POTUS in 2016, No Lame Duck, Cure Cancer?

What about what Barack Obama said at the 2015 State of the Union? Fact checking:

#LastSOTU FACT CHECK: A Disastrous Foreign PolicyJanuary 12, 2016|Speaker Ryan Press Office

State of the Union: President Obama pushes for cancer cure

 CBS: |In his final State of the Union address, President Obama announced a new national effort to find a cure for cancer and put Vice President Joe Biden, who lost his son to the disease, “in charge of Mission Control.”

State of the Union 2016 ~ Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans:

Tonight marks the eighth year I’ve come here to report on the State of the Union. And for this final one, I’m going to try to make it shorter. I know some of you are antsy to get back to Iowa.

I also understand that because it’s an election season, expectations for what we’ll achieve this year are low. Still, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the constructive approach you and the other leaders took at the end of last year to pass a budget and make tax cuts permanent for working families. So I hope we can work together this year on bipartisan priorities like criminal justice reform, and helping people who are battling prescription drug abuse. We just might surprise the cynics again.

But tonight, I want to go easy on the traditional list of proposals for the year ahead. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty, from helping students learn to write computer code to personalizing medical treatments for patients. And I’ll keep pushing for progress on the work that still needs doing. Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done.

Who attended as the First Lady, Michelle Obama’s guests? Click here to find out. The DNC Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz instructed several in Congress to bring a Muslim along as a guest and they did. A few of them were associated with terrorism.

The we have retired Army Colonel Allen West as he wrote his summary on the SOTU.

Townhall:  My assessment is that Obama spoke much about nothing that is pertinent to where we find ourselves today in America. His defined policy objectives were criminal justice reform, heroin abuse, our immigration system (meaning amnesty for illegals), gun violence, equal pay, paid leave, and raising the minimum wage.

President Obama talked about giving everyone a “fair shot” at opportunity in a new economy. First of all, who defines what a “fair shot” is? It appears that this is just more coded language for government-guaranteed equality of outcomes. The “every kid gets a trophy mentality” is not what America is about. That ideology is what gave us Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act, and eventually, the financial crisis and meltdown. Government decided that it was their mandate to give a “fair shot” to everyone who wanted to buy a home, and it did not end well. Government works best when it creates the policies that advance individual sovereignty so individuals may pursue their own defined dreams, the pursuit of happiness. Anything else, as we have seen and as President Obama champions, is antithetical to who we are.

Somehow, President Obama failed to address the 40-year low workforce participation rate and the fact that more Americans have been dropped from the workforce under his “fair shot” policies. Obama said nothing about a national debt that threatens the future of America. The poverty and food stamp rolls have exploded in these past seven years. That is not the best of America. It is certainly not the best that we can do. We must grow this economy and we can do so, along with reforming government spending, and eliminating crony capitalism and corporate welfare.

Obama’s vision of the future is centered on an ideological agenda that puts in peril the hopes and aspirations of our children and grandchildren. They will have less economic freedom and certainly less liberty if the Islamic terrorists prevail.

I have additional concerns from President Obama’s final SOTU address. First of all, if our military was so very strong then why did we have 10 U.S. Navy Sailors detained by the Iranians because the engines on two riverine assault boats malfunctioned? That makes no real sense to me. Nor have we taken care of our Veterans. I wear a ring on my salute hand trigger finger to remind me about the 22 Veterans a day who are committing suicide in America. While we know there are problems in our VA system, no major reform has been made and many perpetrators of this heinous wrong still hold their positions.

Obama said nothing about the Taliban’s resurgence and their hold on more territory than any time since 2001. It was just last week that the Taliban had an American Special Forces team trapped in Helmand province, yet Obama cannot bring himself to refer to this as “combat.” Obama’s own former acting CIA Director Mike Morrell testified Tuesday during a House Armed Services Committee that ISIS affiliations have grown far more Al Qaeda’s and that they comprise a legitimate strategic threat to the world and our homeland. There was no mention of ISIS’ most recent attacks in Baghdad and Istanbul. Again, Obama just could not bring himself to say Islamic terrorists or jihadists. In Obama’s mind, they are just “killers and fanatics,” and shutting down GITMO will reduce their recruiting efforts. No, Mr. President, your fecklessness and exhibited weakness emboldens ISIS and their allies which are growing from Boko Haram in Nigeria to Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. Obama asked for Congress to vote on an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) but first we need a strategic plan to defeat ISIS. He could have articulated that but chose more lofty rhetoric and lecturing instead.

