Category Archives: NSA Spying

Not Flat-footed, Repeat, Not Flat-Flooted

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In spite of pulling all U.S. forces out of Iraq in 2011, the United States did leave behind an unknown number of covert intelligence personnel that were tasked to work the ground in Iraq keeping a ear to actions in Iraq and Syria all with the knowledge of Maliki. Not withstanding, the U.S. also maintained a surveillance drone operation in Iraq since the exit of forces.

The drone operations and the intelligence operations were on-going for the last few years and Maliki approved. The information was selectively shared with Iraqi leadership knowing full well that Maliki was connected to the hip to Iran. A nasty conundrum for sure.

At the core of the ISIS conflict in Iraq is the same condition that occurred in Syria and the Obama regime knew full well what was brewing and chose to delay, ignore and actually dismiss, deferring all pro-active measures for the sake of the renewed talks and pending partnership with Iran over several objectives most of which was the re-tooling of the nuclear weapons program and lifting sanctions.

In the meantime, the Obama regime has chosen to not work diligently with Maliki since the U.S. departure from Iraq to ensure any acceptance of the Kurds and the Sunnis into a government coalition which would have prevented what we are seeing in Iraq today, frankly the Obama regime has been dismissive of the same for four years of Assad in Syria.

Iran has been driving the civil war in Syria with the help of Russia supplying weapons to Assad making Syria the incubation location for jihadis from 81 countries to gain fighting skills and a salary such that Western country leadership is deeply concerned over the threat that well trained fighters will return to home countries inciting more Islamists to join the network and widen the range of threats to individual national security.

Not one ally of the United States much less including the United States has chosen to target the core of the spreading Caliphate in the Middle East, Iran. This now begs the question, what are countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Israel and others to do with what has manifested at the hands of Iran?

The crystal ball tells us there is an epic war brewing between the Persians and the Arabs, between the Sunnis and the Shiites. Nothing in the history of the last 60-70 years will compare to what may come.

Drawing back the curtains to allow some sunlight on the matter of Syria and Iraq some key items must be noted.

1. Follow the money. The United States has many tools to track money movement globally and they do. Beyond watching the money movement, the United States also maintains the evidence of the powerful groups and individuals that are behind the funding of terror networks and even more the banks that are cooperating with the networks. In short our own Treasury system has the evidentiary trail and advises the same to the United Nations, the National Security Council and the International Monetary Fund, hence none of this is a secret. Two of the most complicit countries in supplying large, LARGE sums of funds to terror networks come out of Kuwait and Qatar and the individuals involved.

2. The intelligence community has been on top of the actions by Ansar al Sharia, the Army of Islam, ISIS, AQAP and others. Reports and proven evidence is provided daily and is collaborated several times a day with other allied intelligence organizations that includes Germany, Israel, Britain, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland and more. The technology to track activity in the Middle East is augmented by journalists on the ground in the action as well as intel personnel integrated with factions on all sides of the fight. To date the will and interest to analyze, summarize activity and create an action plan has all been ignored.

3. The United States has been training for several years un-vetted individuals in countries such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey on anti-terrorism tactics as well as fighting skills. In the matter of being ‘un-vetted’ it should be noted that foreign leadership maintains full authority to choose who participates and the United States is not allowed any influence on the selection. This is an important condition due to the fact that many Islamists have no real loyalty to a cause, only a loyalty to having an income and a need to follow any faction where they feel safer under false promises. There have been many recorded conflicts of leadership within terror cells and mistrust is prevalent.

4. The United States has military personnel and intelligence people that perform forensic analysis after all operations. They gather any and all evidence left behind that includes hard-drives, thumb drives, hard copy documents, written war plans origination of the weapons used, cell phone tracing, terror network online chat forums and social media. Names, dates, actions, threats, operations, missions and more are collected and passed down range and up range for consideration. Not only are agencies such as the Department of Defense, the State Department, ODNI, Joint Chiefs, the National Security Council, Ambassadors and the United Nations provided assessments of conflicts, each agency has their own personnel that does all the same work. There is no lack of intelligence on the ground, on the internet or within the banking/monetary funding system.

In summary, no government especially the United States was caught flat-footed, it was caught with their compass pointing to indifference. As the Caliphate spreads and Iraq is all but lost, one must understand that we will see the same words in the next chapter as the United States exits Afghanistan.

