DarkStar Spouts Off

"What Isis Wants"

This has to be the most important reading material, this year.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.

We have misunderstood the nature of the Islamic State in at least two ways. First, we tend to see jihadism as monolithic, and to apply the logic of al‑Qaeda to an organization that has decisively eclipsed it. The Islamic State supporters I spoke with still refer to Osama bin Laden as “Sheikh Osama,” a title of honor. But jihadism has evolved since al-Qaeda’s heyday, from about 1998 to 2003, and many jihadists disdain the group’s priorities and current leadership.

Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime. His organization was flexible, operating as a geographically diffuse network of autonomous cells. The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.)

We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature. Peter Bergen, who produced the first interview with bin Laden in 1997, titled his first book Holy War, Inc. in part to acknowledge bin Laden as a creature of the modern secular world. Bin Laden corporatized terror and franchised it out. He requested specific political concessions, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia. His foot soldiers navigated the modern world confidently. On Mohammad Atta’s last full day of life, he shopped at Walmart and ate dinner at Pizza Hut.

Islam Is At War With Non-Believers; Period. Stop.

Plain and simple, what's going on in the Middle East and Northern Africa is about Islam being at war -- plain and simple -- with other religions. Actually, at war with non-believers in their faith. And "western culture" doesn't have a clue.

When a religion says, "convert or die" and they are beheading non-believers, to include children, and are making sex slaves of non-believing women, and burying people alive, and stoning non-believers to death, and shooting them, and...

Jewish, Christian, wrong denomination of Islam, it doesn't matter, these people are serious. They aren't playing politics and they aren't playing ethnic/tribal games, they are spreading their faith how they think they are called to spread it.

‪#‎RealTalk‬

You Don't Leave A Soldier On The Field; Get Him Home Then Go For It

I've heard it said by those in the military, that you don't leave a soldier on the field. So, "trading" for a possible deserter, is an issue for me, but I can understand why it would be done. As has been pointed out, Israel has done far worse deals than what was "proxied" for the U.S.

Get him home and then find out what happened.

• Did he just walk off?
• Did he seek the Taliban as some are saying audio recordings indicate?
• Did his superiors know of his alleged unease at being in combat? If so, why did they not ask him if he wanted to be a conscience objector?
• Did he give away information that put our military at risk? If so, was it under duress or willingly?

 

 

President Mandela IS South Africa

President Mandela IS South Africa.

Mandela is a creation of the system that defined South Africa. He used and supported violence as a means of changing South Africa, but it was a result OF South Africa. He supported peace and reconciliation as a means of moving South Africa forward.

South Africa created Nelson Madiba Mandela. President Mandela IS South Africa.

RIP.

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON DNI AND BENGHAZI

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON DNI AND BENGHAZI

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today released the following statement on reports that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was responsible for removing references to Al-Qaeda from the unclassified talking points about the Benghazi attack that Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials used in the early days after September 11, 2012:

“I am somewhat surprised and frustrated to read reports that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was responsible for removing references to Al-Qaeda from the unclassified talking points about the Benghazi attack that Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials used in the early days after September 11, 2012. I participated in hours of hearings in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week regarding the events in Benghazi, where senior intelligence officials were asked this very question, and all of them – including the Director of National Intelligence himself – told us that they did not know who made the changes. Now we have to read the answers to our questions in the media. There are many other questions that remain unanswered. But this latest episode is another reason why many of us are so frustrated with, and suspicious of, the actions of this Administration when it comes to the Benghazi attack.”

My emphasis added. This is a great big mess. I'm now convinced the administration is hiding a spying operation that was going on in that complex.

President Obama's U.N. Statements Are Sickening

The Obama administration just admitted the attacks in Libya were planned attacks, leaving behind the lie wrong theory that a movie caused the riots:

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama said Monday “there’s no doubt” that the assault of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans including the U.S. ambassador “wasn’t just a mob action” but a sign of extremism in nations lacking stability. His words about the Libya killings were his most specific since the White House called it a “terrorist attack” last week.

Then he says this in his address to the U.N.:

 “There is no speech that justifies mindless violence. There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy.”

...

“I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity,” the president said. “It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well.”

The U.S. was attacked, this year, on 9/11/2012, and the POTUS dares restate a lie wrong theory? The administration's actions are pathetic.

I Remember 9/11, But I Live

I have mixed feelings about today. Of course I remember the planes going into the World Trade Center. I remember the plane going into the Pentagon. I remember the plane crashing in the field. There are many events to commemorate the day, but I can't live in death. I exist in life.

So I remember and move on with my life, because while the terrorists took some lives, they didn't take the soul of America.

Now, the final thing I have to say is, God bless the United States of America and may He wake up those who are sleeping or in denial because too many of us don't want to face the fact that we are in a religious war and that we are seen as a Christian country.

Lack of Immunity Is Why US Withdrawls from Iraq

The lack of immunity for U.S. forces is the reason why the U.S. is withdrawing from Iraq:

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's prime minister said Saturday that U.S. troops are leaving Iraq after nearly nine years of war because Baghdad rejected American demands that any U.S. military forces to stay would have to be shielded from prosecution or lawsuits.

The comments by Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, made clear that it was Iraq who refused to let the U.S. military remain under the Americans' terms.

A day earlier, President Barack Obama had hailed the troops' withdrawal as the result of his commitment — promised shortly after taking office in 2009 — to end the war that he once described as "dumb."

Republicans need to shut up. Once this gets around, it's going to be a big bullet in the foot.

No Money And Whooops

When the Pakistan spy agency can't find OBL when he is in your back yard, literally, but can out the CIA:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The public outing of the CIA station chief here threatened on Monday to deepen the rift between the United States and Pakistan, with American officials saying they believed the disclosure had been made deliberately by Pakistan’s main spy agency.

If true, the leak would be a sign that Pakistan’s powerful security establishment, far from feeling chastened by the killing of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison city last week, is seeking to demonstrate its leverage over Washington and retaliate for the unilateral U.S. operation.

I think it's time to decrease the money Pakistan is getting and let a drone "stray off course" and hit a strategic "non-strategic" location.

Release The Damn Photo!

Pres. Obama won't release the photograph.

RELEASE IT!

Don't want to incite more violence? Then why kill OBL??????

Damn! You look like a PUNK!

You think it was bad, BEFORE, when they were asking for the birth
certificate? OH, now it's ON!

Pakistan, In Plain View

1. Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan, in a urban area living in a big
compound; not in a cave. So much for common assumptions, huh?
2. He was in Pakistan.
3. The Navy Seals met no resistance getting to the compound, which to
me says, Pakistan authorities knew he was there and let the killing
happen because they are tired of the U.S. placing drone strikes all
over the place.
4. See # 3.
5. See # 3.

Job Well Done: Osama bin Laden, Burning in Hell

President Obama has announced that after getting a tip and doing intelligence follow up, U.S. special forces struck a compound where Osama bin Laden was hiding and killed him. The special forces group has the body.

This shows the United States of America, when determined, can accomplish what it sets out to accomplish.

I don't agree with all of the policies President Obama is pushing. But he gets kudos for this one. The U.S. special forces gets kudos for this one. I bow my head and cover my heart in remembrance of those killed in the 9-11 attacks and all of the lives of the service men and women who have died hunting down that bastard.

Osama bin Laden is burning in hell and it is well deserved.

God Bless the United States of America.

P.S. Wanna bet Fox News makes a big deal about Quadaffi still being alive?

Qadaffi Is Hard Core

Qadaffi is hard core. He isn't going out without a fight. Right now they are using military air support to take out protesters in Libya.

If Qadaffi falls, which I doubt, will President Obama get credit from the critics for "letting Egypt fall" and starting the domino effect of democracy?

 

I Need To Know Why

I need to know why:

• The same people who preached that democracy has to come to countries in the Middle East, have problems with the people of Egypt protesting against a totalitarian government to the point where the leader steps down.
• The same people who preached against totalitarians supported one in the Middle East.
• The same people who said the seed of democracy was needed in the Middle East now are saying little to nothing about the rise of protests in the Middle East.
• The same people who argued against democracy seeding in the Middle East are saying nothing about the rise of protests in the region.

