Category: Assassination

Least Surprising CIA Intelligence Dump Ever

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In which it is revealed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind the assassination of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

Seriously, this had to be the worst kept secret in the Middle East: 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia approved the assassination of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, according to an intelligence report that the Biden administration released on Friday that offered the world a reminder of the brutal killing.

An elite team of operatives helped carry out the killing, the report said. The team reported directly to Prince Mohammed, who cultivated a climate of fear that made it unlikely for aides to act without his consent, according to the report. It omitted the brutal details of Mr. Khashoggi’s death, including the dismemberment of his body with a bone saw after Saudi officials lured him to their consulate in Istanbul.

But the Biden administration took no direct action against Prince Mohammed, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, instead announcing travel and financial sanctions on other Saudis involved in the killing and on members of the elite unit of the Royal Guard who protect the crown prince. The administration concluded it could not risk a full rupture of its relationship with the kingdom, relied on by the United States to help contain Iran, to counter terrorist groups and to broker peaceful relations with Israel. Cutting off Saudi Arabia could also push its leaders toward China.

It does not matter how much oil that they have, the House of Saud is a complete sh%$ show, and their moving closer to China, and further from the US would be a bane to the Chinese, and a boon to the USA.

Much of the evidence the C.I.A. used to conclude that Prince Mohammed was culpable in Mr. Khashoggi’s killing remains classified. But the report’s disclosure was the first time that the American intelligence community had made its conclusions public, and the declassified document was a powerful rebuke of the crown prince, a close ally of the Trump administration, whose continued support of him prompted international outrage.

The release of the report signaled that President Biden, unlike his predecessor, would not set aside the killing of Mr. Khashoggi and that his administration intended to try to isolate the crown prince.

“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” said the report, issued by Mr. Biden’s director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines.

The decision to rebuke the Saudis without punishing Prince Mohammed directly was the result of a weekslong debate among aides to Mr. Biden, who during the 2020 campaign called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state with “no redeeming social value.”

Biden’s characterization is not really accurate, in that Saudi Arabia is not a nation-state in the modern sense, people are not citizens but instead subjects.  It is the absolute possession of the House of Saud.

It may not appear so outwardly, but the position of the House of Saud atop the power structure of Riyadh is more precarious than it appears, and it is further jeopardized by Mohammed bin Salman’s headstrong incompetence.

The US disentangling itself to the maximum degree possible before it all comes crashing down is a good thing.

Let them be Beijing’s problem.

Get, Ya Think?

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Why yes, I am inclined to believe that, “Release of intelligence on Khashoggi killing could push U.S.-Saudi relations to new lows,” as well it should.

They murdered a US resident in their consulate, and the Clown Crown Prince ordered it. 

It makes for awkward conversations during the cocktails:

Facing court cases and its own promises of transparency, the Biden administration is about to release a long-sought U.S. intelligence report concluding that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The report, an unclassified summary of findings across the intelligence community produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), will be made public as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter.

Plans for the release come as U.S.-Saudi relations have tumbled to a new low in recent weeks, with the administration canceling arms sales, criticizing human rights abuses and the harassment of dissidents, and pledging to “recalibrate” ties with the kingdom.

The administration has said it will continue to supply Saudi Arabia — the world’s biggest customer for U.S. weaponry — with the means to defend itself against regional adversaries, including Iran and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen, and has indicated it wants to continue a robust counterterrorism partnership.

But it has also made clear that it will, in contrast to its predecessor, press the Saudis toward a diplomatic end to their war in Yemen and to moderate their own extremism, and it will not allow Riyadh to interfere with its plans to rejoin the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran.

………

President Donald Trump made Saudi Arabia a linchpin of his administration’s Middle East policy. Choosing Riyadh as the destination for his first presidential trip abroad in 2017, he hailed the kingdom as the leader of the Muslim world and a major profit-maker for the U.S. defense industry.

