Obama DID Veto Defense Bill, Losing 40,000 Troops

Posted on October 23, 2015October 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

While the media was consumed with Hillary Clinton’s testimony before the Gowdy Benghazi Commission, another important event took place and it included Barack Obama’s famous pen. He vetoed the$612 billion Defense bill, stating it was full of gimmicks and did not allow him the money or pathway to close Guantanamo.

Has anyone in the Obama administration bothered to consider what our adversaries are doing with their military like China and Russia much less Iran?

In part from FNC:

Four years after Congress passed and Obama signed into law strict, across-the-board spending limits, both parties are eager to bust through the caps for defense spending. But Obama has insisted that spending on domestic programs be raised at the same time, setting off a budget clash with Republicans that has yet to be resolved.

To side-step the budget caps, known in Washington as sequestration, lawmakers added an extra $38.3 billion to a separate account for wartime operations that is immune to the spending limits. The White House has dismissed that approach as a “gimmick” that fails to deal with the broader problem or provide long-term budget certainty for the Pentagon.

Obama also rejects the bill as written due to provisions making it harder for him to transfer suspected terror detainees out of the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a key campaign promise that Obama is hard-pressed to fulfill before his term ends. The White House has also expressed concerns over provisions preventing military base closures and funding equipment beyond what the military says it needs.

A deeper consequence for the military:

FreeBeacon: The Army has disclosed that it has cut 80,000 soldiers since 2010 and plans to reduce the force by another 40,000 by the end of 2017, bringing the total active number of troops to 450,000, according to a report to Congress that was recently released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

“Nearly every Army installation will experience reductions of some size,” according to the report, which was obtained and released by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

It warns of a “permanent reduction of sizable numbers of members of the Armed Forces,” which translates to a 21 percent total cut across the board.

“Significant structure cuts at overseas installations have already occurred,” according to the report.

The Army will be forced to further cut its budget in 2018 and beyond, according to the report

“These force structure reductions and the resulting impacts on installation populations could be significant to both military communities and to the defense posture of our nation.”

At least six Army installations will see their forces cut by more than 1,000 soldiers, according to the report. These include Fort Benning in Georgia, Fort Bliss in Texas, Fort Hood in Texas, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, and Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.

The continuing cuts come as the military faces massive and ongoing budget cuts that have not only reduced the forces but have also impacted the purchase and maintenance of military hardware.

While experts have expressed concerns about the United States’ ability to combat threats across the globe on multiple fronts, the Army maintains that the reduced force will not harm its abilities.

“The Army will continue to be a force that can deploy and sustain capabilities across the range of military operations anywhere in the world on short notice,” according to the report.

Still, “force structure reductions and the resulting impacts on installation populations could be significant to both military communities and to the defense posture of our nation,” the Army says in the report.

An additional number of posts in the civilian Army workforce will also be eliminated by 2019, the report states.

The report includes an evaluation of the “the local economic, strategic, and operational consequences of the reductions at” the six installations mentioned above.

The cuts were spread “broadly” across the force “in terms of geography and organizationally,” according to the report. “There simply was not one segment of the Army that could sustain the entirety of the cuts.”

Soldiers will likely experience an interruption in their lives, though the Army is seeking to minimize this.

“The Army will employ all possible measures to minimize personnel turbulence (to both Soldiers and their Families) associated with the force structure reductions on the six installations in question,” the report states. “There will be instances where Soldiers (and Families) will depart an installation on an accelerated timeline.”

Local economies also will be impacted by the cuts. These include direct losses from government contract service jobs that will be cut, as well as “indirect job losses that would occur in the community because of a reduction in demand for goods and services.”

Meanwhile, President Obama vetoed on Thursday a massive defense spending bill that would fund military operations across the globe and provide troops with a pay raise.

Smoking Gun in Hillary/Benghazi Hearing Was Chelsea

Posted on October 22, 2015October 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

The first attack happened and Hillary left the State Department and went home. While at home she had people telling her people were missing and dying. If one of your diplomatic posts was attacked would you leave the office and go home? When questioned about being alone at home during the attack, Hillary laughed.

