Category Archives: Energy Agenda

Putin vs. NATO and tomatoes

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Have you ever read an Executive Order signed by Vladimir Putin? Here is your chance. With the sanction war going on against Russia initiated by Barack Obama, Europe has feebly joined the cadence of the United States and Putin is fighting back. Russia is stopping all agricultural imports for at least a year.

When it comes to NATO, Putin is drawing out the weakness of member nations. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is getting advise from U.S. General Breedlove as to how to address Putin’s aggression that is building in Ukraine.

 

Putin has indeed isolated the weakness of NATO by launching irregular warfare.

‘A linchpin of Russian strategy is what the committee calls “ambiguous warfare.” As one Russian defense theorist puts it, ambiguous warfare involves using irregular forces, cyberattacks and information warfare to “neutralize adversary actions without resorting to weapons (through indirect actions), by exercising information superiority.”

The trouble ambiguous warfare poses to NATO is that the Alliance’s collective-defense obligations, and the strategic doctrines pinned to them, call for responding to “armed” assaults. But Russian aggression against, say, Lithuania may not look like an outright assault. The Kremlin is more likely to use Russian-language media to agitate the country’s ethnic-Russian population while debilitating basic state functions through cyberattacks and the deployment of irregular commandos.’

 

Russia now has about 20,000 troops stationed “in an area along the entire border with eastern Ukraine.” The buildup nearly doubled the troop deployment in the last week by adding 8,000 more forces to 12,000 already there, the official said.

It comes a week after the United States and the European Union increased economic sanctions on Russia for supporting pro-Russian separatists fighting Ukraine government forces in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, along the border with Russia.

‘This will no longer be Special War, but a real war — one which may not be possible to limit to Ukraine.

Nevertheless, Russia has a long habit of invading places in August — East Prussia and Galicia (1914), Poland (1920), Manchuria (1945), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Georgia (2008) — so all bets may be off. It’s clear that Putin is reluctant to back down in the face of Western economic pressure, scoldings, and admonitions, not least because consistently doubling-down has worked well for him many times in the past. I have no crystal ball, but if we learn in a few days, perhaps this weekend, that Russian “peacekeepers” are moving by the battalion into Southeastern Ukraine, you won’t count me among the surprised.’

 

The Cold War part two is brewing and Putin is so far tactically successful at his mission to rebuild the ‘Soviet Union’. General Dempsey admitted the Pentagon has pulled out and dusted off war game options from the Cold War, which should have been done in 2012 at least. Bring out the spies again and re-train them to the tactics some of which are listed here. Moscow has their rules, the question is what rules will America have and who will join her?

“Although no one had written them down, they were the precepts we all understood for conducting our operations in the most difficult of operating environments: the Soviet capital.” – Antonio Mendez, retired CIA Technical Operations Officer specializing in support of clandestine and covert CIA operations.

The Rules

1. Assume nothing.
2. Technology will always let you down.
3. Murphy is right.
4. Never go against your gut.
5. Always listen to your gut; it is your operational antennae.
6. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
7. Don’t look back; you are never completely alone. Use your gut.
8. Go with the flow; use the terrain.
9. Take the natural break of traffic.
10. Maintain a natural pace.
11. Establish a distinctive and dynamic profile and pattern.
12. Stay consistent over time.
13. Vary your pattern and stay within your profile.
14. Be non threatening: keep them relaxed; mesmerize!

Nothing is More Gratifying than the Truth

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We often have to wait for the real truth to surface as early reports are often assumptions while subsequent reports have spin added to them. Sadly it is all about propaganda and twisting the ground facts is all too common.

So, while we watch in horror the hostilities at the border of Israel and Gaza where rockets launched by Hamas has exceeded 1500, Israel knew full well going into this operation what they needed to do given the past several conflicts with Hamas.

Strategy and technology is key for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the execution of the mission has to date been almost perfect. But we must look at what is not being said, published and what is covered-up, which is the most difficult task. As the tunnels are being destroyed and the al Aqsa as well as the al Qassam fighters and other smaller unit terror cells in Gaza are still lobbing rockets as the IDF pulls back their tanks to a staging area.

The IDF is currently performing intense investigations of what was found in all tunnels, buildings and pinpointing still the locations of where Hamas rockets and weapons are stored. This will likely add a dimension to what the next moves are for the IDF.