Khashoggi, a self-exiled Saudi journalist who wrote critically of the kingdom’s leadership from his home in Virginia, including in columns for The Washington Post, was brutally murdered in October 2018. Lured to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork required for his planned marriage to a Turkish citizen, he was drugged and his body dismembered by Saudi agents, according to investigations by the Turkish government and the United Nations.

Suspicion immediately fell on the ambitious heir to the throne, who was consolidating his power within the often fractious royal family. Despite Saudi government claims that he was not involved, the CIA concluded, in an assessment leaked later that year, that Mohammed had ordered the assassination.

………

In early 2019, Congress passed a law giving the Trump administration 30 days to submit an unclassified report by the ODNI with “a determination and evidence with respect to the advance knowledge and role of any current or former official of Saudi Arabia . . . over the directing, ordering or tampering of evidence in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.” It specifically ordered a release of names.

Trump ignored the mandate. In February 2020, his ODNI informed congressional leaders that it was “unable to provide additional information . . . at the unclassified level,” and sent them a copy of the classified CIA assessment.

………

At Avril Haines’s confirmation hearing to become Biden’s national intelligence director, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked if she would release the ODNI report.

“Yes, Senator. Actually, we’ll follow the law,” Haines replied.

………

Even without Haines’s determination and pressure from Congress, efforts to force release have been moving rapidly through federal court in the Southern District of New York.

The first of two cases filed by the Open Society Justice Initiative under the Freedom of Information Act is a broad 2019 request for “all records” related to the killing and who was responsible, including the classified CIA report. Ordered by the court to produce an index of anything that might be responsive, the Trump administration in December asked for an extension of the deadline. The Biden administration has now asked for an additional extension, until next month.

………

Some experts believe that if both sides are willing, and nuanced diplomacy is pursued, they can still find a way to work productively together. “Once this report comes out, and it’s very damning to the crown prince, it’s going to be tense,” Karen Young of the American Enterprise Institute said in an interview. “But I think everybody has sort of factored that in. . . . Everybody understands that this was a decision that he had something to do with.”

………

Mohammed also serves as his country’s defense minister, and the administration is likely to focus on his role there as the proper level of contact.

“But will there be Oval Office visits?” she said. “No, definitely not.”

I’m not going to talk the moral issues here, the House of Saud is an absolute monarchy and is corrupt and it is not a reliable ally in any matter, so as a matter of basic common sense, tightly embracing Riyadh as a central pillar of our foreign policy is stupid.

Also, it’s increasingly clear, particularly now that the psychopathic moron Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is running things, is that the House is doomed, and it will be overthrown sooner rather than later.

The best outcome would be that the House of Saud is overthrown in the manner of the House of Windsor, and so a lot of the (very) extended clan would need to find real work, and a few would serve as figureheads, and open hospitals and the like.

The worst outcome would be that the House of Saud is overthrown in the manner of the House of Romanov, which would be a horror show, considering the not-inconsiderable hydrocarbon assets in the kingdom and the fact that 2 of Islam’s holiest sites are located there, Medina and Mecca.

The longer that we prop up the House of Saud, and the longer that we prop up Mohammed bin Salman, the more likely that the transition to post-monarchy in that country will be violent and messy.

What the F%$#?

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British MP Jo Cox was just assassinated by a pro-Brexit terrorist:

An MP has died after she was shot and stabbed in a “horrific” assault in her constituency, police have said.

Jo Cox, Labour MP [Member of Parliament] for Batley and Spen, was left bleeding on the ground after the attack in Birstall, West Yorkshire. A man was arrested nearby.

One eyewitness told the BBC they heard her attacker shout “put Britain first” at least twice beforehand.

Tributes flooded in from politicians including David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn and US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Mrs Cox’s husband Brendan said she would want people “to unite to fight against the hatred that killed her.”

………

Mrs Cox, 41, is the first sitting MP to be killed since 1990, when Ian Gow was the last in a string of politicians to die at the hands of Northern Irish terror groups.

An assassination in Britain, with a firearm?

