FBI raids lobby firm with Murtha ties

By Susan Crabtree

The FBI raided the offices of a PMA Group, a powerful lobbying firm with close ties to Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.).

PMA Group spokesman Patrick Dorton confirmed the raid in a statement Monday afternoon.

"Government representatives did come to the PMA offices," Dorton said. "They requested a number of different kinds of information. The firm is cooperating with their requests."

The raid took place in November in PMA’s Virginia headquarters, according to an ABC News report.

The firm specializes in obtaining defense earmarks for its clients, which have received hundreds of millions of dollars.

In fact, in 2008, PMA clients received $299 million worth of earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS). Murtha has been credited with obtaining many of them. Small defense firms located in or near Murtha’s district make up a major portion of PMA Group’s clients. Paul Magliochetti, a former top appropriations staffer who worked closely with Murtha and other senior members of the spending panel, founded PMA group.

It is unclear whether Murtha is a target of the federal investigation. Murtha spokesman Matthew Mazonkey told ABC News the congressman had not been contacted by the FBI and does not believe he's the target of an investigation. "I'm not going to waste my time with sensationalized journalism," Mazonkey said.

PMA Group is the second lobbying firm with close ties to Murtha the FBI has raided in recent months. In January, agents from the FBI, IRS and Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the offices of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems, as well as the homes of the firms executives.

Murtha has reportedly directed more than $100 million in earmarks to the Kuchera firms.

According to TCS, which tracks earmarks and lawmakers who obtain them, Murtha tied Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) in obtaining the most earmarks for PMA Group’s clients in 2008. Each came in with a total of 16 earmarks. Rep Bill Young (R-Fla.) came in second with nine earmarks for PMA Group clients while Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) won eight earmarks for PMA Clients.

TCS has not compiled this data yet for FY 2009.

Today's Reading Assignment

by Spook86

"Planning Victory in Afghanistan," by Dr. Frederick Kagan, one of the principal architects of the troop surge in Iraq. In his essay, published by NRO, Kagan lists nine principles the Obama Administration should follow to win the Afghan war.

Well worth the read. .... Pashtuns don’t work that way. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan at the end of 1979 and quickly occupied all of the major urban areas. The insurgents, for the most part, did not contest that occupation. They focused instead on cutting off communications between the cities, on ambushing Soviet troops moving outside urban areas and villages, and on attacking isolated Soviet outposts. The Soviets did not know how to respond—they had no context for thinking about a rural insurgency. They had fought the Second World War city by city, and had suppressed rebellions in their Eastern European satellites by fighting through their capitals. They tried to subdue the Pashtuns with ferocious and indiscriminate bombing of Afghan villages, generating 5 million refugees and strengthening the resistance rather than breaking it. ....

.... This essay does not provide a plan or a strategy for success in Afghanistan. It provides, rather, a set of guidelines for thinking about how to develop one, and for evaluating plans articulated by the administration, its generals, and outsiders. Ultimately, a plan for winning in Afghanistan has to be developed in Afghanistan, just as the plan for winning in Iraq was developed in Iraq. It is a truism that any plan must involve not only the U.S. and allied militaries, but all relevant civilian and international agencies, and must deeply involve the Afghans themselves at every level. Our military and civilian leaders understand that truism. We have failed to date in accomplishing the objective not because we haven’t known that we must, but because it is very hard to do.....

Pelosi’s power grab

(Compiler's note: Thought you'd like to know .... must read.)

by Armand C. Hale

With all the focus on the stimulus bill in the news, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has also effectively moved to SILENCE what CONSERVATIVES are left in Congress, keep the American public in the dark and made a naked grab for power!

On the very first day of Congress, Pelosi pushed through a change to a House rule known as the “motion to recommit,“ a rule that was implemented a CENTURY AGO specifically to PROHIBIT the leadership of the majority party from railroading horrendous legislation through Congress under the cover of darkness.

So what is the “motion to recommit?“ What are the ramifications of doing away with it?

Here are 50 real life examples.

Republicans used the tactic 50 times in the last Congress, primarily to block tax increases buried in larger bills.“ On 50 occasions during the last session of Congress, Pelosi and Company tried to sneak tax increases, anti-Second Amendment measures and amnesty for illegal aliens, among other things into unrelated bills. On those 50 occasions, conservatives exercised their right to send the bills back to committee to FORCE liberal committee members to actually go on record.

Secrecy Is the Liberals’ Favorite Weapon. Seriously, Pelosi and her left-wing cohorts in Congress firmly believe that what YOU don’t know won’t hurt THEM. They believe that as long as you don’t know what they’re up to, they can get away with whatever they want to impose on the American people.

Pelosi is depending on the cover of darkness and the silence of her allies in the media to keep her shenanigans under wraps. The last thing Pelosi wants is for the American people to find out what she has done. The cat is out of the bag. Without the House rule known as the “motion to recommit” the Congress can;

Secretly raise your taxes.

Secretly impose amnesty for illegal aliens on your community and your neighborhood.

Secretly take away your ability to protect your family by regulating away your right to own and keep a firearm.

The list could go on and on.

Right now, Diabolical New Congressional Plans are being placed to Fund Emergency Bail-Outs by Meddling, Manipulating, and Even “Merging” Tax-Deferred Retirement Plans Such as 401(k) s into the Insolvent Social Security System. A Desperately Cash-Strapped Liberal Congress Will Soon Double Cross American Taxpayers and Investors With Massive Changes and Absolutely No Warning.

Congressional committees are already holding hearings on how the government can “tap” millions of 401(k) retirement funds

to stave off the Social Security system’s emerging insolvency crisis. This is What Obama Really Means By “Spreading the Wealth”, it involves your 401K. In fact the radical dominated House Education and Labor Committee are already floating plans to “merge” privately-owned 401K accounts with the Social Security system which former U.S. Comptroller David Walker has been warning is little more than a vault of government IOUs.

In such a “merger” spearheaded by House committee chairman Rep. George Miller, a Marxist hailing from California’s Berkeley area, your tax-sheltered personal investments would be liquidated, dumped into government bonds, and linked up with the cash desperate Social Security “retirement” system. As government bureaucrats “spread the wealth,“ you are reduced to standing in line, hat in hand, hoping you get some portion of your life savings back.

