Think and Plan Carefully about Flying

Posted on January 1, 2015January 1, 2015 by Denise Simon

Al Qaeda’s Latest ‘Inspire’ Magazine Dedicated to Bombing Airliners, Inspiring Lone Wolf Attacks

By: Anthony Kimery, Editor-in-Chief

“Destination airport, and Guess What’s on the Menu?” is the title to the opening spread of the cover story about how to bomb passenger planes in the slick, professionally designed new issue of Inspire magazine published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Releasing the digital magazine on Christmas Eve is unlikely a coincidence; it’s the 5th anniversary of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it was on its landing approach to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.

The entire issue is devoted to inspiring lone wolf jihadists in the US and the West, and especially urges attacks on commercial passenger planes. A lengthy section provides detailed instructions on how to build a new bomb AQAP purports can be “hidden” not only on aircraft, but also to blow up other targets with the intent of causing ripples throughout US and Western economies.

“Previously,” Ibrahim wrote, “we have presented Muslims with different weapons, including bombs and tactics … Now we are obliged to give our ummah something special. Something unique that can easily be prepared at home — that is the reason we have taken a long period to produce this issue. Here, we give the Muslim ummah a bomb recipe that America fears it might reach the hands of other Mujahideen in other fronts.”

“However, what America didn’t expect is that this recipe is going to be in the reach of all Muslims around the world,” Ibrahim said, noting, “It will circulate in the social media and Muslims will translate it into different languages. Some will be pleased and pass on the message; while others will be inspired and most importantly make the bomb.”

The article, Open Source Jihad (OSJ), was written by “AQ-Chef,” presumably Ibrahim Hassan Tali Al Asiri, AQAP’s premier bomb maker who the Department of State issued a $5 million bounty for on October 14, 2014. At the same time, the State Department announced a total bounty of $45 million for information leading to the locations of the eight key leaders of AQAP. The department authorized rewards of up to $10 million for information leading to the location of Nasir Al Wahishi and up to $5 million each for information leading to the locations of Qasim Al Rimi, Othman Al Ghamdi, Shawki Ali Ahmed Al Badani, Jalal Bala’idi, Ibrahim Al Rubaysh, Ibrahim Al Banna and Al Asiri.

Named targets include American, United, Continental and Delta airlines, as well as British Airways, EasyJet, Air France and Air France KI. Other objectives include “direct economic targets” and high-profile “economic personalities” like former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (the current issue of Inspire says he’s the current chairman, raising questions about when the current issue was produced – Bernanke stepped down in February) and “wealthy entrepreneurs or company owners” like Bill Gates.

Titled Neurotmesis: Cutting the Nerves and Isolating the Head (Neurotmesis is a Greek word meaning “to sever the nerves”), the latest issue of Inspire is very similar to the previous issue, as it focuses on instigating Muslims to carry out lone wolf attacks against the US. The focus on attacking the US is signaled in a letter by Yahya Ibrahim, the magazine’s editor-in-chief.

The article details ways to “breaching airport security,” “making the hidden bomb,” and various “field tactics” related to selecting targets and executing an attack. AQAP dedicated the OSJ section to individuals who had previously attempted to blow up airlines, including Ramzi Yusuf, Abdulmutallab and Richard Reid (the shoe bomber).

Beginning the 37-pages of instructions for how to build “The Hidden Bomb,” AQAP said, “On the dawn of 2010, media agencies reported that a Nigerian youth boarded an American plane, Delta, carrying with him a unique bomb. He nearly blew the plane up. His name is ‘Umar Al Fârouq. Prior to that, a Mujahid blew himself in the castle of the Saudi Prince, Muhammad bin Naif.”

“The Mujahid’s name was Abdallâh ‘Asiri. The aim was to assassinate the prince, but the prince survived. Both men used bombs similar in design.”

“Initially, what we faced as a main problem was: How can a lone Mujahid acquire the required explosive materials. For several months, we conducted a number of experiments. As a result we came up with these simple materials that are readily available around the globe, even inside America – and this is our goal.

“We spared no effort in simplifying the idea in such we made it ‘another meal prepared in the kitchen’ so that every determined Muslim can prepare.”