I think that England may be hanging around with the wrong sort:  A mindlessly violent bloke with a firearms fetish:  the good old US od A.

And yet I find just the opposite to be true. The replacement is even more extreme

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What a surprise.  The US policy of assassination makes extremest groups more extreme and more dangerous:


The elimination of Taliban leader Mansour will only increase the danger to Afghan civilians, a US terrorism analyst, whose research focuses on the impact of targeted killings, predicts.

Dr Max Abrahms, from Northeastern University in Boston, said the US Government does not look carefully enough at the strategic implications of its strikes on extremist leaders.

He said he had done a number of studies on leadership decapitation of a militant group and he had not found a statistically significant reduction in the amount of violence perpetrated by the group after a leader was removed.

“In fact these decapitation strikes can actually be counter-productive, because one of the assumptions of the targeted killing campaigns is that the replacement of the leader that you killed will be more moderate,” Dr Abrahms said.

“And yet I find just the opposite to be true. The replacement is even more extreme.

“So for that reason, in the immediate aftermath of a successful targeted killing, like over this weekend, the group’s violence tends to become even more extreme, in the sense that it’s even more likely to attack civilian targets.”

………

“What I’ve seen is that the younger people to emerge in the Taliban are actually even crazier, if you will, than the old guard.”

And then Abrams says that, “He did not think the US Government very carefully studied the strategic implications of taking out Mansour.”

Gee, you think?

The problem here is that there are way too many people out there who think that our “Freedumb Bomz” will make the world a better place because they are our weapons.

Like the bite of a dog into a stone, it is a stupidity.

H/t Empty Wheel.

Anwar al-Awlaki Assassination Memo Released in Redacted Form

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The legal justification basically comes down to the fact that the incredibly broad 911 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) would justify lethal force.

This appears to me to be good law, but remain dubious of the facts.

Basically, and this is on a quick reading of a heavily redacted memo full of legalese, there is no mention of the actual activities that al-Awalki engaged in that had him declared a combatant, just a justification for lethal actions against American citizens who have assumed a combat role against the United States.

So, we still don’t know what he did to be declared a combatant. It could be that he was involved in major military decisions, functioning as a military officer in al-Qaida, but I’ve never seen any sort of release, either officially or through leaks, claiming this.

What we do some of what he was doing.

He produced and distributed sermons supporting Jihad, and we know that he provided religious advice to people in AQAP, including the Underoos bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

If these are the facts that led the US government, and I am inclined to believe that this is the totality of the actual facts against him.  (See my no leaks comment above)

If this is the case, then the US state security apparatus specifically targeted Anwar al-Awlaki on the basis of activities which are purely clerical in nature.

This begs the obvious question, “When do we start droning the leaders of Operation Rescue?”

After all, if pastoral support of terrorism rates assassination, the ongoing terrorism against abortion providers should be at the top of the list.

Memo, such as it is, after the break.

Heck of a Job, Barry………

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What a surprise we do another drone strike, a “success”, and transformed the person that we assassinated from public enemy number one to a martyr and hero:

In life, Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, was Public Enemy No. 1: a ruthless figure who devoted his career to bloodshed and mayhem, whom Pakistani pundits occasionally accused of being a pawn of Indian, or even American, intelligence.

 But after his death, it seems, Pakistani hearts have grown fonder.

 Since missiles fired by American drones killed Mr. Mehsud in his vehicle on Friday, Pakistan’s political leaders have reacted with unusual vehemence. The interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, denounced the strike as sabotage of incipient government peace talks with the Taliban. Media commentators fulminated about American treachery. And the former cricket star Imran Khan, now a politician, renewed his threats to block NATO military supply lines through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa — a province his Tehreek-e-Insaf party controls — with a parliamentary vote scheduled for Monday.

 Virtually nobody openly welcomed the demise of Mr. Mehsud, who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistani civilians. To some American security analysts, the furious reaction was another sign of the perversity and ingratitude that they say have scarred Pakistan’s relationship with the United States.