To date, I personally want to congratulate Israel for assertively taking on a terror organization, alone and with pin-point accuracy as well as patience and caution. Israel is realizing success but the cost of future attitudes and repercussions by the United Nations and other country leaderships may prove to be a major hurdle for Israel to overcome.

 

 

Blessings to you Israel, there are many in the West that feel great sadness for each loss of live while we also stand proud of the diligence and calculations you have taken in this war. All we want along with you Israel is some future peace for your tiny nation and for the truth to resonate across Europe and the Middle East that will with some hope alter the course of your future in gaining more security and calm.

This conflict has forced many things to the surface for all to see, and these things include the complicity of Qatar, Turkey and Iran. We have come to know new names, new NGO’s and most of all hidden and perhaps even secret policy objectives. All of these revelations are huge components to future debates and global awareness and positions. That is in large measure a significant silver lining.

The truth is surfacing and thank you Israel.

Gaza’s Civilian Casualties: The Truth Is Very Different

by Richard Kemp
August 3, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4570/gaza-civilian-casualties

With few exceptions, reporters, commentators, and analysts unquestioningly accept the casualty statistics given by Gaza’s Hamas-controlled medical authorities, who ascribe all deaths to the IDF. We have never seen so much as a glimpse of killed or wounded fighters.

Analysis of casualty details released by Qatar-based Al Jazeera indicate that so far most of those killed in Gaza have been young men of fighting age, not women, children or old people.

All Palestinian civilian casualties in this conflict result ultimately from Gaza terrorists’ aggression against Israel, and Hamas’s use of human shields — the most important plank of Hamas’s war-fighting policy.

“So are you going after innocent civilians or is it incompetence Colonel Lerner?” asks the interviewer, her face contorted with a contempt apparently reserved only for Israelis. Such shrill disrespect hurled at an American or British officer would alienate viewers, and, at an Arab commander, provoke accusations of racism.

This line of questioning – repeated across the networks on a daily basis – betrays a naïve and uncomprehending willingness to believe, and encourages viewers to believe, the absurd notion that the Israel Defence Force [IDF] is commanded and manned from top to bottom by psychopathic baby-killing thugs.

To suggest that military incompetence is the only explanation for civilian deaths other than deliberate mass murder reveals a breathtaking but unsurprising ignorance of the realities of combat.

Although rarely allowed to complete so much as a single sentence, Israeli attempts to explain IDF targeting policies are inevitably dismissed as laughable fabrication.

The truth is very different. The IDF has developed the most comprehensive and sophisticated measures to minimize civilian casualties during attacks against legitimate military targets.

Mandatory, multi-sensor intelligence and surveillance systems to confirm the presence or absence of civilians precede attacks on every target from the air. Text messages, phone calls and radio messages in Arabic warn occupants to leave. Air-dropped leaflets include maps showing safe areas. When warnings go unheeded, aircraft drop non-lethal explosives to warn that an attack is imminent.

Only when pilots and air controllers are sure that civilians are clear of the target will authorization be given to attack. When pilots use laser-guided munitions they must have pre-designated safe areas to which to divert the missiles in flight should civilians suddenly appear.

In the last few days IDF pilots have aborted many missions because civilians remained in the target area.

Ground forces have equivalent engagement procedures, although the nature of ground combat means that these are blunter and less sophisticated. Discussions with IDF infantrymen fresh from the fight on the Gaza border confirm, however, that avoiding civilian casualties is uppermost in their minds even when under fire themselves.

Meanwhile back in the safety of the studio, the interviewer’s visible fury at the IDF Spokesman has got the better of any professional objectivity: “You go on endlessly about all the warnings you give but the fact is you have killed one-and-a-half thousand people, the overwhelming majority of them civilians!”

But of course the colonel is not permitted to give a proper answer that might help viewers understand the reality of the situation.

With few exceptions, reporters, commentators and analysts unquestioningly accept the casualty statistics given by Gaza’s Hamas-controlled medical authorities, who ascribe all deaths to the IDF. Is anyone in Gaza dying of natural causes? Mass executions of “collaborators,” and civilians killed by malfunctioning Hamas rockets, are all attributed to IDF fire.

