-- Bar the torture of prisoners of war and enemy combatants.

-- Work to eliminate nuclear weapons.

-- Abide by Senate-approved treaties.

Organized labor

Labor organizations spent more than $450 million to send Obama and other Democrats to Washington. The AFL-CIO alone has compiled a 64-page list entitled the "AFL-CIO Recommendations for the Obama Administration." Top priority - besides jobs in the stimulus package - is the Employee Free Choice Act. It would enable employees to form a union as soon as a majority signed cards saying they wanted one. The Service Employees International Union, the nation's largest labor union, will spend $10 million to support such legislation. Various employer groups are lining up against it.

But would Obama be risking too much political capital early in his term on a politically partisan issue that could galvanize - and revive - conservatives?

"The Obama transition team absolutely has not communicated that to us," said Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO.

Some of labor's other top wishes:

-- Health care reform.

-- Reverse staffing cuts that led to long Social Security claim backlogs.

-- Extend unemployment benefits.

-- Increase financing for food stamps.

-- Change Bush administration policies on government contract work, worker safety and training to be fairer to workers.

Women

The National Organization for Women has an 11-page "Feminist Action Agenda for 2009 and Beyond" for the incoming administration and Congress. "And that was our short list," NOW President Kim Gandy said. "After eight years of going backward with the Bush administration, we have a lot of issues that need to be addressed."

NOW already has a beef with Obama's stimulus package: It is too heavy on male-dominated infrastructure-rebuilding - i.e., construction jobs - Gandy said. She'd like to see more stimulus cash spread to what she described as "human infrastructure-rebuilding jobs" such as home health aides, teachers, teacher's aides and social workers.

Here are a few top items from NOW's agenda and Gandy:

-- Address the wage gap between men and women.

-- Stop abstinence-only birth control education funding in favor of programs that stress both abstinence and contraception.

-- Assure access to contraception.

-- Establish a Cabinet-level Office on Women that's analogous to the Office on Drug Control Policy.

Environmentalists

Environmental organizations were some of Obama's strongest backers, as many were upset by Bush administration positions on everything from climate change to land conservation to water policy. Shortly after the election, leading environmental organizations, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club, created a new group called Saveourenvironment.org and submitted a list of goals to the Obama transition team.

Among them:

-- Cut the nation's dependence on oil in half.

-- Move electricity generation to 100 percent from clean sources like wind and solar.

-- Create 5 million new clean-energy jobs.

-- Reduce global warming pollution by at least 80 percent.

In a speech on the economy last week, Obama called for "the creation of a clean-energy economy" that "will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years." Without being specific on the number of new jobs this would generate, he said, "We will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced - jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings."

Techies

The Obama campaign had a special affinity with the online world, as it revolutionized the Internet as a fundraising and organizing tool in a presidential campaign. The Free Press Action Fund, a media reform organization, has outlined an expansion of the nation's broadband network - at a cost of $44 billion - and compiled a wish list that mirrors those of other online activists:

-- It wants Obama to back his long-stated support for the principles of net neutrality with a law that would "forbid discrimination on the Internet based on the source, destination or ownership of online content."

-- It wants the Obama administration to champion greater diversity in media ownership. Changes to current ownership rules could come after the administration appoints a new Federal Communications Commission chairman.

-- San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation has been fighting how the Bush administration has used electronic surveillance of citizens. It would like to see that practice end.

In a speech last week on infrastructure investments, Obama proposed "expanding broadband lines across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world."

Groups and their agendas

Several organizations are compiling wish lists and suggestions for the new administration and Congress.

-- Through Thursday, the social change digital hub Change.org of San Francisco is hosting online voting for its "Top 10 Ideas for America." When it presents the ideas on Friday, it hopes to form a national advocacy campaign for each idea with nonprofit organizations and create policy. For more information go to www.change.org/ideas.

-- In December, members of the liberal online hub MoveOn.org voted on their top priorities for the new administration. The top four: universal health care; economic recovery and job creation; building a green economy and ending the war in Iraq. For more information, go to

www.pol.move on.org/2009/agenda/results/results2.html.

-- For more information about Code Pink's "President Obama's Promises to Keep," go to www.code pinkaction.org/arti cle.php?id=4568.

-- For more information about the "AFL-CIO Recommendations for the Obama Administration," go to change.gov/open_

government/entry/afl_cio_turn_around_amer ica/.

-- For more information about the Free Press Action Fund's "Down Payment on Our Digital Future: Stimulus Policies for the 21st-Century Economy," go to www.freepress.net/files/DownPayment_Digital Future.pdf.

-- For more information about the environmental community's Obama wish list, go to www.saveourenvi ronment.org/.

How Tech Changes Our Thinking About War

By Noah Shachtman

Technological innovations – from the clock to the internet – don't just change how armies fight their battles. They changed how those armies think about war, in the first place. That's the subject of one of the more important new books of 2009: The Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2009).

Author, Antoine Bousquet, a Lecturer in International Relations at Birkbeck College in London, offers a vision of modern Western military organization that draws its fundamental logic from the social artifacts of science and technology. "From the ascendancy of the scientific worldview in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to present day," he writes, "an ever more intimate symbiosis between science and warfare has established itself with the increasing reliance on the development and integration of technology within complex social assemblages of war." Instead of debating whether war drives technological innovation or vice versa, it actually explains how key technologies in modern history evolved into metaphors for social organization -- in turn enabling the military, as a consummate social organization, to regulate itself.

The Scientific Way of Warfare ("SWOW," Bousquet calls it) is a remarkable work of synthesis, drawing on the contemporary writing of Manuel Castells, Paul Edwards, John Arquilla, and (especially) Martin Van Creveld. The book’s broad historical sweep doesn’t get caught up in the finer details, though, which might frustrate readers looking for a more detailed military history. Instead, it boils its subject down to "four distinct regimes of the scientific way of warfare, each of which is characterized by a specific theoretical and methodological constellation: mechanistic, thermodynamic, cybernetic, and chaoplexic warfare." At the heart of each, he writes, "we find an associated paradigmatic technology, respectively the clock, the engine, the computer and the network."