AQAP claims the “hidden bomb is 2.5x as powerful as ‘Umar Fârouq’s bomb, and 3x as powerful as the military-grade F1Russian grenade,” adding, “American security organs do not know what they do not know.”

Following the instructions for building “the hidden bomb,” AQ-Chef provides a missive on “Field Tactics” for how to use the bomb to blow up a jetliner. He said, “I assume you have now prepared your hidden bomb after you have been convinced by the importance of this operation both politically and militarily. What is left is identifying the target that will achieve the greatest success, Biidhnillâh — a success that will crush the enemy’s economy. We have sketched the targets as a part of a complete program we have presented to the Lone Mujahid.”

Continuing, he said, “So as to achieve the greatest success, it is necessary for the person responsible and his motives to be publicized. This is what we call ‘the Message.’ It is obvious that most Martyrdom Operation’s executors are Mujahideen. Some say these operations have become the Mujahideen’s signature. But after the plane has exploded, how can the world know that a martyrdom seeker is behind this explosion?

“To achieve that,” he wrote, “you can write a timing email before departure in such the email is sent a day or two after you have carried out the operation. The timing service is available in the net. Write down who you are and what your motives are.

Continuing, he concluded, “The news of this bomb spread like wildfire. It worried many security personnel. At the time, we did not publish the bomb recipe for many reasons. But now we have decided to release it as part of a complete program for the Lone Mujahid (Neurotmesis). Biidhnillâh, it will achieve its goals as anticipated.”

In a question and answer “interview” with AQ Chef, he said, “Unlike a lab, a kitchen is found in every house. Moreover, if a Mujahid can prepare a bomb from materials used in the kitchen instead of lab materials and use cooking utensils instead of lab apparatus, then we have a double success and we have overcome the security hurdle. Therefore, a larger number of Mujahideen can carry out Jihādi operations.

“You will notice in this issue specifically we have focused on the kitchen,” he noted. “Generally, we are trying as much as possible to move the lone Mujahid from the lab to the pharmacy and from the pharmacy to the kitchen.”

Asked if he believes “airport security can deal with this bomb?” Al Asiri presumably responded, saying, “We said security has imaging devices. They could detect the bomb. But these devices cannot be included in all airports due to cost reasons and the harassment they cause. Then these bombs are not only used in airports, but they are also used in assassinations as the brothers clarified in their program (Neurotmesis). Nevertheless, I say to the heads of the US intelligence in general, by the Help of Allāh, many airplanes will be ‘crashing.’ Hereby, I call the National Transportation Safety Board, ‘Do not weary yourself of investigation, the US Department of Homeland Security will take over the job because of a simple reason: This jihādi work belongs to the ‘Global Lone Jihād Movement.’”

“Hereby, Inspire magazine is committed to arm Muslim individuals — as well as Muslim groups as is in this issue — in their Jihâd on America.”

Boehner’s Office Tallying the Obama Lies

Posted on December 31, 2014December 31, 2014 by Denise Simon

One may really need a calculator to tabulate the lies from Obama, but at least a staffer has been assigned to keep current. While political correctness is part of the verbal DNA in Washington calling lies ‘Pinocchios’, one must understand that no legislator in decades has used the word ‘lie’ out of the whole political deference thing as lies and omissions are as common pork laden bills.

The State of the Union Speech is coming up, so keep your own tally for 2015.

The President’s Year in Pinocchios

December 31, 2014|Matt Wolking –

In 2013, President Obama’s promise that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” was named Politifact’s “Lie of the Year.” In 2014, amid a mountain of stumbles and scandals, his rhetoric wasn’t received any better.

In May, the White House claimed President Obama first heard about secret waiting lists and deaths at the VA on the news, despite evidence to the contrary. CNN’s Drew Griffin said this was absurd, and more of the administration’s sloppy spin prompted National Journal’s Ron Fournier to ask, “How Dumb Does Obama Think We Are?”

It was a prescient question considering comments made by frequent White House visitor and ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber, who said “the stupidity of the American voter” was “critical to getting the thing to pass” and bragged repeatedly about helping the president pull one over on the public. When asked about this, President Obama pretended he didn’t know that guy and denied misleading Americans about the law.