Is this the kind of openness and transparency that Obama promised? This rule change would create the most closed Congress in history. It would silence the voices of tens of millions of Americans by further shutting down open debate on the House floor and taking away the minority’s right to offer substantive policy alternatives on behalf of millions of Americans they represent.“

Legislators are trying to get the message out but they need your help to drive the message home.

It’s a choice between freedom and tyranny. Will you stand up for your freedoms?

That’s your choice!

Pakistan tells US it will curb nuclear scientist Khan's freedom

Pakistan has told the United States it will put some curbs around freed scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to prevent him from becoming a renewed nuclear proliferation threat, a US official said on Monday.

However, the official said the United States wanted more as well as "solid" assurances from Pakistan that he will not be such a threat after a court released Khan, dubbed the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, from house arrest on Friday. ....

Obama Signs Presidential Determination Allowing Palestinians Loyal to Hamas to Resettle In US

(Compiler's note: Must read ... before it is too late.)

by Kim Priestap

President Barack Obama has signed an executive order presidential determination allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to resettle in the United States. Sure, what can go wrong when we allow hundreds of thousands of people who have been, as Mark Steyn memorably described, "marinated" in a "sick death cult," who voted for Hamas, and 55% of whom support suicide bombings live here and at the American taxpayers' expense:

By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in migration assistance to the Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.

The "presidential determination" which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.

President Obama's decision, according to the Register, was necessitated by "the urgent refugee and migration needs" of the "victims."

Few on Capitol Hill took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.

Let's review some of Barack Obama's most recent actions since he was inaugurated a little more than two weeks ago:

* His first call to any head of state as president was to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah party in the Palestinian territory.

* His first one on one interview with any news organization was with Al Arabia television.

* He ordered Guantanamo Bay closed and all military trials of detainees halted.

* He ordered all overseas CIA interrogation centers closed.

* He withdrew all charges against the masterminds behind the USS Cole and 9/11.

* Today we learn that he is allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to and live in the US at American taxpayer expense.

Anyone else seeing a pattern here?

This explains it all

(Compiler's note: The rest of the story .... must read.)

Source: A friend

Remember when the economic crisis hit and the giant investment banking firm of Bear Sterns filed for bankruptcy? The company asked for financial assistance from the government but Congress decided (wisely) that private businesses make their own decisions and should be held accountable for them. Consequently, Bear Sterns went out of business.

Then several months later AIG, the huge insurance company, announced it too was in financial difficulty. Congress did a 180 turn in their philosophy and provided bailout money for AIG. Why the change of heart? Was it out of concern for the tens of thousands of citizens who might loose money? Or perhaps Congress was suddenly concerned for the economy as a whole. Well, it was nothing that complicated.

AIG INSURES THE PENSION TRUST FUND FOR MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS!

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan

(Compiler's note: Thought you'd like to know -- a must read.)

by Betsy McCaughey

Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

More Scrutiny Needed

On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.

It’s Not the Prison, It’s the Prisoners

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Obama can close Guantanamo Bay, but that won’t make the war go away.

Among our illustrious allies in the War on Terror, Yemen ranks right up there with Pakistan, whose government just released nuke-peddler A. Q. Kahn from house arrest. Yemen’s government says it is preparing a major combat operation to drain one of the many swamps where jihad festers. So what preparations is it making? Massing troops? Infiltrating terrorist strongholds to identify top targets? No, Yemen’s approach is a little different: They’re releasing al-Qaeda operatives from prison—more than 170 of them.

It’s a development worth remembering as the Obama administration continues its hand-wringing over the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, where 245 enemy combatants, including 21 charged with war crimes, are being held.

The Yemen/Gitmo nexus is in the news again because of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a ringleader behind the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden. Last week, the “appointing authority” (sometimes called the “convening authority”), which oversees military commissions at Gitmo, dismissed all charges against Nashiri. The action came after the military judge handling Nashiri’s case denied prosecutors’ request that the case be adjourned for four months while the Obama administration studies the commissions.

The dismissal of charges against Nashiri is far from the end of the case. The charges can be reinstated; the question is, where? That is what the Obama administration is studying. At issue is whether to keep military commissions (which Obama opposed as a candidate), to end them by transferring war-crimes cases to the civilian courts, or to come up with a different system altogether.

Nashiri is a Saudi terrorist who, like many other Saudi terrorists, found friendly operating conditions throughout Yemen, the ancestral home of the bin Laden clan. That’s because Yemen has still more in common with Pakistan: a weak government and an ungovernable tribal hinterland—optimal conditions for a thriving Islamic terror network. A Yemeni court convicted Nashiri in absentia, but that fact is meaningless: The Cole plotters who were rounded up and prosecuted by Yemen all have been released. That includes Jamal al-Badawi, who supposedly was sentenced to death. (Our valued ally has refused to extradite him.) It also includes at least two who bee-lined to Iraq to rejoin the jihad.

The moral of the story is reiterated with each new report of released terrorists returning promptly to terror, as they reliably do: If we didn’t already have Gitmo, we’d have to invent it. There really is a war going on out there. President Obama admitted as much in his inaugural address, to the unspoken dismay, no doubt, of his most ardent supporters. We cannot rely very much on other countries to protect our national security.

It has never been possible, nor thought possible, to win a war in court. There are simply too many jihadists, with the vast majority operating outside the jurisdiction of our laws. When we are fortunate enough to nab one, that usually happens under fog-of-war conditions not conducive to Miranda warnings, police evidence-collection protocols, and the like. And it bears keeping in mind that the purpose of an American trial is to force the government to meet a very high burden of proof in a system developed for the benefit of American citizens enjoying the presumption of innocence. That is why we say we would prefer to see the government fail—i.e., prefer to see the guilty go free—than to see an innocent person wrongly convicted.

War is different. A war is fought—meaning that people are killed and prisoners taken—in order to achieve vital national objectives, particularly the protection of American lives. In that context, we cannot prefer to see the government fail. We need the government to prevail, or our lives and the rights we cherish are in jeopardy. That doesn’t mean the enemy doesn’t get due process, particularly if we decide to put some of them on trial for war crimes rather than simply detaining them for the duration of the conflict. There is, however, a reason it is called due process, rather than, say, trial process. We owe only the process that is due in the particular circumstances. War and peace are not the same circumstance. The process due Americans accused of crimes in civilian courts is not the same as the process due foreign combatants and terrorists captured during military operations.

