FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
ABC News: Senior U.S. Official: Intercepted Al Qaeda Communications Indicate Planned Attack ‘Big,’ ‘Strategically Significant’ By Martha Raddatz and Jonathan Karl August 4, 2013 9:00am http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/08/senior-u-s-official-intercepted-al-qaeda-communications-indicate-planned-attack-big-strategically-significant Meanwhile, that same day in South Florida, all Sunday afternoon, hours after the ABC News telecast above, the Miami Herald has had nothing VISIBLE on their homepage about the al-Qaeda security threat. Really. Not that this is surprising given how far they've fallen over past 15 years... Here's a screen capture of the homepage when I checked it for one of the last times late Sunday afternoon, little changed from what It'd been in the morning and after Noon. The proof is in the pudding, since more often than not over the past few years, the Miami Herald reads like the weekly community newspaper of a suburb of Tulsa or Des Moines. http://www.miamiherald.com/
SHOWTIME video: Season Two, Episode One: An asset from Carrie's old life comes in from the cold. Uploaded September 30, 2012. http://youtu.be/-xtJ5lLkW70
In honor of espionage and the Season Two premiere of SHOWTIME's Emmy Award winning HOMELAND getting a 60% increase in viewers over last year's premiere, I present some amazing video that needs to be seen to be believed: VICE News videos - Hezbollah's Propaganda War; Morena Baccarin @missmorenab
Have already watched the new episode on TV twice. Plus, watched the DVD-RW I made looking for hidden clues, so I guess that makes thrice! More HOMELAND clips are at SHOWTIME'sYouTube Channel:http://www.youtube.com/show/homeland/
"Hezbollah has built a multi-million dollar theme park celebrating its military victories over Israel. It's the latest PR offensive from the Iranian-funded Shia Muslim militia its followers call the "Party of God." Host Ryan Duffy heads to Lebanon to visit this bizarre tourist site to learn how this group that started as a ragtag militia in the 1980s has skillfully used propaganda to transform itself into a military and political force to be reckoned with, and how anti-Hezbollah groups are trying to compete in this war of words." September 2012.
Though it's the newscast that I always watch and prefer, Thursday night's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" was one of the worst in quite some time, more noteworthy for what they neglected to say than anything they actually reported -never a good sign.
This case of collective hysterical amnesia at the alphabet network seemed especially curious in light of interesting news reports that emerged over the course of the day that only gathered steam as the day went on, as they made even more preposterous many of the Mainstream Media's claims of the day before and that morning's daily newspapers. The facts simply wouldn't cooperate and fit their assumptions.
These were all "facts" that that you reasonably expected to see mentioned at some point in a national newscast when the subject of the riots and murder in Benghazi and Cairo came up and yet... Yes, sometimes even when Diane Sawyer is standing right there in the middle of it, the absence of evidence is evidence itself, and so is the refusal of her news program to mention these inconvenient facts when it goes against the Mainstream Media narrative of that morning.
Here's just a small list of what WASN'T mentioned on Thursday night's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" http://abcnews.go.com/WN/
1.) Libyan government announced that organized and heavily-armed groups used the so-called film protests as a cover to stage coordinated attacks. Yes, the rocket-propelled grenades are always a tip-off that civic discourse is not at the top of someone's agenda. [And why so much reluctance by ABC News and the rest of the Mainstream Media in the U.S. to mention how often variations of "Osama, we are with you" was heard a week at the protests one week after the DNC mentioned Osama Bin Laden 21 times with respect to their famous hunter Obama practically killing Bin Laden himself. TV and print reporters in other countries who speak Arabic and who are there on the ground are mentioning it, so why aren't U.S. reporters mentioning how often the words "Osama" and "Obama" are mentioned in the same sentence, and not in a positive light? Speaking of speaking the language of the place you are reporting from, how's Barbara Raddatz's Arabic? Perhaps Paul Ryan will ask her at the October 11th Vice-Presidential debate she is moderating.
No need to do that, I can answer that question for you. ABC News reporter Barbara Raddatz, like so many other American A-list reporters routinely go to countries where they don't speak the language -like Arabic- and have to be totally dependent on others to explain what in the hell is going on. So, why do we need to hear from her then? Good question. But ABC News doesn't care that she doesn't actually understand what is being said all around here while she is supposed to be reporting. To them, the most important thing is that she's there -is showing the ABC flag. That's NOT the most-important thing to me -facts are. (She was in washington on Thursday night)]
2.) Why nothing at all about this f-ed up situation with Larry Schwartz at the U.S. embassy in Cairo? Guess they were too busy trying to find another Republican in DC to criticize Romney. Anonymously, of course. Foreign Policy magazine The Cable blog Inside the public relations disaster at the Cairo embassy Posted By Josh Rogin September 12, 2012 - 8:48 p.m.
One staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo was responsible for the statement and tweets Tuesday that have become grist for the presidential campaign, and that staffer ignored explicit State Department instructions not to issue the statement, one U.S. official close to the issue told The Cable.
Two additional administration officials confirmed the details of this account when contacted late Wednesday by The Cable.
Read the rest of the post at: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/12/inside_the_public_relations_disaster_at_the_cairo_embassy 3.) All Thursday morning and afternoon, credible reports emerged that despite what President Obama said about the Libyan security forces helping transport Ambassador Christopher Stevens to another building per their protocol, credible stories that members of the Libyan security forces had in fact signaled to the armed organized groups that were there to storm the consulate that the move was taking place. The groups already knew that Stevens would be moved, they just weren't sure where. Once they knew, it was easy to fire their rockets right at him. It was literally like he was herded into the scene of his death. This was not mentioned at all on ABC's newscast Uh-oh! Mira! Here's something finally penetrating the MSM's invisible force field Notice that this is being given a 6:45 am time stamp, even though I heard this yesterday before 1 p.m. CBS News
September 14, 2012 5:23 AM Official: Libyan insiders may have aided assault Updated 6:45 a.m. ET
(CBA/AP) BENGHAZI, Libya — Heavily armed militants used a protest of an anti-Islam film as a cover and may have had help from inside Libyan security in their deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate, a senior Libyan official said Thursday.
As Libya announced the first four arrests, the clearest picture yet emerged of a two-pronged assault, with militants screaming "God is great!" as they scaled the consulate's outer walls and descended on the compound's main building.
4.) Surprise! Reports throughout the day emerged that U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Pattersonwouldn't allow U.S. Marines guarding the embassy compound to carry live ammunition. http://nation.time.com/2012/09/13/whats-worse-no-marines-or-possibly-unarmed-marines/
With all their resources and personnel, how is ABC News unable to either confirm or deny this story by 6:30 p.m. Eastern? Or mention that she was in Washington at the time? Really, how can that be?
If it turns out to be true, like you, I can hardly wait to hear the future interviews with the Marines and their leaders back in Washington on the fact that the very people most-responsible for the safety of U.S. personnel were reduced to playing the role of Barney Fife, who, lovable as he was, famously, wasn't allowed to have a loaded gun while he was on-duty in Mayberry. And as if I even have to mention it, Ambassador Ann Patterson's name was never spoken on-air Thursday. Again. Hmm-m...
Honestly, what is it about female U.S. Ambassadors posted to the creepy patriarchal Middle East, and their own feelings of protocol and or inadequacy, that actually cause them to threaten U.S.lives thru their queer policy pronouncements?
If true, unfortunately, Anne Patterson's bad decision-makingwill remind many of usthat after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, the last year of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, imposed all sorts of rules on the U.S. officials sent to investigate the bombing that took place on her watch. She seemed to be the very stereotype of a spiteful feminist who wanted to keep men at a distance even though they were the ones who had any power on the block she lived on. Instead of letting common sense prevail, she said that allowing so many FBI and CIA agents -read assertive men- would send the 'wrong signals' about who really ran U.S. foreign policy.
She forgot that it wasn't her. She was the worker bee who works for us, not the other way around.
In case you forgot or never knew the exact details, Bodine was the stick-up-her-ass PC U.S. Ambassador to Yemen who tried to thwart the Cole investigation and famously took steps to revoke the visa of FBI Special Agent John O'Neill, the FBI's leading expert on al Qaeda and on-scene commander in Yemen after he arrived from New York with his team of counter-terrorism agents.
Yes, really.
Among so many other things that seem contrary to U.S. interests, Bodine famously intervened and prevented his re-entry into Yemen after he'd flown back to New York for Thanksgiving 2000.
O'Neill, of course, died ten months later in the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers
Here is what PBS says on their Frontline website about that situation in October of 2000.
I usually would not put so much of that here, but it's important that you see what part of her decision-making rings familiar today, considering Patterson's orders.
Arriving in Yemen, O'Neill finds challenging field conditions. His agents confront 102-degree heat and a cramped, unsecured hotel for their quarters. O'Neill soon finds himself clashing with Barbara Bodine, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, who is concerned about the number of FBI agents and military personnel flooding into the country after the bombing. O'Neill argues that the FBI needs resources to thoroughly investigate the attack. Bodine has different priorities, including maintaining good relations with Yemen. "I had to act as a cultural interpreter. They have endured first British colonialism, and then the Soviets. These people have only had foreigners telling them what to do. Now O'Neill and his men were coming in, doing essentially the same thing," Bodine later told Britain's The Sunday Times.
