Category Archives: U.S.A.

UPDATE 1-US missile test mimicking Iran strike fails

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Jesus guys, if you are gonna rely on an antimissile system to protect whole countries from Iranian nuclear weapons, one would hope they work. Stratfor finnaly sent out an analysis of the hardware bieng sent all over the gulf. I don’t know if its for publication or not but if it is, I will post soon. If not, at least the jist of it.

From Reuters:

* Radar system malfunctioned in test over Pacific

Pentagon report shows growing Iran missile capability

(Updates with Pentagon report on Iran missile threat)

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) – A U.S. attempt to shoot down a ballistic missile mimicking an attack from Iran failed after a malfunction in a radar built by Raytheon Co (RTN.N), the Defense Department said.

The abortive test over the Pacific Ocean coincided with a Pentagon report that Iran had expanded its ballistic missile capabilities and posed a “significant” threat to U.S. and allied forces in the Middle East region.

The Missile Defense Agency said that in Sunday’s test both the target missile, fired from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, had performed normally.

“However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected,” the agency said on its web site. Officials will investigate the cause of the failure to intercept, it said.

The SBX radar is a major component of the ground-based midcourse defense, the sole U.S. bulwark against long-range missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.

It was the first time the United States had tested its long-range defense against a simulated Iranian attack.

Previous drills have imitated a flight path from North Korea, another country in a standoff with the international community over its nuclear program.

The Pentagon’s Ballistic Missile Defense Review released on Monday said Tehran had developed and acquired ballistic missiles capable of striking targets from the Middle East to Eastern Europe and had fielded increasing numbers of mobile regional ballistic missiles. Continue Reading →

Knight takes pawn: U.S. sends in Aegis ships to Iranian waters

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US raises stakes on Iran by sending in ships and missiles

Patriot missileA Patriot missile is launched during an Israeli-US military excercise in the Negev desert in southern Israel in February 2001. Photograph: Reuters

Tension between the US and Iran heightened dramatically today with the disclosure that Barack Obama is deploying a missile shield to protect American allies in the Gulf from attack by Tehran.

The US is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries – Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait – and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations.

American officials said the move is aimed at deterring an attack by Iran and reassuring Gulf states fearful that Tehran might react to sanctions by striking at US allies in the region. Washington is also seeking to discourage Israel from a strike against Iran by demonstrating that the US is prepared to contain any threat.

The deployment comes after Obama’s attempts to emphasise diplomacy over confrontation in dealing with Iran – a contrast to the Bush administration’s approach – have failed to persuade Tehran to open its nuclear installations to international controls. The White House is now trying to engineer agreement for sanctions focused on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, believed to be in charge of the atomic programme.

Washington has not formally announced the deployment of the Patriots and other anti-missile systems, but by leaking it to American newspapers the administration is evidently seeking to alert Tehran to a hardening of its position.

The administration is deploying two Patriot batteries, capable of shooting down incoming missiles, in each of the four Gulf countries. Kuwait already has an older version of the missile, deployed after Iraq’s invasion. Saudi Arabia has long had the missiles, as has Israel. Continue Reading →

Some articles about the trial in NYC

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It would appear that Obama has bowed to reality again and decided against having the trial of KSM in New York. I have to admire that. With a few more policy adjustments in the face of what is actually rational, Obama may look a lot like George W. at the end of the day. Meanwhile, here are a couple of rather interesting articles on why having this trial in New York is a bad idea, and what sort of people the detainees at Guantanamo really are.

First, from Michelle Malkin on the trial currently underway of an Al Queda suspect who is a microbiologist and was likely planning an attack on the US of a rather high magnitude, with the intention of doing as much harm and causing as much death as her skills as a graduate biologist could create.

Second, the personal story from the New York Post of a security guard at Guantanamo and how he was attacked and who resides there.

Prof. of Islam clear on killing gay people.

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I look forward to hearing leftist university students reconcile this to themselves.

please click here to read the details.