While 245 prisoners remain at Gitmo, we’ve detained tens of thousands in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere at one time or another in the course of this war. Gitmo has never held more than 800 prisoners. And even the gross number of detainees in this conflict pales in comparison to the number held, for example, in World War II, during which millions of prisoners were taken. We couldn’t conceivably conduct full-blown civilian trials for everyone detained under the necessities of war. Even in the Clinton years, when trial in the civilian courts was the favored counterterrorism strategy, we tried fewer than three dozen terrorists—even as Americans were attacked year after year.

Obama preparing to lift sanctions against Syria

(Compiler's note: Must read)

from World Tribune

NICOSIA — President Barack Obama has decided on a new U.S. ambassador to Syria and is expected to lift sanctions against a nation charged with aiding Al Qaida in Iraq and secretly building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance.

Diplomatic sources said Obama, in consultation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has asked Frederic Hof to become the first U.S. ambassador to Damascus since 2005. The sources said Hof, a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Middle East Policy Council, agreed to take the post.

"There will be an announcement very soon," a diplomat said.

The sources said the Obama administration was expected to suspend U.S. sanctions on Syria's military and energy programs.

They said Hof would be authorized to facilitate an expansion of U.S. relations with Syria, which deteriorated under President George Bush.

In 2005, the United States withdrew its ambassador to Damascus in wake of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria was blamed for the car bombing in Beirut in which Hariri and many of his bodyguards were killed.

The sources said Obama sent emissaries to Syria in September 2008 and pledged that if elected he would reconcile with the regime of President Bashar Assad. After his election victory, they said, Obama sent another message that promised to appoint an ambassador within the first weeks of his administration.

Hof, an Arabic speaker and former U.S. Army officer, was said to be close to Obama's new Middle East envoy, George Mitchell. Hof worked with Mitchell when the latter headed a fact-finding commission on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2002.

Obama's intention to reconcile with Iran and Syria has been supported by the Democratic majority in Congress. In February, congressional delegations were planning visits to Damascus, including one headed by House Foreign Relations Committee chairman Rep. Howard Berman. Another delegation was scheduled to include members of the Senate Foreign Relations.

A delegation of the House Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, headed by Rep. Adam Smith, has already visited Damascus and met Syrian leaders. The sources said Smith focused his talks on Obama's plans to end sanctions, particularly the Syrian Accountability Act, on the Assad regime.

"Congress wants some sort of commitment that Syria will end support to Hamas and Hizbullah, but this is not expected," a diplomatic source said.

On Feb. 8, the Syrian regime reported a breakthrough in trade relations with the United States. The state-owned Al Baath daily said the United States has agreed to sell spare parts for the repair of two Boeing 747 passenger jets owned by the state-owned Syrian airline.

Syrian Transport Minister Yaroub Bader said Damascus received U.S. approval on Feb. 6. Under U.S. sanctions, Damascus had been denied requests for weapons and aerospace components.

---

U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailouts as Senate Votes

The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages..... bailout

John Esposito: In praise of Obama and dhimmitude

Profundity of thought?

The overarching theme of this wonderful piece of literary dhimmitude is the great need for Americans to "respect" Islam and exhibit "humility" towards Muslims. The logic is that these two approaches will ameliorate "radicalism" in the Muslim world. That the reverse appears to be true; that those two traits in and of themselves -- "respect" and "humility" -- often exacerbate radicalism and are seen as signs of weakness, is of no interest to the professor.

"Obama reaches out: rebuilding relations with the Muslim world," by John L. Esposito for Today's Zaman, February 9:

President Barack Obama has moved quickly to follow up on his inaugural statement: "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect." He appointed and sent his special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to the region on an eight-day trip.

Then, on Jan. 28, Obama, on Al Arabiya, the prominent Arab satellite TV network, addressed the Arab and Muslim worlds in his first televised interview from the White House.

For many Muslims, eight years of the Bush administration's war against global terrorism has looked more like the use of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and then the promotion of democracy to legitimate a neo-colonial design to redraw the political map of the Muslim world. Conscious of the popular perception and fear that the US has been fighting a war against Islam and Muslims, President Obama sought to counter soaring anti-Americanism and reassure Muslims that "the Americans are not your enemy." Signaling a shift from the global perception of US arrogance and interventionism, Obama declared that, while "we sometimes make mistakes," America is not a colonial power and expressed his hope for a restoration of "the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."

Now one knows why Iran feels smugly entitled to an(other) apology from the US: it sees that they are being issued uncritically. Also, why think that the "respect and partnership" the US had with the Muslim world 20-30 years ago disappeared because the US has made "mistakes"? Sounds more reasonable to believe that "respect and partnership" went the way of the dodo 20-30 years ago precisely because radical Islam, with all its disdain for infidels, began spreading like wildfire in the Islamic world right around then (e.g., Iran's Islamic revolution).

Obama's message did strike many of the right chords. He spoke directly to the peoples of the Muslim world, not to its rulers. He communicated a sense of respect, humility and, at the same time, confidence and conviction. His message was one that emphasized the importance of mutual understanding and respect for the peoples of the Muslim world, declaring: "My job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people. … My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy." Obama also emphasized a new readiness to listen rather than to dictate.

No quarrel here: To be sure, "humility" (i.e., dhimmitude) is a trait Muslims expect from infidels; moreover, the Islamic world is certainly "filled with extraordinary people."

Gallup World Poll findings in 2007 from more than 35 countries, extending from North Africa to Southeast Asia, underscore the importance of Obama addressing this sense of powerlessness, humiliation and lack of respect. (See, John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think").

A book that was also heavily criticized in reviews for distorting and misrepresenting data.

When asked in an open-ended question what the West could do to improve relations, the most frequent response was respect Islam and Muslims, not consider them inferior. Obama clearly spoke to this concern both in his inaugural speech and on Al Arabiya: "In all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I've come to understand is that regardless of your faith -- and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers -- regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams."