As relations between the two sour, the number of topics they disagree on multiplies. O'Neill wants a heavily-armed security presence; Bodine wants the agents to be unarmed. O'Neill wants to have direct access to Yemeni officials; Bodine feels she should supervise encounters. As O'Neill starts to seek support from Barry Mawn and other FBI officials back in the U.S., the cables sent by Bodine to the State Department become increasingly critical of O'Neill. It reaches the point where Louis Freeh and Janet Reno become personally involved in the dispute.
Meanwhile... CNN IGNORES REAL GOAL OF CAIRO RIOTS: FREEDOM OF BLIND SHEIK
A week later, after reading many other articles about what's been going on in Afghanistan that either just beat around the bush or which -surprise- made excuses for President Obama, this essay still resonates for a reason:
National Review Online
Why Apologize to Afghanistan?
By Andrew C. McCarthy
February 25, 2012 4:00 A.M.
We have officially lost our minds.
The New York Times reports that President Obama has sent a formal letter of apology to Afghanistan’s ingrate president, Hamid Karzai, for the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base. The only upside of the apology is that it appears (based on the Times account) to be couched as coming personally from our blindly Islamophilic president — “I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. . . . I extend to you and the Afghani people my sincere apologies.” It is not couched as an apology from the American people, whose frame of mind will be outrage, not contrition, as the facts become more widely known.
The facts are that the Korans were seized at a jail because jihadists imprisoned there were using them not for prayer but to communicate incendiary messages. The soldiers dispatched to burn refuse from the jail were not the officials who had seized the books, had no idea they were burning Korans, and tried desperately to retrieve the books when the situation was brought to their attention.
The Council on Foreign Relations video: Counterterrorism and Homeland Security: Does the United States Have the Right Strategy? September 12, 2011.
Thom Shanker of the N.Y. Times is the panel moderator, with Henry A. Crumpton, Frances "Fran" Fragos Townsend, and John F. Lehman as featured guests. I highly recommend watching the entire video at one time when you have no distractions. In particular, I urge you to listen at the 10:03 mark to former Navy Sec. Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, who makes some spot-on comments I agree with 100% re wasted band frequency, the failure to fully comply with the 9/11 Comm.'s recommendations, and the remaining bloated bureaucracy in the intelligence community, In fact, Lehman is so disgusted with that bureaucratic red-tape that he admits he'd favor the Office of DNI being abolished if it can not be kept intentionally small as it was originally intended.
On 9/11, I was four blocks east of The White House and working in an office on Pennsylvania Ave. directly across the street from the FBI and DOJ. http://youtu.be/HQXveZjQgdg
-----
Forget about your own silly Cyber Monday nonsense, read this GREAT story recently written by Thom Shanker & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times -co-authors of the book "Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda"- about the military's Digital Engagement Team, who is doing the heavy lifting to counter online Islamic extremist ideology, "promote cultural awareness and explain U.S. interests” Yes, strategic counter-terrorism that will make a tangible difference.
New York Times
U.S. Military Goes Online to Rebut Extremists’ Messages
By Thom Shanker & Eric Schmitt
November 18, 2011
MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — The morning sun had barely cast its fresh light over Tampa Bay when Ardashir Safavi — born in Iran, a refugee to Turkey, educated in the mid-Atlantic states — was up and patrolling two dozen Persian-language Web sites, hunting militant adversaries in cyberspace.
His mission was to scan news reports, blogs, social media and online essays to identify those he viewed as “containing lies, misinformation or just misperceptions” about American military operations and Pentagon policy across the Middle East.
"Holy terror' - Frank Miller's new graphic novel, will, I predict, be the subject of an upcoming U.S. media contretemps and quickly become a cable net subject that's argued over-and-over, and, in any case, is already getting newspaper columnists denouncing it in Sweden.
Miller has definitely struck a raw nerve in Europe, where accommodation is the preferred mode in dealing with uncomfortable subjects that touch close-to-home for the majority of Europe's mainstream media.
Like these sorts of controversies that annoy or antagonize non-Americans usually do, the "Holy terror' media controversy will start in Europe, migrate to Britain and then finally, the snoozing U.S. news media will notice, as per usual.