Russia has expanded and is in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria. China is building manmade islands by destroying reef systems and landing planes on these islands. Where are the environmentalists? China is also about to open up its first military base in Africa in Djibouti, as we have announced we are departing. The Iranian nuclear deal is a failure and has only served to empower and fund the number one state sponsor of Islamic terrorism. Iran is now exploiting their new-found strength and becoming a regional hegemony. Hence, the very open schism between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

President Obama talks about “protecting the American people” yet we had the biggest Islamic terrorist attack since 9-11 on his watch, San Bernardino. Before that it was Ft. Hood. And in the U.S., the enemy attacks our men and women in uniform with impunity, such as at the Naval Reserve Support Facility in Chattanooga. In the last week, we have arrested former refugee ISIS supporters in Sacramento and Houston. And who can forget the video of the horrific attempt to assassinate Philadelphia Police Officer Hartnett by an admitted Islamic jihadist. The American people are kind and willing to open up our arms to embrace those fleeing persecution, such as the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Coptics, and Yazidis, but those were not mentioned by President Obama. What the American people will not allow is what is happening in Germany and the rest of Europe. We will not allow a war on our women, as we are seeing there due to a clash of civilizational values, principles, and morals.

I can only wish that President Obama saw the enemy for who it is, and not the ideologically driven “threat” of climate change. Please read his entire response here.

The Islamic State vs. al-Qaeda

The Islamic State vs. al-Qaeda: The War within the Jihadist Movement

WotR: The post-Arab Spring period has seen extraordinary growth in the global jihadist movement. In addition to the Islamic State seizing a vast swathe of territory spanning Syria and Iraq and al-Qaeda establishing itself as a potent military force in the Syrian civil war, instability and unfulfilled expectations in numerous countries — including Egypt, Libya, Mali, Tunisia, and Yemen — have presented jihadists with unprecedented opportunities.

But even as the jihadist movement experiences rapid growth, it has also endured unprecedented internal turmoil. The Islamic State’s emergence marks the first time that leadership over the global jihadist movement has been seriously contested. Since that group’s expulsion from the al-Qaeda network in February 2014, a fierce competition between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda has defined the militant landscape. The United States has an opportunity to exploit and aggravate fissures within the jihadist community, but to do so successfully, it is essential to understand the differences in the modus operandi of these two rival jihadist groups.

Two Models of Revolutionary Warfare

Though al-Qaeda and the Islamic State share the same ultimate goal — establishing a global caliphate ruled by an austere version of sharia (Islamic law) — each group maintains a distinct approach to revolutionary warfare. Al-Qaeda has come to favor covert expansion, unacknowledged affiliates, and a relatively quiet organizational strategy designed to carefully build a larger base of support before engaging in open warfare with its foes. By contrast, the Islamic State believes that the time for a broader military confrontation has already arrived, and has loudly disseminated its propaganda to rally as many soldiers as possible to its cause. The group combines shocking violence with an effective propaganda apparatus in an effort to quickly build its base of support.

The Maoist and focoist schools of revolutionary thought provide a useful framework for understanding these groups’ differing strategies. Al-Qaeda exhibits a revolutionary strategy that is both implicitly and explicitly based on the works of Mao Tse-tung, while the Islamic State’s approach is more consonant with the focoist writings of Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Régis Debray.

Interestingly, in 2010 Kenneth Payne published an article in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism arguing that al-Qaeda’s strategy was focoist in nature, based on a review of the group’s strategic literature and operations. Though al-Qaeda has exhibited both Maoist and focoist strands of thought, the fact that Payne’s argument was published in 2010 is significant: He wrote just on the cusp of the “Arab Spring” revolutions, which, as this article details, provided al-Qaeda the opportunity to make its Maoist-style turn that focused on the population more apparent. Ryan Evans’s argument, which was published in the CTC Sentinel the same year as Payne’s piece, has held up better over time. Evans discerned a shift in strategy between the efforts of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the later campaign of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and argued that AQAP’s more population-centric approach was forged by the group’s failures in Iraq. He noted that the shift in strategy in Yemen may herald “a larger turn for al-Qaeda globally toward a more Maoist attitude.”

Mao’s theory of revolution is rooted in the primacy of politics over warfare. In Mao’s view, a steadfast political foundation is necessary to allow guerrilla forces to create bases for logistics and operations and slowly build strength and momentum for the final conventional stage of warfare. Thus, according to Mao, before guerilla forces can initiate military action, they must first focus on “arousing and organizing the people,” and “achieving internal unification politically.” This stage is followed seamlessly by a stage of progressive expansion, followed by a third and final stage of decision — the destruction of the enemy.