Obama's message of self-criticism and restraint, diplomacy and peace and partnership over unilateralism resonates with the vast majority of Muslims who, like Americans, want peace, not war, security not instability and terrorism, as well as leadership based on partnership not unilateralism. But they also want to see a respect that is reflected in even-handedness and justice.

The president is correct in stating, "We can have legitimate disagreements but still be respectful." However, in a post-Gaza Middle East, the US cannot signal a new approach to Middle East foreign policy that has credibility if, while rightly reinforcing America's commitment to Israel and condemning terrorist attacks, Obama says nothing critical about Israel's war in Gaza and its use of violence and terror. Israel did not simply attack terrorists and destroy their infrastructure, but Gaza's elected government and its society. The unrestrained violence and terror unleashed on the people of Gaza, the destruction of much of Gaza's infrastructure and institutions (homes, neighborhoods, universities, schools, mosques, police stations and hospitals), and the disproportionate loss of civilian life and casualties (1,300 Palestinians, including at least 700 civilians versus 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians) threatens to radicalize a generation of Palestinians.

Obama characterized his approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and his advice to Mitchell by saying: "So let's listen. He's going to be speaking to all the major parties involved." This "new" policy will require that the US work with all the players, Hamas, the Palestinian National Authority and Israel. Whatever it may think of Hamas, a reality-based, pragmatic American foreign policy must remember and respect the fact that the people of Palestine (in the West Bank as well as Gaza) made their choice in democratic elections in 2006, electing a Hamas-led government. The Muslim world remembers that subsequently the US and Israel chose to boycott and blockade Gaza in an effort to undermine and overthrow the democratically elected government.

Esposito has it backwards. That the Palestinians did elect Hamas, if anything, exonerates all US/Israeli actions: after all, the people, freely and willingly, chose a radical Islamist organization, one that preaches nothing but death and destruction to Israel. And this is supposed to make Israel and the US "respect" Palestinians and better cooperate with them? That's the price of democracy: the leaders reflect the people.

As the Gallup World Poll found, both the mainstream Muslim majority and a minority of potential extremists want better relations with the West -- coexistence, not conflict. Most admire America's basic principles and values of self-determination, freedoms, democracy and human rights. At the same time, Obama and the US face a Muslim world in which many have deep fears and grievances, fear of Western intervention, invasion and domination, and the belief that the West, in particular the US, uses a double standard in its promotion of democracy and human rights.

While many Muslims are critical of the policies and actions of the US, Israel and their own governments, the wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza, authoritarian regimes, lack of freedoms and human rights, the majority also reject extremism and terrorism as a response. To restore America's global image, moral stature and leadership and further weaken the extremists, the Obama administration must listen to -- not necessarily agree with -- and not dictate to but also seek to work at nongovernmental levels with mainstream Muslim organizations and NGOs in addressing these concerns and injustices.

Al Qaeda's paramilitary 'Shadow Army'

(Compiler's note: Yes, a must read article here.)

By Bill Roggio

Al Qaeda has reorganized its notorious paramilitary formations that were devastated during the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002. Al Qaeda has reestablished the predominantly Arab and Asian paramilitary formation that was formerly known as Brigade 055 into a larger, more effective fighting unit known as the Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, a senior US intelligence official told The Long War Journal.

The Shadow Army is active primarily in Pakistan's tribal areas, the Northwest Frontier Province, and in eastern and southern Afghanistan, several US military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.

The paramilitary force is well trained and equipped, and has successfully defeated the Pakistani Army in multiple engagements. Inside Pakistan, the Shadow Army has been active in successful Taliban campaigns in North and South Waziristan, Bajaur, Peshawar, Khyber, and Swat.

In Afghanistan, the Shadow Army conducted operations against Coalition and Afghan forces in Kunar, Nuristan, Nangahar, Kabul, Logar, Wardak, Khost, Paktika, Paktia, Zabul, Ghazni, and Kandahar provinces.

"The Shadow Army has been instrumental in the Taliban's consolidation of power in Pakistan's tribal areas an in the Northwest Frontier Province," a senior intelligence official said. "They are also behind the Taliban's successes in eastern and southern Afghanistan. They are helping to pinch Kabul."

Afghan and Pakistan-based Taliban forces have integrated elements of its forces into the Shadow Army, "especially the Tehrik-e-Taliban and Haqqani Network," a senior US military intelligence official said. "It is considered a status symbol" for groups to be a part of the Shadow Army.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban is the Pakistani Taliban movement led by Baitullah Mehsud, the South Waziristan leader who has defeated Pakistani Army forces in conventional battles. The Haqqani Network straddles the Afghan-Pakistani border and have been behind some of the most high-profile attacks in Afghanistan.

The Shadow Army's effectiveness has placed the group in the cross hairs of the covert US air campaign in Pakistan's tribal areas. In October 2008, the US killed Khalid Habib al Shami, the leader of the Shadow Army, in a strike on a compound in North Waziristan.

A look at the Shadow Army

The presence of the Shadow Army has been evident for some time as there are numerous reports of joint operations between the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, Hizb-i-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, and other terror groups. In January 2008, The Long War Journal noted the various terror groups were cycling through the numerous camps in the tribal areas and have organized under military structure.

While the Shadow Army has been active, there has been little visual evidence of its existence until now. The Long War Journal has obtained a photograph of a unit from the Shadow Army operating in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled district of Swat.

The photograph was taken some time in January of this year. It shows what appears to be either a reinforced squad or two squads of foot soldiers. Fourteen fighters are in view, and others appear to be in the far background. All of the fighters are wearing masks, new clothes, sneakers, and web gear. One fighters is wearing a Camelbak. The weapons are uniform; six AK-47s and one RPG are in view.

A look at the clothing of the fighters gives a good indication of the identity of the fighters, an expert on al Qaeda told The Long War Journal. The length of the pants of pictured fighters are described as being at "al Qaeda height" - meaning only al Qaeda and allied "Wahhabi/Salafi-jihadis" wear their pant legs this high.