Iran, China and Russia have moved up significantly in the global power ranking at that hands of ignorance of the West. While the core concern is oil and energy resources controlled by adversaries, these are necessary national security concerns for the West for survival of their economies and to date, no one leadership has had the stomach or the forward-thinking agenda for diplomatic objectives in the last six plus years. Get ready, the cost of transportation, economic output, labor costs and the cost of energy are all slated to rise such that new charts for measurement failure will need to be created.

Being flat footed was a choice and a costly choice for a dim future outlook.

 

Enemy of my Enemy

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Late Monday, Barack Obama had a White House meeting on Iraq that included John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Eric Holder, and national security advisor Susan Rice. Also attending were U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey.

Many issues and deals appear to be afoot as the matter of Iraq and ISIS has many components which curiously there seems to be a lot of silence from other Gulf States like UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

In the meantime and I wrote several days ago, the meeting in Geneva of the P5+1 over Iran’s nuclear program had a real side-bar agenda and that was in fact allied countries colluding with Iran to gain at least cooperation on the Shiite vs. Sunni war in Iraq.

While we cannot estimate how far these discussions advanced, we must begin to look deeper such that Iran is being completely legitimized and accepted by the West surely putting other countries on alert, least of which is Israel.

It defies logic that while the United States does not have an embassy in Tehran, Hillary Clinton attempted to create a virtual embassy (an online version) and that failed, however the United Kingdom has announced their plan to re-open their embassy in Tehran.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): In February, I updated the House on progress in our bilateral relationship with Iran, following the appointment of non-resident Chargés d’Affaires in November 2013 (Official Report 24 February 2014 col 26). I said then that our decision to end formal protecting power arrangements was a sign of our increasing confidence in conducting bilateral business directly rather than through our Swedish and Omani intermediaries.

Over the past four months, we have continued to expand our bilateral engagement. British and Iranian officials have paid regular visits to each other’s capitals. This has enabled us to resolve a range of practical matters concerning our embassies. And it has allowed us to discuss a broad range of issues, including areas where we and Iran have sharply differing views.

Our two primary concerns when considering whether to reopen our embassy in Tehran have been assurance that our staff would be safe and secure, and confidence that they would be able to carry out their functions without hindrance. There has never been any doubt in my mind that we should have an Embassy in Tehran if the circumstances allowed. Iran is an important country in a volatile region, and maintaining embassies around the world, even under difficult conditions, is a central pillar of the UK’s global diplomatic approach. On Saturday I telephoned Foreign Minister Zarif to discuss the progress we have made to date and our common interest in continuing to move forward in the UK-Iran bilateral relationship.

The U.S. State Department still formally considers Iran a State sponsor of terror as do allies, so what is the explanation of this new friendship?

A priority of Obama Administration policy has been to reduce the perceived threat posed by Iran to a broad range of U.S. interests. Rouhani’s election has also improved prospects for an end to the 34 years of U.S.-Iran estrangement. On September 27, 2013, President Obama and Rouhani spoke by phone—the first leadership level contacts since the 1979 Islamic revolution— Rouhani has not, to date, satisfied the aspirations of those Iranians who see his presidency as an opportunity to achieve an easing of repression and social restrictions.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. What can we now expect in the coming years from Barack Obama? The Islamic Jihad is at least 14 years ago, question is how much longer are we going to accept this war and defeat as the United State IS the only country historically that was proactive to maintain the equilibrium of the world?

 

 

 

US Partners with Axis of Evil

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(CNSNews.com) – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), issued a rare audio message back on January 21 in which he flatly stated his group’s intention to march on Baghdad and move into “direct confrontation” with the United States.

“Our last message is to the Americans. Soon we will be in direct confrontation, and the sons of Islam have prepared for such a day,” Baghdadi said. “So watch, for we are with you, watching.”

Those talks that John Kerry and his ilk are attending with Iran are not over the nuclear program, at least no this round. They are over the action plan regarding Iraq. In order to become a more friendlier ally with Iran, you can bet additional sanctions against Iran have also been lifted, essentially giving Iran more wealth. Under Barack Obama, pigs officially fly from the Bush doctrine that the United States would never deal in this regard with the Axis of Evil, Iran.

Once a year the State Department is required to publish a comprehensive report on global terrorism listing country by country.  This report was published recently and several expert websites tuned into the report, yet what is most stunning the section of the report on Iran has been deleted after it was published. Now why would that be?