Clocks, with their precise parsing of time, gave us "mechanistic warfare," characterized by linear, predictable, reliable geometries (think Frederick the Great’s archetypal Prussian forces). "Thermodynamic warfare" evolved from concepts of dynamic motion and energy, associated with newly developed mechanical engines, resulting in the sort of industrialized, technologically enabled slaughter that chewed up millions of human bodies in World War I. "Cybernetic warfare" came about in World War II, Bousquet explains, with the ascent of the computer technology needed to manage the data floods of the code-breakers of Bletchley Park and the bomb-builders of Los Alamos. It signaled the dominance of information in strategic thinking, and the ascent of the all-powerful systems analyst in war planning.

One stage of military practice doesn't collapse under the weight of the next, however. In fact, new scientific regimes of warfare don’t necessarily improve how war is organized and fought. Instead, they get tripped up on the limitations of the previous generation, legacies of the old school preventing the next regime from fully taking hold and moving things forward. This might just be a fancy way of saying we always plan to fight the last war. But it identifies some important distinctions and helps explain things like the failure of Vietnam - Robert MacNamara’s pervasive quantification didn’t do much, in the end, to convince the Viet Cong that they were facing defeat.

It also sets the conditions for Bousquet’s fourth scientific regime of war, which looks to chaos theory and complexity science to understand and predict the networked threats of everything from L.A. street gangs to transnational jihadis and Russian hackers. Bousquet borrows the term "chaoplexity," which first appeared in John Horgan's 1996 book The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, to coin his own terminology, "chaoplexic warfare."

Chaoplexic war, likes its cybernetic predecessor, is information driven. But cyberneticism emphasized total control of the battlespace through information dominance; in theory, that was supposed to create a predictable, controllable warzone environment. Chaoplexity, on the other hand, understands the order hidden within chaos and complexity. It's an understanding, translated to military thinking, that would theoretically enable soldiers to recognize, accept, and cope better with the uncertainties of combat. Characterized by "non-linearity, self-organization, and emergence," the central metaphor of chaoplexic war "is that of the network, the distributed model of information exchange perhaps best embodied by the Internet."

Pentagon has a doctrine of "network-centric warfare," of course. But, despite paying lip service to chaoplexity, it's still stuck in the cybernetic muck, Bousquet argues. "Serious questions" remain as to whether network-centric warfare is really part of the new way of war – or just a "re-branding" of older approaches.

The book’s later chapters, on cybernetic and chaoplexic warfare, are mostly about the United States, which has had radically different experiences of armed conflict since WWII from almost any other nation on earth. Here, SWOW’s descriptions of networks and chaoplexity feel more like tactical cyberneticism than a truly new approach to war. New communications and surveillance technologies make it possible for the military to coordinate networked units right down to the squad level. But it also makes it possible to nano-manage them by remote control, second guessing every move they make, often under fire. That’s not the same thing as giving field units the autonomy to make their own decisions and accepting the uncertainty that comes with it. It’s also dangerous. SWOW doesn’t tell us much about where chaoplexic war will be fought, either - or more importantly, how chaoplexic armies will interpret and cope with the spaces in which they fight. When I pressed Bousquet on this, I had in mind the sort of urban worm-holing that Israeli Defense Forces have perfected for operations in and through Palestinian camps. He acknowledge that wars of the future will likely happen, for the most part, in cities. And so it goes in Gaza.

-- Michael A. Innes is Director of The Complex Terrain Laboratory, and the editor of Denial of Sanctuary: Understanding Terrorist Safe Havens. (Praeger, 2007). This is his first post for Danger Room.

Our Broken CIA and the Death of Innocents

(Compiler's note: A must read article. We will be hearing more about this in the future.)

By Peter Hoekstra

Some within our intelligence community seem to think that they are above the law.

On April 20, 2001, one of the worst tragedies in the CIA’s history occurred when an infant baby girl — seven-month old Charity Bowers — and her mother, Roni, were killed when a bullet passed through Roni’s body and lodged in Charity’s skull. The projectile was fired by the Peruvian air force, which shot down the Bowers’ single-engine Cessna with the assistance of the CIA as part of a counternarcotics program. Charity’s father, brother, and the pilot survived a crash landing on the Amazon River.

A CIA Inspector General report concluded that baby Charity and her mother died due to the apparently deliberate failure of CIA officers to follow proper procedures to protect the lives of innocent civilians — not only in the 2001 shoot-down of the Bowers aircraft, but in all previous shoot-downs that occurred in Peruvian airspace between 1995 and 2001.

The CIA Inspector General also found that persons within the CIA mounted an extensive cover-up of the facts of this tragedy from the White House, the Justice Department, and Congress. The CIA lied to Congress and the executive branch about the downing of the Bowers plane to shield its personnel from being held accountable and from possible prosecution.

Shocked? You should not be. Such behavior has become all too commonplace at America’s premier intelligence agency. The CIA is supposed to closely coordinate all intelligence matters with the executive branch and Congress because their very nature precludes transparency and normal accountability mechanisms. It has repeatedly failed to do so.

Instead, the CIA briefs Congress as little as it believes it can get away with, and frequently plays what I call the “20-questions game” — where CIA officers tell Congress about important information only if members of Congress stumble upon the exact right questions. In addition, I have been long concerned that some within the agency have intentionally undermined the Bush administration and its policies over the last few years. This argument is supported by the Valerie Plame case, and the long string of unauthorized disclosures to the news media from an organization that prides itself on being able to keep secrets.

The shoot-down of the Bowers’ plane is an example not only of CIA incompetence and mismanagement, but of an intelligence subculture that thinks it is above the law. Some CIA managers apparently think they can evade their legal requirement to fully and honestly cooperate with the Justice Department and Congress. How can we trust our nation’s security to intelligence officers who have been so reckless and irresponsible?

In response to the publicity over the CIA Inspector General report, CIA Director Michael Hayden promised to turn over the matter to an accountability board to determine whether any disciplinary action is warranted in the Bowers case. When a board is convened, I plan to testify before it. However, given the CIA’s abysmal record in handling the Bowers case to date, Congress and the Justice Department must also carefully review the relevant facts. The CIA cannot be trusted to investigate this case alone.

The CIA’s repeated failure to keep Congress fully and currently informed requires a shake-up in the Agency’s senior leadership. I am encouraged, therefore, that President-elect Obama has tapped Leon Panetta, a man with significant managerial and Washington experience — outside of the intelligence community — to be the next head of the CIA. I support Panetta’s nomination as part of what I hope will be the first step to clean up the agency and make it more accountable to Congress and therefore the American people. True, he is not part of the intelligence club. That is a positive. A fresh perspective is needed.

Baby Charity and her mother Roni were killed not because of a one-time human error. They died because of an intelligence bureaucracy where parts are broken and which thinks it can operate above the law. Without accountability, U.S. intelligence agencies cannot be trusted to protect our nation from harm or to operate in an ethical manner that will not embarrass our nation abroad or endanger American civil rights at home. Without accountability, U.S. intelligence agencies cannot be trusted with the significant authority they have been given to keep America safe and secure.

'Beware, we are coming!'

By Bob Unruh

Islamic rule 'from Alaska and Chile to South Africa'

Radical Muslims in Somalia are promising Islamic rule from Alaska and Chile to South Africa and from Japan to Russia, issuing the warning "Beware, we are coming," according to a media monitor

The Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, cites excerpts from television reports on the Somali terror organization Shabab al-Mujahideen that aired on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya in recent weeks.

MEMRI monitors, translates and interprets media reports from the Middle East on critical issues including religion, terror and war.

The report said Islamic leaders spoke of their world plans in a pre-Christmas broadcast on the Middle East satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

See the incredible video on Islam that was banned in Detroit! "Obsession" shows you what they don't want you to see.

"We are defending ourselves against those who attacked us," Abu Mansour said in the report. "Once we succeed, we will fight to end oppression in other places in the world."

Added Ibrahim Al-Maqdasi, "We want to inform Bush and our rivals about our real intentions. We will establish Islamic rule from Alaska and Chile to South Africa, and from Japan to Russia. Beware, we are coming."

Somalia's move toward radical Islam has raised concern internationally. Officials in the U.S. fear American youth are being recruiting into jihad in the African nation and believe at least one already has carried out at suicide attack.

Said Mansour, "We welcome any Muslim from anywhere in the world who wants to join us. We will allow him to marry our daughters and share our crops. Many have died fighting for our cause, and others are here with us."

A separate Al-Jazeera report had a reporter describing the work of the Shabab Al-Mujahideen in Somalia, implementing Islamic Shariah law by reducing a Catholic church to rubble.

"We are a people chosen by Allah to spread the Islamic Shariah throughout Somalia," Hassan Ya'Qoub said in the report.

It cited three drug dealers who were sentenced to 40 lashes.

A report on Al-Arabiya TV shortly said Somali Islamists resemble al-Qaida "in everything, except for swearing allegiance to al-Qaida's leader, Osama bin Laden."

An unidentified man said, "I'll tell you one thing. I'll put a bullet in the head of the infidels, and I'm ready to do it. Allah willing, the 'saved sect' will lie in wait for each and every dog the infidels bring. … We will put bullets in their heads."

On Al-Jazeera, Muqtar Robow, identified as a spokesman for Shabab al-Mujahideen, said his group intends "to implement Shariah completely – every single element of it."

"Our objectives, by the grace of God, are to see the return of the Islamic Caliphate, the last of which was the Ottoman empire that collapsed in the 1920s. We want to bring that system back and govern the world with God's law," he said.

Somalia has been in turmoil for decades, and the U.S. has contributed more than half a billion dollars in aid, mostly food, in recent years. The transitional government in recent months has begun to organize.

However, the report said Robow considers the new leaders as "war criminals."

"We urge them to just repent and seek forgiveness from the Lord, and then return to the people, take up their guns, and fight the enemy they brought into the country, because the enemy forces will not listen if we ask them to leave today," he said.

Former Pentagon Chief Perry: Iran Crisis Soon

WASHINGTON -- William Perry, who headed the Pentagon during a 1994 nuclear standoff with North Korea, predicted on Thursday that President-elect Barack Obama will soon face a nuclear crisis with Iran.....

Iran Getting Bomb Parts From U.S. Despite Ban

from NewsMax.com

WASHINGTON – Iran is successfully using front companies based in the Gulf region and Asia to import American technology that can be can have military use, The Washington Post reported on its website.

Citing US researchers and Justice Department documents, the newspaper said Iran in the past two years had acquired numerous banned items including circuit boards, software and Global Positioning System devices that are used to make sophisticated versions of the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that kill US troops in Iraq.

The trade was briefly disrupted after the United States imposed sanctions against several Dubai-based, Iranian front companies in 2006, but the technology pipeline to Tehran is now flowing at an even faster pace, the report said.

In some cases, Iran simply opened new front companies and shifted its operations from Dubai to Asia, said the paper, citing unnamed officials.

"Without doubt, it is still going on," the report quoted one former US intelligence official as saying.

Bomb circuitry is only a part of the global clandestine trade that continues to flourish, The Post said.

A federal investigation in New York into whether banks helped customers skirt US rules forbidding business with Iran turned up evidence of Iranian interests trying to buy tungsten and other materials used in the guidance systems of long-range missiles, the paper said.

British-based Lloyds TSB Bank agreed Friday to pay a 350 million dollar penalty to settle a probe that it illegally handled financial transfers for Iran and Sudan in violation of US sanctions.

A Justice Department statement said Lloyd's "has accepted and acknowledged responsibility for its criminal conduct" in a criminal complain filed in US District Court in New York.

"Lloyds agreed to forfeit the funds as part of deferred prosecution agreements with the Department of Justice and the New York County District Attorney's Office," the statement said.

Cyber-spy shares her know-how tracking terrorists

By Erika Hayasaki

Shannen Rossmiller, a former judge from Montana, has posed as Muslim militants to infiltrate extremist chat rooms. Now she wants to expand her one-woman operation, she says at an FBI conference.

Reporting from New York -- The nervous woman in a gray suit clicked on a photo lineup on an overhead screen labeled "Jihadi Martyrs." It flashed to mug shots of men with names like Abu Issa, an Al Qaeda recruiter, and Abu Jabber, a trainer.

A man in one photograph was pointing a machine gun.

"They are all me," said the blond mother from Montana, speaking before an audience of computer experts, law enforcement agents and investigators at the first International Conference on Cyber Security, held last week in New York. "These are all individuals I acted as on the Internet."

Shannen Rossmiller, 39, is a cyber-spy and former judge who taught herself Arabic after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and began infiltrating websites and chat rooms to hunt for terrorists. "I learned to act like them," she said. "I learned to be them."

As her children slept, she spent nights and mornings posing as more than two dozen Muslim militants from her home computer to gain information about planned attacks and terrorist cells across the world. Her investigations have led to two terrorism-related convictions in the U.S., and she has provided intelligence in dozens of other international cases.

Now she is trying to expand her one-woman operation by creating a "cybercore" of experts in language, data-mining and technology, dedicated to helping the government track terrorists. Rossmiller unveiled the idea at the FBI-hosted gathering of 400 from 40 countries at Fordham University.

With 5,000 terrorism-related websites operating at any given time, it's overwhelming to try to monitor all of them, Rossmiller said. "As soon as you take one down . . . they can upload the contents on another server in another part of the world. In a day or a couple of hours they can be up again. It's kind of like playing Whac-A-Mole."

She asked the audience: "How do we supplement what the government is already doing?"

Experts from Bulgaria, the Netherlands, China and the U.S. spent three days at the New York conference tackling the issue of cyber-crime -- including terrorism, child pornography and the underground economy in which passports, bank accounts and Social Security numbers are stolen, bought and sold.

U.S. counter-terrorism agents are increasingly convinced it is important for countries' leaders to share experiences fighting cyber-crime. FBI Special Agent Anthony J. Ferrante was part of the New York squad that in 2006 reported uncovering a plot to blow up the PATH commuter train tunnel beneath the Hudson River. Law enforcement agencies lurked on Internet jihadi meeting rooms, monitoring chatter about the plans.

"That case involved targets scattered in 22 countries," said Ferrante.

"Clearly, the Internet is a tool for recruitment, radicalization and raising money for terrorists," said FBI Special Agent Thomas Nicpon. "Working on our mission, it has become apparent to me that many of these countries do not possess the cyber skills we have in New York."

Even so, law enforcement is limited in its manpower and rules, Rossmiller said.

"I'm just a private citizen," she told conference attendees, but by working within the confines of the law, her information led to the 2007 conviction of Michael Curtis Reynolds, who was accused of going on terrorist websites looking for money to blow up the trans-Alaska and transcontinental pipelines. Rossmiller posed as a jihadist, tricking Reynolds into revealing his plan.

She also helped convict Ryan Anderson, a National Guardsman embarking on an Iraq tour, who planned to sell U.S. military secrets to Al Qaeda and kill U.S. soldiers. Anderson revealed his plans to Rossmiller's fictitious personality online.

But she does not encourage untrained amateurs to take the risks she has. Rossmiller has received numerous death threats and has been forced to move her family for safety. Her home has been broken into, and her car was stolen and later found riddled with bullets.

"I'm not out there saying, 'Sure, join up the effort, do it from home.' . . . You might find yourself in legal trouble. You might mess up something ongoing and not realize it," Rossmiller said.

Her life has changed in the last seven years, but watching the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, unfold on TV reminded her of how important the sacrifice is.

"I feel it's the right thing to do," she said. "If you have something to offer that is valuable or helpful, why not offer it? If more people did, can you imagine what a different world it would be?"

Report: U.S. spurned Israel plan for attack on Iran nuke reactor

By Reuters

U.S. President George W. Bush deflected Israel's secret request last year for bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran's main nuclear complex, saying he had authorized covert action to sabotage Tehran's suspected atomic weapons development, The New York Times said.

Citing U.S. and foreign officials, the Times reported on Saturday the White House was unable to determine whether Israel had decided to carry out the strike before Washington objected or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was trying to get Bush to act more decisively before he leaves office this month.

Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, bombed the site of a suspected atomic reactor in Syria in 2007.

Details of the expanded U.S. covert program and the Bush administration's efforts to talk Israel out of attacking Iran emerged from 15 months of interviews with current and former U.S. officials, international nuclear inspectors, outside experts and European and Israeli officials, the Times said.

None of those interviewed would speak on the record, the paper said, adding it omitted many details of the covert efforts from its report at the request of senior U.S. intelligence and administration officials.

It said the interviews also suggested "that while Mr. Bush was extensively briefed on options for an overt American attack on Iran's facilities, he never instructed the Pentagon to move beyond contingency planning, even during the final year of his presidency, contrary to what some critics have suggested."

But aware that financial sanctions against Iran were inadequate, Bush turned to the CIA, according to people involved in the covert program, authorizing a broader effort aimed at Iran's industrial infrastructure supporting its nuclear programs, the Times said.

While the paper said details were closely held by U.S. officials, it quoted one as saying, "It was not until the last year that they got really imaginative about what one could do to screw up the system."

But the official said "none of these are game-changers" in that the efforts would not necessarily cripple Iran's program.

Request to fly over Iraq

Under Bush, whose term ends on Jan. 20 when Barack Obama becomes president, the United States has sought tougher UN sanctions against Iran to halt its nuclear program, which Western nations believe is designed for making weapons.

Iran, which has no formal diplomatic relations with the United States and often unleashes virulent rhetoric against Israel, insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.

The Times said some Bush administration officials remained skeptical of the covert program's chances of success given what one said was Iran's proximity to achieving weapons capacity.

Others held that Israel would not have been dissuaded from attacking if they believed the U.S. effort was unlikely to prove effective, the paper said.

In its dealings with Israel, Washington was especially distressed by Israel's request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran's major nuclear complex at Natanz, a request the White House flatly denied, the paper reported.

But the exchanges and tension prompted Washington to step up its intelligence-sharing with Israel, including the new U.S. efforts aimed at sabotaging Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

The Times said its interviews indicated Bush was convinced by officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, that an overt attack on Iran would likely be ineffective, bringing the expulsion of international inspectors and driving Iran's nuclear effort further from view.

"Mr. Bush and his aides also discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war in which America's 140,000 troops in Iraq would inevitably become involved," the paper said.

Bush instead opted for more intensive covert action, it said, adding that those operations and the issue of whether Israel would agree to anything less than a conventional attack on Iran posed vexing problems for Obama

NASA: 2012 'space Katrina' may cripple U.S. for months

(Compiler's note: Another must read.)

By Drew Zahn

Damages could be trillions from solar 'perfect storm'

A recently released NASA report warns that the U.S. has forgotten the power of the sun, creating a technological society susceptible like never before to massive infrastructure damage from solar storms.

The study, carried out for NASA by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, doesn't predict some new solar or environmental disaster. Instead, it studies the effects of the sun's normal, cyclical behavior upon modern technology.

Professor Daniel Baker is director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado and chaired the panel that prepared the report.

"Whether it is terrestrial catastrophes or extreme space weather incidents," writes Baker in a statement released with the report, "the results can be devastating to modern societies that depend in a myriad of ways on advanced technological systems."

According the report, the U.S. has grown so dependent on modern technologies without respect of what the sun can and has done, that it's risking major communications, finance, transportation, government and even emergency services meltdowns.

And if one of the sun's periodic, catastrophic storms hits the earth the way Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. coastline, the report estimates that damages from the "space weather Katrina" could top $1 or $2 trillion.

The sun is currently near minimum on its 11-year activity cycle, the report explains, but is expected to produce solar storms that will increase in intensity and frequency as it approaches peak activity levels in 2012.

The NASA report warns that if the sun's activity over the next few years flares to the level of the May 1921 "superstorm" or the so-called Carrington event of 1859, a "perfect storm" that Space.com called "the most powerful onslaught of solar energy in recorded history," the U.S. may not be equipped to handle the damages.

"The impacts of severe space weather events," the report states, "can go beyond disruption of existing technical systems and lead to short-term, as well as to long-term collateral socioeconomic disruptions."

The report listed possible cascading effects of a major solar storm as "disruption of the transportation, communication, banking and finance systems, and government services; the breakdown of the distribution of potable water owing to pump failure, and the loss of perishable foods and medications because of a lack of refrigeration."

In addition, the researchers warn, "Emergency services would be strained, and command and control might be lost."

Solar storm history

The impact of the solar storms is widely, and even recently, recorded.

In March 1989, a geomagnetic storm took down the power grid over much of Quebec, leaving millions of Canadians without power for hours.

In January 1994, the NASA report records, Canada's $290 million Anik E2 telecommunications satellite was knocked out by a solar storm, and it took six months and $50-70 million to get it back in operation.

One of the most dangerous contributors to solar storms is a coronal mass ejection, an expanding cloud of charged particles belched from the sun and sailing through space at supersonic speeds. According to a video on Space.com, a CME impacted the earth in 1998, knocking a communications satellite out of space to crash in the middle of the U.S. and disrupting nearly every pager signal in the country.

Coronal mass ejections hit the earth relatively routinely. But in 1859, a CME of extreme intensity, exceptionally high speed and magnetic fields opposite the earth's blasted the planet. The resulting "perfect storm" temporarily doubled the light of the sun, caused colorful aurora – normally only visible in the polar regions – to be seen as far south as Hawaii and shorted out telegraph wires, starting fires across the U.S. and Europe.

In 1859, however, the telegraph was only 15 years old. There was no satellite or television technology, no power grids, no automated teller machines and no global positioning systems helping direct traffic on land, air and sea.

"A contemporary repetition of the [1859] event," the NASA report concludes, "would cause significantly more extensive (and possibly catastrophic) social and economic disruptions."

What can be done

Some technologies, particularly those based on satellites such as global positioning systems, have been combating solar storms and the occasional CME for years, working on backup solutions and bypass plans.

The report further mentions technological solutions to many of the possible consequences of a major solar storm, but warns that more work needs to be done to implement safeguards against another storm like those seen in 1921 and 1859.

"A catastrophic failure of commercial and government infrastructure in space and on the ground can be mitigated through raising public awareness, improving vulnerable infrastructure and developing advanced forecasting capabilities," the report states. "Without preventive actions or plans, the trend of increased dependency on modern space-weather sensitive assets could make society more vulnerable in the future."

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's heliophysics division added that more research is also needed.

"To mitigate possible public safety issues," Fisher said, "it is vital that we better understand extreme space weather events caused by the sun's activity."

John Hopkins' Alternative Way

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

Source: A friend

JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN
ALTERNATIVE AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (TRY THE KEY WORD) AND ELIMINATE CANCER.

Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

(a.) Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal,Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute

would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg's amino or sea salt.

(b.) Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened Soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

(c.) Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

(d.) A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains,seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts)and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

(e.) Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines becomes putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-essence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFA's etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

Cautions:

1. No plastic containers in micro.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well.

Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies.

Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers.

This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating
food.

You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.

Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel
instead.

Share this article with everyone important in your life.

Taliban Leader Warns Obama: "The Flames of this Fire will Blow Up on Washington"

from Gateway Pundit

But, what about hope and change?
There is no terror threat. It's Bush's fault. Bush is the warmonger.
You're not supposed to threaten Obama.
That's not in the script.

Mullah Omar and the Taliban have released a letter to Barack Obama prior to Inauguration. The Islamist leaders already warned Obama to cut-&-run or face the consequences. MEMRI provided the translation:

In advance of Barack Obama’s upcoming inauguration as U.S. President, the Taliban in Afghanistan led by Mullah Omar have released an open letter. Entitled "An Open Letter to the White House from the Peaks of Tora Bora," the letter notes that Obama has created history by becoming the first African American to control the White House.

The letter, dated December 27, 2008, urges him to create another history by accepting Islam. The letter was issued by Maulawy Anwarulhaq Mujahid, whose designation reads as the Chief of the Tora Bora Battlefield. It was simultaneously published in Pashtu, Urdu and English languages on the Pashtu language website, www.toorabora.com.

Following are some excerpts from the letter translated from the Urdu version:

"As Long as Baitul Muqaddas Remains in a State of Occupation, Israel and its Supporters will not Remain in Peace"

"President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama!

"First of all, you must know that protection from the wretchedness in the world and the fire of Hell is only available in Islam. Islam is the only religion that guarantees success in this world and in the Hereafter.

"You are the first black in the U.S. history who has established control on the White House; you should also cause one more addition to the U.S. history by becoming the first president to accept the Truth and by adopting the true faith of Islam....

"Do you know that your nation has been pushed into a war against such an Ummah that is like a single body; there is a beginning to this war, but there is no end.

"America thinks that an attack on an Islamic country is just an attack on a single country; this view is wrong; this is why the war has been longer than your expectation, supplies [to troops] have been more than estimated, and loss [of soldiers’ lives] several times more than you thought of. This is not our claim; it is accepted by [George] Bush....

"The people voted you because they expect that you will restore the status of America [that was lost during George Bush’s times], that you will restore the deteriorating U.S. economy and peace; and you will free their beloved children from this war. You can gauge from this how dangerous waves have drowned the Americans that in order to find salvation they are trying to catch every weak straw.

"If you want to keep all your promises to your nation, to give the Americans humanity instead of savagery, peace instead of war, and a successful economy instead of poverty, you should quickly declare the policies of the U.S. and [George] Bush as false."

"Immediately, Withdraw all Troops from Afghanistan and Other Islamic Nations"

"Immediately, withdraw all your troops from Afghanistan and other Islamic nations, apologize to the oppressed nations and own up the responsibility for all of their losses.

"Every incident has a cause and until these causes are eliminated, no incident can be prevented [against the U.S.]. The 9/11 attacks in the U.S. and all attacks have some or the other causes. In order to bring peace to your nation and benefits to America, you should try to find and eliminate these causes; which is about America’s failed policy on Israel. Israel is a source of mischief and conflict not only for the Middle East but for the entire world.

"The U.S.’s support to Israel can prove to be costly for the U.S. It will be the extreme folly to consider the issue of Baitul Maqdis [Jerusalem] as a problem of Palestine or the Arab world alone; it is the issue of the entire Islamic Ummah. As long as Baitul Muqaddas remains in a state of occupation, Israel and its supporters will not remain in peace... You know that Israel has always attempted to demolish the Baitul Muqaddas and it is trying even now to pull down the Baitul Muqaddas from different sides; and in such a situation supporting Israel will be a challenge and an offer of war to the Islamic Ummah whose dreadful consequences can be seen.

"Barack Obama!

"... [We have] heard that you have decided to withdraw your troops from Iraq. To end others’ freedom, to trample upon their rights, to make people cry, to kill them and destroy their countries, [these] can call the world against the United States.

"You should also take a similar decision about Afghanistan; as soon as possible withdraw your troops from our beloved nation. Perhaps you have not studied carefully the geographic location of Afghanistan.... It is impossible that Afghanistan will be subdued by [your decision to] send more troops. Do not take wrong steps like those of [George] Bush; otherwise the results will be similar...."


"Situations like Those in Helmand and Fallujah will Visit in the Cities Like New York and Washington"

"You have technological [Sic.] enemies here [in Afghanistan] who can never bear your occupation... Do you remember the defeat in Vietnam? You have once tested [your strength in] this place; it will be meaningless to try it again. But if you want to make this mistake again be prepared that the flames of this fire will blow up on the White House too, and one day situations like those in [the Afghan province of] Helmand and [the Iraqi town of] Fallujah will visit in the cities like New York and Washington.

But, but... What about the hope and change, guys?
This is a joke, right?
There is no terror threat.

In related news... A leading democrat announced that he is interested in revealing the origins and sweep of the Bush administration's controversial interrogation program and is willing to sponsor legislation if necessary to release many of the documents about the program.
The Taliban and Al-Qaeda can sleep peacefully tonight.
There's a new team running the show now.

Obscuring Gaza

by Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Israel's leaders have purposely obscured their war aims in Gaza. But there are only two possible endgames: (A) a Lebanon-like cessation of hostilities to be supervised by international observers, or (B) the disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza.

Under tremendous international pressure -- including from an increasingly wobbly U.S. State Department -- the government of Ehud Olmert has begun hinting that it is receptive to a French-Egyptian cease-fire plan, essentially acquiescing to Endgame A.