"The extremists who follow al Qaeda's religious beliefs think that pants must be at least six inches above the ground because there's a hadith [a saying of the Prophet Mohammed] that says clothes that touch the ground are a sign of pride and vanity," the expert said. "This, along with the new dyeing of men's beards red or yellow is a sure sign of al Qaeda-ization."

The type of masks worn and the tennis shoes are also strong indicators that these fighters "are non-Afghan fighters," an expert on the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan said. "Those types of masks I have seen, and they are always on the Pakistani side of the border," the expert said. "The tennis shoes and socks are a big indicator that they are non-Afghan fighters, probably Pakistanis or Arab/Central Asian fighters."

Military Organization of the Shadow Army

The Shadow Army is organized under a military structure, a US military intelligence officer familiar with the situation in northwestern Pakistan informed The Long War Journal. There are units analogous to battalion, brigade, and division formations found in Western armies.

The military organization has a clear-cut command structure with established ranks. A senior al Qaeda military leader is placed in command of the Shadow Army, while experienced officers are put in command of the brigades and subordinate battalions and companies.

The re-formed Brigade 055 is but one of an estimated three to four brigades in the Shadow Army. Several other Arab brigades have been formed, some consisting of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards as well as Iraqis, Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians, North Africans, and others.

During the rein of the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to the US invasion in 2001, the 055 Brigade served as "the shock troops of the Taliban and functioned as an integral part of the latter's military apparatus," al Qaeda expert Rohan Gunaratna wrote in Inside al Qaeda. At its peak in 2001, the 055 Brigade had an estimated 2,000 soldiers and officers in the ranks. The brigade comprised of Arabs, Central Asians, South Asians, as well as Chechens, Bosnians, and Uighurs from Western China.

The 055 Brigade has "completely reformed and surpassing pre-2001 standards," an official said. The other brigades are also considered well trained.

One official said the mixing of the various Taliban and al Qaeda units has made distinctions between the groups somewhat meaningless.

"The line between the Taliban and al Qaeda is increasingly blurred, especially from a command and control perspective," the official said. "Are Faqir Mohammed, Baitullah Mehsud, Hakeemullah Mehsud, Ilyas Kashmiri, Siraj Haqqani, and all the rest 'al Qaeda?,'" the official asked, listing senior Taliban commanders in Pakistan that operate closely with al Qaeda. "Probably not in the sense that they maintain their own independent organizations, but the alliance is essentially indistinguishable at this point except at a very abstract level."

The Taliban have begun an ideological conversion to Wahhabism, the radical form of Sunni Islam practiced by al Qaeda. "The radicalization of the Taliban and their conversion away from Deobandism to Wahhabism under Sheikh Issa al Masri and other al Qaeda leaders is a clear sign of the al Qaeda's preeminence," the official noted. Sheikh Issa is the spiritual adviser for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Ayman al Zawahiri's organization that merged into al Qaeda, and the leader of al Jihad fi Waziristan, an al Qaeda branch in North Waziristan.

The establishment of the joint Taliban and al Qaeda military formations under the overall command of the Shadow Army has been facilitated by the proliferation of terror training camps in the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province.

In the summer of 2008, senior US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal that more than 150 camps and more than 400 support locations were in operation in Northwestern Pakistan. Most of the camps are considered "transient" in nature, an official said. Trainers and recruits may gather in villages and meet to conduct training in the vast mountains and valleys in Pakistan's northwest. As of last summer, an estimated 25 to 40 of the camps were considered permanent.

These camps have various functions, and not all of them are used to train the Shadow Army. Some of the camps are used to indoctrinate and train suicide bombers for attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and the West. Some of the camps are devoted to training the various Kashmiri terror groups who have flocked to the tribal areas and are also integrating with the terror alliance. One of these camps serves as a training ground for the Black Guard, the elite bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and other senior al Qaeda leaders.

An effective fighting force

The Shadow Army has distinguished itself during multiple battles over the past several years, particularly in Pakistan's tribal areas and in the Northwest Frontier Province. Taliban forces under the command of Baitullah Mehsud defeated the Pakistani Army in South Waziristan during fighting in 2005-2006, and again fended off the Pakistani Army in 2008 after fighting pitched battles and overrunning a series of forts.

In Swat, the Pakistani military was twice defeated by forces under the command of Mullah Fazlullah during 2007 and 2008. Earlier this year, the military has launched its third attempt to secure Swat.

In Bajaur, the hidden hand of the Shadow Army was seen in multiple reports from the region. Taliban forces dug a series of sophisticated trench and tunnel networks as well as bunkers and pillboxes. The Pakistani military took more than a month to clear a six-mile stretch of road in the Loisam region. Pakistani military officials also said the Taliban "have good weaponry and a better communication system (than ours)."

"Even the sniper rifles they use are better than some of ours," the Pakistani official told Dawn "Their tactics are mind-boggling and they have defenses that would take us days to build. It does not look as though we are fighting a rag-tag militia; they are fighting like an organized force."

Taliban forces have also conducted battalion-sized operations in Hangu. In July 2008, a Taliban unit laid siege to a police station and a fort in Hangu. The fort was abandoned by the Frontier Corps and the Taliban destroyed it.

The Shadow Army has had some recent successes in Afghanistan over the past year. In July 2008, the unit made up of al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Hizb-e-Islami joined forces conducted a complex assault on a US outpost in Wanat in Nuristan province. The attack was repelled after the force nearly overran the base. Nine US soldiers were killed in the assault, the largest loss by US forces in a single engagement in Afghanistan to date.

Another engagement in the Surobi region in Kabul province was likely the work of the Shadow Army. A force ambushed a French military convoy in a valley just outside of the capital and pinned down the unit for hours. Ten French soldiers were killed, and the Taliban was able to seize French weapons abandoned on the battlefield.

The effectiveness of the Shadow Army can be seen in a video taken by an Al Jazeera reporter during an operation in Loisam in the Bajaur tribal agency in the fall of 2008 [see video below]. The Taliban forces drive off a battalion-sized assault from regular Pakistani Army troops that is supported by at least a platoon of tanks. The Pakistani tanks are seen racing away from the fighting, and the Pakistani infantry moving in behind them does the same after taking fire. The reporter describes the Pakistani tank commander as "quite shaken." The tank commander calls for airstrikes to take out the Taliban positions, but the infantry and tanks go into full retreat and returns to base after the Taliban counterattacks.