As Baghdad attempts to protect itself from an ISIS confrontation in only a defensive posture, questions need to be asked is just who is really behind the invasion of ISIS in Iraq and just why did this happen when ISIS has been the shadow government already in Iraq for several years.  Hussein was the leader of the Baathist party and it has aligned with ISIS, all intelligence operational groups in the Middle East and those of the West have known this for more than a year.

iraq military

‘The dramatic fashion in which Baathist-backed ISIS has acquired territory in Iraq has caused alarm in Iran, with even usually moderate voices stressing urgent action. A representative for Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior marja cleric who has often taken a quietist approach, called for Iraqis to arm themselves against insurgents. Iraqi-born Iranian Ayatollah Mohammad Hashemi Shahroudi, a senior cleric with close ties to Ayatollah Khamenei and influence in Iraq, called on the Iraqi people to unite against terrorism.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) convened a special session to address the issue June 12, Rouhani said that Iran was ready to “fight and combat” terrorism and the head of Iran’s SNSC called for an international response.’

Iran has come under some pressure in international media with the claim that two battalions of the Qods Force — the elite branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — have entered Iraq. Some reports say they are assisting Iraqi forces and Shia Forces north of Baghdad; others say they are protecting the holy cities of Najaf and Karabala.

Qods Forces commander Qassem Suleimani has reportedly been moving around the battlefront north of Baghdad, reviewing defensive positions, and meeting Iraqi officials in the capital.

In another sign of Iran’s tough stance — and concern — about the Iraqi insurgency and ISIS, Deputy Intelligence Minister Ali Khazei said 30 “agents” of ISIS had been detained across the Islamic Republic in the past month: “The Intelligence Ministry carries out very good and effective measures to counter elements (seeking) to undermine security in the country.”

Iraqi Official: Iran Has Sent 2,000 Basij Militia Into Iraq

A “senior Iraqi official” has said that Iran has sent 2,000 Basij militia to Iraq.

The official said 1,500 Basij crossed the border into Khanaqin in Diyala Province in east-central Iraq on Friday, while another 500 had entered the Badra Jassan area in Wasat Province overnight.

The militia are in addition to two battalions of the elite Qods Force who reportedly went to Iraq earlier in the week to bolster the defense of areas near Baghdad and to protect the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

The detailed map is here for what has been taken by ISIS and what is at risk of ISIS control.

The aircraft carrier the USS George H.W. Bush has been deployed to the Persian Gulf and will be supported by other air assets. Strike plans for these kinds of operations are not new, strike plans are designed in advance for all scenarios and the matter of Iraq is no exception. So when Barack Obama tells us he has asked for options to be developed, that is disingenuous, they always are and have already been presented to him.

Now just who is pulling off the operation and who is cooperating and who is on what side of this war for power in Iraq? We must question and dig for the truth on Maliki, Rouhani and Kerry.

Iran tells lies every day and the Barack Obama administration tells lies every day, so you can bet what is being told and reported is not keeping it real.  The implications for a wider Caliphate and a prolonged Islamic mission is forecasted where Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia have all been very quiet on this matter. Their silence is deafening.

 

West Point Speech and Why

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Barack Obama has hidden his concern for terror threats and most often he has re-labeled it as an ‘overseas contingency operation’.

Then only recently did he give a speech at West Point explaining his foreign policy which he was forced to do for at least two reasons, the recent kidnappings and deaths at the hands of Boko Harem and the immediate release only a few days after the speech of the Taliban 5 from Guantanamo.

Okay, so where does that leave America for the next several years as Barack Obama has forced the shrinking of the United States footprint globally? Well, Barack Obama’s lack of policy and leadership with allies point to the very real possibility of NATO crumbling itself. This leaves China and Russia and especially the entire Shiite and Sunni world in a race for the top slots of globally power rankings.

In context, the lack of will and the aversion to colonialism at the hands of Barack Obama, simply removed the United States from the short list of the keepers of peace globally in six short years, something that experts predict will take at least fifteen years to ever begin to reverse, others predict as much as forty years and that is only if there is a collection of Reagan prodigies on the horizon. Not much hope so far.

One of the topic intelligence analyst with a real and candid background for saying what must be said is Michael Vickers. Here he is in his own assessment. Take it for your deep consideration.

global map

 

WASHINGTON: If you want to understand why President Obama spoke so much about terrorism in his widely panned West Point speech, the head of Pentagon intelligence explained it pretty well today.