 “It’s another stab in the back,” said Bill Roggio, whose website, the Long War Journal, monitors drone strikes. “Even those of us who watch Pakistan closely don’t know where they stand anymore. It’s such a double game.”

 To many Pakistanis, though, it is the United States that is double-dealing, and sentiments like Mr. Roggio’s exemplify typical American arrogance. Shireen Mazari, a senior official in Mr. Khan’s party, has urged the Pakistani military to shoot down drones.

Does anyone really really think that this makes us any safer?

It might temporarily increase the safety of our imperial contingent in Afghanistan, but our incessant drone strikes, and the resultant terror that this engenders in the population creates people who want to kill us.

It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.

Why I Call Him the Worst Constitutional Law Professor Ever.

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Just in case your wondering how bad Obama’s assertions of the right to kill anyone, at any time, are, note that not only are they dubious constitutionally, they directly conflict with the black letter text of the Magna Carta, meaning that he’s not just ignoring 230 years of law, he’s ignoring 798 years of law:

Two provisions of Magna Carta deserve our attention today, a gift to us from the Barons of 13th century England.

38. No bailiff for the future shall, upon his own unsupported complaint, put anyone to his “law”, without credible witnesses brought for this purposes. {This was replaced by improved legislation in 1863}

39. No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised {deprived of land} or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. {This remains in force for the people of England, but no longer in the USA}

Our ancestors spent much blood, sweat, and tears between that day at Runnymede and the meeting in 1878 at Philadelphia. The liberties provided by the Constitution were won over those 30 generations, by the unruly Saxons and Normans of Medieval England — and the Founders, jealous of their liberties and willing to fight for them. In the decade since 9-11 we’ve thoughtlessly thrown away political structures that took centuries to build.

This country in general, and the Obama administration in general, is going in a profoundly wrong directions.

Yep, He’s F%$#ing Nuts

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Federal Judge Larry Burns has ruled that Arizona gunman Jared Lee Loughner is not mentally competent to stand trial:

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Jared Lee Loughner was incompetent to stand trial, all but ending, for now, legal proceedings in the January shooting spree that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

After studying reports from two mental-health experts who examined the 22-year-old defendant, Judge Larry A. Burns stopped federal death-penalty proceedings against Loughner and sent him back to the federal medical center for prisoners in Springfield, Mo., for treatment and further evaluation.

Burns scheduled another hearing for Sept. 21 to see if Loughner’s condition had improved enough for him to assist in his own defense.

It’s clear to me, and I understand that I am not a psychological professional, but it’s clear that this guy is a couple of fries short of a happy meal.

The question here is whether or not getting him well enough to stand trial means just trying him, or if it means meaningful treatment options, along with a reasonable assessment of what should be done if he is ever well enough to be a part of general society again.

I favor the latter myself, and it should be noted that the way that we address serious mental issues in the US is clearly deficient.

Vos? Sarah Palin iz a Yid*

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When juxtaposed with the phrase, “Don’t retreat, reload,” this is an unfortunate turn of phrase

So Sarah Palin is now claiming that criticism of her “target map” and her shooting inspired rhetoric is blood libel:

“Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions,” Palin wrote in an early morning post on her Facebook account on Wednesday. “But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

(emphasis mine)

<Facepalm>

For those of you unfamiliar with Jewish history, the blood libel is the accusation that Jews use Christian baby’s blood to bake their matzohs for Passover.

This fraud was the cause of the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Jews over the past 200 years.

Needless to say, the idea that anyone who isn’t Jewish would use the term for something as meaningless as  criticism over their rhetoric is offensive, ahistorical, narcissistic, and just plain wrong, particularly for someone who is not Jewish.

The level of venality for a non-Jew to use this to condemn people for saying mean things about her simply boggles the mind.  I cannot imagine anyone being so self-centered and inconsiderate to do this, so Sarah Palin must be Jewish.†

The response to this has been actually been fairly universal.

Months ago, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, The View‘s resident right winger, called the map despicable months ago.