UPDATE: Here is another link on this lecture on diversity and tolerance

Khadr repatriation overturned by top court

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CBCNEWS… The Supreme Court of Canada has overturned lower-court orders that the federal government must try to repatriate Toronto-born Omar Khadr from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

However, the top court agreed Canadian officials violated Khadr’s human rights, and that he continues to be threatened by the effect of those violations.

In a unanimous decision released Friday, the court declared that Canadian officials breached Khadr’s right to life, liberty and security of the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

However, it concluded that ordering the government to ask the U.S. for Khadr’s repatriation to stop the continuing violation of his rights would interfere with the government’s jurisdiction over foreign relations. Therefore, it chose not to issue the order, even though it had the authority to do so.

“We … leave it to the government to decide how best to respond to this judgment in light of current information, its responsibility for foreign affairs and in conformity with the charter,” the ruling said.

Khadr, 23, has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since he was arrested in Afghanistan at age 15, accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier. He is scheduled to be tried in July by a U.S. military court on charges of murder, conspiracy and support of terrorism.

READ MORE

Col. Allen West speaks on strategy and terror

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h/t STOPshariaLAWnow
Lt. Col. Allen West (US Army, Ret.) speaks to the Center for Security Policy’s National Security Group on Capital Hill. Col. West was a senior advisor, Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan, U.S. Central Command. He is running for Congress in South Florida. For more information, see http://www.allenwestforcongress.com/

Watch this story from Texas. There may be more too it

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Man charged in southeast Texas family slaying

Associated Press

Authorities have charged a 20-year-old man with capital murder in the shooting deaths of five family members, including his 2-year-old niece who also was decapitated.

Maron Thomas remains jailed under a $1 million bond, accused in the deaths of his mother, stepfather, sister, brother and niece.

Investigators said Wednesday that an ongoing family dispute led to the shootings, but they declined to give additional details.

The bodies of the five individuals were discovered Sunday in their single-story brick home in Bellville, a town of about 4,000 people 55 miles northwest of Houston.

Thomas was arrested about 3 a.m. Sunday after a homeowner pulled a gun on him after he broke into a vehicle and tried to break into a home 1 1/2 miles from where the murders took place.

(There are rumours that jihadi and specifically Al Queda materials were found in the home. Waiting for more on that.)

Report: American Ex-convicts In Yemen Pose ‘Significant Threat’

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U.S. Worried About Three Dozen Criminals Who Converted to Islam in Prison, Most from New York

The Muslim response to the problem, hire more prison imams. Scary thing is, some idiot in government will agree with them.

ABC VIDEO… As many as three dozen criminals who converted to Islam in American prisons have moved to Yemen where they could pose a “significant threat” to attack the U.S., according to a report on al Qaeda from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be released Wednesday.

“The group seeks to recruit American citizens to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States,” said Sen. John Kerry, D.-Mass., the committee chairman.

The Senate report said that while the ex-convicts “ostensibly” moved to Yemen to study Arabic, U.S. diplomats and law enforcement officials in Yemen “feared that these Americans were radicalized in prison and traveled to Yemen for training.”

An American official said the prison converts were believed to be primarily from the New York state prison system.

Members of the Senate staff were told by U.S. law enforcement officials that FBI agents in Yemen did not have the resources to track the ex-cons and that several “have dropped off the radar” for weeks at a time.

U.S. law enforcement officials in Yemen are on “heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports,” the report said.

Also of concern to U.S. officials, the Senate staff found, is a group of “nearly 10 non-Yemeni Americans who traveled to Yemen, converted to Islam, became fundamentalists and married Yemeni women so they could remain in the country.”

An American official described them as “blond-haired, blue eyed-types” who fit the profile of Americans who al Qaeda has sought to recruit for terror missions. Continue Reading →

US trains elite squad to ‘rescue’ Pakistani nukes.