His unilateral action was another lowlight. President Obama said 22 times that he couldn’t ignore or create his own immigration law – and then he did. Just like his reasoning for rejecting the Keystone pipeline, his explanations for his flip-flop on executive action didn’t fool anyone.

And that was, of course, just one of these four things he hid from Americans until after the November election.

Looking back on 2014, from the continued cover-up of the IRS scandal, to all the president’s missing hard drives, to his dishonesty regarding the national debt, to the administration’s bogus ObamaCare enrollment numbers, there’s a clear pattern of hiding the truth and misleading Americans.

Indeed, fact checkers had a field day with President Obama this year. The Washington Post alone awarded him a total of 47 Pinocchios, plus one Upside-Down Pinocchio (the worst possible rating).

Here they are, in chronological order:

“Unprecedented inspections help the world verify every day that Iran is not building a bomb.” (Two Pinocchios, 2/6/14)
“We’ve got close to 7 million Americans who have access to health care for the first time because of Medicaid expansion.” (Four Pinocchios, 2/24/14)
“We didn’t have billions of dollars of commercials [for ObamaCare] like some critics did.” (Two Pinocchios, 4/4/14)
“Today, the average full-time working woman earns just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns … in 2014, that’s an embarrassment. It is wrong.” (Two Pinocchios, 4/9/14)
“Thirty-five percent of people who enrolled through the federal marketplace are under the age of 35.” (Two Pinocchios, 4/22/14)
“[Republicans’] willingness to say no to everything — the fact that since 2007, they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress[.]” (Four Pinocchios, 5/9/14)
“I want to announce a few more steps that we’re taking that are going to be good for job growth and good for our economy, and that we don’t have to wait for Congress to do. They are going to be steps that generate more clean energy, waste less energy overall, and leave our kids and our grandkids with a cleaner, safer planet in the process.” (Two Pinocchios, 5/16/14)
“At the beginning of my presidency, we built a coalition that imposed sanctions on the Iranian economy, while extending the hand of diplomacy to the Iranian government.” (Three Pinocchios, 6/2/14)
“When you talk about the moderate opposition [in Syria], many of these people were farmers or dentists or maybe some radio reporters who didn’t have a lot of experience fighting.” (Three Pinocchios, 6/26/14)
“So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every serious idea to strengthen the middle class.” (Three Pinocchios, 7/15/14)
“If Congress fails to fund it [the Highway Trust Fund], it runs out of money. That could put nearly 700,000 jobs at risk.” (Two Pinocchios, 7/16/14)
“Keep in mind, I wasn’t specifically referring to ISIL [as a jayvee team].” (Four Pinocchios, 9/3/14)
“Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution by more than any other nation on Earth.” (Two Pinocchios, 9/25/14)
“If we hadn’t taken this on, and [health insurance] premiums had kept growing at the rate they did in the last decade, the average premium for family coverage today would be $1,800 higher than they are. Now, most people don’t notice it, but that’s $1,800 you don’t have to pay out of your pocket or see vanish from your paycheck. That’s like a $1,800 tax cut.” (Two Pinocchios, 10/17/14)
“Health care inflation has gone down every single year since the law [ObamaCare] passed, so that we now have the lowest increase in health care costs in 50 years–which is saving us about $180 billion in reduced overall costs to the federal government and in the Medicare program.” (Three Pinocchios, 11/6/14)
“We’ve created more jobs in the United States than every other advanced economy combined since I came into office.” (One Pinocchio, 11/11/14)
“Well, actually, my position hasn’t changed [on immigration executive action].” (Upside-Down Pinocchio, 11/18/14)
“Understand what this [Keystone XL pipeline] project is. It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else.” (Three Pinocchios, 11/20/14)
“If you look, every president — Democrat and Republican — over decades has done the same thing. George H.W. Bush — about 40 percent of the undocumented persons, at the time, were provided a similar kind of relief as a consequence of executive action.” (Three Pinocchios, 11/24/14)

– See more at: http://www.speaker.gov/general/president-s-year-pinocchios#sthash.8H0npCgI.dpuf

Diplomatic Suicide, Iran Celebrates

Posted on December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 by Denise Simon

WASHINGTON (AP) — While President Barack Obama hasn’t ruled out the possibility of reopening a U.S. Embassy in Iran, Republicans say the Senate will vote within weeks on a bill to impose more sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.