Maoist revolutionaries continue to emphasize the political stage of organization and consolidation even as they pursue progressive expansion. Consistent with Maoist theory, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have focused on maintaining and expanding the group’s political support. Even in areas where al-Qaeda has engaged in open warfare, it has been somewhat restrained in its approach to civilian populations since the initiation of AQAP’s campaign in 2009 that Ryan Evans noted was a departure from the group’s Iraq model of insurgency. Thereafter, the group has adopted a phased implementation of its hardline version of sharia where it enjoys control or significant influence. The only one of al-Qaeda’s branches that explicitly did not fit this new model was AQI, which later was expelled from al-Qaeda’s network and adopted the new moniker of the Islamic State. (Al-Qaeda’s approach toward civilian populations can only be considered “restrained” in very relative terms, juxtaposed with the more oppressive and publicly violent tactics of the Islamic State, and al-Qaeda’s own previous approach.) Al-Qaeda’s adherence to a largely Maoist framework was shaped by its experience of being hunted by the United States and its allies for a decade and a half, and — as Evans argued — particularly by the defeat of its Iraqi affiliate. Al-Qaeda’s use of Maoist strategy is designed to be low-risk and to yield long-term results.

The focoist approach to revolutionary war contrasts sharply with the Maoist approach. First used successfully in Cuba in the early 1950s, focoism holds that the political foundation necessary for revolution can be crafted through violence. Guevara essentially flipped Mao’s theory by arguing that the use of violence against the state would inspire the peasants to rise up. Unlike Mao’s strategy, focoism accepts great risks in order to inspire support. The Islamic State has in many ways followed the focoist model; it believes in the power of violence to forge the political opinions of the Muslim masses. The Islamic State views al-Qaeda’s more deliberate approach as too slow. It appears happy to win today and lose tomorrow, as long as today’s win creates a large enough subject for propaganda.

This framework of Maoist versus focoist models of revolutionary warfare should not be seen as a complete explanation for either al-Qaeda or the Islamic State’s behavior. Neither group is perfectly Maoist or focoist, but using these models provides a useful paradigm for interpreting the strategic competition between the groups.

Al-Qaeda’s Population-Centric Approach

Al-Qaeda has taken advantage of two major opportunities driven by the unsuccessful revolution in Syria and the successful revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. The first opportunity is that the regional upheaval created a growth environment for jihadism, and al-Qaeda has established a significant presence in places where it had previously been suppressed. The second opportunity is that as al-Qaeda expanded into new areas, it perceived an opening to repair its global image that had been badly damaged by AQI. Al-Qaeda has implemented a population-centric approach to increase its base of popular support by employing gradualism and cooperation with local actors. Al-Qaeda has also made use of popular front groups in its expansion. This is intended to reduce the organization’s exposure to counterinsurgent forces, including the United States and the Middle East’s Sunni regimes, and to avoid frightening or alienating local populations.

Popular support has become essential to al-Qaeda. While the group once conceptualized itself as exclusively a vanguard movement, it has come to view itself in recent years as a popular movement that needs the support or acquiescence of the populace. This transformation had begun prior to the Arab Spring. In 2005, then al-Qaeda deputy emir Ayman al-Zawahiri explained in a letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, AQI’s reckless emir, that “the strongest weapon which the mujahedeen enjoy … is popular support from the Muslim masses in Iraq, and the surrounding Muslim countries. So, we must maintain this support as best we can, and we should strive to increase it.” As previously noted, AQAP’s approach in its first year of operations reflected this paradigm. But the transformation of al-Qaeda into a more broad-based movement was supercharged by the Arab Spring, which provided a critical opening for jihadism.

In the wake of those revolutions, al-Qaeda’s senior leadership pushed hard to regain the trust and support of local populations and avoid the mistakes that marred AQI’s Iraq campaign. In an undated letter that al-Qaeda’s masul aqalim (head of regions) Atiyah Abd al-Rahman wrote to Nasir al-Wuhayshi, AQAP’s emir, he noted that “the people’s support to the mujahedin is as important as the water for fish,” referencing Mao’s famous adage that “the guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.” Wuhayshi in turn transmitted a similar message to the leadership of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, illustrating al-Qaeda’s coordinated efforts.