At which point, the 'Arab Street' that was completely unaware of it, will then see it on MSNBC at least once an hour with all the Usual Suspects discussing something they have never personally seen or read.
After digesting that, the 'Arab Street' will swing by that flag store in Cairo & Damascus that never runs out of U.S. flags suitable for burning, and after some coffee or tea, or a Power Bar, assemble in the streets to denounce something that they too have never seen or read, and claim that this is how all Americans think, because, well...
They'll have no facts to support that supposition, but that hardly matters, right?
Who needs facts?
Why should this time be any different than the last?
The perpetually jaded foreign news media will then hit the protests with cameras to film the milling crowds of unemployed Egyptian college grads, making them look larger in size than they are, complete with the latest Obama effigy 2.0, and then it will suddenly get mentioned in the next-to-last news segment on a network TV newscast because some news producer saw a piece online about it while looking for something else.
And then we begin to see the ripples of it back here...
Voters in Iowa, again getting first crack at presidential candidates, will say when asked by shivering TV correspondents embedded in Iowa corn fields, "What the hell is all that protesting about?," even though the product itself is being pitched towards their teenage and college-age sons and daughters.
And there you have it
The only question is when it will happen over the next few months.
USA Today already bit at the apple two weeks ago with their 'Holy Terror' undone by patriotic revenge fantasy
Sweden's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, with a huge online presence, and a frequent subject and source here on this blog, had a column today by Martin Aagård in their Culture section titled, Seriemördare i Breiviks anda, i.e. Serial killer in Breivik's spirit.
Here's what the teaser for it looked like on the newspaper's main web page:
Witness: Pakistani Intel Officer Ordered Hit on Mumbai Jews
by Sebastian Rotella ProPublica, May 24, 2011, 10:35 p.m.
This report is part of a ProPublica and PBS FRONTLINE [1] investigation. A version of this article appeared in the Washington Post [2].
An officer in Pakistan2019s intelligence service chose a Jewish center as a target for the 2008 Mumbai attacks and then helped launch a new plot against Denmark, according to the star witness in a terror trial in Chicago.
In his second day of testimony, David Coleman Headley, a confessed Pakistani-American terrorist, revealed more details about close ties between Pakistan2019s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Lashkar-i-Taiba terror group, which allegedly carried out the attacks that killed 166 people [3], including six Americans.
Headley said his ISI handler, a man known only as Major Iqbal, made key decisions and was a mastermind of the plot along with Lashkar chiefs. Major Iqbal deployed him on the last of five reconnaissance missions in India to scout targets that Iqbal said would definitely include the Chabad House, a Jewish community center where gunmen later killed three American rabbis, Headley testified. The pregnant wife of one of the rabbis was also killed.
201CMajor Iqbal told me the Chabad House would be added on whatever list [of targets] there was because it was a front office for the Mossad,201D Israel2019s intelligence agency, Headley said. He added that Major Iqbal 201Cseemed upset the [Mumbai] airport was not included201D as a target.
Nothing suggests that the claim about the Mossad was true.
Headley described in understated tones how terrorist leaders congratulated him for his work casing luxury hotels and other targets chosen to ensure Americans and Jews would die. Asked his reaction to the three-day televised slaughter [4], he responded: 201CI was pleased.201D
The 50-year-old businessman has pleaded guilty to conducting months of crucial reconnaissance in Mumbai and for the Denmark plot. He is the star witness in the trial of his accused accomplice, Tahawwur Rana, in Chicago federal court. U.S. prosecutors have also indicted Major Iqbal and three Lashkar chiefs, all but one of whom remain fugitives.
Pakistani officials deny any links to terrorism. They say Headley's allegations are not credible because of his past as a drug dealer and DEA informant.
But the slaying of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani military town has worsened longtime suspicions of Pakistan and the stakes are high in a case built largely on a witness with an admitted pattern of duplicity. The damage to the U.S.-Pakistani relationship could be profound if the trial produces powerful evidence that Pakistani officers took part in a plot to kill Americans.
201CA lot of explanatory power has been put in the hands of David Headley, an undoubtedly flawed individual,201D said Stephen Tankel, author of a forthcoming book Storming the World Stage: the Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba. 201CThe US government clearly has confidence in Headley's testimony and has been able to support it with strong evidence related to his communications with men he asserts were ISI officers. ... It will be interesting to see if the prosecution introduces further evidence independent of Headley that these men were in the ISI, as that would seal an already strong case for official involvement at some level.201D
On Tuesday prosecutors presented details about the apparent involvement of serving intelligence officers. Headley testified that Major Iqbal and Lashkar used him as a shared operative as he tried to infiltrate Shiv Sena, a right-wing Hindu political party in India.