Obama was asked in an NPR interview broadcast on Monday whether he could envision opening an embassy there during his final two years in office.

“I never say never,” Obama said, adding that U.S. ties with Tehran must be restored in steps.

Washington and its partners are hoping to clinch a deal with Iran by July that would set long-term limits on Iran’s enrichment of uranium and other activity that could produce material for use in nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is solely for energy production and medical research purposes. It has agreed to some restrictions in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from U.S. economic sanctions.

Then…..

Iran Is Getting Away With Murder

Achieving a nuclear deal with Tehran is hugely important. But stopping Iran from slaughtering innocent Syrians is a worthy goal.

Jeffrey Goldberg

In an interview in late 2006, I asked then-Senator Barack Obama to talk about the challenges to rational deterrence theory posed by the behavior of rogue states. “Whatever you want to say about the Soviets,” Obama answered, “they were essentially conservative. The North Korean regime and the Iranians are driven more by ideology and fantasy.”

Earlier this year, I asked Obama the following question: “What is more dangerous: Sunni extremism or Shia extremism?”

His answer was revealing, suggestive of an important change in the way he has come to view the Iranian regime. He started by saying, as would be expected, “I’m not big on extremism generally.” And then he argued—in part by omission—that he finds the principal proponent of Shiite extremism, the regime in Tehran, more rational, and more malleable, than the main promoters of Sunni radicalism.

“I don’t think you’ll get me to choose on those two issues,” he said. “What I’ll say is that if you look at Iranian behavior, they are strategic, and they’re not impulsive. They have a worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits. And that isn’t to say that they aren’t a theocracy that embraces all kinds of ideas that I find abhorrent, but they’re not North Korea. They are a large, powerful country that sees itself as an important player on the world stage, and I do not think has a suicide wish, and can respond to incentives. And that’s the reason why they came to the table on sanctions.”

Since becoming president, Obama has made the argument that Iran could be induced, cajoled, and pressured into compromise, a view that has been proven provisionally, partially, correct: Sanctions, plus Obama’s repeated (and, to my mind, at least, credible) threat of military action, convinced Iran to temporarily halt many aspects of its nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief. But Obama and his international partners have been less successful at bringing Iran to permanent denuclearization.

A long-term, verifiable arrangement that keeps Iran perpetually a year or more from nuclear breakout is surpassingly important for the national security of the United States (as Obama noted in this interview); for the health and safety of America’s friends in the Middle East; and for the cause of nuclear nonproliferation in the world’s most volatile and dangerous region. Over the past year, the two sides of international nuclear negotiations have apparently moved somewhat closer to each other, and when the second round of talks came to an end without achieving a deal, both sides agreed that yet another negotiation extension was in order. As Iran and its interlocutors move into what stands to be the fateful year for these negotiations, a credible deal does not look to be achievable; so far, at least, the Iranians seem unwilling to make the truly creative concessions necessary to meet the West’s minimum requirements.

Especially if a deal is ultimately proven to be unachievable, another question will arise: Is the price the U.S. has paid to reach this elusive deal too high? An admirable aspect of Obama’s foreign-policy making is his ability to coolly focus on core issues to the exclusion of what he considers to be extraneous matters. This is also, however, a non-admirable aspect of his policymaking, in particular when the subject at hand is Iran’s role in supporting the killer Assad regime in Syria.

Obama seems to believe that a nuclear deal is, in a way, like Casaubon‘s key to all mythologies: Many good things, he believes, could flow from a nuclear compromise. In an interview last week with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, the president suggested that a nuclear agreement would help Iran become “a very successful regional power that was also abiding by international norms and international rules.” This, he said, “would be good for everybody. That would be good for the United States, that would be good for the region, and most of all, it would be good for the Iranian people.”

