“The threat appears to be much worse than it has (been) in a long time,” “It all leads us to believe something could happen in the near future.” These statements from U.S. officials are what has prompted the U.S. government to shut down its 22 embassies and consulates in the Middle East and North Africa. Of particular concern is Yemen, where the government is “on high alert against possible attacks in the days to come,” says a senior U.S. security official. Britain, France and Germany have said they too will close their embassies in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on Sunday and Monday for security reasons.
The intelligence alert couldn’t come at a more opportune time for the intelligence gathering community particularly as the NSA has fallen from grace over the Edward Snowden debacle. And now that Snowden has received temporary asylum in Russia, there’s no telling how far down the rabbit hole he will go, taking United States “secrets” with him.
As frightened and horror-filled as I am of the possibility of another 911-like attack, the discovery of such plots — that are legitimate — by organizations like the NSA do a lot to validate the necessity of covert, high-tech surveillance operations in the country. The thing is, how do you prove there was a legitimate discovery of a terrorist plot unless, a) a culprit or culprits are caught in the act or b) a culprit or culprits actually commit the terrorist act?
And of course the unprecedented action of closing down all U.S. embassies in the M.E., possibly for the entire month of August, may also help stave off the lingering criticism of the Obama Administration over the September 11, 2012 attack of the U.S. compound in Benghazi Libya, which killed four Americans, including ambassador Christopher Stephens.
“House leaders have been briefed, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, adding that the travel alert and embassy closings provided “some understanding of the seriousness of the threat. New York Rep. Peter King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee who has also heard such briefings, applauded the government’s decision to close its diplomatic missions. “I give them credit,” the Republican said of the Obama administration. “I think the government is doing exactly the right thing here.” — CNN Politics
Two birds, one stone.
Al-Qaeda leader Aymanal-Zawahri’s condemnation of the overthrow of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi last month; the resulting chaos in the state of Egypt; newly elected Iranian president Hassan Rouhani replacing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; “Highly charged emotions” coming off the Muslim religious holidays and Intelligence officials reporting a “high volume of internet chatter” back and forth between groups suspected of terrorist activities, are reasons given for the change in climate and subsequent heightened security.
Yes, that would be the number one hit on Radio Beijing this week as Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the United States on Friday to meet with President Obama. Their agenda will not be full of arms control or contentious issues like North Korea, Iran or who owns which teensy islands in the South China Sea, but rather, personal diplomacy. That’s right; President Xi (or is it her…I can never remember) is traveling thousands of miles to meet the chilliest, most standoffish, least huggable American leader since Richard Nixon in order to establish a personal connection on the superpower stage.
Further, Mrs. Xi (is that redundant? OK, I’ll stop) won’t be accompanying the Mr. to the Republican Dude Ranch, which is a shame because I’m sure there are many Americans who would like to meet her. Mrs. Obama also won’t be in attendance because it’s getting near the end of the school year and the Obama girls surely have some last minute exams to take. So, it will just be the guys at the Sunnylands retreat, where Ronald Reagan and other GOPers used to sun themselves and cavort with wealthy people who loved them.
As with all meetings between key world leaders, both sides will need to measure the success of the summit. It will be difficult to tell if Xi achieves his goal of making friends with Obama, but I give him credit for making the personal, instead of the political, his particular goal. China isn’t ready to take the lead on the world stage. Their economy is large and growing, but subject to volatility brought on by too much state meddling and the ever-present threat of shoddy, or even deadly products. Militarily, they could rival the US in sheer numbers, but their eyes are too big for their stomachs when it comes to how much they can push or bully other countries to do their bidding. At this point, they can’t even dissuade North Korea to make significant changes to their behavior. How are they going to challenge more savvy, well-connected and wealthier countries to take them seriously? Xi is most likely aware of this and is taking a slow growth approach to the United States.
Xi is also a member of the generation that came of political age at the time of the June 4th democracy movement in Tienanmen Square. The military crackdown on democracy protesters was a critical turning point, and presumably today’s Chinese leadership has learned the dangers of allowing too much freedom along with the warning that too much repression brings. Letting people to get rich in return for agreeing to a one-party state is a risky proposition because the truth is this: Not everyone can get rich, but everyone will be subject to the censors, the police and the Internet trackers. Xi must be looking at Turkey, Syria and Egypt and wondering how he can keep the lid on his country. In the end, it’s only a matter of time.