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Like no one saw this coming at all. Thanks to GOV for the link to Times online

It is worth noting, Pakistan does not have nuclear power for electricity. But they do have the standard 40 megawatt reactor required for building bombs.

Elite US troops ready to combat Pakistani nuclear hijacks

The US army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one.

The specialised unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them.

The move follows growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan’s military, a series of attacks on sensitive installations over the past two years, several of which housed nuclear facilities, and rising tension that has seen a series of official complaints by US authorities to Islamabad in the past fortnight.

“What you have in Pakistan is nuclear weapons mixed with the highest density of extremists in the world, so we have a right to be concerned,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who used to run the US energy department’s intelligence unit. “There have been attacks on army bases which stored nuclear weapons and there have been breaches and infiltrations by terrorists into military facilities.”

Professor Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan security research unit at Bradford University, has tracked a number of attempted security breaches since 2007. “The terrorists are at the gates,” he warned.

In a counterterrorism journal, published by America’s West Point military academy, he documented three incidents. The first was an attack in November 2007 at Sargodha in Punjab, where nuclearcapable F-16 jet aircraft are thought to be stationed. The following month a suicide bomber struck at Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra in Attock district. In August 2008 a group of suicide bombers blew up the gates to a weapons complex at the Wah cantonment in Punjab, believed to be one of Pakistan’s nuclear warhead assembly plants. The attack left 63 people dead.

A further attack followed at Kamra last October. Pakistan denies that the base still has a nuclear role, but Gregory believes it does. A six-man suicide team was arrested in Sargodha last August.

Fears that militants could penetrate a nuclear facility intensified after a brazen attack on army headquarters in Rawalpindi in October when 10 gunmen wearing army uniforms got inside and laid siege for 22 hours. Last month there was an attack on the naval command centre in Islamabad. Continue Reading →

Gen. Peter Pace on the Defenders of Freedom

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Thank you KitmanTV for this excellent recommendation for a video post. Text below verbatim from Kitman’s excellent site

2004 Keeper of The Flame Award
Original site
On Wednesday October 6, 2004, the Center for Security Policy paid tribute to the Defenders of Freedom – the men and women of the U.S. armed services (active duty and reserve), officials of the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, those responsible for the security of our borders and homeland, the first responders, the law enforcement community, intelligence personnel, our allies and industrial base. Accepting the Keeper of the Flame Award on their behalf was the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace USMC.

General Pace’s address to the 350-plus attendees at this elegant black-tie dinner held at the Mayflower Hotel was preceded by a welcome from Harry Stonecipher, President and CEO of the Boeing Company, who served as the Dinner’s Chairman. Gen. Pace was introduced by the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, General James Jones, following a powerful address by the Homeland Security Advisor to the President, Fran Townsend. Ms. Townsend also read a congratulatory message from President George W. Bush that read, in part:

“I commend the Center for Security Policy and those attending this dinner for honoring these dedicated patriots. As we continue to fight terrorism and advance liberty, America stands solidly behind the men and women of our Armed Forces. Their courage, commitment, and sacrifice inspire others and help protect our founding ideals…”

In accepting the award, Gen. Pace movingly praised the courage and commitment of those who serve, and in some cases die for, their country. He described particularly poignantly personal reminiscences of the sacrifices men he led in battle have made – and the inspiration they give to all who defend this country today. Gen. Pace expressed deep gratitude for the support given to uniformed personnel and the other Defenders of Freedom by their loved ones.

Among those in attendance for the fifteenth annual Keeper of the Flame Award were: Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Peter Rodman; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Forces Policy John Rood; and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation, and Homeland Defense, NSC Robert Joseph.

Members of Congress in attendance included: Keeper of the Flame Award recipients Senator Jon Kyl (1994) and Congressman Christopher Cox (1997); Senator Ted Stevens, Senator Kit Bond and Congressman Norm Dicks.