Additionally, former Bush speech writer turned conservative apostate David Frum, has called her out for unleashing her attack dogs, while National Review nepotism hire Jonah Goldberg, calls the use of the phrase stupid in so many words., and trust me, Jonah Goldberg knows stupid like few others.

Additionally, Jewish Groups, including the ADL, which normally spends it time sucking up to ignorant bigots have condemned the use of the phrase.

Pat Buchanan, though, was true to form, saying that he, “thought it was an excellent statement“.

For what it’s worth, Joan Walsh’s assessment of the statement, that Palin has fatally wounded her Presidential chances, is, I think, completely wrong.

Her analysis misses a basic Republican imperative, to piss off liberals and Democrats any chance they get. Really, when you look at GOP frat boy behavior, it’s clear that much of what they do is driven by this petty need.

By pissing off liberals with the “blood libel” comment, she cements her relationship with the movement conservatives and teabaggers, and pissing off Jews, who constitute a minuscule part of the party, is just gravy, because it shows the Talibaptist wing of the Republican party that she is one of them.

That being said, I would still argue that the simplest hypothesis is the one most likely the correct one, and that would be that she is a person suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

*My best effort at translating “What? Sarah Palin is a Jew?” into transliterated English.
†I’m not asking for evidence of Todd’s circumcision, thankyouverymuch!

OK, I Don’t Have Much to Add on the Assassination and Shooting Spree

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Click for full size

These are on the days preceding the shooting

But Brad Delong finds a rather alarming data point.

Here are two members of Congress, both Democrats, from the same state, but in the 4 days before the shooting, Gifford’s hits on her wiki page skyrocketed.

There are a number of caveats here:

  • Even with the delta, the number is pretty small, under 400 hits peak over a 4 day period.
  • This could have been triggered by something as innocent as a mass email to constituents.
  • It could be one person, obsessively visiting the page.

It could also be:

  • The result of some obscure right wing media figure calling her out.
  • The result of a small group of people involved in a conspiracy. (Unlikely, this seems to be the archetypal Lone Gunman).

Anyone aware of any event that might support some the more prosaic explanations?

OK, So It Wasn’t Kinky Sex

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Well, when I wrote about the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a major actor in the military wing of Hamas in Syria, I suggested that it was not a result of is day job, where he worked in textiles, and gave the three alternatives as the Mossad, a dispute internal to Hamas, and the consequence of some sort of kinky sex.

Well, I think that we can rule out the last two:

Dubai police released names and photographs of 11 suspects they say took part in the murder of a senior Hamas official there last month, and separately detained two Palestinians in connection with the killing.

The suspects, who entered the emirate from a number of European Union countries, carried out the assassination, Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said at a press conference today. The suspects included six British passport holders, three Irish, one German and one French, Tamim said. Dubai will submit their names to Interpol for arrest warrants, he said.

Hamas would not have used so many people under different passports.

It’s odd though that Hamas was so caught off guard by this.

Hmmm…………Who Could it Be?

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Could it be ………… the Mossad?

Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was one of the founders of Hamas’ Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and was believed to be a major conduit of weapons to Gaza.

On January 19, he was found dead in his hotel room, and authorities in Dubai are saying that he was done by a hit squad with “European passports”, and these people were already out of the country before the body was discovered.

Among other oddities: His bodyguard was not with him because the plane was full, which is kind of a “WTF” thing.

Additionally, the cause of death is unclear, with reports, according to the Wiki, of suffocation, electrocution (unlikely, it’s a stupid way to off someone), and, “a heart-attack inducing drug”.

What is interesting (quoting the Wiki) is just how much Hamas is not on the same page about this:

Hamas officials made diverse and conflicting statements regarding the circumstances of their leader’s death. On the day of the incident, Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, announced that he died of terminal cancer in a hospital in the United Arab Emirates.

On 29 January, top Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said that it was possible that members of the entourage of Israeli infrastructure minister Uzi Landau were involved in Mabhuh’s death. Landau was visiting the United Arab Emirates at the time for a renewable energy conference. Landau dismissed the claim, stating that his delegation was in Abu Dhabi, some 120 km from Dubai, and was escorted by 8-man UAE security team at all times.