Are the “overwhelming majority” of the dead really civilians? It would seem so. We see a great deal of grotesque and heart-rending footage of dead and bleeding women and children but never so much as a glimpse of killed or wounded fighters. Nor do reporters question or comment on the complete absence of Gazan military casualties, an extraordinary phenomenon unique to this conflict. The reality of course is that Hamas make great efforts to segregate their military casualties to preserve the fiction that Israel is killing civilians only. There are also increasing indications that Hamas, through direct force or threat, are preventing journalists from filming their fighters, whether dead or alive.

We will not get to the truth until the battle is over. But we know now that Hamas have ordered their people to report all deaths as innocent civilians. We know too that Hamas has a track record of lying about casualties. After Operation Cast Lead, the 2008-09 fighting in Gaza, the IDF estimated that of 1,166 Palestinian deaths, 709 were fighters. Hamas – backed by several NGOs – claimed that only 49 of its fighters had been killed, the rest were innocent civilians. Much later they were forced to admit that the IDF had been right all along and between 600 and 700 of the casualties had in fact been fighters. But the short-memoried media are incapable of factoring this in before broadcasting their ill-founded and inflammatory assertions.

Analysis of casualty details released by Qatar-based Al Jazeera indicate that so far in the conflict most of those killed in Gaza have been young men of fighting age, not women, children or old people. According to one analyst, despite comprising around 50% of the population, the proportion of women among the dead is 21%.

Preliminary analysis by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Israel suggests that 71, or 46.7%, of the first 152 Palestinians killed were fighters and 81, or 53.3%, non-involved civilians.

None of this analysis is definitive. But it does cast doubt upon the accusations of indiscriminate attack against the population by the IDF and upon the UN estimates – widely trumpeted as fact by the media and the not-exactly unbiased United Nations – that between 70 and 80% of Palestinian casualties have been civilians.

Nevertheless, many innocent civilians have tragically been killed. How has this happened, given the IDF’s measures aimed at minimizing such deaths?

IDF commanders say they never intentionally fire at targets where uninvolved civilians are present, a policy that goes much further than the Geneva Conventions demand. This policy has been confirmed to me by foot soldiers on the ground and F16 pilots carrying out strikes into Gaza.

But mistakes happen. Surveillance and intelligence can never be foolproof. There have been reports of Hamas forcing civilians back in once buildings have been evacuated. There is sometimes unexpected fallout from attacks, for example when an adjacent building containing civilians collapses, often caused by secondary explosions resulting from Hamas’s own munitions.

Errors can be made in interpretation of imagery, passage of information and inputting of target data. We don’t yet know what happened to the four boys tragically killed on a Gaza beach; it is not credible that they were identified as children and then deliberately killed.

Weapons guidance systems sometimes malfunction and bombs, bullets or missiles can land where they are not supposed to. Even the most hi-tech communications systems can fail at the critical moment.

Nowhere are these errors more frequent and catastrophic than in ground combat, where commanders and soldiers experience chaos, noise, smoke, fear, exhaustion, danger, shock, maiming, death and destruction that are beyond the comprehension of our interviewer in her air conditioned TV studio.

These mistakes and malfunctions happen in all fighting armies and in all conflicts. And in all conflicts, mistakes include the deaths of soldiers by friendly fire. Do those who condemn the killing of Palestinian civilians as deliberate acts by the IDF suggest that the friendly fire incidents in Gaza are also intentional?

The Israeli policy of not attacking targets where civilians are present is likely however to be deliberately waived in one specific situation. If troops are under lethal fire from an enemy position, the IDF are entitled to attack the target even with the certainty that civilians will be killed, subject to the usual rules of proportionality.

By definition Israeli soldiers’ lives are placed at greater risk by restrictive rules of engagement intended to minimize civilian casualties. But commanders in the field must balance their concern for civilians with the preservation of their own men’s lives and fighting effectiveness.

These realities aside, all Palestinian civilian casualties in this conflict result ultimately from Gaza terrorists’ aggression against Israel, and Hamas’s use of human shields – the most important plank of Hamas’s war-fighting policy.

Storing and firing weapons within densely populated areas, compelling civilians to stay put when warned to leave, luring Israeli forces to attack and kill their own people, the Palestinian body count is vital to Hamas’s propaganda war that aims to bring international pressure on Israel and incite anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic hatred around the world.