The most significant example of these changes came in September 2013, when Zawahiri, who became al-Qaeda’s emir following Osama bin Laden’s death in May 2011, released a document entitled “General Guidelines for Jihad” that made public al-Qaeda’s new population-centric approach. Zawahiri instructed affiliates to avoid conflict with Middle Eastern governments when possible, asserting that conflict with local regimes would distract from efforts to build bases of support. Zawahiri also instructed affiliates to minimize violent conflict with Shia and non-Muslim populations, and to abstain from attacks that could result in Muslim civilian casualties. Consonant with these changes to al-Qaeda’s operations, the organization has also launched a “rebranding” campaign (a subject we have addressed previously at War on the Rocks) designed to present the group as a more reasonable — and perhaps controllable — alternative to the Islamic State, and as a potential bulwark against Iranian encroachment.

Al-Qaeda’s strategy of covert expansion — its use of front groups and its embrace of a relatively low-key public profile — is another critical element in the group’s post-Arab Spring approach. In a letter recovered from his Abbottabad compound, bin Laden explained the rationale for preferring a low profile. He noted that when a branch’s affiliation with al-Qaeda “becomes declared and out in the open,” the group’s enemies escalate their attacks on it.

Al-Qaeda’s efforts in Tunisia exemplified its early post-Arab Spring strategy. Its expansion was spearheaded by a front organization called Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST). Several high-profile salafi jihadists who had been released from prison when the regime of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was overthrown established the group. AST initially focused its resources on dawa (evangelism) by organizing dawa events, holding public protests, and dominating physical spaces near places of worship. AST also provided services, including food, clothing, and medical care, to impoverished communities, and developed a social media apparatus to publicize its dawa activities.

AST’s emphasis on dawa was characteristic of al-Qaeda’s early post-Arab Spring strategy. The group’s ideologues understood that they would have unprecedented opportunities to disseminate salafi jihadist ideology to the public. While the old dictators placed strict restrictions on religious expression, strategists foresaw fewer restrictions in post-autocratic environments. This strategic logic was expressed by Atiyah, who in February 2011 exhorted jihadists in post-revolutionary states to “spring into action and initiate or increase their preaching, education, reformation and revitalization in light of the freedom and opportunities now available in this post revolution era.”

As AST’s dawa gained traction, the group also began to engage in hisba violence targeting those who violated salafist religious norms. AST was initially methodical in its use of violence, striking targets such as prostitutes and establishments that served alcohol — which would be widely considered acceptable by those inclined toward religious fundamentalism. Moreover, AST refrained from claiming responsibility for these hisba attacks, creating the perception that this violence was organic to the Tunisian people. Through this approach, AST ensured that its use of violence did not cross a line that would provoke a government crackdown.

As it became more entrenched, AST eventually embraced jihadist violence, first facilitating Tunisians’ travel to foreign battlefields like Syria, Libya and Mali before eventually turning its guns against the Tunisian state. AST members were implicated in the 2013 assassinations of secularist politicians Chokri Belaïd and Mohammed Brahmi. Less than a week after Brahmi’s July 2013 death, a jihadist ambush in Jebel el-Chaambi killed eight Tunisian soldiers, five of whom had their throats slit. These bloody incidents constituted a point of no return, and in August 2013 the government designated AST a terrorist organization and cracked down on the group.

It is not clear that AST’s leadership wanted the group’s violence to escalate so quickly. Indeed, it seems the group had not progressed far enough through Mao’s stages of revolutionary warfare by July 2013 to justify the initiation of open warfare. AST gave its local branches considerable autonomy, which may have contributed to violence escalating faster than the leadership wanted or anticipated. Despite this, al-Qaeda’s blueprint for Tunisia nonetheless demonstrates how its plans for the post-Arab Spring environment followed Maoist insurgent principles.

The Islamic State’s Bold, Boisterous Growth Model

The Islamic State’s strategy for supplanting al-Qaeda centers on two techniques. First, the group sought to portray al-Qaeda’s slower and more deliberate strategy as weakness and indecisiveness. Second, the Islamic State appealed to al-Qaeda’s affiliates by emphasizing its momentum and expansion with the aim of poaching groups, members, and potential recruits. In essence, the Islamic State’s approach is the opposite of al-Qaeda’s: While al-Qaeda has sought to minimize the amount of attention it receives in order to reduce its exposure to counterinsurgents, the Islamic State constantly seeks the spotlight, and touts its victories (real or invented) at every opportunity. The Islamic State is trying to transform al-Qaeda’s strategic methods into weaknesses.