But, Chelsea knew first the Benghazi attackers were Ansar al Sharia…..then Hillary told the same to the Libyan and Egyptian government…..oh then those pesky talking points about the video was the other track at the same time where the White House was calling YouTube while brave and fighting Americans were still on the roof and 2 at the mission post had already died.

Attkisson: Within hours of the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Clinton emailed her daughter, Chelsea, that Americans had died at the hands of an al-Qaeda like group. Al-Qaeda is the Islamic extremist terrorist group that was led by Osama bin Laden. Clinton also informed Egypt’s prime minister and Libya’s president that the attacks were “preplanned” and “had nothing to do with” an anti-Islamic video posted on YouTube.

That is perspective and real when the Democrats whined all day about how much money has been spent on the Gowdy Benghazi Commission. Isn’t live priceless? Not so much with those Democrats.

All the Democrats are claiming victory today as is Hillary’s team as she never had a meltdown. But real details and facts don’t matter except to those seeking and finding the truth in verified evidence.

Post Qaddafi, Hillary took a play it by ear posture in Libya, hence the lack of email traffic on the topic as noted with visual stacks of emails today in the hearing.
The people in Libya and especially Ambassador Chris Stevens did not have Hillary’s email address and actually never spoke to her by phone after he was sworn in as Ambassador, replacing Ambassador Cretz who was removed from the country due to WikiLeaks cables. Perhaps Ambassador Stevens should have just coordinated more security by asking Blumenthal, as he was forced to responded to forwarded emails by Hillary, that originate by Sidney Blumenthal.
Oh, Hillary NEVER had a computer at the State Department.
While the attack was going on, Hillary issued an official written statement that it WAS an attack, but what about that video thing that went on for weeks including Susan Rice on all the Sunday talk shows?
One of the security contractors was operating in Libya without a contract and license.
There were more than 600 requests for more security, none got to Hillary? No country summary went to Hillary discussing Libya as a failing country?
Benghazi was originally a temporary mission, soon to be a permanent facility, so she never signed a waiver exempting Benghazi from meeting security standards mandated by law.
Congressman Pompeo of Kansas asked Hillary about Marc Turi and the weapons bound for the Transnational Council. Her response was she knew nothing about Turi or the weapons, but that discussion and the list of weapons were in her emails.
No one was disciplined or fired over Benghazi failures.
Chris Stevens was my friend but he never asked me for an increase in security, he couldn’t as he had no way to contact me other than go through my people at the State Department.

In closing, Hillary’s entire legal team handled the email sorting and the servers, she said she had no role. Did those lawyers all have security clearance to do that? Nah….and so it goes.

Sheik of Terror Protected by Qatar, White House Approves

Posted on October 21, 2015October 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

Al-Qaradawi’s popularity among the Sunnis has grown because of the massive use he makes of electronic media, mainly television and the Internet. One of his most important tools is the Al-Jazeera TV channel, which broadcasts his popular program “Life and Islamic Law,” viewed by tens of millions of Muslims.
Al-Qaradawi has often exploited the program for blatant anti-Semitic propaganda and incitement (see below). He was also one of the founders of the IslamOnline website in 1997, which often quotes him.
Al-Qaradawi refers to his religious views as “moderate Islam,” which seeks to balance intellect and emotion. He has positive attitudes toward reforms in Islam, which he calls “correcting perceptions which were corrupted.” He is considered one of the foremost propounders of the doctrine of the “the law of the Muslim minorities,” which provides the Muslim minorities around the globe with space in which to maneuver and compromise between their daily lives and Islamic law. The aim of implementing his doctrine is to unite and unify Muslim minorities to make it possible for them to live under non-Muslim regimes, until the final stage of spreading Islam to the entire world.
At the same time, building a bridge between the exigencies of Muslim emigrants’ daily lives and Islamic religious law also includes regarding taking over Europe as Islam’s next target. In 2003 al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa declaring that “Islam will return to Europe as a victorious conqueror after having been expelled twice. This time it will not be conquest by the sword, but by preaching and spreading [Islamic] ideology…The future belongs to Islam…The spread of Islam until it conquers the entire world and includes the both East and West marks the beginning of the return of the Islamic Caliphate…”

The ‘go-to’ country in the Middle East for Barack Obama, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry has been Qatar. al Qaradawi, a major leader of the Muslim Brotherhood is not on the U.S. terror list due in part to Qatar for intervening but he is on the United Arab Emirates list.