 

Mubarak slammed U.S. in phone call with Israeli lawmaker

This is for the neo-cons. Note the comment about democracy.

 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hosni Mubarak had harsh words for the United States and what he described as its misguided quest for democracy in the Middle East in a telephone call with an Israeli lawmaker a day before he quit as Egypt's president.

The legislator, former cabinet minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, said on Israel TV Friday he came away from the 20-minute conversation Thursday with the feeling the 82-year-old leader realized "it was the end of the Mubarak era."

"He had very tough things to say about the United States," said Ben-Eliezer, a member of the center-left Labor Party who has held talks with Mubarak on numerous occasions while serving in various Israeli coalition governments.

"He gave me a lesson in democracy and said: 'We see the democracy the United States spearheaded in Iran and with Hamas, in Gaza, and that's the fate of the Middle East,'" Ben-Eliezer said.

"'They may be talking about democracy but they don't know what they're talking about and the result will be extremism and radical Islam,'" he quoted Mubarak as saying.

If Bush were in office, conservative commentators would be having an orgasmic event. The media would probably be saying beware. I'm just watching and waiting.

Wiki Leaks

I wonder if "someone" or "some entity" has a combination of spies and the capability to tap and decrypt U.S. embassy and classified network communications.

Thoughts: Back from England

I was in England for a week and I come back with some thoughts:

Politics:

The British conservative party is in charge and Prime Minister David Cameron has proposed massive cuts with a plan to get the UK out of deficit spending in four years. Among the things I remember are cutting of government employees by 500,000 jobs. This includes cutting back on policemen. I found that VERY interesting as crime is a problem that they can't solve just with a massive and intrusive array of police cameras. Critics aresaying children and the social net are taking most of the hits but from what I could see, I don't think that's accurate.

The conservative party in England is doing what the Tea Party affilitated/backed/aligned politicians claim they want to do. If it works in the UK, I think it bodes well for the U.S.

Taxes:

The value added tax (VAT) rate is about 16%, which is VERY high AND there are still income taxes on earnings. At the start of the year, the VAT is being raised to 20%. To me, that's oppressive. and it is a STRONG signal as to why I'm against the VAT. Twenty percent and they STILL have an income tax?

Sports:

Soccer is THE GAME in England, and THE BIG STORY other than the cutbacks, was soccer player Wayne Rooney's desire to leave Manchester United. A prostitute said she had sex with Rooney during the time his wife was pregnant with their child. The club owner criticized Rooney and Rooney had a fit saying he would not renew his contract. The entire week I was there, this was the number 2 news story. It ended with Rooney signing a new agreement. It reminded me of the LeBron James media mess after he announced he was going to Miami.

Culture:

We are about 40% similar and the rest is very different. From the words and phrases we use, to the times stores close outside of London, to how people eat at a restaruant, to how we drive way beyond driving on the left side of the road in a right hand steered car... We are different and it is eye opening the differences that occurred over a few hundred years.

Cars:

England has MANY MORE car makers than the U.S., which is supposed to be a very big market. And the options for small cars of all engine sizes is amazing by our standards but not amazing when you drive on narrow streets.

I drove the European version of the Ford Focus while there and I was IMPRESSED by the car. Not only that, I was FLOORED by the look of many European Ford products. I really liked the Ford Mondeo and was reminded of the old Ford Merkur that was sold in the U.S, based off of a European model. It was a bust in the U.S. but I liked the car and EVERYONE who had one that I asked, LOVED the car. The Mondeo doesn't look like that car, but just the difference in styling. BTW, there the Honda Accord is the Acura TSX.

More later...

Another Black Person "Off the Reservation"

Another Black person who is "off the reservation."

Later, at an evening appearance at the Aspen Institute, Rice said she and Obama "covered the waterfront." "Despite the fact there are changes and tussles, there is still a foreign policy community that believes that foreign policy ought to be bipartisan," she said. "It was really great that he reached out in that way."

Rice rolled her eyes at the notion that Obama is a closet Muslim, and she defended him from criticism - led by former vice president Richard B. Cheney - that Obama had weakened the country. "Nothing in this president's methods suggests this president is other than a defender of America's interests," Rice told an audience that included presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett.