This is a wonderful notion, the idea that the end of Iran’s isolation could lead it to moderate its more extreme impulses. But there isn’t much in the way of proof to suggest that Iran’s rulers are looking to join an international order whose norms are defined by the United States and its allies. In fact, there is proof of something quite opposite: Iran seems as interested as ever in becoming a regional hegemon, on its own terms. And its supreme leader, and his closest confidants, have made it clear, over and over again, that he is not interested in normalizing relations with the United States.

Across the greater Middle East, Iran’s efforts to extend its influence have been blunt and brutal: It supports Shiite insurrections in Yemen and Bahrain; it attempts to manipulate Lebanese politics through its Beirut-based proxy, Hezbollah; it intervenes in Gaza and against the already-fading hope for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Arab crisis; and certainly its unceasing threats to eradicate a fellow member-state of the United Nations, Israel, suggest that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has a vision for Iran that differs from Obama’s.

But nothing underscores the Iranian regime’s imperialistic, hegemonic nature more than its support for the Assad regime in Damascus. Without Iran’s assistance, Assad would have fallen a long time ago. The death toll in Syria is more than 200,000; half of Syria’s population has been displaced. These dark achievements of the Assad regime would not have been possible without Iran. Thousands of Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps troops and advisers, plus Iranian weaponry, have made all the difference for Assad. As a recent study by the Middle East Institute states:

It is no longer accurate to describe the war in Syria as a conflict between Syrian rebels on the one hand and Bashar al-Assad’s regime forces “supported” by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG), Hezbollah, and Iraqi militias on the other. Most major battles in Syria—along the frontlines of regime-held areas—are now being directed and fought by the IRG and Hezbollah, along with other non-Syrian Shi‘i militias, with Assad forces in a supportive or secondary role. …

One result of this heavy Iranian involvement in the war in Syria has been a change in the nature of the relationship between the Syrian and the Iranian regimes. From historically being mutually beneficial allies, the Iranian regime is now effectively the dominant force in regime-held areas of Syria, and can thus be legally considered an “occupying force,” with the responsibilities that accompany such a role.

There was no commensurate effort made by opponents of Assad to help those Syrians who were trying to overthrow him. President Obama called on Assad to go, but kept the U.S. on the sidelines through the first years of the Syrian civil war, for reasons he has explained in many places, including here.

Today, the U.S. and its allies are fighting in the Syrian theater, but they are fighting Assad’s putative enemies, the Sunni extremists of ISIS, not Assad and his Iranian allies. And yet ISIS is a derivative problem of a larger crisis: Without Assad—which is to say, without Iran—there would be no ISIS “caliphate” in Syria in the first place. The midwives of ISIS are Assad, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and Ayatollah Khamenei.

If Assad had been overthrown early in the civil war, a more moderate, multi-confessional Syrian government could have plausibly emerged to take its place. The early rebels, who frightened the Assad regime to its core, were not seeking to build a cross-border caliphate on a foundation of medieval cruelty; they were simply seeking to remove Assad’s boot from their necks. As the Assad regime, with Iran’s invaluable help, recovered from the first blows of the rebellion, many Sunni Syrians, seeking help everywhere but finding it mainly among radicals, became radicalized themselves. This was an explicable, if not justifiable, reaction to the mortal threat posed by what they saw as a massed Shiite threat.

Earlier this year, in a conversation about the Obama administration’s Middle East strategy, Senator John McCain brought me up short when he criticized the president for launching attacks on a symptom of the Syrian civil war, ISIS, rather than its root cause. He told me that the U.S. should be battling the Assad regime at the same time it attacks Sunni terrorists. I asked him the following question: “Wouldn’t the generals say to you, ‘You want me to fight ISIS, and you want me to fight the guys who are fighting ISIS, at the same time? Why would we bomb guys who are bombing ISIS? That would turn this into a crazy standoff.’”

McCain answered: “Our ultimate job is not only to defeat ISIS but to give the Syrian people the opportunity to prevail as well. … If we do this right, if we do the right kind of training and equipping of the Free Syrian Army, plus air strikes, plus taking out Bashar Assad’s air assets, we could reverse the battlefield equation.”

There is even less reason to believe today that the Free Syrian Army, such as it is, is capable of fighting the Assad regime (and ISIS) effectively. So at this late stage, McCain’s policy prescriptions may be unrealistic. But his diagnosis of the core problem seems tragically accurate.