Click here to see the video of Vicker’s message.

Terrorism is and remains the top threat to the United States, Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence Mike Vickers said this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The most interesting, and some would say anomalous, threat assessment he offered: China comes in at number seven after Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the Syrian civil war, Russian “revanchism,” Iran, North Korea and what he called the “persistent volatility” across South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa.

That’s right, China appears to come seventh when the Intelligence Community is planning and advising President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. It makes sense when you consider the long-range goals China appears to have set itself and the absence of a direct confrontation — so far — between the two powers.

Now folks in the Intelligence Community may well tut tut and profess that they examine each situation as it occurs, but budgeting requires prioritization and here it is.

What does all this mean in aggregate to the Intelligence Community and the Pentagon? Vickers said, “[as] senior intelligence officials, we haven’t seen this range of challenges on an administration’s plate in our careers.” Not only is the range of threats geographically enormous and conceptually varied, they are, as Vickers noted, “these are highly asymmetric challenges.” In Pentagon parlance that means the United States military isn’t necessarily well prepared to cope with them. And there are a lot of them.

Is Mike Vickers arguing that the Intelligence Community needs to remain very well financed, even in this age of declining defense budgets? Sounds like!

 

15-6, the Bergdahl Investigation

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It is important to understand the timeline and who was where, when.  The Taliban talks and the Afghanistan exit strategy began in earnest several years ago, which places Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, David Patraeus, John Brennan and Bob Gates back in their respective jobs when the ‘Afgan Good Enough’ team was created headed by the now dead Richard Holbrooke was leading the charge to make nice with the Taliban and close Gitmo.

Richard Holbrooke died and he was replaced by Marc Grossman, Hillary’s choice. As the negotiations continued, they often broke down mostly due to leaks and the profound demand of the Taliban for the exceptional choice of the top 5 Taliban prisoner be released. These 5 are so bad that a DC Judge ruled at least two could never be released. A Judge even ruled on what an ‘enemy combatant’ is such that it was a declaration on who is the enemy that America and her allies are fighting in Afghanistan and beyond. Barack Obama ignored both. Barack Obama ignored telling anyone of his actions including the Congress and he ignored getting any of the intelligence files from all of the 16 intelligence agencies that had the goods on the Taliban Dream Team or Bowe Bergdahl himself.

The charges of oath violations are mounting and are at a tipping point at the hands of Barack Obama and his White House Staff.

In case you need more, the New York Daily news summarizes this misguided mission of Barack Obama as ‘Surrender without Honor’. This a short must read.

Not one person in Barack Obama’s inner circle has ever worn the uniform, not one understands the code of the military, yet Barack Obama as Commander-in-Chief seems to ignore the military culture most of all. There are two cases of desertion here, one by Bowe Bergdahl yet the most egregious is by Barack Obama himself.  This is spelled out well by Col. Ralph Peters himself.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ article/379481/why-team-obama- was-blindsided-bergdahl- backlash-ralph-peters.

By Ralph Peters

 

Congratulations, Mr. President! And identical congrats to your sorcerer’s apprentice, National Security Adviser Susan Rice. By trying to sell him as an American hero, you’ve turned a deserter already despised by soldiers in the know into quite possibly the most-hated individual soldier in the history of our military.

I have never witnessed such outrage from our troops.

Exhibit A: Ms. Rice. In one of the most tone-deaf statements in White House history (we’re making a lot of history here), the national-security advisor, on a Sunday talk show, described Bergdahl as having served “with honor and distinction.” Those serving in uniform and those of us who served previously were already stirred up, but that jaw-dropper drove us into jihad mode.

But pity Ms. Rice. Like the president she serves, she’s a victim of her class. Nobody in the inner circle of Team Obama has served in uniform. It shows. That bit about serving with “honor and distinction” is the sort of perfunctory catch-phrase politicians briefly don as electoral armor. (“At this point in your speech, ma’am, devote one sentence to how much you honor the troops.”)

I actually believe that Ms. Rice was kind of sincere, in her spectacularly oblivious way. In the best Manchurian Candidate manner, she said what she had been programmed to say by her political culture, then she was blindsided by the firestorm she ignited by scratching two flinty words together. At least she didn’t blame Bergdahl’s desertion on a video.

The president, too, appears stunned. He has so little understanding of (or interest in) the values and traditions of our troops that he and his advisers really believed that those in uniform would erupt into public joy at the news of Bergdahl’s release – as D.C. frat kids did when Osama bin Laden’s death was trumpeted.