This sickening exploitation of their own people’s suffering, and media’s complicity in it, is nowhere more cynically demonstrated than in the operating theaters of the Gaza Strip. Without the slightest regard for life-saving hygiene, or for the care, privacy or dignity of the wounded, Palestinian officials enthusiastically hustle camera crews in to the emergency room as desperate surgeons battle for a bleeding and broken child’s life.

Colonel Richard Kemp spent most his 30-year career in the British Army commanding front-line troops in fighting terrorism and insurgency in hotspots including Iraq, the Balkans, South Asia and Northern Ireland. He was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003. From 2002 – 2006 he heading the international terrorism team at the Joint Intelligence Committee of the British Prime Minister’s Office.

War, the Contradictions and the Propaganda

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There is supposed to be a war between the Sunni and the Shiites, that is the plan. There is supposed to be a war between the Islamists and the Jews, that is the plan. There is supposed to be a war between Socialists and the Capitalists, that is the plan.

There is money in all of these forced wars and it is a lucrative cottage industry just like that of the war on stopping climate change.

But back to the matter of Israel, Hamas and Gaza. There are many players in this conflict including Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the United States and with the hostilities comes billions, even trillions. Everyone has a hand out including journalists, humanitarian organizations and government factions. It is the money and propaganda successfully encourages the signing of checks and pledges.

We have been told in recent weeks about the tunnels in Gaza but not all of the facts regarding the tunnels. These tunnels are essentially toll roads underground that are by themselves huge payday makers requiring toll fees to be paid to smuggle everything from food, weapons, narcotics and medicine. Israel knows these tunnels well and is not sharing all their knowledge with good reason. Never give up your sources, methods or operational plans.

 

There will be no peace at the other end of the destruction of Hamas and the tunnels but eliminating rockets, some smuggling and terror leaders will give way to future conditions of which is still unknown given all the Middle East players.

A secret tunnel and terror headquarters is well known but by whom is the question and who is keeping the secret and why remains to be answered.

 

Top Secret Hamas Command Bunker in Gaza Revealed

And why reporters won’t talk about it

By Staff Notes|July 29, 2014 10:30 AM|

The idea that one of Hamas’s main command bunkers is located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is one of the worst-kept secrets of the Gaza war. So why aren’t reporters in Gaza ferreting it out? The precise location of a large underground bunker equipped with sophisticated communications equipment and housing some part of the leadership of a major terrorist organization beneath a major hospital would seem to qualify as a world-class scoop—the kind that might merit a Pulitzer, or at least a Polk.

So why isn’t the fact that Hamas uses Shifa Hospital as a command post making headlines? In part, it’s because the location is so un-secret that Hamas regularly meets with reporters there. On July 15, for example, William Booth of the Washington Post wrote that the hospital “has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” Back in 2006, PBS even aired a documentary showing how gunmen roam the halls of the hospital, intimidate the staff, and deny them access to protected locations within the building—where the camera crew was obviously prohibited from filming. Yet the confirmation that Hamas is using Gaza City’s biggest hospital as its de facto headquarters was made in the last sentence of the eighth paragraph of Booth’s story—which would appear to be the kind of rookie mistake that is known in journalistic parlance as “burying the lede.”

But Booth is no rookie—he’s an experienced foreign reporter, which means that he buried the lede on purpose. Why? Well, one reason might be that the “security sources” quoted whenever the location of the Hamas command bunker is mentioned—which, as evidenced by this 2009 article by the excellent and highly experienced foreign correspondent Steven Erlanger of the New York Times, happens every time there’s a war in Gaza—are obviously Israelis, not members of Hamas. It might be hard to believe the Israelis, the simple logic might run, since they obviously have an investment in arguing that Hamas is using hospitals and schools as human shields.

The Israelis are so sure about the location of the Hamas bunker, however, not because they are trying to score propaganda points, or because it has been repeatedly mentioned in passing by Western reporters—but because they built it. Back in 1983, when Israel still ruled Gaza, they built a secure underground operating room and tunnel network beneath Shifa hospital—which is one among several reasons why Israeli security sources are so sure that there is a main Hamas command bunker in or around the large cement basement beneath the area of Building 2 of the Hospital, which reporters are obviously prohibited from entering.

 

 

Hamas obviously has no interest in having a photo-layout of one of its command bunkers beneath Shifa Hospital splashed on the front pages of newspapers. After all, such pictures would show that the organization uses the sick and wounded of Gaza as human shields while launching missiles against Israeli civilians. What Hamas wants is for reporters to use very different pictures from Shifa—namely, photos of Palestinians killed and wounded by Israelis, which make Palestinians look like innocent victims of wanton Israeli brutality.