“I don’t think ISIS would exist if Bashar al-Assad had been removed two or three years ago,” McCain told me when we revisited the question earlier this month. “He was on his way out until the Iranians brought in 5,000 Hezbollah fighters, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps came in, to train Assad’s troops and provide them with weapons, including the barrel bombs, which are horrible weapons of war.”

McCain argues that the Obama administration has avoided confronting Assad in part for fear that doing so would alienate Assad’s patrons in Tehran, the same men who are in charge of the nuclear file. “The whole theory hinges on a major breakthrough in the nuclear talks, that once they get their deal, Iran will stop funding Hamas, stop supporting Hezbollah, stop destabilizing Yemen, that they’ll join us in fighting extremism. So they have to get a nuclear deal at all costs, and not do anything in Syria. This is just so farfetched it’s delusional.”

I wouldn’t go so far as to call proponents of this theory delusional, but let’s say that they are not approaching the issue of leverage in an effective way. Gary Samore, a former Obama administration official who was in charge of the National Security Council’s Iran nuclear file, told me this month that he would use Iran’s deep exposure in Syria to U.S. advantage.

“Confronting Iran forcefully in Syria and Iraq increases chances for a nuclear deal because Iran will only meet our nuclear demands if it feels weak and vulnerable,” Samore wrote in an email. “Conversely, Iran’s sense that it is winning in Syria and that it is indispensable in Iraq decreases chances for a nuclear because the Supreme Leader won’t make nuclear concessions if he feels strong and ascendant.”

Is it likely that Obama will move toward a policy of containing Iran in Syria, and away from his more accommodationist stance? Arab states that count Iran as an enemy and the U.S. as a friend have asked him repeatedly over the past two years to treat Iran as a root cause of the Syrian catastrophe. But Obama appears focused solely on achieving a nuclear deal with Iran, in part because he seems to believe that Iran is ready to play the part of rational and constructive actor, rather than extremist would-be hegemon. I hope he’s right, and I hope he achieves a strong nuclear deal, but I worry that he is empowering an Iranian government that isn’t about to change in any constructive way. In the meantime, the Iranian regime continues to get away, quite literally, with murder.

Then there is the economic outlook for the Middle East and Iran and the tribal sects.

Likewise in Iraq, which like Iran has a Shiite majority, Tehran’s consolidated influence since the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011 has contributed to sectarian polarization and left the government dependent on Iranian-backed militias to fight the Sunni extremist group Islamic State.

With Iran’s economy crippled by the double whammy of international sanctions and falling oil prices, Syria and Iraq will become even more of a burden in 2015.

In the end, Mr. Khamenei’s two big projects could merge into one during 2015 or diverge. A nuclear deal with world powers could open the door to further cooperation with the U.S. in Iraq and Syria. But failure to strike such a deal could spark new tensions on all fronts between Iran and the international community.

Guantanamo Construction Contract for Education?

Posted on December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 by Denise Simon

Just before Christmas of 2014, Barack Obama made a stunning public announcement regarding normalizing relations with Cuba. It appears that those relations have been underway for some time and the activities are head-shaking.

Just recently a construction contract was awarded for Gitmo. If Obama is releasing detainees and transferring them to destinations unknown, then what is being constructed? If he is going to escalate releases then what needs to be repaired or upgraded and for what? When Russia, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua are colluding for military build ups and surveillance on the West, can we trust White House decisions on the future of Gitmo? Read on and make your own determination.

Islands Mechanical Contractor, Inc.,* Middleburg, Florida, is being awarded $7,727,970 for firm-fixed-price task order 0015 under a previously awarded multiple award construction contract (N69450-12-D-1274) for refurbishment of the Taurman Avenue Electrical Substation at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. The work to be performed provides for the design and construction of new outdoor substation infrastructure to recapitalize the existing outdoor substation which has deteriorated and needs to be replaced. The project includes construction of site improvements, new metal support structure with concrete foundations and concrete equipment pads, security fencing surrounding gravel interior space, grounding system, medium voltage busing systems, vacuum circuit breakers, liquid filled transformers, enclosed metal-clad switchgear, manual isolation and bypass switches, lightning and surge protection, and modular enclosure to house solid-state, programmable monitoring, relaying and controlling system equipment. Work will be performed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and is expected to be completed by August 2016. Fiscal 2015 Navy working capital funds in the amount of $7,727,970 are being obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Two proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southeast, Jacksonville, Florida, is the contracting activity.