One way the Islamic State has tried to distinguish itself from al-Qaeda is its approach to governance, particularly its implementation of sharia. The Islamic State’s ability to impose governance where it enjoys military power is essential to the caliphate’s legitimacy. Following its capture of territory in Iraq and Syria, the organization quickly set up governance structures and showcased its efforts to provide social services to local populations. Rather than building public support prior to fully enforcing its austere version of sharia, the Islamic State quickly implemented hudud punishments (sharia-prescribed corporal punishment). As such, coercive violence is a major component of the Islamic State’s governance. The organization has thrown people suspected of being gay off of roofs, beheaded those it deems traitors or apostates, cut off the hands of thieves, and stoned to death women accused of adultery.

By contrast, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have chosen a slower, more methodical imposition of sharia. The group’s guidelines emphasize a somewhat pragmatic approach aimed at winning over the population. Al-Qaeda leaders have instructed affiliates to tailor the implementation of sharia to local conditions, taking into consideration local customs and religious practices, and to implement sharia flexibly in its initial phases, forgiving minor transgressions during that period. Al-Qaeda’s gradualist approach has been on display in Syria, where its affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra has repealed bans on cigarette smoking, and has made public displays of punishing fighters who unjustly harm local residents. This approach should not be mistaken for moderation on Nusra’s part — there are compelling reports of the group’s continuing extremism, especially in its treatment of religious minorities — but Nusra has done a masterful job of concealing its atrocities and maintaining its local image as a populist entity.

Al-Qaeda’s population-centric approach has been a major target of derision for the Islamic State, which accuses al-Qaeda of abandoning true Islamic principles by giving “preference to popularity and rationalization.”

Overt and Covert Expansion

Military strategy is another area where the Islamic State and al-Qaeda differ. The Islamic State employs an aggressive approach to territorial conquest. The group’s willingness to employ force-on-force warfare enabled it to take major territory quickly: Overall, this tactic has borne fruit for the organization, but has also increased the Islamic State’s rate of attrition. As the Islamic State has experienced military setbacks, it has moved toward greater use of irregular warfare, a strategic shift that illustrates the group’s capacity for adaptation.

The Islamic State’s hybrid warfare strategy does not necessarily distinguish it from al-Qaeda, which has employed similar tactics in some theaters. What makes the Islamic State unique is the way it showcases its military operations, using virtually all of them as propaganda pieces. While one function of the Islamic State’s military actions is to showcase the group’s strength, al-Qaeda has systematically sought to conceal the size of its network and downplay its capabilities. The group has masked its involvement in emerging theatres of conflict and established covert relationships with unacknowledged affiliate organizations like AST.

Consequently, many analysts underestimate al-Qaeda’s strength, and counterinsurgent forces have allowed al-Qaeda front groups to thrive in some theaters. Concealing affiliates’ relationships with al-Qaeda allows these groups to gain public support and attract resources from individuals and entities that might otherwise be wary of assisting an overt al-Qaeda entity.

Al-Qaeda’s military approach and preference for more covert activities is shaped by its patient worldview. Ostentatious, tactical victories that expose the network to attack and undermine its long-term prospects are of little value to the organization from a strategic perspective. In an article published in al-Qaeda’s online magazine Resurgence, jihadist strategist Abu Ubaydah al-Maqdisi explained the rationale behind this policy of restraint:

A guerilla force may possess the capacity of inflicting huge blows on the enemy, but it may be better for it to restrain from doing so in situations when the reaction of the enemy may be overwhelming.

Essentially, al-Qaeda’s senior leadership wants the organization to slowly develop its capabilities and resources in preparation for a longer campaign. At the same time, al-Qaeda leadership instructs its affiliates to begin destabilizing state regimes. This two-pronged strategy of enhancing its capabilities and destabilizing enemy regimes positions al-Qaeda to capitalize on state weakness and collapse in the long term.

A New Jihadist Era

The Islamic State’s rise has reshaped the global jihadist landscape, which for nearly two decades was dominated by al-Qaeda. With the Islamic State seizing the world’s attention, the age of unipolarity within the jihadist movement is over, replaced by intense internal conflict. Each group is firm in the belief that its organizational model is superior to that of its opponent.

The transnational jihadist movement is likely to be shaped in the coming years by this competition. It is essential that the United States understand the two groups’ strategies and pay close attention as their approaches continue to evolve. The United States has tremendous opportunities to exploit the cleavages between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. But if we fail to understand the two organizations’ strengths, weaknesses, and strategic and tactical postures, the jihadist movement may emerge from this period of competition stronger than before.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the chief executive officer of Valens Global, a consulting firm that focuses on violent non-state actors. Nathaniel Barr is the research manager at Valens Global, where Bridget Moreng is an analyst. This article was adapted from their report (co-authored with War on the Rocks senior editor Jason Fritz) Islamic State vs. Al-Qaeda: Strategic Dimensions of a Patricidal Conflict, which was published by the New America Foundation in December 2015.