The Pakistani unit involved in the fighting was the 63rd Battalion of the Frontier Force Regiment. This is a regular Army unit, not part of the paramilitary Frontier Corps. The 63rd was deployed to Somalia during the peacekeeping mission in the 1990s. More than 8,000 Pakistan troops were deployed in the Loisam region to clear the Taliban and al Qaeda forces, but only took the village after leveling the town.

The Pakistani retreat sent a chill up the spine of a US Army officer who was shown the video. "Clearly the Pakistani forces lack discipline and morale, but even with these problems the combined armor and infantry attack, backed by air support, should have gone better," the officer said.

"Those troops have obviously met stiff resistance," the Army officer continued. "You just watched a full battalion, supported by tanks, break contact after an attack by a supposedly undisciplined, 'rag-tag' force of Taliban fighters. For the Taliban to drive off that unit, it has to be organized, disciplined, well-armed, and competent."

A Pakistani battalion retreats from a Taliban counterattack. Video from Al Jazeera English.

US to sell plane parts to state sponsor of terror Syria

(Compiler's note: And the purpose of this is to .....?)

by Robert Spencer

"The Obama administration has been more lax in its approach to countries which support terrorism."

Syria has been listed by the State Department as among the State Sponsors of Terrorism since December 29, 1979.

"US Will Sell Syria Plane Parts" from Israel National News, February 8 (thanks to Pamela):

(IsraelNN.com) A Syrian paper reported Sunday that the U.S. Department of Commerce agreed to sell plane parts to Syria. The parts will be used to repair two Boeing 747s which are currently out of use in the country.

Former U.S. President Bush had forbid U.S. commerce with Syria expect for food and medicines. The Obama administration has been more lax in its approach to countries which support terrorism.

Obama plans complete overhaul of National Security Council

(Compiler's note: A must read and still developing .... We are bound to see more on this topic.)

from GulfNews

Washington: US President Barack Obama plans to order a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Council (NSC), expanding its membership and increasing its authority to set strategy across a wide spectrum of international and domestic issues.

The result will be a "dramatically different" NSC from that of the Bush administration or any of its predecessors since the forum was established after Second World War to advice the president on diplomatic and military matters, according to national security adviser James Jones, who described the changes in an interview.

"The world that we live in has changed so dramatically in this decade that organisations that were created to meet a certain set of criteria no longer are terribly useful," he said.

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Jones, a retired Marine general, made it clear that he will run the process and be the primary conduit of national security advice to Obama, eliminating the "back channels" that at times in the Bush Administration allowed Cabinet secretaries and the vice president's office to unilaterally influence and make policy out of view of the others.

"We're not always going to agree on everything," Jones said, and "so it's my job to make sure that minority opinion is represented" to the president. "But if at the end of the day he turns to me and says, 'Well, what do you think, Jones?', I'm going to tell him what I think."

The new structure, to be outlined in a presidential directive and a detailed implementation document by Jones, will expand the NSC's reach far beyond the range of traditional foreign policy issues and turn it into a much more elastic body, with Cabinet and departmental seats at the table- historically occupied only by the secretaries of defence and state - determined on an issue-by-issue basis. Jones said the directive will probably be completed this week.

"The whole concept of what constitutes the membership of the national security community - which, historically has been, let's face it, the Defence Department, the NSC itself and a little bit of the State Department, to the exclusion perhaps of the Energy Department, Commerce Department and Treasury, all the law enforcement agencies, the Drug Enforcement Administration, all of those things - especially in the moment we're currently in, has got to embrace a broader membership," he said.

New NSC directorates will deal with such department-spanning 21st-century issues as cybersecurity, energy, climate change, nation-building and infrastructure.

Many of the functions of the Homeland Security Council, established as a separate White House entity by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, may be subsumed into the expanded NSC, although it is still undetermined whether elements of the HSC will remain as a separate body within the White House.

Over the next 50 days, John Brennan, a CIA veteran who serves as presidential adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security and is Jones's deputy, will review options for the homeland council, including its responsibility for preparing for and responding to natural and terrorism-related domestic disasters.

In a separate interview, Brennan described his task as a "systems engineering challenge" to avoid overlap with the new NSC while ensuring that "homeland security matters, broadly defined, are going to get the attention they need from the White House."

Organisational maps within the government will be redrawn to ensure that all departments and agencies take the same regional approach to the world, Jones said.

Communist: Obama working to nationalize U.S. economy

By Aaron Klein

President Obama is "considering" a radical agenda to nationalize the U.S. financial system, the Federal Reserve Bank, and private industries such as energy and other sectors whose future is "problematic" in private hands, claims the leader of the Communist Party USA.

In a major speech focused on Obama titled "Off and running: Opportunity of a lifetime," CPUSA leader Sam Webb also alleges Obama's administration is considering turning education, childcare, and health care into "no profit zones;" rerouting investment capital from military infrastructure to "green economy" projects and public infrastructure; and waging a "full scale" assault on global warming.

"We now have not simply a friend, but a people's advocate in the White House," declared Webb at a recent speech in Ohio for People's Weekly World Communist newspaper.

"An era of progressive change is within reach, no longer an idle dream. Just look at the new lay of the land: a friend of labor and its allies sits in the White House," Webb proclaimed.

He stated Obama and the "broad coalition that supports him will almost inevitably have to consider – and they already are – the following measures:

• Public ownership of the financial system and the elimination of the shadow banking system and exotic derivatives.

• Public control of the Federal Reserve Bank.

• Counter-crisis spending of a bigger size and scope to invigorate and sustain a full recovery and meet human needs – something that the New Deal never accomplished.

• Strengthening of union rights in order to rebalance the power between labor and capital in the economic and political arenas.

• Trade agreements that have at their core the protection and advancement of international working class interests.

• Equality in conditions of life for racially minorities and women.

• Democratic public takeover of the energy complex as well as a readiness to consider the takeover of other basic industries whose future is problematic in private hands.

• Turning education, child care, and health care into "no profit" zones.

• Rerouting investment capital from unproductive investment (military, finance and so forth) to productive investment in a green economy and public infrastructure.