Sheik Yusuf al Qaradawi is the Theologian of Terror. The document is here.

He operates freely in Qatar as does the Taliban 5 that Barack Obama released from Guantanamo in exchange for Army deserter, Bowe Bergdahl.

For a full and terrifying background, there are several WikiLeaks cables proving his global Muslim Brotherhood ties and fatwas.

The threats al Qaradawi makes to Egypt began at least in 2008 where the Iranian Shiite Imperialism will reign in Egypt. The threats continued in 2013 where Qaradawi called on Muslims worldwide to wage jihad in Egypt.

(Per raw translation, including words that don’t translate well into English:)

Al-Qaradawi when he praises Allah of low turnout in elections by $ 600,000 «concert» included 15 country-led and 200 members of «terrorist» festive, however, overturned on Al-Qaradawi, the reaction to the terrorist group, reprimand for failing to support their candidates from either party, or other, despite many Community financial support during the past few days in support of a number of candidates who were supporters of the terrorist group.

The sources said that businessman brothers is guaranteed by “alazomh” which cost nearly $ 600,000, where attendees were distributed Hidayat also represented in “gold coins”, explaining that the celebratory “gloating” also saw the closed meetings between his brother, the leadership and representatives of the Government and the country’s security apparatus, Qaradawi asked to celebrate a few Egyptians vote turnout in the elections to Qatar to increase funding for the terrorist group in Egypt, located on its territory.

Qaradawi of Qatar requested the necessary amount estimated at about 5 million dollars under the pretext of revival demonstrations community again in Egypt, and Egyptian embassies in several countries as a kind of pressure on the current system of compensation for the failure of the community to introduce her supporters in the first almerglh of Parliament, until the country’s leaders responded to the brothers, said: “getkm disappointment. Glad no.. Da mafeesh and don’t sell you candidate got the votes guaranteed win “.

The sources confirmed that the country refused to provide any support during that period only after establishing a clear vision and an action plan during the coming period both inside or outside Egypt, to embarrass Egypt in any way, Al-Qaradawi has responded that it already during these days, and that he agreed with the characters of foreign nationals to assist them in the development of such a scheme.

Taliban WAS in that Hospital when Bombed, but…

Posted on October 21, 2015October 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

The U.S. took the blame for the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, but the question is why?

The Geneva Convention has rules and declares that internationally recognized medical insignia must be flown on the roof, but what was on the roof was NOT the recognized logo or insignia at the time of the bombing.

Afghan defense minister says Taliban hid in bombed hospital

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)— Afghanistan’s acting defense minister said Monday that the Doctors Without Borders hospital bombed by U.S. forces in the northern city of Kunduz was being used by insurgents as a “safe place.” More here.

Yet, there was a much bigger problem at the time when the Afghanis called in the airstrike:

Army intelligence system allegedly down during hospital attack

Associated Press via ArmyTimes: WASHINGTON — The Army’s $5 billion intelligence network, which is designed to give commanders battlefield awareness but has been criticized for years as a boondoggle, was not working in Afghanistan during the recent American air attack on a hospital, according to a member of Congress who has been in touch with military whistleblowers.

Significant elements of the Distributed Common Ground System, a network of computers and sensors designed to knit together disparate strands of intelligence, were off line in Afghanistan when U.S. commanders approved an air strike Oct. 3 that killed 22 staff, patients and others at a Doctors without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Rep. Duncan Hunter wrote Tuesday to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

“The purpose of DCGS is to enable commanders and service members to ‘see and know’ the battlefield and prevent incidents like the airstrike on the hospital in Kunduz,” wrote Hunter, a California Republican, combat veteran and armed services committee member who has been a persistent DCGS critic.