Let’s hope that President Obama can establish a connection with our main rivals in the world, and engage Mr. Xi in a productive dialogue that the two men can use when relations get difficult, because they ultimately will. Then both of them can say that they found success.
There’s something telling about Mitch McConnell saying that the health care act will be the major issue in the 2014 midterm elections. It means that he realizes that the GOP will smoke its triple scandal orgasm cigarette and move on before the year is out. It also means that he operates in the same blindered echo-chamber the far right has occupied since March of 2010. Yes, the IRS does have a role to play in the ACA’s rollout and implementation, but it’s not going to be responsible for the death of the Republican Party. The party faithful are doing a good enough job of that.
After a week of terrible news, two major polls–CNN/ORC and Gallup–are showing that President Obama’s approval ratings are holding steady in the low 50s, but that many Americans are not satisfied with many of the answers the members of his administration, and he, are giving. That’s understandable. These are undeniably poor governmental practices, and if anybody has broken the law, then they should be punished. But that will be difficult.
What happened at the IRS office in Cincinnati sounds suspicioulsy like the office of any other overworked, understaffed institution in the United States. People made choices on their own, seemingly without a lot of oversight, and they tried to be efficient in the face of technology inefficiencies and a dash of confusion. There’s no conspiracy here, despite the right wing’s continuing bleating, because there were some left wing groups that got caught up in the excess scrutiny. Plus, at the time, most of the new groups asking for tax-exempts status were Tea Party affiliated because that’s when they rose to power, so that was the bulk of the applications to begin with. And there’s no evidence (yet) that a majority or even a large cohort of these groups was denied their tax-exempt status because of their affiliation. This is not a scandal: It’s incompetence, and that’s not criminal.
The ongoing drama in Benghazi is likewise a government muddle, but it looks like it’s mostly a CIA-State Department fight that resulted in terrible editing and a tragic miscalculation of what was happening on the ground. Again, is there evidence of illegal activity? Probably not, but the GOP will spend more time than it needs to trying to unearth something that isn’t there.
The Justice Department’s rummaging through the Associated Press’ phone records is the most chilling of the three issues because it combines the worst of the War on Terror with a violation of the trust that journalists have with their sources. Its’ also the most disappointing aspect of the Obama Administration’s continuation of policies put in place during George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House. Perhaps this will result in a national shield law, something that, until now, the Obama administration has been against.
The right wing has been waiting for the opportunity to investigate the president for over four years, and they’ve finally received their opportunity. They will probably be disappointed, but not until they’ve extracted some political coinage for their trouble. This will boomerang on them if it means that immigration and tax reform are sacrificed in the name of non-existent conspiracies.
And really, if you want to compare Obama to Nixon, then you probably weren’t alive during the 1970s, and if you were, you learned the wrong lessons.
There was an active investigation going on in reference to what happened and who was responsible for the embassy attack in Benghazi.
The emails show that the State Department and the CIA wanted to use the correct language, to allow the investigation to proceed without opinions on what might have happened.
The Obama administration released 100 pages of emails Wednesday that reveal differences between intelligence analysts and State Department officials over how to describe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. post in Benghazi, Libya.
The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the emails, which were provided to Congressional intelligence committees several months ago.
Since the assault that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Republicans have accused President Obama and his senior advisers of mischaracterizing the attack, largely to prevent political repercussions during what was then a close re-election campaign.
Much of the Republican concern has focused on whether administration officials acknowledged early enough that an Islamist terrorist organization was behind the attack, rather than groups of demonstrators participating in anti-American protests outside many U.S. diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa.
According to the emails and initial CIA-drafted talking points, the agency believed the attack included a mix of Islamist extremists from Ansar al-Sharia, an al-Qaeda affiliated group, and angry demonstrators.
White House officials did not challenge that analysis, the emails show.
Washington (CNN) – GOP outrage over a changed set of talking points related to September’s attack in Benghazi is a political “side show,” President Barack Obama argued Monday, asserting the tragedy was being used for political gain by his rivals.
The Republicans who claim Obama’s administration was intentionally misleading in the way they characterized the Benghazi attack are ignoring key facts and sullying the memory of the four Americans who died, the president claimed.
“We’ve got a whole bunch of people in the State Department who consistently say, ‘You know what, I’m willing to step up, I’m willing to put myself in harm’s way because I think that this mission is important in terms of serving the United States and advancing our interests around the globe.’ And so we dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus,” he said.