• Changing direction of our nation's foreign policy toward cooperation, disarmament, and diplomacy. We can't have threats, guns and military occupations on the one hand and butter, democracy, goodwill, and peace on the other.

• Full scale assault on global warming.

• Serious and sustained commitment to assisting the developing countries that are locked in poverty and misery."

Webb lauded Obama's $800-plus billion so-called stimulus package as "a good bill that will ease the pain of this crisis, create jobs, and begin to reflate the economy."

He explained labor unions, which he said were instrumental in Obama's election, must work to keep the White House in check by "exercis[ing] an enormous influence on the political process. Never before has a coalition with such breadth walked on the political stage of our country," he said.

Indeed, in an article just after last November's election titled, "Special Interest or Class Consciousness? How Labor Put Obama in the White House," Political Affairs reported on polling data released that revealed the extent of union support for Obama.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, sponsored a poll showing union members supported Obama by a 68-30 margin and strongly influenced their family members.

According to the survey, Obama won among white men who are union members by 18 points. Union gun-owners backed Obama by 12 points, while union veterans voted for Obama by a 25-point margin. In the general population, Obama lost these groups by significant margins.

Cracking the case: ‘DOMEX’ system is tool used to analyze crime

(Compiler's note: A must read as the gov't readies for possible budget cuts from the new administration.)

BY MIKE FAHER

When Baltimore authorities seized computers connected to a multimillion-dollar Internet pharmacy operation in late 2006, they turned to Johnstown for help.

Specialists at the National Drug Intelligence Center analyzed large amounts of electronic information, providing crucial evidence that led to two convictions in Maryland’s largest-ever pharmaceutical-trafficking case.

“I just cannot say enough about what they did with these computers,” said Andrea Smith, an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore.

That same process has been repeated more than 700 times since 1993: NDIC analysts dissect computers, cell phones and other electronic devices – along with mountains of documents – to support federal criminal cases.

They’ve developed their own software to speed up the process and have quietly assisted in major probes, including the large-scale investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

At an agency that often is accused of being wasteful and duplicative, NDIC’s Document and Media Exploitation Branch – called DOMEX – is a little-known function that has had a significant impact across the nation and around the world, NDIC officials said.

“Nobody else does what we do,” said Harry Kuerner, DOMEX branch chief.

NDIC officials acknowledge that what they call “document exploitation” is nothing new: Analyzing information and evidence is a vital part of any criminal case.

But the difference in their work, they say, is speed and clarity.

A law-enforcement agency may have limited resources and time to examine large amounts of evidence, particularly data buried deep in a computer system.

But when a federal agency asks NDIC for help, a DOMEX team – usually made up of 18 to 23 people – forms and quickly establishes “priority intelligence requirements” – the slivers of information to look for when sifting through an evidentiary hay stack.

Examples include assets and associates of a suspect, financial transactions, phone numbers and “references to a specific crime in notes, e-mails or other communications,” officials said.

DOMEX staff can deploy anywhere, and most foreign-language missions are conducted at a satellite facility called the Utah National Guard/Joint Language Training Center near Salt Lake City.

But in most cases, evidence is shipped directly to Johnstown. A DOMEX team – assisted by specialists working in the NDIC’s Digital Evidence Laboratory – then sifts through that information, coming up with a concise report in an average of two weeks’ time.

That report ensures that evidence is linked to a specific document that was in a suspect’s possession.

Baltimore’s Internet-pharmacy case, for example, involved “overwhelming” amounts of information, Smith said.

But NDIC analysts showed that, of 36 doctors writing prescriptions for the painkiller hydrocodone through a targeted pharmacy called NewCare, 11 of those physicians accounted for more than 98 percent of those prescriptions.

The analysis also found that hydrocodone accounted for about 88 percent of the prescriptions filled by NewCare – for a total of 9.9 million doses.

“It was so compelling,” Smith said.

“You can’t argue against numbers like that.”

She added that the data was “mined from the defendants’ own computers, so they couldn’t say they didn’t know.”

Specialized software

Early on, officials say, NDIC analysts used “whatever tool they could” to compile evidence in Microsoft Word documents for presentation to investigators.

But times have changed: Highly specialized software developed in Johnstown now helps NDIC staff sort and prioritize evidence.

One program is called RAID, short for Real-time Analytical Intelligence Database. It is an organizational tool that allows management of “large quantities of data,” with links between related pieces of information – a suspect’s associates, for example, along with his addresses and travel destinations.

RAID’s reach has extended far beyond Johnstown.

NDIC makes the software available free to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Last year, the center provided RAID installation and training in the West African countries of Ghana and Togo; conducted a seminar employing RAID in Uganda, East Africa; and finished development of a new, Spanish-language version of the program.

Another important tool – also developed at NDIC – is dubbed “HashKeeper.”

It allows analysts to put aside all commercial software files on a computer and focus solely on files that a user has created or altered. In other words, HashKeeper ignores a Microsoft Word program and zeroes in on Word documents a suspect created.

“This can reduce the amount of time required to analyze computers by up to 60 percent,” an NDIC official said in a recent briefing.

Like RAID, HashKeeper also has found a wider audience: In June 2007, officials announced that the Department of Defense was using the program in Iraq.

Analyzing evidence

But even with help from high-tech tools, NDIC administrators say, it’s the people – or in this case, the analysts – who make the difference.

Those analysts, with various areas of expertise, have to know what they’re looking for, how to find it and how to interpret what they find.

The work is complicated and can be intense, with information the DOMEX team uncovers sometimes used by investigators to seize more evidence or make an arrest.

“We’re getting something out to the field that they can use now – not six months or a year from now,” said Steve Gironda, NDIC’s Digital Evidence Laboratory supervisor.

While most missions are drug-related, DOMEX staff members are trained to handle all kinds of cases: They have helped with investigations involving terrorism, child abduction, weapons trafficking and organized crime.

“It pretty much works on anything,” Kuerner said. “White-collar crime, public corruption – anything that we’ve been asked to do, we’ve been able to do.”

Often, no matter what the alleged crime, NDIC experts are looking at the same types of devices. Paper evidence remains important, but more and more information is in electronic form:

• Cell phones, with their increasing complexity and capacity, can be virtual gold mines for analysts who are looking for phone numbers, addresses, pictures, etc.

