Day: June 20, 2016

Who’s To Blame? – Part 2

Last week I wrote a post and said that would be my last on the subject of Orlando attacks….I went back on my word and for that I apologize…..but this stuff is too important to ignore…..

Last week after the massacre in Orlando pointing at who was to blame for them attack.  Everyone is blaming whoever it is they do not like for the attack…..It was the Muslims fault……or the gays brought it on themselves…..even Obama was the cause of the attack…..I chose a rational group to blame….the FBI.

In case you missed my post or only read the title let me refresh your memory…..

I have been watching and listening to all the finger pointing surrounding the attack in Orlando……my first reaction was to ask why all the accusations not much is said about the attacks …

Source: Who’s To Blame? – In Saner Thought

I had a few people wanting to point the fingers elsewhere but I still maintain that the FBI dropped the ball…..and even more so after I read another piece…..

A missed chance? Even without his name on a watch list, Orlando gunman Omar Mateen raised suspicions in at least one gun store in the weeks before he slaughtered 49 people at the Pulse nightclub. Robert Abell, co-owner of Lotus Gunworks in Jensen Beach, Fla., tells ABC that a man he now knows was Mateen tried to buy high-end body armor of a kind typically used by law enforcement and 1,000 rounds of ammo five or six weeks ago. He says Mateen asked strange questions and made staff uncomfortable, so they turned him away and informed the local FBI office about the would-be customer. Abell says there was a follow-up conversation with the FBI, but agents never visited the store—and without a sale, the store didn’t have a name to give to investigators.

The FBI should stop looking for a scapegoat and step up and admit that they pissed this up….completely.

I have seen nothing yet that would lead me change my mind at the culprit of fault….

There is more that makes me feel the way I do about the FBI……

Before Omar Mateen gunned down 49 patrons at the LGBTQ Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, the FBI attempted to induce his participation in a terror plot. Sheriff Ken Mascara of Florida’s St. Lucie County told the Vero Beach Press Journal that after Mateen threatened a courthouse deputy in 2013 by claiming he could order Al Qaeda operatives to kill his family, the FBI dispatched an informant to “lure Omar into some kind of act and Omar did not bite.”

While self-styled terror experts and former counter-terror officials have criticized the FBI for failing to stop Mateen before he committed a massacre, the new revelation raises the question of whether the FBI played a role in pushing Mateen towards an act of lethal violence.

Source: Before Omar Mateen Committed Mass Murder, The FBI Tried To ‘Lure’ Him Into A Terror Plot | Alternet

This is just sad…..looks like the FBI is busy trying to entrap people and ignoring real threats…..

The responsibility still remains on the heads of the FBI….period!

Mutual Defense League

When the US signs NATO agreements with other countries part of that agreement is that the protection of the country…in essence….”an attack on one is an attack on all”……so if Russia out-right attacks one of the countries within the alliance then it is the duty of the US to come to their defense…….

Syria has a similar agreement it signed with Russia and quite possibly Iran…..Russia will come to Syria’s defense if they are attacked……

Pretty much cut and dry sort of agreements, right?

I ask these questions because of something that was issued by the State Dept……..

Described as the “dissent channel cable,” the document appears to mirror the CIA’s own narrative, which is that in attacking ISIS the US is fighting the wrong war in Syria, and instead demands that the US shift focus entirely to militarily imposing regime change on the Syrian government.

Though the State Department document is still secret, it appears to simply echo the CIA’s supposition that ISIS can’t be defeated while Syria has a “weak” government, and that therefore destroying what’s left of Syria’s government might conceivably help.

If you need to read a more detailed account of this situation……

More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s five-year-old civil war.

The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”

Source: 51 U.S. Diplomats Urge Strikes Against Assad in Syria – The New York Times

This may not be a big deal for you….but maybe you should think about the ramifications of such an attack.

Seriously?  Is this just chest thumping or are these morons high?

This is what you get when neocons can keep their jobs?

Taleban: Up From The Ashes

If you are looking for good news from the battlefront…then Afghanistan is NOT the place to look……why?

Remember in 2001 when the US went to war in Afghanistan against the Taleban and AQ?  After a couple of months we had everyone deemed a bad guy on the run….and we have been fighting an uphill battle ever since.

After we defeated the Taleban with the help of the Afghan Northern Alliance…all was never well.  After 16 years of blood and death what is the prognosis?

The installation of Lt. Gen. John Nicholson Jr. as the 17th commander of nearly 15 years of US-led occupation in Afghanistan provided yet another occasion for the US to take stock, this time with an eye on Nicholson’s proposals to loosen the rules of engagement for US combat troops. (once again our leaders are willing to throw American troops into the death mill again)

That meant another accounting of just how badly the war is going, and it’s bad. After ousting the Taliban, which was Afghanistan’s government before the 2001 invasion, they’ve been slowly but surely losing ground back to them, and the Taliban now controls more territory than any time since the war began.