That would be a terrible mistake.

It would fail on its own terms. It would have the same elements as the phony peace in Lebanon: an international force that abjures any meaningful use of force, an arms embargo under which arms will most assuredly flood in, and a cessation of hostilities until the terrorist side is rearmed and ready to initiate the next round of hostilities.

The U.N.-mandated disarmament of Hezbollah in Lebanon is a well-known farce. Not only have foreign forces not stopped Hezbollah's massive rearmament. Their very presence makes it impossible for Israel to take any preventive military action, lest it accidentally hit a blue-helmeted Belgian crossing guard.

The "international community" is now pushing very hard for a replay in Gaza of that charade. Does anyone imagine that international monitors will risk their lives to prevent weapons smuggling? To arrest terrorists? To engage in shootouts with rocket-launching teams attacking Israeli civilians across the Gaza border?

Of course not. Weapons will continue to be smuggled. Deeper and more secure fortifications will be built for the next round. Mosques, schools and hospitals will again be used for weapons storage and terrorist safe havens. Do you think French "peacekeepers" are going to raid them?

Which is why the only acceptable outcome of this war, both for Israel and for the civilized world, is Endgame B: the disintegration of Hamas rule. It is already under way.

This is not about killing every last Hamas gunman. Not possible, not necessary. Regimes rule not by physically overpowering every person in their domain, but by getting the majority to accept their authority. That is what sustains Hamas, and that is what is now under massive assault.

Hamas' leadership is not only seriously degraded but openly humiliated. The great warriors urging others to martyrdom are cowering underground almost entirely incommunicado. Demonstrably unable to protect their own people, they beg for outside help, receiving in return nothing but words from their Arab and Iranian brothers. And who in fact is providing the corridors for humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians? Israel.

In the first four minutes of this war, the Israel Air Force destroyed 50 targets, taking down practically every instrument and symbol of Hamas rule. Gaza's Potemkin leaders were marginalized and rendered helpless, leaving their people to fend for themselves. At such moments, regimes are extremely vulnerable to forfeiting what the Chinese call the mandate of heaven, the sense of legitimacy that undergirds all forms of governance.

The fall of Hamas rule in Gaza is within reach, but only if Israel does not cave in to pressure to stop now. Overthrowing Hamas would not require a permanent Israeli reoccupation. A transitional international force would be brought in to immediately make way for the return of the Palestinian Authority, the legitimate government whose forces will be far less squeamish than the Europeans in establishing order in Gaza.

The disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza would be a devastating blow to Palestinian rejectionists, who since the Hamas takeover of Gaza have been the ascendant "strong horse" in Palestinian politics. It would be a devastating blow to Iran as patron of radical Islamist movements throughout the region, particularly after the defeat and marginalization of Iran's Sadrist client in Iraq. It would encourage the moderate Arab states to continue their U.S.-allied confrontation of Iran and its proxies. And it would demonstrate Israel's irreplaceable strategic value to the U.S. in curbing and containing Iran's regional ambitions.

Olmert had such an opportunity in Lebanon. He blew it. He now has a rare second chance. The one-step-from-madness gangster theocracy in Gaza -- just four days before the fighting, the Hamas parliament passed a Sharia criminal code, legalizing, among other niceties, crucifixion -- is teetering on the brink. It can be brought down, but only if Israel is prepared -- and allowed -- to complete the real mission of this war. For the Bush State Department, in its last significant act, to prevent that with the premature imposition of a cease-fire would be not just self-defeating but shameful.

Another Great Depression?

by Thomas Sowell

With both Barack Obama's supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration's policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were and-- more important-- what their consequences were.

The prevailing view in many quarters is that the stock market crash of 1929 was a failure of the free market that led to massive unemployment in the 1930s-- and that it was intervention of Roosevelt's New Deal policies that rescued the economy.

It is such a good story that it seems a pity to spoil it with facts. Yet there is something to be said for not repeating the catastrophes of the past.

Let's start at square one, with the stock market crash in October 1929. Was this what led to massive unemployment?

Official government statistics suggest otherwise. So do new statistics on unemployment by two current scholars, Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway, in their book "Out of Work."

The Vedder and Gallaway statistics allow us to follow unemployment month by month. They put the unemployment rate at 5 percent in November 1929, a month after the stock market crash. It hit 9 percent in December-- but then began a generally downward trend, subsiding to 6.3 percent in June 1930.

That was when the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were passed, against the advice of economists across the country, who warned of dire consequences.

Five months after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, the unemployment rate hit double digits for the first time in the 1930s.

This was more than a year after the stock market crash. Moreover, the unemployment rate rose to even higher levels under both Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom intervened in the economy on an unprecedented scale.

Before the Great Depression, it was not considered to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression. But the Smoot-Hawley tariff-- designed to save American jobs by restricting imports-- was one of Hoover's interventions, followed by even bigger interventions by FDR.

The rise in unemployment after the stock market crash of 1929 was a blip on the screen compared to the soaring unemployment rates reached later, after a series of government interventions.

For nearly three consecutive years, beginning in February 1932, the unemployment rate never fell below 20 percent for any month before January 1935, when it fell to 19.3 percent, according to the Vedder and Gallaway statistics.

In other words, the evidence suggests that it was not the "problem" of the financial crisis in 1929 that caused massive unemployment but politicians' attempted "solutions." Is that the history that we seem to be ready to repeat?

The stock market crash, which has been blamed for the widespread suffering during the Great Depression of the 1930s, created no unemployment rate that was even half of what was created in the wake of the government interventions of Hoover and FDR.

Politically, however, Franklin D. Roosevelt could not have been more successful. After all, he was the only President of the United States elected four times in a row. He was a master of political rhetoric.

If Barack Obama wants political success, following in the footsteps of FDR looks like the way to go. But people who are concerned about the economy need to take a closer look at history. We deserve something better than repeating the 1930s disasters.

There is yet another factor that provides a parallel to what happened during the Great Depression. No matter how much worse things got after government intervention under Roosevelt's New Deal policies, the party line was that he had to "do something" to get us out of the disaster created by the failure of the unregulated market and Hoover's "do nothing" policies.

Today, increasing numbers of scholars recognize that FDR's own policies were a further extension of interventions begun under Hoover. Moreover, the temporary rise in unemployment after the stock market crash was nowhere near the massive and long-lasting unemployment after government interventions.

Barack Obama already has his Herbert Hoover to blame for any and all disasters that his policies create: George W. Bush.

Defense Spending Would Be Great Stimulus

(Compiler's note: Unfortunately, the good professor doesn’t realize that there are four military services. He even talks about the junior service, the Air Force, but then talks of three services. I insist that the Air Force be included! Semper Fidelis)

All three service branches are in need of upgrade and repair.

By MARTIN FELDSTEIN

The Department of Defense is preparing budget cuts in response to the decline in national income. The DOD budgeteers and their counterparts in the White House Office of Management and Budget apparently reason that a smaller GDP requires belt-tightening by everyone.

AP/USAF

We could use some more F-22s.

That logic is exactly backwards. As President-elect Barack Obama and his economic advisers recognize, countering a deep economic recession requires an increase in government spending to offset the sharp decline in consumer outlays and business investment that is now under way. Without that rise in government spending, the economic downturn would be deeper and longer. Although tax cuts for individuals and businesses can help, government spending will have to do the heavy lifting. That's why the Obama team will propose a package of about $300 billion a year in additional federal government outlays and grants to states and local governments.

A temporary rise in DOD spending on supplies, equipment and manpower should be a significant part of that increase in overall government outlays. The same applies to the Department of Homeland Security, to the FBI, and to other parts of the national intelligence community.

The increase in government spending needs to be a short-term surge with greater outlays in 2009 and 2010 but then tailing off sharply in 2011 when the economy should be almost back to its prerecession level of activity. Buying military supplies and equipment, including a variety of off-the-shelf dual use items, can easily fit this surge pattern.

For the military, the increased spending will require an expanded supplemental budget for 2009 and an increased budget for 2010. A 10% increase in defense outlays for procurement and for research would contribute about $20 billion a year to the overall stimulus budget. A 5% rise in spending on operations and maintenance would add an additional $10 billion. That spending could create about 300,000 additional jobs. And raising the military's annual recruitment goal by 15% would provide jobs for an additional 30,000 young men and women in the first year.

The Opinion Journal Widget

Download Opinion Journal's widget and link to the most important editorials and op-eds of the day from your blog or Web page.

An important challenge for those who are designing the overall stimulus package is to avoid wasteful spending. One way to achieve that is to do things during the period of the spending surge that must eventually be done anyway. It is better to do them now when there is excess capacity in the economy than to wait and do them later.

Replacing the supplies that have been depleted by the military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan is a good example of something that might be postponed but that should instead be done quickly. The same is true for replacing the military equipment that has been subject to excessive wear and tear. More generally, replacement schedules for vehicles and other equipment should be accelerated to do more during the next two years than would otherwise be economically efficient.

Industry experts and DOD officials confirm that military suppliers have substantial unused capacity with which to produce additional supplies and equipment. Even those production lines that are currently at full capacity can be greatly expanded by going from a single shift to a two-shift production schedule. With industrial production in the economy as a whole down sharply, there is no shortage of potential employees who can produce supplies and equipment.

Military procurement has the further advantage that almost all of the equipment and supplies that the military buys is made in the United States, creating demand and jobs here at home.

Increased military spending should involve more than just accelerated replacement schedules. Each of the military services can identify new equipment and additional quantities of existing equipment that can improve our fighting ability in Afghanistan and our ability to protect our military forces while they are in combat.

Military planners must also look ahead to the missions that each of the services may be called upon to do in the future. Additional funding would allow the Air Force to increase the production of fighter planes and transport aircraft without any delays. The Army could accelerate its combat modernization program. The Navy could build additional ships to deal with its increased responsibilities in protecting coastal shipping and in countering terrorism. And all three services have significant infrastructure needs.

Although some activities like ship building cannot be completed in the two year stimulus period, the major part of the expenditures can be brought forward in time by acquiring components and materials quickly and holding them in inventory until they are needed in the ship building process. Such a departure from just-in-time inventory management would be wasteful under normal conditions, but makes economic sense when there is temporary excess capacity.

Now is also a good time for the military to increase recruiting and training. Because of the current very high and rising unemployment rates among young men and women, it would make sense to depart from the military's traditional enlistment rules and bring in recruits for a short, two-year period of training followed by a return to the civilian economy. As a minimum this would provide education in a variety of technical skills -- electronics, equipment maintenance, computer programming, nuclear facility operations, etc. -- that would lead to better civilian careers for this group. It would also provide a larger reserve force that could be called upon if needed by the military in the future.

The budgets for homeland security, for intelligence activities, and for the FBI have increased substantially during the past decade. The greater terrorist threat fully justifies these additional funds. The current two-year stimulus period provides an opportunity for additional temporary spending increases with high payoffs.

Investments in port security would reduce a major homeland vulnerability. Expanding the government's language training programs for new intelligence community recruits would provide more translators who can monitor the terrorist communications that we are able to intercept. Additional infrastructure for the FBI would remove an important constraint on the number of new FBI agents.

The Obama team's goal of sending a stimulus package to Congress before the end of January may not leave enough time to work out the details of expanded military and intelligence budgets. If so, the stimulus plan should ask the Congress to provide a total of at least $30 billion a year of increased outlays in these budget categories. A substantial short-term rise in spending on defense and intelligence would both stimulate our economy and strengthen our nation's security.

Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal's board of contributors.