An email from Major Iqbal to Headley showed the officer trying to balance the twin missions of collecting military intelligence and developing terrorist targets. Asked by Headley if he should try to cultivate a Shiv Sena public relations official he had befriended, Iqbal responded that he was not sure if the potential Indian source would be productive for espionage but said he might still be worth pursuing for Lashkar, which he called 201Cyour organization.201D
201CWhat all advantages can we get from this person except strengthening our cover,201D Iqbal wrote. 201CWill this all be generating worthwhile information related to military or forces. ... If he is of any use to your organization, you are at liberty to handle even without my information or as you desire.201D
The testimony Tuesday also indicated that Iqbal was at least aware of a terrorist plot to strike the heart of Europe. Headley described a meeting in late 2008 in which Iqbal and Sajid Mir, his Lashkar handler, came together to his house in Lahore for the first time. Until then, the two had coordinated the American2019s missions in tandem but separately.
During the sit-down, Mir told Headley he would be sent to Denmark to scout for an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had enraged Muslims by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
201CWe were all angry about it,201D Headley testified. 201CMajor Iqbal said he was surprised such an attack had not taken place already.201D
Headley went to Denmark in January 2009, posing as an immigration consultant in visits to newspaper advertising representatives in Copenhagen and Aarhus. Two months later, however, Lashkar put the Denmark plot on hold. Major Iqbal cut off contact with Headley, instructing him to lay low because Pakistani authorities had put heat on Lashkar after the Mumbai attacks.
Soon, another ISI officer named Major Sameer Ali contacted Headley to try to recruit him for new operations and remained in touch with him until at least August, according to Headley2019s testimony and emails between the two presented in court. The mention of Major Ali in the trial brings the number of ISI officers Headley has described meeting to at least six, according to testimony and a report on Headley2019s interrogation by Indian investigators.
Headley met with Ali and a Colonel Shah in the ISI that April in Lahore, according to investigators, though that information was not presented in court Tuesday.
By then, however, Headley had shifted allegiance to al-Qaida and away from the ISI, urged on by a friend and former Pakistani military officer known as Pasha, who had left Lashkar for al-Qaida.
201CHe said they were conducting the ISI2019s jihad and we should conduct God2019s jihad,201D Headley said.
When Pasha was arrested by the ISI a few months later, Headley wrote to Major Ali inquiring about his friend2019s fate, according to testimony. Headley said Pasha had once worked with a colonel in the ISI, which he referred to in an email as 201Cyour department.201D Major Ali responded on August 4, 2009, to inform him of the release of the al-Qaida operative, who remains a fugitive indicted in the Chicago case.
201CYour friend that u asked about has reached home,201D Major Ali reassured Headley.
Even if the trial paints a convincing portrait of ties between ISI officers and terrorists, the analysis must be careful and measured, experts say.
201CTo date there is no evidence the ISI leadership was aware of the Mumbai attacks, or at least of their scope and scale, which suggests Major Iqbal and possibly others were acting without sanction,201D Tankel said. 201CWhether they were given excessive autonomy or were engaging in outright rogue behavior is a very important question and it will be interesting to see if the trial provides an answer.201D
It will be very interesting over the coming weeks to see how the U.S. Mainstream Media -outside of ABC News- reports on this angle of this week's Osama bin Laden story, given how early on, the MSM seemed eager -almost devoted!- to framing anyone who said anything along the lines of what they're now reporting as fact at ABC News' The Blotter, http://abcnews.go.com/blotter, as either stupid, paranoid or possibly even racist.
Well, don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to now suddenly see the error of their condescending and patronizing ways and suddenly apologize to those very individuals, many of whom spoke of the environmental role of prison life as a factor leading to Muslim conversions among minority prisoners, a topic which, itself, is one that has been reported on to the point that it's Common Knowledge.
And yet if you weren't a certified Beltway 'expert' and said this same thing, look out below!
ABC News The Blotter Osama Bin Laden's Anti-U.S. Strategy: Exploit Minority Converts By Pierre Thomas, Richard Esposito, Lee Ferran May 7, 2011
Osama bin Laden aspired to damage the United States not only through persistent terror attacks, but also by attempting to inflame race and class tensions in hopes of tearing down the country from the inside out, according to officials briefed on the evidence trove recovered from the al Qaeda leader's Pakistan compound.
According to materials in the cache of documents recovered in the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that brought down the terror leader, bin Laden planned to specifically recruit African-American Muslim converts to carry out attacks on the homeland.