GUANTANAMO NAVY BASE, Cuba. — The base with the most expensive prison on earth is getting one of the world’s priciest schools — a $65 million building with classroom space for, at most, 275 kindergarten through high school students.

Do the math: That’s nearly a quarter-million-dollars per school child. In Miami-Dade County a new school costs perhaps $30,000 per student.

Congress recently allocated the funds for the new W.T. Sampson School to put the children of American sailors stationed here under one roof. It will meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards, have a proper public address system, computer and science labs, art and music rooms, a playground, cafeteria and gym — just like any new school anywhere in America.

But the investment also illustrates the Pentagon’s intent to keep this base open even if President Barack Obama manages to move out the last 132 war-on-terror captives, and close the prison run by 2,000 or more temporary troops and contractors.

Do the math: That’s nearly a quarter-million-dollars per school child. In Miami-Dade County a new school costs perhaps $30,000 per student.

And it offers a lesson on the cost of doing business out here on Cuba’s southeastern tip where under the U.S. trade embargo all business is conducted independent of the local economy.

Base not prison

Guantánamo Bay may be best known for its war-on-terror prison separated from the rest of the island by a Cuban minefield. But this 45-square-mile U.S. Navy base, leased from Cuba for $4,085 a year that Havana won’t accept, functions like a small town of 6,000 residents.

Sailors and civilians on long-term contracts run the airport, seaport, public works division and a small community hospital. They bring their families and belongings, get suburban-style homes, scuba dive in the Caribbean — and send their children to two U.S. government schools that are nearer to the base McDonald’s and bowling alley than the Detention Center Zone.

This year, there are 243 students — 164 at the elementary school and the rest at a separate building for middle and high school students whose mascot is a pirate.

In Florida, it typically costs $20,000 to $30,000 per student to build a school, according to Jaime Torrens, chief facilities officer for Miami-Dade County Public Schools. But South Florida has a “competitive environment where labor is readily available, materials are readily available.”

Guantánamo’s costs are so much higher “because all materials must be barged to the island, and the construction contractor’s crews must live on site for the duration of construction,” said Cindy Gibson, spokeswoman for the unit that runs the Department of Defense schools.

She estimated building costs are “70 percent higher than the average construction costs experienced in the United States.”

The money for the new Sampson School is tucked inside the massive, $585 billion national defense spending act that, among other things, funds the war on the Islamic State and requires that new construction projects at Guantánamo have an “enduring military value” independent of the detention operations.

It also funds the renovation or new construction of six other Defense Department schools in Belgium, Japan and North Carolina. The next most expensive is another K-12 school being built on the outskirts of Brussels for another American enclave — the children of Americans assigned to the U.S. Army or NATO at a cost of $173,441 per pupil.

Consider this: Miami High School, with an enrollment of 2,906, spent $55 million to renovate and expand its 1928 Mediterranean Revival building, working out to $18,926 per student.

The Sampson School is being built for a maximum 275-member student body ($237,054 per pupil) at one location, something smaller but similar to the exclusive 1,200-student Miami Country Day School, whose head of school John Davies’ first reaction to the price-tag was “Wow, $65 million?”

For $65 million, he said, “we could probably do our entire new master plan for the campus, a center for the arts, parking garage, new gym, new cafeteria and pretty substantial classroom building.”

But Davies studied the building proposal and found “a pretty adequate but not over-the-top construction program.” He searched the specifications and justification and “it doesn’t strike me as one of those $600 toilets or $1,000 hammer kinds of things that we get every once and a while from the GAO” — the General Accounting Office that sometimes uncovers embarrassing examples of profligate U.S. government spending.

“Obviously we’re thinking we’ll be in Guantánamo for a long time,” he said.