To that end, the rules of reporting from Shifa Hospital are easy for any newbie reporter to understand: No pictures of members of Hamas with their weapons inside the hospital, and don’t go anywhere near the bunkers, or the operating rooms where members of Hamas are treated. While reporters can meet with members of Hamas inside the hospital—because it’s obviously convenient for everyone—they are not allowed to take pictures. Reporters inside Gaza who are risking their lives to bring the world whatever news they can should hardly be blamed for obeying Hamas’s media rules, which the organization has helpfully written down in case anyone has doubts about what they are permitted to show.

Reporters who bravely or foolishly violate Hamas’ rules even on their social media accounts can be seen to repent with such alacrity that it’s not difficult to imagine how scared and dependent they are. Nick Casey of the Wall Street Journal, for example, tweeted that “You have to wonder w the shelling how patients at Shifa hospital feel as Hamas uses it as a safe place to see media.” Casey then quickly deleted his tweet, which didn’t save him from being put on a list of journalists who “lie/fabricate info for Israel” and “must be sued” – a threat which is surely the least of Casey’s fears. Last week, French-Palestinian journalist Radjaa Abu Dagg was summoned to Shifa by Hamas and interrogated. He wrote about the experience of “attempted intimidation” for Liberation—and then quickly had the paper take down the article.

It can hardly be lost on any sane journalist that tempers in combat zones can be short, and that Hamas has used the kidnapping of foreign journalists like Alan Johnson of the BBC to advance its own agenda. The fact that Hamas has closed the border and will not let journalists in or out of Gaza can’t make journalists who being used as de facto human shields by a terrorist organization feel any more eager to offend their hosts.

What Hamas has done, therefore, is to turn Shifa Hospital into a Hollywood sound-stage filled with real, live war victims who are used to score propaganda points, while the terrorists inside the hospital itself are erased from photographs and news accounts through a combination of pressure and threats, in order to produce the stories that Hamas wants. So if reporters aren’t entirely to blame for participating in this sick charade, then who is?

The answer is that reporters write what they can, and some do their job better than others, and some are braver or more foolhardy than their peers. But it’s the job of editors, sitting thousands of miles away, at a very safe remove from the battlefield, to note that dispatches were produced under pressure, or that key information was removed by a government—as nearly all mainstream media outlets do when battlefield dispatches pass through the hands of the IDF censor. A good editor might attach similar notes to dispatches from combat zones controlled by terrorist organizations. He or she might also decide that reporting only the news that Hamas deems fit to print from Shifa Hospital isn’t actually reporting at all: It’s propaganda.

 

Hamas Killed 160 Palestinian Children to Build Tunnels

Militant group used child labor to construct underground network in Gaza

By Myer Freimann

As the death toll of Operation Protective Edge rises, the deaths of children are firmly in the spotlight—and rightly so. It pains all reasonable people to hear of children dying as the consequence of war. Hamas and its supporters display gruesome pictures of dead and wounded children in order to gain sympathy for their portrait of Israel as the villain intent on killing Palestinians. In response, Israel cites the need to stop Hamas from firing thousands of rockets at its own children, who are being forced to live in bomb shelters, as well as the need to eliminate the tunnels that Hamas dug into Israel in order to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. One tunnel opening was found underneath an Israeli kindergarten.

But who built those tunnels? The answer is Hamas, of course—using some of the same children who are now trapped under fire in Gaza.

The Institute for Palestine Studies published a detailed report on Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon in the summer of 2012. It reported that tunnel construction in Gaza has resulted in a large number of child deaths.

“At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials”

The author, Nicolas Pelham, explains that Hamas uses child laborers to build their terror tunnels because, “much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies”.

Human rights groups operating in Gaza raised concerns about child labor in the tunnels as far back as 2008. Hamas responded by saying it was “considering curbs.” Following Operation Cast Lead in 2009 Hamas softened its position and the Interior Ministry established the Tunnel Affairs Commission (TAC) which, “In response to public concern at a rising toll of tunnel casualties, particularly of child workers…issued guidelines intended to ensure safe working conditions.” No mention is made in the report of the conditions that would result for both Palestinian and Israeli children from building tunnels that would be used to launch terror attacks.

Nor does it seem that Hamas paid much subsequent attention to ensuring the safety of the child workers that it used to build the tunnels that would wind up endangering the lives of many in Gaza. On a tour of the tunnels in 2011, Pelham noted that, “nothing was done to impede the use of children in the tunnels.”

Not only are Hamas misappropriating much of the humanitarian aid supplied to Gaza—800,000 tons of cement were used to construct the terror tunnels into Israel—they are also directly exploiting and endangering Gaza’s youth in their construction and operation.

Points of Light has Points to Hamas

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President George H.W. Bush created a foundation called Points of Light Foundation designed as a charity to support volunteers in several countries. President #41 has very little to do with the foundation since its founding, but it is a non-partisan organization.

Then in 2007, the POL was headed by Michelle Nunn, a democrat who is running for U.S. Senate in Georgia. Michelle’s father, Sam Nunn has been very involved in another lobby group Globe Zero which has a charter to eliminate all global nuclear weapons. A factoid is that the present Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was also a board member of Globe Zero.

Back to Michelle Nunn, it seems a document was leaked somehow regarding her actions while the Chairman of Points of Light today. Why is this important? Well it seems POL under her chairmanship gave money to Islamic factions that moved money to Hamas.

COME GEORGIA, KNOW YOUR CANDIDATES AND TELL ANOTHER VOTER

Yes….wow is right. For a full summary of this matter of Michelle Nunn go here and the whole 144 page document is included.

Did Dem Senate Candidate Michelle Nunn Help Fund Hamas?

by Daniel Greenfield

‘In 2007 it was being run by Michelle Nunn, a political princess whose father was the Dem Senator from Georgia, and whose daughter now wants to inherit his seat.

Back at Points of Light, Michelle Nunn had transformed Points of Light into a generic social justice enterprise feeding money to a network of allied left-wing groups. Nunn got a $300,000 salary and even groups linked to terrorists got paid… as Eliana Johnson reports.

According to the IRS Form 990s that Points of Light filed in 2008 and 2011, the organization gave a grant of over $33,000 to Islamic Relief USA, a charity that says it strives to alleviate “hunger, illiteracy, and diseases worldwide.” Islamic Relief USA is part of a global network of charities that operate under the umbrella of Islamic Relief Worldwide. Islamic Relief USA says on its website that it is a legally separate entity from its parent organization, but that they share “a common vision, mission, and family identity.”

Islamic Relief Worldwide has ties to Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization. In June, Israel banned the charity from operating in the country because, according to Israeli officials, it was funneling cash to Hamas. In 2006, Israelis arrested Islamic Relief Worldwide’s Gaza coordinator, Ayaz Ali. They said he was working to “transfer funds and assistance to various Hamas institutions and organizations.” Ali admitted to cooperating with local Hamas operatives while working in Jordan and, on his computer, Israeli officials found photographs of “swastikas superimposed on IDF symbols,” and of Nazi officials, Osama bin Laden, and al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Islamic Relief USA highlighted the work of Islamic Relief Worldwide in Palestine in its 2012 annual report, in which it talks generally about the work of Islamic Relief charities in the region without drawing a distinction between the branches. The organization has raised eyebrows before. According to a 2012 report, its bank account was closed by UBS and it was “under constant scrutiny by other banks due to nervousness about counterterrorist regulations.” The group’s terror ties extend beyond Hamas, according to a former Israeli intelligence official. He says that Islamic Relief Worldwide’s country director in Palestine, Muneed Abugazaleh, met in April 2012 with Dr. Omar Shalah, a leader of the terror group Islamic Jihad and of the Riyad al-Saleheen Charitable Society, which is affiliated with the group. He is also the brother of Ramadan Shalah, the leader of Islamic Jihad.

Aside from the terrorism issue, what does any of this have to do with POL’s original mission of volunteerism?

Islamic Relief USA is largely oriented toward Muslim conflict zones. It’s raising money currently for Syria and Gaza. Considering that Gaza is run by Hamas, some serious questions need to be asked.’

Ryan Mauro has some more details on the interconnections.

Although IRUSA says it is a “legally separate and independent” affiliate of IRW, the two share leadership and resources. IRUSA transferred $4.8 million, $5.9 million and $9.4 million to IRW in 2007, 2008 and 2009, respectively. IRUSA’s December 31, 2010 financial report states, “The majority of IRUSA’s programs are administered through grants with [IRW],” with a total of nearly $22 million that year alone.