Also on 29 January, Hamas’ deputy politburo chief Moussa Abu Marzouk said, “Mossad agents are those who assassinated al-Mabhouh”.

On 2 February, Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan said that Palestinian Authority security forces might have been involved in the death. He stated that “The Palestinian Authority security forces are pursuing [our] fighters and they have killed dozens of them since 1994.” The same day, Haaretz reported that a Hamas investigation suggested Mabhuh was assassinated by agents of an Arab government, and that al-Mabhouh was wanted by Egypt and Jordan.

Seeing as how his “day job” was running a textile firm, I see only four possibilities, the Mossad, some sort of internecine warfare amongst members of Hamas, some sort of natural death while in a sexually compromised position (which would explain the absence of body guards as well as the confusion from Hamas), or the textile industry in Syria is more cut-throat than I previously understood.

My money is on the Mossad.

That whole “silk merchant gone bad” thing ……… not so much.

I am Reproducing This in Full Because the Cache Will Expire

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H/T Below The Beltway for the screen shot (click for full size)

Some background:

Remember when I suggested that recent rhetoric about Barack Obama was really about encouraging someone with the, “Psychological stability of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the shooting ability of…well…Lee Harvey Oswald (he was a Marine) to whack Obama?”

I also mentioned the Facebook “Assassinate Obama” poll.

It seems like it was only yesterday when I mentioned these….Hold on, it WAS yesterday when I mentioned this.

The tinfoil hat crowd is a bunch of very busy people this week.

Well, another part of the right wing sewage brigade, Newsmax published an article explicitly calling for a coup to overthrow him. Don’t click the link though, once the cowards at Newsmax realized that it was getting play, they pulled it, but here is the Google Cache.

In any case, I think that it is crucial that his word remain alive on the net in their entirety, so here is his article, in all its Fascist glory:

Obama Risks a Domestic Military ‘Intervention’

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:35 AM

By: John L. Perry

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

  • Officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.”
  • Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.
  • They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.
  • They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.
  • They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.
  • They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America’s troop strength is allowed to sag.
  • They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.
  • They can see the nation’s safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before. So, if you are one of those observant military professionals, what do you do?

    Wait until this president bungles into losing the war in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s arsenal of nuclear bombs falls into the hands of militant Islam?

    Wait until Israel is forced to launch air strikes on Iran’s nuclear-bomb plants, and the Middle East explodes, destabilizing or subjugating the Free World?

    What happens if the generals Obama sent to win the Afghan war are told by this president (who now says, “I’m not interested in victory”) that they will be denied troops they must have to win? Do they follow orders they cannot carry out, consistent with their oath of duty? Do they resign en masse?

    Or do they soldier on, hoping the 2010 congressional elections will reverse the situation? Do they dare gamble the national survival on such political whims?

    Anyone who imagines that those thoughts are not weighing heavily on the intellect and conscience of America’s military leadership is lost in a fool’s fog.

    Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

    Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

    Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

    Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”

    In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

    John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for Newsmax.com.

    • (emphasis mine)

    I guess it might read better in the original German. In the Confederate States of America dialect of English, it’s a lot shorter, of course, “Lynch the n*gg*r.”

    My first thought was to register LiberalsWithGuns.org, but someone has already beaten me to it, so I sent them an email offering my very poor HTML coding skills.

    What the Republican Crazy Talk is About

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    So I’m on the Stellar Parthenon BBS, and Unmutual notes that Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) is saying that, “The President Is an enemy of humanity.”

    He muses that this kind of Batsh&% insane simply stupid:

    Yep, continue this kind of idiotic rhetoric against the most popularly elected president in recent memory, surely that’s going to get you more supporters than reaching across the isle and actually trying to get stuff done.

    I think that he is an optimist. This is not stupidity. This is done with a purpose.

