(CNSNews.com) – The Iranian Christian pastor who was acquitted just two months ago on charges he converted from Islam to Christianity and freed from prison has reportedly been re-arrested in Iran.
Sources close to Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, including the British group Christian Solidarity Worldwide and the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), say the Iranian Christian pastor was reportedly taken back into custody on Christmas Day. (more…)
JOLLY JIHADING – Could the release of “Zero Dark Thirty” provoke violent protests against the U.S. in response to the film’s searing depictions of “enhanced interrogation” — the coercive, super-secret and bitterly debated methods used by the CIA against al Qaeda terrorism suspects?
Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow’s acclaimed docudrama about the pursuit of Osama bin Laden opened Wednesday at five theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
The film, an early Oscar favorite, graphically depicts coercive CIA interrogation techniques, including the waterboarding, domination and psychosexual humiliation of a detainee, who is, variously, collared and leashed like a dog, stuffed into a cramped “confinement box” and stripped naked for questioning in the presence of a female investigator. (more…)
There is absolutely no doubt a negative opinion toward Israel is an ideological qualification for any Cabinet Level position within the Obama Administration. Having Zbignew Brzezinski out front is just further affirmation of this. Brzezinski has been a part of Obama’s ideological life since the early days at Occidental College, through his Columbia University *cough* mystery thesis, and into the administration as a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor. (In the picture below Zbignew Brzezinski is the guy with the gun, the bearded guy wearing the beret peering over his shoulder is Osama Bin Laden)
(WFB) As questions swirl around the prospective nomination of Chuck Hagel as President Barack Obama’s next defense secretary, the White House has begun mounting an effort to defend the former Nebraska Senator.
As part of that campaign, Zbigniew Brzezinski appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” early Thursday to push back against charges that Hagel is a poor choice for the job.
Brzezinski told the MSNBC anchor team, which includes his daughter Mika, that Hagel’s “critics, they would like to plunge the U.S. into some new wars, promptly, and not always for U.S. national interest.” (more…)
Imagine for just one minute that George Bush, or any Republican was in the White House, and this exact same report was released…… “Leadership failures” at the State Department, but Hillary’s all good…. unreal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An independent panel charged with investigating the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has concluded that systematic management and leadership failures at the State Department led to “grossly” inadequate security at the mission in Benghazi. (full report here)
“Systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place,” the panel said.
The report singled out the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Near East Affairs for criticism, saying there appeared to be a lack of cooperation and confusion over protection at the mission in Benghazi, a city in Eastern Libya that was relatively lawless after the revolution that toppled Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. (more…)
WASHINGTON — A high-level State Department investigative panel turned over a secret report Monday assessing blame for the deadly terrorist attacks against the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, setting the stage for a clash on the issue this week between the Obama administration and Republican critics.
The five-member Accountability Review Board delivered the report to the State Department two days before congressional panels are to hear testimony from its leading members, former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael G. Mullen, in closed session. (more…)
UPDATE – (Politico) — NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel and his production team were released today after being held captive for five days inside Syria, the network announced today.
In an interview with NBC’s Today show, Engel said the captors were members of a Shiite government militia loyal to Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad and allied with Hezbollah
This has all the potential to NOT END WELL. We have tracked Syrian activity closely for over two years. Currently the leader of the Syrian *resistance* is the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi al Husseini al Qurshi (a.k.a. Abu Du’a), in control of The Al Nusra Front. Almost all of the well armed contingents associated within Syria are now various factions of al-Qaeda affiliates. Pray for Richard Engel – Just pray….
SYRIA – Turkish media is reporting that veteran journalist Richard Engel, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent and Middle East bureau chief, and his Turkish colleague Aziz Akyavaş are currently missing in Syria.
Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reports that Engel and Akyavaş haven’t been in contact with NBC News since Thursday morning. (more…)
Yes, the agenda transparency of this administration is obvious. But I doubt Obama literally knew in 2008 – by December of 2012 Hillary Clinton would be sh!tting all over herself so much she would pass out and knock herself unconscious – when he said: he’d have the most transparent administration in history.
What’s “transparent” are the lies.
Considering the opportunistic Thanksgiving holiday fire at the State Dept office of Hillary Clinton; and considering the decision of Susan Rice to avoid the sunlight of Senate confirmation hearings on Benghazi; this latest manipulation/avoidance scheme by Hillary Clinton is, well, yes – “transparent“.
But before you consider what her handlers are saying today, vis-a-vi a concussion, brought on by fainting, caused by massive dehydration (ie the sh!ts – irony alert), you might want to know what the State Dept position was leading up to the “fainting”:
Earlier in the week: The House Foreign Affairs Committee has also already announced its Dec. 20 hearing featuring Clinton’s testimony. The title of the HFAC hearing is “Benghazi Attack, Part II: The Report of the Accountability Review Board”
But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said today that the ARB is not complete, might not be complete by Dec. 20, and Clinton has not agreed to testify on Dec. 20. (more…)
Last night North Korea successfully launched their first ever 3-stage Intercontinental Ballistic Missile placing “something” in near earth orbit. North Korea has nuclear weapons ya’ know.
Yesterday from the border region of Afghanistan/Pakistan al-Qaeda’s #1 Ayman Al Zawahiri sent a video message to the salafists in Egypt to rise up off their prayer mats and support the sharia constitution by Muslim Brotherhood leader President Morsi. “You must meet the request of the Egyptian people for Sharia rule in order to attain dignity and pride,” Zawahiri said in his video
That’s the same Egypt we just approved to get twenty brand spanking new F-16 fighter jets.
Also yesterday in West Africa, specifically in Mali, the freedom reform Prime Minister was forced to resign after al-Qaeda forces took control of the military and performed a coup de ta. al-Qaeda now controls the country. Soldiers carried out a late-night arrest of Mali’s prime minister at his home here, forcing his resignation early Tuesday and casting new doubt on plans to chase out radical Islamists who control much of this troubled West African nation. (more…)
On Thursday President Obama called Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President, Morsi. He didn’t call to scold Morsi for his insufferable power grab. He didn’t call to correct Morsi for taking over the judicary, and ignoring the minority voice by implementing Sharia Law despite the opposition coalition.
Obama didn’t call Morsi to reprimand him for brutalizing freedom principles. No, instead he called to tell Morsi the street protests don’t look good, and are fodder for ridicule toward the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton.
So what does Morsi do TODAY do in response to Obama’s concerns?
Struggling to subdue continuing street protests, the government of President Mohamed Morsi has approved legislation reimposing martial law by calling on the armed forces to keep order and authorizing soldiers to arrest civilians, Egypt’s state media reported on Saturday. (link)
In April of 2011 we shared the following. READ HERE. No-One Cared. Now, in December of 2012, the New York Times reports……
……Yesterday the New York Times Reported – The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.
…the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government. (more…)