Obama was speaking at a press availability alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron, in Washington to discuss next month’s G8 summit in Northern Ireland.
Republicans’ accusations of an administration-led cover up in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attack were fueled last week by the release of internal e-mails showing top administration officials scrubbing any mention of al Qaeda from talking points given to members of Congress and Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
The unclassified talking points have become a political flashpoint in a long-running battle between the administration and Republicans, who say that officials knew the attack last September 11 was a planned terror operation while they were telling the public it was an act of violence that grew out of a demonstration over a video produced in the United States that insulted Islam.
That was the story that Rice told five days later when she made the rounds of all five Sunday morning television talk shows.
The attack occurred two months before the November election, in which President Barack Obama’s campaign often pointed out that it had “decimated” al Qaeda.
Obama noted Monday that he referred broadly to “acts of terror” in a Rose Garden statement the day after the attack, and that Republicans pointing to an administration “cover up” were ignoring stated facts by himself and other officials.
“The whole thing defies logic, and the fact that this keeps getting churned out, frankly has a lot to do with political motivations,” Obama said, echoing other Democrats who say the GOP focus on Benghazi is founded in an attempt to discredit former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading 2016 Democratic presidential prospect.
UPDATE: See Girl Rising this Sunday, June 16th on CNN at 9PM EST!!!
In an increasing effort to shine a light on what happens when girls in the developing world rise up and above obstacles in their lives, 10X10 films brings us Girl Rising by Academy Award nominated director Richard Robbins. Nine girls’ stories from around the world. Each girl paired with a writer from their own country to tell of the journey to where they are now. Narrative performances by Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchette, Salma Hayek, Selena Gomez, Alicia Keys, Meryl Streep, Priyanka Chopra, Kerry Washington, Chloe Moretz, Liam Neeson, and Frida Pinto draw you in.
Wadley, a precocious third grader in Haiti, loves going to school. She takes pride in memorizing her history passages. One evening while doing her homework the earthquake hits. Wadley and her mother’s world is turned upside down and around. In the aftermath, Wadley walks a long way each day to get water for the family. One day she sees that the school has opened up again; Wadley runs home to tell her mother. Heartbroken when her mother tells her she can’t go to school because they don’t have any money, Wadley decides to go to school the next day. Her teacher recognizes her and tells her unless her mother has paid she has to leave; embarrassed Wadley walks home. The next day she vows to go back until they let her stay.
Azmera was 13 when her mother was about to agree to an arranged marriage to some strange visitors one day. The only daughter alive in her family, Azmera and her brother are all their mother has left after her husband dies early and she loses a child still young. Thankfully, just in the nick of time, Azmera’s brother walks in from tending the fields of Ethiopia and sees what’s about to happen. In a chivalrous gesture, he pleads with his mother and puts his foot down as the man of the house saying that Azmera will not marry one of the men.
Those were the easiest stories to take in. However each story, no matter the outcome, grips you in the heart and squeezes. Every girls’ story is compelling. Interlaced with statistics of what happens when countries decide to educate their girls or not, Girl Rising demands we take notice and action.
In their own way each girl gives us solid reasons to help their fight. Amina, the 11 year old forced into marriage in Afghanistan puts it quite eloquently and to the point, “I will read. I will study. I will learn. If you try to stop me, I’ll just try harder. If you stop me, there will be other girls who will rise up and take my place. I am change.”
If those girls can fight for themselves in some of the most dire circumstances, surely we can take time to speak up for them and others like them around the world.
Immediately after one of the most harrowing, frightening, wierdly compelling and sweat-inducing weeks in our recent history, the political backlash is rearing its ugly head. It’s emotional and knee-jerk and patently American.
First up is the argument that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a terrorist and thus should be treated as an enemy combatant, as opposed to a citizen criminal. The Senators pushing this line, Lindsay Graham, John McCain and Kelly Ayotte are reacting from pure emotion. There is no defending what the two brothers did or the dastardly effects of their action in a major American city, but can we at least step back a bit and consider the full range of options? Here is a 19 year-old, probably in thrall to his older brother, and probably not as committed to a radical path, who commits murder. By all other accounts, he’s a law-abiding person. There are circumstances. Let’s calm down.