“Senior Army leaders have gone to extraordinary lengths in recent years to deny evidence of the failures of the DCGS program, and I am asking for your help to prevent them from doing so following this tragic incident,” he wrote.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s unclear whether the breakdown of key DCGS systems contributed to the decision to approve the air attack, which Pentagon officials say was a mistake. But the coordinates of the hospital were entered into an intelligence database that is part of the DCGS intelligence network, according to a U.S. official who would not be quoted because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

The Army over the years has touted DCGS as having “saved lives” with its ability to fuse together various intelligence sources, including drone footage, mapping software, human source reports, social media and eavesdropping transcripts. But independent Army testers repeatedly have questioned the system’s effectiveness. One testing report in 2012 said it was “not survivable,” meaning it was at risk of failing in combat.

The Associated Press has reported that special operations intelligence analysts knew the Doctors without Borders facility was a hospital, and were circulating intelligence reports about possible enemy activity at the site. Some of those analysts were using a commercial software system made by Palantir, a Silicon Valley company that competes with DCGS, according to an Army official who would not be quoted because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

President Barack Obama apologized for the air attack to Dr. Joanne Liu, the international president of Doctors without Borders, who has called for an independent international investigation. U.S., NATO and Afghan investigations are looking into the matter. The U.S. has offered to compensate the families of those killed and injured.

Pentagon officials have said the military did not intentionally target the hospital, but they have not explained why the Army analysts who knew it was a medical facility were not able to convey that intelligence to commanders who approved the air strike.

Among the elements of DCGS that were not working, service members told Hunter, were the intelligence fusion server, which is supposed to allow seamless information sharing across various Army elements, and the cloud, which is supposed to offer connectivity to units in the field.

Hunter told Carter that his sources say they fear for their careers if they speak out publicly, because “members of Army leadership have previously gone to great lengths to protect this system and its proponents.”

“Army Brigade commanders have told me of intimidation and threats after saying in writing that DCGS ‘translates into operational opportunities missed and lives lost,’ Hunter wrote to Carter. “Such actions are indicative of a climate that is contradictory to a transparent and objective assessment of the facts with respect to this system.”

Pakistan Terror Cells and Nuclear Weapons, the Nightmare

Posted on October 21, 2015October 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

What is at issue with Pakistan? India, Khorasan or Islamic State or all of that and more?

Under the Bush administration, the U.S. paid $100 million to secure Pakistan’ nuclear weapons. This included materials, warheads and laboratories. The full details are here. The big question now is how will Obama handle the new demands of Pakistan and their ultimatums?

Pakistan to tell U.S. it won’t accept limits on tactical nuclear arms

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will tell U.S. President Barack Obama this week that Islamabad will not accept limits on its use of small tactical nuclear weapons, Pakistani officials said on Wednesday.

Pakistan insists smaller weapons would deter a sudden attack by its bigger neighbor India. But the United States worries tactical weapons may further destabilize an already volatile region because their smaller size makes them more tempting to use in a conventional war.

Sharif and Obama are due to meet on Thursday.

The United States wants Pakistan to commit to not using tactical nuclear weapons but Islamabad wants to keep its options open as a way of deterring a potential Indian attack, said Maria Sultan, head of the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute. More here.

Nightmare: Pakistan To Deploy Small Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is coming to the United States next week on an official visit, and the New York Times reports that ahead of the visit the Obama administration is holding talks with Pakistani officials about Pakistan’s plan to deploy a small tactical nuclear weapon which would be more difficult to monitor and secure than Pakistan’s arsenal of larger weapons. According to Home Land Security News Wire, the White House has not yet commented on the issue. Experts doubt Pakistan would agree to any limits on its nuclear arsenal. “If Pakistan would take the actions requested by the United States, it would essentially amount to recognition of rehabilitation and would essentially amount to parole,” George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Times.

“I think it’s worth a try,” Perkovich added. “But I have my doubts that the Pakistanis are capable of doing this.” Other officials and outside experts said the main component of the proposed deal would be the loosening of strict controls imposed on Pakistan by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an affiliation of nations that try to control the creation of weapons. The Times reports that the Bush administration spent as much as $100 million on a secret program to help secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, helping with physical security and the training of Pakistani security personnel. Those efforts continued in the Obama years. Administration officials have told Congress that most of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is under good safeguards, with warheads separated from delivery vehicles and a series of measures in place to guard against unauthorized use. These officials fear, however, the smaller weapons are easier to steal, or would be easier to use should they fall into the hands of a rogue commander.