RapeFugee Operation Coordinated on Social Media

It is a game and it has a name: ‘Taharrush gamea’

German Justice Minister: Cologne attacks planned in advance

Minister of Justice Heiko Maas has said he believes the sexual assaults in Cologne were ‘coordinated and prepared’ ahead of time. He also accused xenophobic groups of using the crimes to stir up hatred.

DW: Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas was the latest high-profile politician to speak out about the string of sexual assaults in Cologne on Sunday. In an interview with the popular “Bild am Sonntag” newspaper, Maas voiced his suspicions that the crimes which have the whole country reeling were not the result of an opportunistic mob mentality but a thought-out, planned attack on the city’s women.

“No one can tell me that it wasn’t coordinated and prepared,” the minister said. “My suspicion is that this specific date was picked, and a certain number of people expected. This would again add another dimension [to the crimes].”

The newspaper provided details from official police reports citing the use of social networks by some north African migrant communities to encourage their fellows to join them in the square between the Cologne train station and the cathedral, where the now hundreds of incidents of molestation and pick-pocketing took place.

Maas was careful to echo his colleagues, however, when it came to warning the public against placing blame on the country’s immigrants, saying “to assume from somebody’s origin whether or not they are delinquent is quite reckless.” The minister added that it is “complete nonsense” to take these crimes as evidence that foreigners cannot be integrated into German society.

Maas lashes out at PEGIDA, AfD

In the interview, Maas also accused the far-right populists of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, along with the organizers of the xenophobic PEGIDA marches, of using Cologne for propaganda purposes.

“There is the only way they can explain how shamelessly they operate their sweeping campaign against foreigners,” Maas said, referring to Saturday’s PEGIDA demonstration at the Cologne train station, which was itself met with a flashmob of counter-protesters condemning racism and sexism.

All that being said, Maas added that “cultural background justifies or excuses nothing. There is no acceptable explanation [for the assaults]. For us, men and women have equal rights in all matters. Everyone who lives here must accept that.”

In the coming days, Maas’ Social Democrats (SPD) are expected to join coalition partners, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s (CDU) in presenting new laws to the Bundestag that would expedite the deportation of asylum seekers and migrants who commit crimes . The administration has received a hefty amount of criticism for ill-preparedness when dealing with the open-door policy it has adopted towards Europe’s migrant crisis.

Istanbul Suicide Bomber Entered Country as Syrian Refugee, Officials Say

Bomber identified as Nabil Fadli was fingerprinted, but information didn’t set off security alerts

WSJ: ISTANBUL—The Islamic State suicide bomber who killed 10 German tourists in the heart of Istanbul entered the country as a Syrian refugee without setting off security alerts, Turkish officials said Wednesday, highlighting concerns that extremists are using the migrant crisis to move around and carry out terrorist attacks.

Just to our North, comes 10,000 Syrian refugees in Canada.

Canada welcomes 10,000th Syrian refugee

Ottawa (AFP) – Canada has welcomed its 10,000th Syrian refugee, the government announced Wednesday, although almost two weeks behind schedule and far fewer than it had originally planned to resettle by now.

A planeload landed in Toronto late Tuesday, putting the number of arrivals of asylum seekers at 10,121 since November when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals took office.

In a statement, Immigration Minister John McCallum called it a “significant milestone” on the way to meeting the Liberal’s overall pledge to take in 25,000 Syrians.

“Many people have worked day and night to bring these refugees to Canada,” he said, “and Canadians have opened their communities and their hearts to welcome them.

“Canada continues to set an international example with its response to the worst refugee crisis of our time.”

Trudeau had promised during an election campaign last year to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by December 31.

But after assuming power the target date was pushed to the end of February, following criticism that the government was moving too fast amid security concerns in the aftermath of deadly attacks in Paris, as well as due to logistical issues.

A new interim target of taking in 10,000 by December 31 was set, but only 6,000 Syrians travelling from camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey made it onto Canadian soil by year’s end.

The UN refugee agency estimates that more than four million Syrians have fled the civil war ravaging their country. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts the total number of dead at more than 260,000 people.

 

No Rules of Engagement Leads to U.S. Humiliation by IRGC

Never fire unless fired upon, not even warning shots. It is alleged that 2 U.S. Navy ‘riverines’ had strayed into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. Exactly how do 2 boats ‘drift’ when those waters are in fact well known to all U.S. naval vessels? Don’t believe the story…. The United States is humiliated by Iran and John Kerry says thank you. Additional statements from VP Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

In part from NYT’s: The waters in question are a frequent site of intelligence collection by the United States, Iran and many gulf countries. The American and Iranian Navies frequently encounter each other there.

