Day: March 12, 2014

Do You Remember Lockerbie?

Many people will remember the downing of PanAm Flight 103…..it exploded over Lockerbie Scotland killing 259 people….and after much intel work and recriminations it was decided that Libya was the bad guy…..that its leader Gaddafi (you choose the spelling you like) ordered the destruction of the plane in retaliation for the 1986 US attack on Libya…..years later it was found that a Libyan national was responsible and he was later apprehended went to trial convicted and sentenced.  Years later this person, who claimed all along that he was innocent (don’t they always?) was released from prison on a humanitarian release for he had a terminal illness.  The world exploded….the Right wing almost had a stroke because the Scots were such pussies for letting this murder out of prison….does any of this sound familiar?

There seems to be a new twist just coming to light on this affair……..

The Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 went to his grave protesting his innocence—and new evidence suggests he was telling the truth and it was actually Iran behind the Lockerbie attack, an al-Jazeera investigation finds. A former Iranian intelligence officer is among the sources who say the bombing was actually the work of a Syria-based extremist group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, acting under orders from Ayatollah Khomeini to “to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian Airbus” that had been downed by the US Navy months earlier, killing 290 people. Prosecutors accused Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi of targeting the plane as revenge for the 1986 US bombing of Libya. The finding is no surprise to former CIA agent Robert Baer, who was involved in the Lockerbie probe and says the Department of Justice ignored intelligence and targeted Libya when the evidence pointed to Iran. “As far as I can tell is someone said, look, Libya’s vulnerable to prosecution, small country, Gadhafi’s hated, let’s go for it,” he says. “It was an executive decision, and then once that happened everybody lined up.” A spokesman for a group of British victims’ relatives says he is “delighted” by the new evidence. It will provide further grounds for appeal in the Megrahi case, he tells the Telegraph, calling the conviction “the tool which the authorities use to block our attempts to find out the truth about who killed our loved ones.”

This is a story that I bet we shall not here much about…..it seems truth is not that important anymore….but that should not surprise anyone these days.

What’s Up In Afghanistan?

In the last couple of days I have run across a couple of stories that will not be big news here in the US or for that matter not in Western Europe either…..this one stuck out in my mind…….

Afghan vice president Field Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a leading commander in the alliance that fought the Taliban, died today at 57. Fahim was an ethnic Tajik who was an ally of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Northern Alliance commander who was killed in an al-Qaeda suicide bombing two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. President Hamid Karzai’s office said Fahim died from an illness. Karzai called Fahim a true patriot and said his death was “a huge loss for Afghanistan.” Fahim served as a vice president and defense minister in Karzai’s first administration and most recently was the first of two vice presidents. But he was best remembered as a former warlord who fought the Soviets when they were occupying the country and went on to battle with Massoud against the Taliban, who were ousted in 2001. Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said the government has called for a three-day mourning period and flags would be lowered to half-staff. Presidential candidate Hedayat Amin Arsala said Fahim’s death “will affect the future political development,” but he didn’t elaborate.

What makes this one interesting to me is the fact that he was a fighter against the USSR back in the 80’s….he was part of the Northern Alliance of Massoud, a man who with a small band of fighters could hold off numerous Soviet attacks when outnumber more than 100 to 1.

This probably means nothing to most Americans but think about this….Massoud was killed 2 days before the 9/11 attack….this man would have been the leading ally when the US went in after the Taleban and AQ…his death should have been a indication of things to come.

Now another staunch ally of the US has died just before the presidential elections…..may be a huge coincidence, but I do not believe in them,….this needs to be watched….the Taleban is up to something and with the US on the way out the door….it could be BIG.

Just a thought.

Why Does Anybody Care What John McCain Thinks? | Nomadic Politics

I have been attacked in the past for not worshiping at the alter of John McCain…..let me be clear…I think he is a survivor of a horrific situation…but for me that does NOT mean I MUST respect him.  I think he is outta touch and will say whatever gives him a headline…..and foreign policy is just what I am talking about…..

Why Does Anybody Care What John McCain Thinks? | Nomadic Politics.

Is Syria Still There?

You bet your butt it is still there and as horrific as usual…the latest reports are not optimistic…..

As the Syrian civil war enters its fourth year, millions of children are at risk amid harrowing conditions caused by the collapse of the country’s health care system, a report from the Save the Children charity warns.

  • More than 10,000 children have died in the violence, but “it is not just the bullets and the shells that are killing and maiming children,” the report warns. Save the Children’s research revealed almost medieval health conditions in cities such as Aleppo, where there were 2,500 doctors before the war but fewer than 40 now, reports the New York Times. The group found that thousands of children are dying from diseases that could either have been treated or easily prevented under normal conditions.
  • Some 200,000 Syrians are believed to have died from chronic illnesses since the start of the conflict because of a lack of treatment, compared to an estimated 140,000 killed by violence, Reuters finds. Vaccination coverage has fallen sharply and diseases such as measles and meningitis are spreading along with polio, which has now infected an estimated 80,000 Syrian children.
  • The nightmarish consequences of the health system’s collapse include newborns dying in incubators amid power cuts, children having limbs amputated due to a lack of equipment for proper treatment, and patients being knocked out with metal bars because of a shortage of anesthetic, the report found.
  • Amnesty International, meanwhile, accuses the Syrian regime of using “starvation of civilians as a weapon of war,” the BBC reports. Around 20,000 refugees are trapped in a besieged camp in Damascus and at least 60% are suffering from malnutrition, the group warns.
  • In some rare good news to emerge from Syria, a group of Greek Orthodox nuns kidnapped by rebels in December have been released, according to another BBC report. The 13 nuns, who worked in a convent orphanage, say they were mostly well treated by their captors.

So yes Syria is still raging out of control it is that it is not important enough for the media to care……………

I heard the press secretary say that situations in Syria were showing some signs of growing success…..I’m kinda guessing that this was not what he was speaking of…..

Syria will miss a major deadline next week in the program to destroy its chemical weapons production facilities, sources at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Thursday.

Syria declared 12 production facilities to the OPCW and has until March 15 to destroy them under a deal agreed with the United States and Russia. Damascus has already missed several deadlines laid out in the agreement.

“That will definitely be missed,” said an official involved in discussions with Syria, referring to the March 15 deadline.

These are the weapons that the whole world was soooooo concerned with 6 months ago….now….not so much.

But that is the way of things….the media tells us all what is important and when……DEMAND better!