Which essentially means that if you’re funding IRUSA, you’re funding a group linked extensively to terrorists. And not just Hamas.

Just in case you need more on Hamas, his is a video by the son of the founder of Hamas speaking out against Hamas, he is now a Christian. http://t.co/CzM7pHiAgD

Additionally in the document, Michelle Nunn also is coordinating activity to fight back against eh SCOTUS ruling on Citizens United, you know the case that Barack Obama pushed back hard on in his State of the Union Address. It is also at the core of the IRS targeting program.

 

 

 

The Militia Terrorists Next Door

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By Adam Housley

Members of the Islamist extremist militia blamed for the Benghazi terror attack had moved in next door to the U.S. consulate months before the strike but “nothing was done” despite concerns about the dangerous neighbors, sources tell Fox News.

Sources say members of Ansar al-Sharia moved to the house just outside the east wall of the compound within three weeks of American personnel renting the facility, and later used the location to help plan and take part in the attack on the American consulate on Sept. 11, 2012.

The neighbors prompted multiple security requests — including repeated requests up until the day of the attack — for more weapons and personnel.

“We warned D.C. about the guys who moved in next door, but nobody knew what to do and nothing was done,” a U.S. intelligence source said.

According to one intelligence source, American security personnel specifically asked for an M240 machine gun to mount on the roof at the consulate for added protection, but were turned down repeatedly.

A State Department source also confirmed to Fox News that “they asked for a belt-fed mounted machine gun, but were specifically denied by the State Department because they said it would upset the locals.”

Asked about these assertions at Monday’s press briefing, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf called the claims “dubious.”

But a senior State Department official acknowledged Tuesday that there was a request of some kind from the Benghazi post on Aug. 22. “It was being considered in Tripoli on the day of the attack. It was contained in a list of security requests, so to say that the request was rejected is inaccurate,” the official said.

The official said the department, though, has “no record” at this point of Ansar al-Sharia moving in next door.

Fox News is told that American personnel also requested sandbags to help fortify positions at the compound because “the only thing in between us and the neighbors was grass and a couple of trees and a wall.”

“The State Department knew it. Everyone on the ground knew it,” one source with direct knowledge of the attack said.

Another source said the sandbags were denied because “making shooting positions was too aesthetically unpleasing.”

The threat was so well-known that on the night of the attack, as rescuers from the nearby annex were facing heavy fire while leaving the consulate, they “made sure to make a left turn out of the consulate and not a right turn” where the Ansar al-Sharia house was located.

The revelations continue to raise questions about the State Department response and training of agents, ahead of the attack which killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, as well as Americans Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Others were also injured.

Further, leaders of the local Libyan militia known as “‘The February 17 Martyrs Brigade” — which was tapped to provide security at the U.S. compound in Benghazi — not only didn’t respond to help save American lives, but may have directly participated in the 2012 attack on Americans. This has prompted criticism of the State Department for its original decision to contract with the powerful militia.

According to multiple sources, the department selected the militia over multiple other militia groups, private companies and even U.S. Marines to protect and secure the American consulate in Benghazi, despite the fact that those on the ground questioned the decision. As one special operator noted, “They may have been sold as the best option … but it was a terrible option. Only D.C. trusted them.”

Sources also say militia leaders may have helped orchestrate and directly participated in the attack — even though they were being paid, being fed, given automobiles and even allowed to swim in the consulate pool by the U.S. State Department. Fox News also has learned that the leader of the brigade, Fawzi Bukhatif, left Benghazi the day the attack ended on Sept. 12, even as the consulate and annex were still smoldering and Americans were standing on the Benghazi tarmac waiting to get out.

“It is truly one of the worst outsourcing decisions of all time,” said another source with direct knowledge of the attack.

Adam Housley joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 2001 and currently serves as a Los Angeles-based senior correspondent.

But there is more.

We knew about Ansar al Sharia long before the attack on the U.S. mission post in Benghazi. The intelligence community sounded the warnings all through 2011-2012 but Barack Obama chose not to get his Presidential Daily Briefings and the State Department under Hillary Clinton had/has a division at Foggy Bottom that knew too.

For a complete summary of who is in Ansar al Sharia, what they are and where they are go here.