The detention and release of the sailors comes at a particularly delicate moment in the tense American-Iranian relationship, just days before a nuclear deal is to be formally put in place, and under which the United States is to unfreeze about $100 billion in Iranian assets.

That step is to be made after international nuclear inspectors verify that Iran has shipped 98 percent of its nuclear fuel out of the country, has disabled and removed centrifuges, and has taken a large plutonium reactor permanently offline.

Riverines are valued at $3.0 million each and are fast boats complete with very advanced communications gear and guns including .50 cal weapons.

At 12:30 PM, EST, word came into the Pentagon that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which reports directly to the Iranian mullahs had arrested 10 U.S. sailors near Farsi Island, a small island of several in the Persian Gulf. Farsi island is exclusively an IRGC base and is surrounded by mines in the water and gunboats. Drifting is the excuse but hardly likely while there were other naval vessels in those exact waters. The ten sailors were 9 males and 1 female. The female sailor was forced to cover her head.

Negotiation began as soon as the Pentagon was notified and further contacted the State Department Secretary, John Kerry and the White House situation room. The official statement was Iran was cooperating and the sailors were being treated with mercy.

In part from FreeBeacon: Iran asserts the sailors were released after the United States apologized, prompting a flurry of denials from senior Obama administration officials.

Ali Fadavi, commander of the IRGC Navy, said that Tehran had missiles locked on the United States at the time of the incident.

“They were in sight of our missiles,” Fadavi said in Persian, according to a statement carried by the IRGC’s official news outlet. “If this had happened, it would have led to their annihilation.

“We had high preparedness with coast-to-sea missiles, rocket-firing fast boats, and various capabilities,” he said. “We prevented their additional irresponsible movement with the statements we broadcasted internationally. It was proven to them that the IRGC Navy has the first and final word.”

The U.S. cannot stand up to Iran, according to Fadavi.

It appears our sailors were stripped of all communications gear as were the boats as the IRGC said the USS Truman, a carrier strike group was not behaving so a hostile arrest was made. John Kerry groveled, likely pledged other promises, offered profound apologies. Humiliating.

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Much more perspective from Michael Rubin:

AEI: There’s a common delusion out there that when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fires off ballistic missiles or kidnaps sailors it’s either hardline elements trying to embarrass moderates, or rogue actors. It may be a comforting conceit to believe that any element of the Iranian government is on “our side” but evidence suggests that at best, the Islamic Republic is playing a game of good cop-bad cop, and that outrages such as taking American sailors hostage are welcome, not rogue actions.

A riverine command boat operates during a maritime air support operations center exercise in the Arabia Gulf in this June 12, 2012 handout photo, provided by the U.S. Navy, January 12, 2016. U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters .

A riverine command boat operates during a maritime air support operations center exercise in the Arabia Gulf in this June 12, 2012 handout photo, provided by the U.S. Navy, January 12, 2016. U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters .

Let’s put aside the fact that Article 110 of the Iranian constitution (backed by practice and the statue of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) makes the Supreme Leader the “supreme commander of the armed forces” with the power to appoint and dismiss the chief of the general staff, IRGC commanders, and the commanders of the army, navy, and air force. In other words, if Supreme Leader wanted to make heads roll in response to such provocations, he could.

There’s a history here of Western diplomats excusing bad Iranian behavior out of a desire to exculpate “reformers” or to dismiss provocations as the action of rogues.

  • In 1989, for example, there was the Ghassemlou assassination, when Iranian officials — meeting an Iranian Kurdish leader and his aides to negotiate an end to strife between Iranian Kurds and the central government — ended up assassinating the Kurdish team at an apartment in downtown Vienna.
  • Then, in 1992, after the German foreign minister announced a policy to re-integrate Iran into the global community and increase trade, the Iranian government responded by assassinating another Kurdish delegation at a restaurant in Berlin.
  • In 1994, an Iranian terrorist team blew up the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
  • Beginning in 2003, the IRGC (despite the promises of then UN ambassador and now Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif) began infiltrating Iraq and equipping militias to murder American soldiers.