The Senators assume that a Federal Court would be an inappropriate venue for weighing Dzhokhar’s guilt (or innocence, by the way. Does anybody remember that he’s still presumed innocent?) and that only a tightly controlled military tribunal will assure his punishment. They think that reading him his Miranda rights is an affront to justice. Not true, and a dangerous assumption. Let’s let the FBI do its job. The genius of our legal system is that it must filter out emotional responses. That’s what we need to have happen now.
The case also seems to have jolted the immigration debate. Again, the knee-jerk reaction is to shut the door to all immigrants and to throw out all the illegals. It’s as if the debate we’ve been having over the past four months simply vanished. Yes, we should all have legitimate concerns about the FBI’s interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev and whether government security officials should have done more to follow-up on his trip to Russia and his possible radicalization at the hands of militant Chechen or al-Qaeda operatives. But how does a family that, until last week, basically followed the law and applied for legal status according to protocol get to throw an entire system into doubt?
They shouldn’t, and it’s up to pragmatic, level-headed citizens to see that. We certainly do need border security, but it’s not like the Tsarnaev family spirited themselves across the border under cover of night or lived on false papers or were outwardly hostile to the United States. We now know that at least one of them was, inwardly, but how could anyone know that he would commit this act? We can’t. That’s why it’s called terrorism. Because we don’t expect it.
And like the gun enthusiasts who said that background checks would not prevent another Newtown, closing the door would not stop another Boston (or, for that matter, another Oklahoma City or September 11). Tamerlan was here for 10 years before he acted. I’m sure there are other legal immigrants in this country who could similarly become radicalized and act in another city. Shall we hunt down all recent immigrants from every other hotspot in the world an follow them? Evict them? Where do we start? Are immigrants from Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, the Central African Republic and any other area where there’s been civil unrest now eligible for government surveillance?
Speaking of the gun debate, I am extremely interested in where the Tsarnaev brothers got their guns. And whether they were registered. Or bought online. Background check? Based on the Newtown logic, I’m thinking the NRA is now going to call for all people who attend sporting events to carry guns (and for some on the left to outlaw pressure cookers). Or perhaps we should just stop having marathons. Clearly, these would solve the problem.
We need to be more diligent, to be sure, but we also need to step back and process this event logically. Only then can we look at our next steps with clear eyes.
Malian soldiers patrol the streets of Diabaly, about 250 miles north of the the capital, Bamako.
“I figured it was only a matter of time before Africa got back in the news in this manner…”
MOPTI, Mali — Deep inside caves, in remote desert bases, in the escarpments and cliff faces of northern Mali, Islamic fighters are burrowing into the earth, erecting a formidable set of defenses to protect what has essentially become al-Qaida’s new country.
They have used the bulldozers, earth movers and Caterpillar machines left behind by fleeing construction crews to dig what residents and local officials describe as an elaborate network of tunnels, trenches, shafts and ramparts. In just one case, inside a cave large enough to drive trucks into, they have stored up to 100 drums of gasoline, guaranteeing their fuel supply in the face of a foreign intervention, according to experts.
Northern Mali is now the biggest territory held by al-Qaida and its allies. And as the world hesitates, delaying a military intervention, the extremists who seized control of the area earlier this year are preparing for a war they boast will be worse than the decade-old struggle in Afghanistan.
The catalyst for the Islamic fighters was a military coup nine months ago that transformed Mali from a once-stable nation to the failed state it is today. On March 21, disgruntled soldiers invaded the presidential palace. The fall of the nation’s democratically elected government at the hands of junior officers destroyed the military’s command-and-control structure, creating the vacuum which allowed a mix of rebel groups to move in.
Earlier this year, the 15 nations in West Africa, including Mali, agreed on a proposal for the military to take back the north, and sought backing from the United Nations. Earlier this month, the Security Council authorized the intervention but imposed certain conditions, including training Mali’s military, which is accused of serious human rights abuses since the coup. Diplomats say the intervention will likely not happen before September of 2013.
When I say the words, Cry Baby, who do you think of. That’s right, Republican House Speaker John Boehner is the first person that comes to mind. Boehner will cry long streaming tears at the drop of a dime and everyone is okay with that.
But yesterday as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified about the events in Benghazi, including the four Americans who died – people she knew personally – she was understandably shaken up, her voice cracking at times.
The same Republicans however, who sit and watch Boehner cry on almost a daily basis, is calling this an act by Mrs. Clinton.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson pressed Clinton on why her office wasn’t able to immediately discover whether the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya were executed by terrorists or spontaneous protesters. He repeatedly asked her why she didn’t pick up the phone that day and find out the facts, to which Clinton eventually responded sharply, “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. What difference, at this point, does it make?”