...

Speaking to Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, she lavished praise on her successor, Hillary Rodham Clinton: "I think she is doing a lot of the right things. . . . She is very tough. . . . I think she has done a fine job, I really do."

Rice even chastised former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) for his assertion that Obama has a "Kenyan, anticolonial" worldview. "That's over the top, and I don't think very helpful," she told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC.

HAH!!!!!

Condi Rice earned some enemies with this one.

Let Me Get This Straight

President Obama is trying to talk the G20 countries into keeping their spending in place. And, rightly, the SOCIALIST countries in Europe are saying HELLTOTHENO and maybe the USA should be focusing on
deficit reduction.

What's wrong with that picture?

If You Don't Have Gold, Guns, and Farm Land, You're Hosed

Auction of Spanish debt close to failure

By David Oakley

Published: May 19 2010 03:00 | Last updated: May 19 2010 03:00

Spain came close to its first debt auction failure yesterday, highlighting the funding problems for weaker eurozone economies.

The government's difficulties in selling €6.44bn ($7.96bn) in one-year and 18-month bills sparked worries over its 10-year debt auction tomorrow.

It planned to issue €8bn yesterday, but only just attracted that amount of bids, with yields at record highs. This prompted debt managers to reduce the size of the sale by €1.56bn. Normally a government bill auction would be covered at least 1.5 times.

Steven Major, head of fixed income at HSBC, said: "The Spanish auction was very disappointing and does not bode well for further issuance. It's becoming more apparent just how difficult it is for Spain, which is a big worry so soon after the launch of the international rescue package.

I'm going home to cry...

Can People Stop Whining About Being Searched In Airports, Now?

Or rather, can some white people stop whining about being searched at airports when "everyone knows" the profile for a terrorist is a young "Arabic" male?

For nearly a year, a middle-aged woman from suburban Philadelphia used her computer to fashion a new, frightening identity, federal court documents say.

The stream of Internet messages in which she sought assistance to wage violent jihad in Asia and Europe literally transformed her, the documents allege, from 46-year-old Colleen LaRose to "Jihad Jane."

By March 2009, federal prosecutors say she was communicating with at least three unidentified co-conspirators, including one who directed LaRose to "go to Sweden… and kill" a Swedish citizen, identified by two federal law enforcement officials as cartoonist Lars Vilks.

Whatchusaynow?

Give The Brother Some Love

I don't agree with all of Obama's policies, including his global policy approach. But saying that, I, and I think all Americans should, give Obama credit for recent high profile anti-terrorism victories.

So, can we give the President a little love for that?

Quickie On Children

I meant to post this the other day. With the recent news, this really becomes important.

There are people rushing to adopt children from Haiti, how do the adopting parents know the children they are adopting are really orphans? If you go want to adopt, there are many children in the U.S. waiting to be adopted.

One World Banking Tax?

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.0bad2cbd08a59bba35eea63e3cbaa8c5.9a1&show_article=1

Britain stepped up its push for a global tax on financial transactions Monday as part of broad plans to reform the banking sector following the financial crisis, amid concerns that the US may act alone.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted that his proposal for an international levy on financial transactions was "gathering support around the world," a day after Chancellor Alistair Darling hit out at US proposals.

Meanwhile Paul Myners, the financial services minister, said international agreement on an extraordinary bank levy "would be the most important legacy" of the state-led response to the financial crisis.

Over. My. Dead. Body.

Playing For Keeps

This is an example of playing for keeps.

Personal friends of employees at Google, Adobe and other companies were targeted by hackers in a string of recently disclosed cyberattacks, raising privacy concerns and pointing to a highly sophisticated operation, security experts said.

Cybersecurity experts analysing the attacks said the hackers spied on individuals and used other sophisticated techniques, making them extremely difficult to stop. The disclosures come amid renewed alarm over cybersecurity after Google said it had been the target of a series of cyberattacks from China.

Think about how much information is on the Internet grid. Think about the number of businesses that have been blackmailed by cyber thieves.

This happened just because Google said something, publicly. What else is happening we don't know about?