In each case, Western diplomats sought to deny Iranian government responsibility. What they did not realize until later was that in each case, the gunman or chief planner ended up with a promotion. Mohammad Jaafari Sahraroudi, for example, the man behind Abdol-Rahman Ghassemlou’s murder, subsequently became a brigadier-general in the Qods Force and was placed in charge of its intelligence directorate. Ahmad Vahidi, the mastermind of the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing, became President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defense minister. Hassan Kazemi Qomi, a Qods Force operating serving as ‘ambassador’ to Iraq later won promotion to the Supreme Leader’s office, and Col. Amangah, the commander of the operation that seized the British sailors, later was decorated as soldier of the year. Promotions are hardly the punishment one would expect if the Iranian behavior really was not blessed, encouraged, and supported from the very top.

It’s time to stop deluding ourselves, and to judge Iran by what its actions are rather than what we would wish them to be.

 

ODNI Chief Clapper, Hacked Again

Teen Who Hacked CIA Email Is Back to Prank US Spy Chief

Motherboard: One of the “teenage hackers” who broke into the CIA director’s AOL email account last year hasn’t given up targeting government intelligence officials. His latest victim is the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Motherboard has learned.

A group of hackers calling themselves “Crackas With Attitude” or CWA made headlines in October, hacking into CIA Director John Brennan’s email account and apparently getting access to several online tools and portals used by US law enforcement agencies.The hackers’ exploits prompted the FBI to issue an alert warning government officials of their attacks.

One of the group’s hackers, who’s known as “Cracka,” contacted me on Monday, claiming to have broken into a series of accounts connected to Clapper, including his home telephone and internet, his personal email, and his wife’s Yahoo email. While in control of Clapper’s Verizon FiOS account, Cracka claimed to have changed the settings so that every call to his house number would get forwarded to the Free Palestine Movement. When they gained notoriety last year, Cracka and CWA claimed their actions were all in support of the Palestine cause.

“I’m pretty sure they don’t even know they’ve been hacked,” Cracka told me in an online chat.

But Brian Hale, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, confirmed the hack to Motherboard on Tuesday.

“We’re aware of the matter and we reported it to the appropriate authorities,” Hale said, declining to answer any other questions on the record. (The FBI declined to comment.)

Cracka, or whoever is pretending to be him, taunted authorities on Twitter (the hacker used a new Twitter account, not the same one he used at the time of the Brennan hack. But the hacker also is in control of a chat app account who’s been using to communicate with me since last October).
Cracka provided me with what he claimed to be Clapper’s home number. When I called it on Monday evening, I got an answer from Paul Larudee, the co-founder of the Free Palestine Movement. Larudee told me that he had been getting calls for Clapper for the last hour, after an anonymous caller told him that he had set Clapper’s number to forward calls to him. Larudee said that one of the callers said he was sitting in Clapper’s house next to his wife.

According to public records, the phone number does belong to James Clapper’s household. Cracka also provided another number, a cellphone, which he said belonged to either Clapper or Clapper’s wife, Susan. When I called, a woman picked up and I asked if this was Susan Clapper. The woman responded that Susan wasn’t there, but that she’d tell her to call me back. But nobody ever did.

Cracka also claimed to have gotten into Susan’s Yahoo email account, as well as Clapper’s email account. He provided a series of screenshots to prove he had control of their Verizon FiOS account, as well as Susan’s Yahoo account. Motherboard couldn’t independently verify the authenticity of the screenshots.

The hacker also sent me a list of call logs to Clapper’s home number. In the log, there was a number listed as belonging to Vonna Heaton, an executive at Ball Aerospace and a former senior executive at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. When I called that number, the woman who picked up identified as Vonna Heaton. When I told her who I was, she declined to answer any questions.

“A journalist? Oh my gosh” she said, laughing uncomfortably. “I have somebody on the line, I’m sorry, I have no insight into that. But that’s really unfortunate, have a great day.”

“I just wanted the gov to know people aren’t fucking around, people know what they’re doing and people don’t agree #FreePalestine.”
Michael Adams, an information security expert who served more than two decades in the US Special Operations Command, said that this looks “more of a social engineering hack than a real hack,” but also added that “every serious hack starts with social engineering.”

Adams also said that it’s “insane” that Clapper doesn’t do more to hide his home address and phone number (both can be found with a Google search).

“If I’m the Director of National Intelligence of the United States of America nobody is going to know where the fuck I live, nobody is going to have my goddamn phone number or address,” Adams told me in a phone interview.

On Tuesday, Cracka asked me not to name him in the article, saying he “doesn’t like the attention.”

“You Asked why I did it,” he added. “I just wanted the gov to know people aren’t fucking around, people know what they’re doing and people don’t agree #FreePalestine.”