“I’m not sure she had rehearsed for that type of question,” Johnson told BuzzFeed Wednesday afternoon, after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “I think she just decided before she was going to describe emotionally the four dead Americans, the heroes, and use that as her trump card to get out of the questions. It was a good way of getting out of really having to respond to me.”
He said it was clear, at other points during the hearing, that Clinton was working off a set of talking points, but that his questions “got under her skin” because “they’re just so common sense.”
“I just don’t think she had an answer to that,” he said. “Maybe it embarrassed her. Maybe she hadn’t thought of it that way.”
Susan Rice. Remember her? She was one of the names being talked about to take over as Secretary of State when Hillary Clinton steps down later this month. But Mrs. Rice had to withdraw her name after Republicans, specifically John McCain and Lindsey Graham, placed a target on her back and relentlessly fired away, blaming her it seemed, for the events in Benghazi where four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens were killed.
The unwarranted attacks on Rice came after she went on television and repeated the talking points given to her about the events in Benghazi. Rice, who is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, had no first hand knowledge of the events in Benghazi, but Republicans crucified her anyway, causing her to withdraw her name from consideration for Secretary of State. And it is noteworthy to point out that since Rice withdrew her name, the attacks mysteriously stopped.
For Months since the Benghazi September 11th, 2012 attacks, Republicans wanted blood. They wanted someone from the Obama Administration to pay for what happened in Libya. Their next target after Rice, was the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Previous attempts to get Mrs. Clinton to testify failed due to some health issues. After it was reported that Mrs. Clinton suffered a concussion in her home, Republicans tagged that news as her trying to avoid the testimony. They called it Benghazi-gate.
Well now the time has come. The climax of the Republican party is here. Hillary Clinton is testifying today about the events in Benghazi and Republicans are having the time of their lives and the time of their political career. This is their opportunity to bring the Obama administration to its knees. This is their chance to blame a high-ranking official for the four American deaths in Libya.
But their plan may not be working out just yet. Early reports from the testimony are showing that Mrs. Clinton is holding her own. Apparently she is not the raving lunatic Republicans would have us believe. Apparently she has a heart and although she acknowledged that things could have went differently, it seems that she and her department are doing everything possible, including implementing 29 recommendations from an independent review board, to make sure another future Benghazi does not happen.
Almost coming to tears at times, the Secretary of State tried to reassure the Republicans on the panel. “Make no mistake about it, we have got to have a better strategy,” she said. “I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews,’ she said. ‘I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters.”
A Republican representing Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, dug in.”There were systemic [security] deficiencies and I know you know that,” he said. “To my knowledge no one has been held accountable.”
‘These officials were screaming out for more security.
Mrs Clinton replied;
“We can’t think now about what could have, should have, would have happened. Benghazi didn’t happen in a vacuum,’ she said. ‘The Arab revolutions have scrambled power dynamics and shattered security forces across the region. And instability in Mali has created an expanding safe haven for terrorists who look to extend their influence and plot further attacks of the kind we saw just last week in Algeria.”
Senator John McCain, the man responsible for the personally attacking Susan Rice and questioning her education and experience, called Benghazi “a cover-up from the beginning.” He is the newest member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
It is the hope of Republicans to take Hillary Clinton out now. She is the Democratic favorite to run for President in 2016 and tarnishing her exceptional job as Secretary of State they hope, will be a deciding factor for many Americans if she runs. But so far, these hearings are not turning out the way Republicans plan. They are coming off as a group of hypocrites, who ignored the attacks on September 11th where almost three thousand people died in New York, focused instead on Benghazi where four Americans were killed.
If they can ask about security now, why shouldn’t they answer that same question about September 11, 2001? After all, there are documented proof that their president, George W. Bush, had intelligence that Bin Laden was about to attack.
This is what the Republicans have been waiting for. With this news, they can now feel that their work in Congress is complete.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will testify Jan. 23 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the deadly Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. mission in Libya.
That’s the word from Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the panel. He said in a statement late Monday that Clinton will answer questions about the raid that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi.
Clinton had been scheduled to testify last month but she suffered a concussion when she fell during an illness. She was later hospitalized with a blood clot in her head.
She’s also expected to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee around the same time as her House testimony. That date has not been announced by the committee.
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