Number crunch

To be sure, there’s no exact science for evaluating costs at the U.S.-controlled corner of Cuba. Any cost-benefit analysis is mired in political debate and difference of opinion.

Last year, for example, some Democrats in Congress got a Pentagon comptroller report on what it costs to run Guantánamo’s sprawling detention center operations, including to maintain its 2,000-plus staff and court system for seven of the last 132 detainees. It put the cost at $2.7 million per prisoner a year.

More prisoners have been released since then, meaning the Congressional crunch is more like $3.1 million per captive a year. And that price is probably higher. Some costs are classified.

In February, however, Marine Gen. John Kelly disputed that soup-to-nuts approach at a Congressional hearing. His Southern Command headquarters, with oversight of the prison, figured it cost “about $750,000” for each prisoner, he said.

Then again, he’s been seeking $69 million to replace a secret prison at Guantánamo that now holds 15 former CIA captives. It works out to $4.6 million per prisoner in construction costs, giving new meaning to the term “high-value detainees.”

Replace not renovate

The school project looks cheap by comparison. As presented to Congress, it consolidates two inefficient schools that were built in the 1970s and ’80s and have deteriorated across the decades.

The separate structures need new ventilation and air-conditioning systems, electrical upgrades of alarms and emergency systems, an updated elementary school kitchen, new bathrooms and insulation and retrofitting to meet new standards, according to a report to Congress by Chuck King, the facilities engineer for the Department of Defense Education Activity, who is based in Peachtree City, Georgia.

Instead, he proposed and Congress agreed to build the new 112,000-square-foot school on the site of today’s smaller, single-story 1983-vintage elementary school on Sherman Avenue — along the road to Camp X-Ray, the original war-on-terror prison, and the frontier with Cuba.

Students will go to school in trailers and other available space while their current building is demolished and replaced by the new one. Once the high school students move in, workers will demolish their 1975 building behind the base pub, O’Kelly’s, not far from the scrubby nine-hole golf course.

Thrice evacuated

The Sampson school system, established in 1931, is named for a 19th Century U.S. Navy rear admiral who was responsible for the blockade of Cuba in the Spanish American war. It has a storied history of closings that no occasional hurricane or snow day can match.

Sampson students were sent home — evacuated back to the United States — during World War II and for three months in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The schools also closed in the mid-’90s when families were sent away as the base coped with a huge influx of tens of thousands of Cuban and Haitian migrants, housed in tent cities, that taxed this isolated outpost’s water desalination and other resources.

The new school’s plan includes state-of-the-art technology in physics, chemistry and video-broadcast labs, a music suite, LED lighting and a wireless network. It will also have space for 50 faculty and administration members, two or more floors and a stucco finish, according to the proposal to Congress.

It’s not possible to ask the kids what they think about it because Department of Defense policy shields school children from speaking with reporters on base. Besides, today’s students are mostly the children of military families that move every few years, meaning they’ll likely be gone by the time the new $65 million school opens.

It’s projected to be finished in April 2018. By then, Obama’s successor will be in office, the Pentagon will have completed a $31 million underwater fiber-optic cable between the base and South Florida and, unless Congress lifts the U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba, the blockade will be in its 57th year.

Miami Herald staff writer Christina Veiga contributed to this report.

Shadow Hackers Attacking America, No Identity

Posted on December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 by Denise Simon

If the whole truth bubbled to the surface on just how deep, far and wide cyber attacks hit America, they would truly be the most significant threats known to the West. Hackers hit targets in America so often daily that they cannot be measured for frequency or damage, but expert estimates are known and not revealed.

When it comes to the recent Sony hack and that of Xbox and PlayStation, black-hat types are brought in to investigate and opinions are set in motion. Even with all the attention paid to Sony, to date a culprit has not been fingered and certainly no punishment is forthcoming.

So, was the Sony hack really performed by North Korea? Was it at the hands of China as a proxy? Heck was it Russia or Iran? Was it an inside job working in collusion with both domestic and foreign entities? No one really knows or there is a refusal to explain. This is a major problem itself as blame may be misplaced for the sake of fouled diplomacy, fear of future retributions or the possibility of wide-spread panic across the country.

POLITICO Pro

FBI briefed on alternate Sony hack theory