The nightmare:

In part from CTC: In March 2014, nine members of al-Qa`ida, who were active with the group in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, defected to the group that now calls itself the “Islamic State.”[1] The defections took place months before the Islamic State formally announced its Caliphate and at that time little public attention was given to the shift in allegiances of those al-Qa`ida men, despite one of them being the brother of famed jihadi ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi.[2] The defections, at the time, seemed more like an outlier, but in hindsight they were an early sign of broader developments affecting Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s militant landscapes. The Islamic State’s formal declaration of its “Khorasan” chapter in January 2015 is another indicator of the changes that are taking place. These changes are being pushed by what currently appears to be a fairly loosely configured, but noteworthy, network of groups and individuals who are trying to alter the direction of South and Central Asia’s multiple jihads.

A useful starting point are those individuals and groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan who have publicly pledged bay`a to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s self-described “Caliph,” and whose pledge has been officially recognized by the Islamic State. The individual appointed in January 2015 as ISK’s leader is Hafiz Khan Saeed, a former Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) commander responsible for that group’s operations in Orakzai, an agency in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that is very close to the important city of Peshawar.[4] After the death of Hakimullah Mehsud, Khan Saeed was also considered a front-runner–along with Maulana Fazlullah, then the TTP head for Malakand–to replace the deceased TTP leader. Fazlullah, as is well known, won out and assumed the TTP’s leadership position in November 2013. Close to one year later, in October 2014, Khan Saeed and four other prominent TTP commanders, as well as the group’s main spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, left TTP and pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State.

The other commanders who did so at the time were “Hafiz Quran Daulat, TTP chief in Kurram Agency; Gul Zaman, TTP chief in Khyber Agency; Mufti Hassan, TTP chief in Peshawar; and Khalid Mansoor, the TTP chief in the Hangu district.”[5] These were significant losses for the TTP, and a win for the Islamic State, as in one fell swoop al-Baghdadi’s group gained the allegiance of the individuals the TTP had designated to control the central FATA, a strategic block of land that stretches from the settled city of Peshawar to the Khyber pass and the immediate areas surrounding it.

Then on January 10, 2015, presaging things to come, these six individuals appeared in a video where they again pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This time they were also joined by an expanded network of individuals, all of whom pledged bay`a to the Islamic State’s leader. This group included Saad Emirati, a former Taliban commander allegedly active in Afghanistan’s Logar Province; Ubaidah al-Peshwari, leader of the al-Tawhid and Jihad Group in Peshawar; the Deputy to Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Khorasani;[6] Sheikh Muhsin, a commander from Afghanistan’s Kunar province; Talha, a commander from Lakki Marwat; and Omar al-Mansur, from Pakistan’s infamous Lal Masjid (Red Mosque).[7]

According to the statement, an even broader network of groups–which ranges from the Qambar Khel tribe in Khyber and the Hudhayfah group in Dir to Qari Harun’s group in Kunar province–have also pledged their support for Hafiz Khan Saeed and his position as the Amir of the mujahideen of Khorasan.[8] Less than one week after the release of the video, the ranks of Khan Saeed’s group in Pakistan were also bolstered by “50 hardcore militants of the Amr Bil Maroof group, led by Commanders Haya Khan and Waheed Khan,” from Khyber joining.[9] Then on January 26 the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, released a statement in which he formally announced the creation of ISK with Hafiz Khan Saeed serving as its leader. Unfortunately, despite these pronouncements and recent arrests of several alleged Islamic State members in Lahore, and the death of another one in Karachi, not much is known about ISK’s activities in Pakistan or its capabilities.[10] The same can be said for the linkages between ISK elements in Pakistan and the Islamic State, as well as South Asian foreign fighters who are operating on behalf of al-Baghdadi’s group in Syria and Iraq.