Update below (more…)

Yeah, apparently Congress is well, not too terribly concerned about the missing AUMF.   Either that, or, well, they were quite comfortable relying on Hank “Tippy Guam” Johnson to ask all of the insightful questions….

If you were to review the participation at today’s House Armed Services Committee for the testimony and Q&A of Defense Secretary Hagel or Joint Chief’s Martin Dempsey, you might walk away thinking our military were not in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and dealing with Ebola in West Africa.  Russia invading Ukraine, Iran getting nuclear weapons, Libya in a state of civil war, U.S. Embassy evacuated in Yemen, terrorists on the border…..
…Yeah, three effen’ hours of their time is just too much to ask for.  Oh, but they’ll parade around the military like some kind of optical pawn of patriotism.  And, yet people wonder why events like Benghazi and operation zero footprint are possible.  Seriously.

Given the current state of relations between NATO member Turkey and the rest of the Western World it is not surprising to see our soldiers at risk in the region.   However, this is infuriating.
ISTANBUL (AP) — Anti-American protesters shouting “Yankee, go home!” roughed up three U.S. Navy sailors Wednesday in Istanbul near where their warship was docked on an inlet of the Bosphorus Strait in the Black Sea.

About 10 protesters shouted at them, calling them killers and said they should leave Turkey. The protesters, who carried a banner of the Youth Association of Turkey, threw red paint at the sailors and briefly succeeded in putting white sacks over their heads. (more…)

EGYPT – Under increasing pressure from the military, Egypt’s deadliest jihadist group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State organisation in a bid to boost recruitment and bolster its fight against the army, analysts say.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) has waged an insurgency from its Sinai Peninsula stronghold that has killed scores of Egyptian police and soldiers since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year.
In response, the army has launched a huge operation in Sinai targeting jihadists and last month began building a buffer zone on the border with Gaza to stem the flow of militants and weapons from the strip. (more…)

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Here’s The Full Benghazi Brief

Grab a cup of coffee because it’s a long read with over 350 citations and reference source links for confirmational material. We think you’ll get hooked and find 95% of your Benghazi questions answered. And if you can find a factual flaw I’ll buy the coffee.. SD

We know from the Bret Baier interview with Hillary Clinton that she was physically located at her 7th floor office in Washington DC on the night of the attack. Unfortunately we also know during the November 2012 Thanksgiving holiday a mysterious fire took place in that building. Well, actually directly above her exact office – cause undetermined.
A “fire” which preceded an unfortunate slip and fall for the Secretary, resulting in a concussion, which led to the discovery of a blood clot, that ultimately delayed her congressional testimony before a Senate Hearing into the events of the night in question.
We know the Libyan uprising began on February 10th of 2011, and we also know that sometime around the end of February 2011 President Obama signed a presidential directive authorizing the State Dept and CIA to begin a covert operation to arm the Libyan “rebels”.
We also know of a Second Presidential Finding Memo authorizing additional CIA covert action in 2012, this time in Syria. However, unlike the 2011 Libyan operation we do not know the operational name of the second action in 2012 Syria.
We know the Libyan “rebels” were positioned in two strategic places. Benghazi, and the port city of Darnah, both located in Northeastern Libya.
We know this 2011 Libyan covert operation came to be known as “Operation Zero Footprint“, and fell under the military command authority of NATO not (important to repeat), NOT, the U.S. Military. (more…)

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Friday authorized the U.S. military to deploy up to 1,500 additional troops to help train and advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants, the White House said.

The White House will ask Congress for $5.6 billion for the operations in Iraq and Syria, which includes $1.6 billion for the new “Iraq Train and Equip Fund,” the White House Office of Management and Budget said.  (link)

Gee, you mean other than the Kurds the administration can’t actually locate the Syrian “moderates”?  Ya don’t say…

(CNSNews.com) – An Islamist rebel group that has been fighting both the Assad regime and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) said Thursday that its base in western Syria had been targeted in an overnight U.S. airstrike.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, made the same claim about a strike on the headquarters of Ahrar al-Sham in Idlib province. (more…)

This is a pretty sobering statistic.   Last week in response to continued terrorist attacks in the Sinai region, Egypt began to widen the border between Gaza and Egypt.  A “buffer zone” is being built and homes on the border are being removed.  A “border wall” is currently being considered.
So far around 200 homes have been bulldozed or destroyed as Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi and his government begin the process.  Of the 200 homes removed, 78 have been found to house tunnels from Egypt into Gaza, that’s 39%.  These tunnels are used by Hamas to smuggle arms and rockets into the Gaza strip – the target of the rockets is Israel.

EGYPT – North Sinai Governor General Abdel-Fattah Harhour said owners of houses on the border line with the Gaza Strip will not receive any compensation for their demolished houses if smuggling tunnels were discovered inside their homes.
“The number of these homes whose owners will not receive compensation is 78, no compensation because these houses have smuggling tunnels,” he told local CBC television.
On Wednesday, the army began demolishing homes along the border line with the Gaza Strip to create a buffer zone which aims at preventing weapons smuggling. (more…)

LIBYA – Dozens of residents of a town in eastern Libya have pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of Islamic State militants fighting in Syria and Iraq, according to a video and a resident.
Around 50 young people could be seen in a video posted on social media gathering in Derna to support Baghdadi, who calls himself “caliph”, or Muslim leader, of Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot.

A Derna resident confirmed the authenticity of the video, taken late on Friday. (more…)