Both President Obama and Ms. Rice seem to think that the crime of desertion in wartime is kind of like skipping class. They have no idea of how great a sin desertion in the face of the enemy is to those in our military. The only worse sin is to side actively with the enemy and kill your brothers in arms. This is not sleeping in on Monday morning and ducking Gender Studies 101.

But compassion, please! The president and all the president’s men and women are not alone. Our media elite – where it’s a rare bird who bothered to serve in uniform – instantly became experts on military justice. Of earnest mien and blithe assumption, one talking head after another announced that “we always try to rescue our troops, even deserters.”

Uh, no. “Save the deserter” is a recent battle cry of the politically indoctrinated brass. For much of our history, we did make some efforts to track down deserters in wartime. Then we shot or hanged them. Or, if we were in good spirits, we merely used a branding iron to burn a large D into their cheeks or foreheads. Even as we grew more enlightened, desertion brought serious time in a military prison. At hard labor.

This is a fundamental culture clash. Team Obama and its base cannot comprehend the values still cherished by those young Americans “so dumb” they joined the Army instead of going to prep school and then to Harvard. Values such as duty, honor, country, physical courage, and loyalty to your brothers and sisters in arms have no place in Obama World. (Military people don’t necessarily all like each other, but they know they can depend on each other in battle – the sacred trust Bergdahl violated.)

President Obama did this to himself (and to Bergdahl). This beautifully educated man, who never tires of letting us know how much smarter he is than the rest of us, never stopped to consider that our troops and their families might have been offended by their commander-in-chief staging a love-fest at the White House to celebrate trading five top terrorists for one deserter and featuring not the families of those soldiers (at least six of them) who died in the efforts to find and free Bergdahl, but, instead, giving a starring role on the international stage to Pa Taliban, parent of a deserter and a creature of dubious sympathies (that beard on pops ain’t a tribute to ZZ Top). How do you say “outrageous insult to our vets” in Pashto?

Nor, during the recent VA scandal, had the president troubled himself to host the families of survivors of those vets who died awaiting care. No, the warmest attention our president has ever paid to a “military family” was to Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl.

(I will refrain from criticism of the bumptious attempts to cool the flames of this political conflagration by Secretary Hagel: I never pick on the weak.)

What is to be done? Behind the outrage triggered by Team Obama’s combination of cynicism and obliviousness (Bergdahl was so ill we had to set those terrorists free immediately, without notifying Congress, but now he’s chugging power shakes in a military hospital . . . and all this just happened to come at the peak of the VA scandal . . . ), military members don’t really want to lynch Bergdahl. But they want justice.

Our military leaders need to rediscover their moral courage and honor our traditions, our regulations, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We need a fresh, unprejudiced 15-6 investigation (the military equivalent of a grand jury). We already know, as the military has known since the first 24 hours after Bergdahl abandoned his post, that sufficient evidence exists for a court-martial, but it’s important to do this by the numbers.

It’s hard to believe that the resulting court-martial would not find Bergdahl guilty of desertion (although there will be heavy White House pressure to reduce the charge to Absent Without Leave, or AWOL, status, a lesser offense). If he is convicted, I for one do not want him to go to prison. I’m sure he’s paid and paid for betraying his comrades, quite possibly suffering brutal sexual violence. But if he is found guilty, he needs to be formally reduced to the rank of private, stripped of all privileges and entitlements (the taxpayer should not pay for a deserter’s lifelong health care – Bergdahl’s book and film deals can cover that), and he should be given the appropriate prison sentence, which would then be commuted by the president. Thereafter, let Mr. Bergdahl go home and live with himself.

As for President Obama, how about just one word of thanks to the families of those fallen soldiers you sent out to find Bowe Bergdahl?

– Fox News Strategic Analyst Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and former enlisted man.

——

In case you need more, here is the video released by the Taliban turning over Bergdahl.

Europe has big worries with their security threats when the joy the Taliban embraces this generous gift by Obama, here is the Taliban winning strategy. It is now time for America, her allies and the military to relook at the battlefield, this IS in fact going to be a very long slogging war where the battlefield has expanded and spent blood and treasure was dismissed by the Commander-in-Chief.

The 15-6 needs to be ordered on Barack Obama himself and those that are part of this dishonor, who are part of aiding the enemy, those who have surrendered with no honor.