That reflects both the steady erosion of Afghan government territory in the south, and more rapid Taliban gains in both Helmand Province and around the city of Kunduz. The Taliban has intermittently taken Kunduz itself, a northern city which was largely rebel-controlled before the war.

If there is a need of more information…..this article will help (that is if you care enough to watch what is to be done with our troops)……

KABUL, Afghanistan — The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has submitted his first three-month assessment of the situation in the war-torn country and what it’s going to take to defeat the Taliban, a U.S. military official has told The Associated Press.

And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to expand America’s involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground.

Source: US Commander: Taliban Holds More Ground in Afghanistan Than Any Time Since 2001 | World Affairs Journal

The events in Afghanistan are telling in that the Taleban is not going away……

The security problems in northwest Afghanistan continue despite several trips to the region by Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former general who comes from the region. Dostum has led at last four offensives against militants there since the summer of 2015, but when he leaves the militants return.The Taliban spring offensive is well under way in northern Afghanistan. Barely three years ago, northern Afghanistan was a relatively peaceful part of the country. It was a welcome situation for the governments of the Central Asian states, who fear Afghanistan’s problems could create instability among its neighbors.

Source: The Taliban Threat to Northern Afghanistan | Informed Comment

Afghanistan like the other interventions that the US has decided is in our country’s best interests is not going well….and the only answer our leaders have is to use more American lives as fodder for yet another failed conflict.

 

Here We Go Again

We have returned to the worthless debate on the ownership of guns…..the same debate we have with every attack and/or massacre…….the same waste of time ….time after time (not a Cindy Lauper song)…..

Of course I will be labelled whatever the mental midget class call people the disagree with them…apologist, bleeding heart, liberal, or my favorite, political correct.

So before the inevitable stupidity starts let me say my views right now….

I am against the ownership of assault weapons…..they are not needed for protection if so then the idiot holding it is a terrible shot then I suggest a shotgun…..they are not used for hunting….and if someone just gets off on shooting them then join the Army they will let these idiots play with them as much as they like.

There even those that agree with me……

Nate Bethea served as an infantry officer in the US Army from 2007 to 2014, and during that time, he fired thousands of rounds from assault rifles. “These weapons are intended for the battlefield. I don’t want an assault rifle, because I don’t want to think of my home country as a battlefield,” he writes in the New York Times. “I don’t want civilians to own assault rifles, because I think the risks outweigh the rewards. If people really do believe that they need them, maybe it’s because they see a battlefield where others don’t.” He notes that he’s seen the effects the weapons have, and he doesn’t want to think the US is such a dangerous place that we need such weapons.

He quotes a friend, an Army Special Forces officer with multiple combat deployments: “People who say they need an AR for hunting or home defense often don’t understand the weapon’s ballistics or overpenetration. ARs cause horrific damage to humans; that’s why the military developed them. If you want to shoot an AR so bad, please feel free to join the fight against ISIS in the military.” And, Bethea begs, please don’t get hung up on the semantics. Yes, there are slight differences between assault weapons used by the military and the types of assault rifles civilians can buy, but the truth is, a civilian would be able to buy basically the same rifle Bethea carried in Afghanistan, and the same accessories, with little difficulty—and that’s not right. Click for his full piece.

Well said and sound advice…..

Signed……Mr. Apologist.

Fighting ISIS With an Algorithm

In the days of my studies of international relations I studied the technique of a Dr. Bueno de Mesquita….he designed an algorithm that can be used to predict international events……he was tested by the CIA and others and his technique was about 90% accurate consistently…human prediction was a 50-50 at best.

I found it fascinating that an algorithm could be employed with such accuracy…..and now it appears that the US is trying this technique to try and predict the possibility of attack from ISIS…….

A new mathematical model aims to track the activity of Islamic State sympathizers online and determine when groups will turn from talk to action.

After Orlando and San Bernardino and Paris, there is new urgency to understand the signs that can precede acts of terrorism. And with the Islamic State’s prolific use of social media, terrorism experts and government agencies continually search for clues in posts and Twitter messages that appear to promote the militants’ cause.

A physicist may not seem like an obvious person to study such activity. But for months, Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami, led a team that created a mathematical model to sift order from the chaotic pro-terrorism online universe.

Source: Fighting ISIS With an Algorithm, Physicists Try to Predict Attacks – The New York Times

Some may find this a bit mundane and dry….but it is a new field that does show some possibilities…..if it can be as helpful as the algorithm of Dr, de Mesquita then there could be a major break through in the fight against ISIS.