    The goal here is to get someone with the psychological stability of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the shooting ability of…well…Lee Harvey Oswald (he was a Marine) to whack Obama.

    Seriously. There are two group of people speaking for the Republican party: Those who are batsh%$ insane, and want Obama dead, and those who think that his getting killed would be good for them in 2010.

    I’m not sure which group scares me more.

    Video below:

    US Close to Fielding Airborne Tactical Laser

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    First, the obligatory Real Genius reference:

    Of course, the conceit of that movie was that it could make a human being vaporise from orbit.

    Well, this laser ain’t gonna do it.

    Nor will it, as this PowerPoint presentation implies, allow one to kill someone with plausible deniability.

    First, one needs to understand the language of weaseling in defense procurement, and PowerPoint presentations are the slate upon which weaseling is written.

    Then, there is the baisc physics: Human beings are basically water bags, and water is hard to heat, the specific heat of water is: 4.186 joule/gram-°C, which means that the laser, which is supposed to be in the 100KW range, would take about 3.14 seconds to heat up 75 kg (165 pounds) of water from body temp to boiling.

    Human reaction time is around 200ms, so in order to burn a hole through someone (100cm deep x 1cm 1cm, 100 g water), you would need about 2.09kw, but once the tissue started to ablate, the resultant steam cloud would start degrading the beam.

    Also note that you would carbonize the tissue, and carbon melts at 3500°C, and a person being lasered would be a reducing atmosphere, so it would burn.

    Additionally, you would need to hit a vital part. When you hit a liver or a femoral artery with a bullet, death follows in minutes (or less) with a bullet, but a laser wound would be cauterized, so basically, you need a heart or a head hit, and even then the damage is localized along the beam path.

    The physical characteristics of a laser wound mean that any post mortem would point to a laser, which in turn, given the cost of lasers, would point back to the US, after all who is going to drop all that money on a few tons of chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, and iodine.

    So this won’t be a people killer.

    Basically, it’s easier to poke holes in or cut tissue, and more difficult to vaporize tissue relative to metal (Steel’s specific heat is about 0.5 joule/gram-°C, 1/8 that of water)

    On the other hand, if you used it on something like a SAM missile motor to trigger an explosion, it might work, or to set off an explosion in an ammo dump, it might very well work.

    As the technology gets smaller, and lighter, and cheaper, I could see more applications though.

    Posts by David Hambling here and here, and Boeing’s press release here.

    I would say, as is de regeur with the USAF, they are overselling the technology.

    What Mr. Hambling noted as a scenario, from an orbiting aircraft, with all the shaking involved, along with a claimed 20km of air currents bending the light, is not credible:

    According to the developers, the accuracy of this weapon is little short of supernatural. They claim that the pinpoint precision can make it lethal or non-lethal at will. For example, they say it can either destroy a vehicle completely, or just damage the tires to immobilize it. The illustration shows a theoretical 26-second engagement in which the beam deftly destroys “32 tires, 11 Antennae, 3 Missile Launchers, 11 EO devices, 4 Mortars, 5 Machine Guns” — while avoiding harming a truckload of refugees and the soldiers guarding them. It reminds me of how the Lone Ranger could always shoot the gun out an opponent’s hand without injuring them; if that could really be done from an aircraft circling overhead, it would certainly be an impressive feat.

    It is potentially useful in limited circumstances, but in most circumstances, something like a missile will do just as well for a lot less money.

    When a solid state laser can do something north of 5KW, you will start to see wider application of the technology.

    Arkansas State Democratic Party Chair Shot and Killed

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    I’m not claiming a conspiracy, after all, if you were going to do this, you would not choose someone in Arkansas like Bill Gwatney, which is not a likely location for a Republican pickup in Congress or an Obama victory in November.

    I will say, however that the tenor of political discourse, with such things as David Boehner calling for Pelosi’s lynching contributes to these events.

    With it increasingly looking like Obama will take the White House, there is a growing segment of the Republican base, who believe that God intends them to rule forever, who will be willing, even eager, to use terrorism in furtherance of their cause.