Other distinguished guests included: Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors Kenneth Tomlinson; former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle; and former Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy and Director of Central Intelligence and 2001 Keeper of the Flame Award recipient Dr. James Schlesinger.

The event concluded with remarks by Center Board of Regent Chairman Terry Elkes. Mr. Elkes joined in thanking Gen. Pace and the men and women he represented on this occasion, and encouraged their continued support through the work of the Center for Security Policy.

Aafia Siddiqui demands no Jewish jurors at attempted murder trial

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This would be a rather dangerous precedent if granted, and would accomplish more to destroy the fabric of a liberal USA than any amount of terrorism this woman did. From the UK Timesonline 

A Pakistani scientist who is the only woman accused of working with the al-Qaeda leadership has demanded that Jews should be excluded from the jury at her trial in New York.

Aafia Siddiqui called for jurors to undergo genetic testing in an outburst in federal court in Manhattan yesterday.

“If they have a Zionist or Israeli background . . . they are all mad at me,” Ms Siddiqui, an American-educated neuroscientist, said. “I have a feeling everyone here is them [sic] — subject to genetic testing. They should be excluded if you want to be fair,” she told the judge.

Prosecutors say that Ms Siddiqui, 37, who has a biology degree from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from Brandeis University, fled the US in 2003 after marrying an al-Qaeda operative.

She was arrested outside an Afghan government compound in Ghazni province, allegedly carrying two lb of poisonous sodium cyanide and information on chemical, biological and radiological weapons, as well as descriptions of US landmarks such as Wall Street and the Statue of Liberty.

She is charged with allegedly grabbing a US Army officer’s M4 rifle and shooting at a team of FBI agents who were trying to question her on July 18, 2008. She was shot in the stomach in the exchange of fire and taken to the US a few weeks later to face federal charges of attempted murder and assault.

US officials allege that Ms Siddiqui has links to top al-Qaeda suspects. They say that the mother of three is married to Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Blackuch, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks, and a cousin of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York.

The criminal charges do not mention al-Qaeda, however, and the judge has barred prosecutors from telling the jury about her alleged ties to the terror group.

Nevertheless, Ms Siddiqui, who wore a white scarf covering her face in court, vowed not to co-operate with the trial. “I’m boycotting the trial, just to let all of you know,” she said. “There’s too many injustices.

“I’m out of this,” she added.

After the judge thanked her, she put her head down on the defence table and went silent as prosecutors flashed a photograph of her face on a television monitor.

“I don’t trust you,” she told the judge at one point before the potential jurors packed the courtroom.

The outburst was the latest of a series of courtroom rants by Ms Siddiqui, who has also tried to fire her lawyers.

Her trial had been delayed for psychiatric tests, but most concluded that she was faking mental illness. After jury selection is complete, opening arguments will begin on Tuesday.

US military urged to act over extremists in its ranks

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BBCNEWS.. Two leading US senators have urged the Pentagon to take steps to combat the threat of Islamist extremism within the ranks of the US military.

The senators called for educating military personnel about the “warning signs of extremism”.

The recommendation came in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings in Texas during which an Army major killed 13 people.

Maj Nidal Hasan, a psychiatrist at the base, has been charged with murder and attempted murder.

The 39-year-old American-born Muslim will be tried in a military court but it has not yet been confirmed whether military authorities are seeking the death penalty in this case.

The Pentagon is due to release its own internal review of the incident.

Increasing trust

Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins wrote to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates at the end of their investigation into the 5 November incident at Fort Hood.

The US military should train soldiers “from enlisted personnel to commanders” to recognise and report “the warning signs of violent Islamist extremism”, they said.

“Efforts by DoD [US defence department] to educate its personnel concerning what violent Islamist extremism is and what the warning signs of such extremism are – as distinguished from the practice of the Islamic faith – will increase trust between the thousands of Muslim-Americans serving honourably and their colleagues,” they wrote.

They said current procedures for dealing with such cases were not satisfactory but did not specify what the warning signs would be.