“There’s no much information on a cell phone right now that never leaves it,” Gironda said, while adding that examining phones can be a complicated endeavor.

Three identically branded cell phones, for example, may be connected to three different service providers.

“All three of them, you have to attack a different way because they have different operating systems,” Gironda said.

• Computer-based instant messaging “gets the bad guys into more trouble than you might think,” Gironda said.

• Even video-game systems can play an important role, since many have hard drives and Internet connectivity.

Such systems “are used for nefarious activities because criminals believe those items will be overlooked by law enforcement because they are gaming machines,” NDIC spokesman Charles Miller said.

Getting results

With the average mission involving six computers and two phones, DOMEX staff members are not prone to overlooking anything.

“If we know what to look for – and our people are very good at this – we can provide a very good report,” said Bill Scott, a DOMEX team leader.

Last month, officials announced sentencings in the long-running Baltimore hydrocodone case: Two pharmacists will serve five years in prison, and each was ordered to pay nearly $11.9 million.

Forfeited to the government were houses, a business, seven cars and money in 33 bank accounts. The probe involved several federal agencies and numerous law-enforcement entities.

But Smith credits Paul Short, a DOMEX supervisor, with testifying in court on three occasions and helping to slam the door shut on the defendants.

“No one can hold a candle to (NDIC),” she said. “This was just amazing.”

Though they labor in relative anonymity in a former Johnstown department store, Short and his NDIC colleagues understand the potential impact of their work.

“This isn’t the guy selling crack on the street corner,” Short said. “These are guys who are dealing with tons and tons of drugs.”

NDIC probes range from drugs to terrorism

BY MIKE FAHER

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a team of analysts based in Johnstown played a critical role.

Their work grabbed no headlines, and they had no visible presence at the three attack sites.

But document-exploitation experts at the National Drug Intelligence Center assisted the FBI by analyzing more than 75,000 subpoenaed documents related to potential terrorist financing.

“The work NDIC produces continues to initiate actionable leads and identify avenues of investigation,” an FBI official wrote in a November 2001 letter.

“NDIC has integrated seamlessly with the FBI investigation and has enhanced the way the FBI will investigate future financial cases.”

Since NDIC’s inception in the early 1990s, analysts have assisted hundreds of cases by poring over documents and probing electronic devices, searching for key bits of evidence.

In just the past few years, members of what is now called the NDIC’s Document and Media Exploitation Branch have participated in multiple complex missions for a variety of federal agencies.

Examples include:

• In fiscal year 2007, document-exploitation staff assisted in a probe of a Colombian drug kingpin; examined links between Philippines drug traffickers and terrorist organizations; and participated in Operation Raw Deal – a case officials called “the largest steroid-enforcement action in U.S. history.”

• October 2007: An Army officer accused of crimes in Iraq, Lt. Col. William Steele, is sentenced to prison time. NDIC analysts supported the case by examining phone records and “nearly 12,000 classified documents that existed alone or as attachments to e-mail files,” officials said.

• November 2007: Analysts identify assets valued at more than $5 million in connection with a “multinational investigation of a major international money-laundering organization” in the U.S., Mexico, China and Switzerland.

• December 2007: The Johnstown center supports a probe of a terrorist organization. Analysts “identified 70 individuals with direct connections to the conspirators and provided 92 linked media files – including photo identification – documenting the links,” officials said.

• July and August 2008: In support of a Department of Justice probe, NDIC finds more than 800 suspected child pornography photographs “and provided investigators with important information on conspirators’ financial assets and leads regarding additional potential targets,” center administrators said.

• August and September 2008: Analysts identify assets controlled by a South American drug-trafficking organization, including more than 300 properties and 100 bank accounts.

French fighter planes grounded by computer virus

by Kim Willsher

The aircraft were unable to download their flight plans after databases were infected by a Microsoft virus they had already been warned about several months beforehand.

At one point French naval staff were also instructed not to even open their computers.

Microsoft had warned that the "Conficker" virus, transmitted through Windows, was attacking computer systems in October last year, but according to reports the French military ignored the warning and failed to install the necessary security measures.

The French newspaper Ouest France said the virus had hit the internal computer network at the French Navy.

Jérome Erulin, French navy spokesman told the paper: "It affected exchanges of information but no information was lost. It was a security problem we had already simulated. We cut the communication links that could have transmitted the virus and 99 per cent of the network is safe."

However, the French navy admitted that during the time it took to eradicate the virus, it had to return to more traditional forms of communication: telephone, fax and post.

Naval officials said the "infection"' was probably due more to negligence than a deliberate attempt to compromise French national security. It said it suspected someone at the navy had used an infected USB key.

The Sicmar Network, on which the most sensitive documents and communications are transmitted was not touched, it said. "The computer virus problem had no effect on the availability of our forces." The virus attacked the non-secured internal French navy network called Intramar and was detected on 21 January. The whole network was affected and military staff were instructed not to start their computers.

According to Liberation newspaper, two days later the chiefs of staff decided to isolate Intramar from the military's other computer systems, but certain computers at the Villacoublay air base and in the 8th Transmissions Regiment were infected. Liberation reported that on the 15 and 16 January the Navy's Rafale aircraft were "nailed to the ground" because they were unable to "download their flight plans". The aircraft were eventually activated by "another system".

Liberation also reported that Microsoft had identified the Conficker virus in the autumn of 2008 and had advised users from October last year to update their security patches. IntelligenceOnline reports that "at the heart of the (French) military, the modifications were, for the most part, not done." It was only on the 16 January "three months later" that the navy chiefs of staffs began to act.

"At that point, the chiefs of staff and the defence ministry had no idea how many computers or military information systems were vulnerable to having been contaminated by the virus," said Liberation.

The French press also reported that the only consolation for the French Navy was that it was not the only ones to have fallen victim to the virus. It said that a report in the military review Defense Tech revealed that in the first days of January 2009 the British Defence Ministry had been attacked by a hybrid of the virus that had substantially and seriously infected the computer systems of more than 24 RAF bases and 75 per cent of the Royal Navy fleet including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal.