MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation update: Peru 7.0 and 5.5 ; Indonesia 5.6 and 5.1 Solomon islands  !More info here.

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Is the POTUS Stirring Up a Revolution?(AT).Obama was hailed as a healing president, promising peace and harmony. What we have seen, however, is a president distinctively divisive on racial issues, and instigating class warfare. His actions are a prescription for a violent revolution.During his campaign Obama gave the highly acclaimed speech on race (excerpt):

"Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans."My, how things have changed; and it didn't take long. Shortly after Obama took office there was Obama's reaction to the incident involving Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Cambridge Police Department: "President Obama said that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 'acted stupidly' in arresting a prominent black Harvard professor last week after a confrontation at the man's home." He never should have stuck his nose into this. And if he were going to say something, he should have understood the situation prior to butting in. Instead, he routinely took the professor's side, showing his real and sincere bias, and managing to anger folks on both sides of the debate.More recently the POTUS told a group of Hispanics, "And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends..." Punish? Enemies? Not exactly harmonious, peace-inspiring words.Then in his speech before the Congressional Black Caucus he said, "I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes."And let's not forget the work of Eric Holder when his Justice Department went easy in a Philadelphia voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party because they are African American.This is our post-racial president.And then there's the class warfare. In 2008, then-candidate Obama's remarks in his interview with Charles Gibson should have been a clue. When Gibson pointed out that recently when tax rates were increased government revenues decreased and when tax rates decreased revenues increased, Obama replied "Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness." He has accusingly said ad nauseam that wealthy Americans should pay their "fair share," which means that no matter how much they are paying, they should pay more.Mr. Obama's repetitive attacks on the wealthy have led to growing divisions between them and the less fortunate, such as the current Occupy Wall Street protestors who "want to see the rich pay a fair share of their profits in wages, wealth and income in taxes..." When asked about the protestors, Obama replied: ""I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel." Usage of words such as greed, selfish, and mean, while always a part of the liberal description of Republicans, has escalated more in recent years.While most pundits seem to think of this as just another chapter in American politics, albeit somewhat intense, I'm less blasé about it. I see this as a potential beginning of serious violence in our streets and neighborhoods. At worst, problems could escalate to a point requiring national action -- possibly a declaration of a state of emergency with military involvement. Is it possible we could have martial law imposed on us around next November, and, coincidentally, have the elections postponed? Not likely, but possible.More certain, however, is the extended racial and class tension that will exist for decades. While I never expected racism to go away completely, racial harmony in this country has been gaining momentum and is, essentially, more of a problem to the left-wing media and certain race-baiting politicos than to folks on the ground. I'm afraid the actions of this administration may reverse the positive course that people of all races have worked so hard to establish. Barack Obama has done his best to delay racial harmony.And class warfare? The vociferous screams from the left have prompted normally silent, tax-paying Americans to denigrate those who don't pay taxes: adding their voices to the argument and elevating hostilities.I don't generally subscribe to conspiracy theories, and I'm not postulating such right now. However, you have to wonder, given Rahm Emanuel's remarks at the beginning of Obama's administration: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Do what? Fully implement socialism? Create a fascist-left country? Simply elevate the problems with our economy and instigate tension between the people, and you have the perfect storm for such a scenario. Even if this isn't being done by design, it could happen anyway.This is one reason why so many on the right believe it is absolutely critical that we remove Mr. Obama from office in 2012. A GOP president will certainly stir up anxiety on the left, and the cries of foul play that existed during George Bush's administration will resume.Certainly a Republican will not be able to do much to mend recent wounds. But the GOP is never as hostile in its criticism of the left, and the dissention will slow down and possibly stop. Maybe after a few years and if the economy improves progress in this area will again move forward.And yes, while there are not many high-profile, moderate Dems, a more moderate and sensible Democrat could lessen the problem as well. However, it is highly unlikely that any Democrat (even Hillary) will challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination. And if one did, of course, additional hostilities would generate from that.Thanks to Barack Obama (with help from the media and left-wing pundits) hostility in America is a high as I can recall, and close to a breaking point. With regard to this situation, the 2012 election represent a break even or lose situation. If Obama wins, we lose. If any Republican wins, we break even.Hmmm.........If Obama wins.... AMERICA AS WE KNOW IT DIES."I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Gunman fires at U.S. embassy in Bosnia.(Yahoo).Sarajevo (Reuters) - A gunman fired on the United States embassy in Bosnia Friday in a 30-minute assault blamed by state television on a radical Islamist from neighboring Serbia.The gunman was wounded by a police sniper during the attack in Sarajevo's busy downtown, in which a police officer was seriously wounded and shop workers scrambled for cover.Bosnian television identified the man, bearded and carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, as 23-year-old Mevlid Jasarevic, a Serbian citizen from the mainly Muslim town of Novi Pazar.It said he had been visiting a community of hardline Islamists in northern Bosnia. A Reuters photograph of the gunman showed a tall man with a brown coat and a long beard.Bosnia, which was torn apart by war between Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslim), Croats and Serbs in 1992-95 as Yugoslavia collapsed, is considered a strong ally of the United States in the turbulent Balkans.Bakir Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, condemned the attack, saying the United States was a "proven friend" of Bosnia."The American government and people have supported us in the most difficult moments of our history, and nobody has the right to endanger the friendly relations between our two countries," he said in a statement.A police spokesman said the gunman had been taken to hospital for treatment but that his injuries were not life-threatening. A hospital spokeswoman said a man had been admitted under police escort with gunshot wounds to his upper leg."The doctors are conducting a medical intervention and the man is expected to be escorted from hospital by the police in next two to three hours," said spokeswoman Biljana Jandric.Embassy officials said the building had gone into "lockdown" during the assault, and no one in the embassy had been hurt.Police spokesman Irfan Nefic said one police officer had been seriously wounded. He said police believed the gunman had acted alone, but that the investigation would reveal more.Read the full story here.
• Related - 15 suspected misunderstanders of Islam detained in Serbia after attack on US embassy in Bosnia.(WashingtonPost).BELGRADE, Serbia — Police say 15 people suspected of belonging to an extremist Islamic sect have been detained in southern Serbia.Read the full story here.

• The Ayers Brothers Connection: Coaching #OccupyChicago, Calling for School ‘Occupations’.(NewZeal).By Trevor Loudon.Former Weather Underground terrorist leader, and long time colleague of president Barack Obama, Bill Ayers is actively supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement in his home town of Chicago – while his education activist brother, Rick Ayers, wants to see the movement extended to the nation’s schools.In an October 16 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times journalist Laura Washington, Bill Ayers described the” Occupy” movement as a “North American Spring,” akin to the “Arab Spring” still playing out in North Africa and the Middle East. Said Ayers:

“These kinds of movements expand our consciousness of what’s possible… Every revolution seems impossible at the beginning, and after it happens, it was inevitable.”

Ayers’ support took a more practical form October 19, when the retired UIC professor led a “teach-in” with Occupy Chicago protesters on “non-violent direct action” at the group’s HQ (in front of the Federal Reseve Bank at Jackson and LaSalle).Ayers detailed the tactics and history of the Civil Rights movement, drawing analogies to the group before him. “You created power where there was none,” the famed agitator said.Ayers spoke naturally to the crowd of 40, who sat in rapture, registering their approval by lifting silent fingers.“It’s critical that you maintain your independence,” Ayers told the crowd – warning them not to be co-opted by labor unions or the Democrats. History, Ayers told the assembled activists, shows his preferred approach to political power. “Martin Luther King didn’t go begging for a meeting with Lyndon Johnson,” Ayers said. “Lyndon Johnson begged for a meeting with Martin Luther King.”The protesters seem to have already followed Ayers’ advice. The group turned down Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposition for a meeting, demanding the misdemeanor charges from last Saturday’s arrest of more than 170 activists be dropped first.Writing from San Francisco, Bill Ayer’s brother Rick, a Professor in Teacher Education at the University of San Francisco, has called for the “Occupy” movement to reach into America’s schools.Rick Ayers, an activist in his own right and a long time collaborator with his brother Bill in the Rethinking Schools movement, wants to see the OWS tactics “applied to schools.” Writing in the Huffington Post, Rick Ayers praised OWS for its militancy:

“Occupy wall Street is action. We have had talk, talk, talk for years, decades even. The right — the think tanks, big media outlets, politicians, foundations — thunders its dogma on a regular basis. The left – community organizers, unions, educators, activists — refute their arguments, though with a much smaller voice and very few dollars. But it has all just been a conversation.Now action obliterates the deadlock. Whatever we have been waiting for — Obama, common sense, karma — we realized it was never coming to help us and it is time for action. Action creates facts, and facts are essential — they create possibilities and new words, fresh vocabularies. The silenced majority, the 99%, has finally been pushed so far that it is pushing back. Every movement is improbable until it happens; after the fact it so clearly was inevitable.”Rick Ayers went on to say:

The same type of bold action could be applied to schools. The privatizers, those who would strip down our schools to being test-prep factories training only for compliance and passivity, have made their case with all the volume that billions of dollars can buy…But so far it has only been a conversation. It does not matter if we defeat their arguments over and over. They still have the purse strings, the foundations, and the big megaphone. The time has come for action. Take over these schools. Occupy them. Sit in. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We built these schools with our taxes, our labor, our commitment to students and communities. They are not just playthings for overfed business dilettantes. Instead of taking marching orders from Wall Street, we need to take these schools and make them institutions of liberation.With students, community members, and teachers in these buildings, imagine the possibilities. Poetry workshop in one room; free clinic in another; science lab in a third. Food production. Critical pedagogy class. Strategy meetings. A kind of education that embraces deep meaning, knowledge for people’s needs, and participatory democracy. Watch these young people step up. In a liberated space, the bored and resistant students in the back of the room will be transformed. You will see them taking responsibility for their education, demonstrate their desire for ethical action, for sacrifice for the common good, and for a future they can believe in.Can we do this? At one site? At a hundred? You can be certain that this is a discussion popping up all over the country. This is the kind of action that would trump the endless, and ultimately losing, debate we have been locked in over the past years. We can’t talk our way out of the problems in education. But we can act, together, because another world is possible.”

Is the “Occupy” movement a passing phase that will wither when the first blasts of winter hit Chicago and New York and Milwaukee? Or is this the beginning a much more significant and dangerous period of US history?The involvement of veteran activists like the Ayers brothers indicates that this is no mere passing explosion of youthful anarchist outrage. The “mature” left is backing OWS for a reason. They’ve been waiting for this for a long time. They knew it would come. After all, their Marxist creed tells them that revolution is inevitable. Its only a matter of time.Hmmm........I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Obama's Student Loan Fraud.(RushLimbaugh).RUSH: I tell you, you students with college loans and you parents of students with college loans, do you realize what dupes you are to the regime? It is amazing. The student loan program "reform," it's amazing. We got a random act of journalism here by the Atlantic Monthly that illustrates just how few people this affects, how hugely expensive it is. It's a farce. It's a total farce. It misleads and it deceives students, and it's gonna end up saving students $8. This is one of the biggest jokes to come down the pike in a long time, and I'm gonna set it straight. It's a convoluted, intricately woven web of deceit. But that's what I do here is make the complex understandable.I'm gonna take a stab at this as we kick off the big program today.All right, we have a random act of journalism from the Atlantic Monthly, of all places, left-wing rag with a couple of faux, pseudo-conservatives writing now and then for so-called balance. They published an article yesterday about Obama's student loan bailout, and their headline is this: "Obama's Student Loan Order Saves the Average Grad Less Than $10 a Month." So that's what Obama thinks it costs to buy their vote. You students, you parents of students, your votes can be had for eight bucks. Now, granted, you wouldn't know this if I, El Rushbo, wasn't about to tell you because I don't think you read Atlantic Monthly, and I wouldn't blame you if you don't. It's one of the reasons I get combat pay. I do. I'm gonna explain it to you. But that's what your vote is worth.The subheadline in the Atlantic Monthly story spells out how even $10 is overly optimistic. Here's what it says. "The monthly impact of the president's new effort for most Americans paying off college debt will be between $4 and $8." The article goes on to talk about how outrageous the cost of a college education is, how outrageously it's gone up, which has caused student loans to have grown by 511% since 1999, and most student loan debt -- get this, now. This is interesting. Most student loan debt was accrued over the past ten years. Eighty-two percent of all student loans from the get-go, from the beginning of student loans, 82% of all debt has been accrued over the past ten years, and they go on to say that Obama's proposals are basically meaningless, which is what we tried to say here yesterday, but it's nice to see that others are noticing it, too.So here's a pretty good overview of the whole situation. And, by the way, this is all being done by executive order. And I am here to tell you that if Bush or any Republican was using the executive order process this way there would be howling from all corners. Bypassing Congress, executive fiat, who does he think he is? What does he think this is? A dictatorship? Those kinds of headlines and questions would be out there. The Drive-Bys would be filled with cries of imperial executive branch actions. But with Obama, all you hear is the crickets chirping, even if you hear that.Hmmm.....What ever happened to the  tradional 'Thirty pieces of Silver'?Read the full story here.

• Pirates and their allies in the Somali terror group al-Shabab have abducted US citizen.(Wired).A campaign of kidnapping that began at sea with Somali pirates has expanded onto land and across Somalia’s borders. Pirates and their allies in the Somali terror group al-Shabab have begun targeting tourists and aid workers in Kenya and Puntland, a mostly self-governing region in northern Somalia.The latest victim of the abduction squads: a American woman, grabbed in Puntland apparently on Wednesday along with a Danish colleague. The 32-year-old former teacher was in Puntland to help defuse mines leftover from the region’s years of warfare. The fall-out from the kidnapping in an already tense region is yet to be seen.Even leaving aside piracy, abduction has long been a favorite tactic of Somali extremists. But until recently, the targets were mostly Somalis and foreign journalists and humanitarians working in southern Somalia. The expansion of the kidnapping campaign into Kenya has provoked retaliatory attacks by, so far, Kenya and France — with the U.S. considering escalated intervention even before the American was taken.A 56-year-old British tourist was the first to be kidnapped. On Sept. 11, pirates slipped into a resort in Kiwayu, in Kenya near the Somali border. The attackers seized Judith Tebbut and shot dead her 58-year-old husband David. Kenyan authorities have arrested two men in connection with the crime, but Tebbutt remains missing.On Oct. 1, gunmen — al-Shabab agents, according to the Kenyan government — grabbed 66-year-old Frenchwoman Marie Dedieu from a Kenyan island resort. Dedieu, a tetraplegic, died in Somalia after her kidnappers deprived her of her medicine. “This was an act of unqualified barbarism, violence and brutality,” said Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister.Twelve days later, suspected al-Shabab fighters infiltrated the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya and kidnapped two Spanish women working for the medical NGO Doctors Without Borders. Dadaab, pictured, is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced Somalis.“We are working with contacts in Kenya and Somalia to ascertain further information,” the State Department said in a statement following the American’s abduction. “The United States condemns kidnappings of any kind, and we call for the immediate release of all of the victims involved.”What Washington might do, beyond that, is unclear at this time. Two weeks ago, Kenya invaded southern Somalia with 1,500 troops, helicopters and jet fighters, aiming to destroy al-Shabab — a move echoing Ethiopia’s disastrous two-year intervention in Somalia that ended in 2008. The French military is providing air and logistical support for the Kenyan operation.Last week, Scott Gration, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, said Washington was also considering supporting the Kenyans, on top of its ongoing “shadow war” in Somalia involving Special Forces, armed drones and mercenaries. With Somali extremists targeting Americans, the U.S. could decide it now has enough reason to throw its weight fully behind the risky Kenyan assault.Hmmm.....The 'people' the Turkish IHH aids.Read the full story here.

• Special Ops’ Latest Drone: A Russian Doll of Death.(Wired).Come spring, there’ll be a new drone in the Special Ops arsenal of annihilation. Call it … the Robotic Russian Doll of Death.Researchers from Naval Air Systems Command, Eglin Air Force Base, and engineering company Navmar Applied Science Corporation are already toiling away at the drone’s design, InsideDefense.com is reporting.And it’s wild: essentially one deadly drone shoved inside a bigger, more benign one. The petite, 13-foot Tigershark drone, already used for surveillance and reconnaissance, will be outfitted with an even smaller drone — developed by Air Force researchers under the Precision Acquisition and Weaponized System program — that doubles as a warhead. The baby drone would detach from its Tigershark mother and relay real-time video to ground support as it was directed toward a target and then detonated on impact.It’s an idea that U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has been interested in pursuing for years. In 2007, SOCOM’s Col. Jim Geurts expressed an urgent need for smaller, more targeted weaponry, so that “the guy in the truck evaporates and the two trucks next to him don’t get blown out and the windows in the house don’t get blown out.”But now, it finally seems for real. A $12 million design and assembly effort is supposed to be done in the Spring of 2012. After that comes testing at Eglin and at the Army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Then, if all goes well: Afghanistan.Executives at Navmar, however, claim they don’t know a thing about their drone-within-a-drone’s potential deployment.“I don’t know where you got that information; you know more than I’m allowed to tell you,” company president Tom Flenery told Danger Room when we reached out for more information. “We’re not involved in that — we just sell them the planes.”Several military branches and drone companies are working on teeny-tiny robotic killers. The Acturus drone, which is the aerial equivalent of a compact car and carries a 10-pound missile, is currently undergoing military tests, and earlier this year the Army doled out $4.9 million for “rapid fielding” of AeroVironment’s Switchblade suicide drone, essentially a tiny flying robot with a death wish.The logic behind these teenier missiles and self-detonating drones (sometimes inside bigger drones!) is simple: A smaller boom and a more targeted explosion — right through the car windshield, for example — keeps unnecessary damage to a minimum.“Because of the small size of the warhead, it would have pinpoint precision for the target,” Chyau Shen, a Navy program manager for surveillance systems, said. “And would not cause harm to neutrals or civilians near the target.”Sounds like a worthy goal. But Navmar was not exactly keen to discuss their mini-missile combo. When Danger Room reached out to the firm via e-mail, company execs suggested — via ongoing reply-all fail — that they were intent on avoiding any collateral damage of their own.“Where did this come from?” Anthony Madera, Navmar’s VP of engineering, wrote in an e-mail. “I don’t think it’s smart to get too much visibility. Do we want undesirable sources targeting us?”Hmmm....I don't really like the "would not cause harm to neutrals or civilians near the target" part, are we talking deployment in the U.S.?Read and see the full story here.

• Iraq war will cost more than World War II.(CSM).Iraq war, now winding down with US troop exit by December, has cost more than $800 billion so far. But ongoing medical treatment, replacement vehicles, etc., will push costs to $4 trillion or more.Anyone curious about the cost of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can look it up on costofwar.com, up to the latest fraction of a second. Last weekend, the Iraq war had cost more than $800 billion since 2001; the Afghan war, $467 billion plus.For the 8-1/2-year conflict in Iraq alone, that works out to nearly $3,000 a second.So President Obama’s announcement that all US troops will be out of Iraq by year end should mean some drop in ongoing military spending. But the budget relief probably won’t be as much as you might expect.Throw in the replacement of vehicles, weapons, equipment, etc., and the eventual tab for the United States could reach $4 trillion to $6 trillion, according to University of Columbia economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University budget expert Linda Bilmes. Those are big numbers.They would be on par with the $4.6 trillion the US spent on the recent financial bailouts, according to Barry Ritholtz, CEO of Wall Street research firm Fusion IQ and author of the popular blog The Big Picture. (Another estimate puts the bailout cost at $8.7 trillion.) The sum spent on the Iraq war could pay for a good chunk of Obamacare, professor Bilnes estimates. It’s more than the $3.6 trillion the US spent to fight World War II, even after adjusting for inflation, Mr. Ritholtz estimates.Modern warfare is just plain expensive. The military has found ways to reduce the human toll of war (compared with Iraq, fatalities in World War II were far higher: 17 million combatants from some 70 nations, 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, 6 million European Jews, and so on). But political leaders always seem to underestimate the financial costs.When President George W. Bush launched the war, charging incorrectly that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon estimated its cost at $50 billion to $60 billion. Economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey got in hot water at the White House when he guessed in public the war could cost as much as $200 billion.Read the full story here.

• You're Kidding Me?Loaded Guns On Planes “Not A TSA Issue”.(JW).In the latest scandal to rock the perpetually inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a loaded gun slipped through “security” at a major U.S. airport and the agency claims there was no system breakdown because it was not its duty to intercept the weapon.This may lead Americans to wonder who is responsible for securing the nation’s transportation system. After all, Congress created the monstrous TSA, with 50,000 employees, to protect mainly aviation after the 2001 terrorist attacks. In the name of security, travelers go through a circus-like routine that includes invasive pat-downs, body scanners, removing shoes and giving up liquids to board a plane.Packing a loaded weapon into a checked bag is another story. It happened over the weekend at Los Angeles International Airport while TSA agents napped through the process. The loaded .38-caliber handgun was subsequently discovered by airport ramp employees when it fell out of a duffel bag as they were about to load it, according to California’s largest newspaper.Here is where it gets really good. TSA officials claim they are not required to screen for loaded weapons in checked luggage and an agency spokesman played if off as an “issue” for someone else to deal with. Here is the direct quote from the TSA official published in the paper’s follow-up story on the incident: “It may be an issue for some agency or the airline, but it's not a TSA issue. Our mandate is to screen baggage for explosives."Inevitably, this has ignited fury among local police and lawmakers since it’s illegal to transport a loaded or unloaded gun in an airplane without properly declaring it. Rules and regulations for the transportation of firearms and the penalties for violating them are even posted on the TSA’s website. “These regulations are strictly enforced,” the TSA asserts on its website. “Violations can result in criminal prosecution and civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.”But who is strictly enforcing the regulations? A congresswoman, who represents Los Angeles and sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, is demanding answers. In a letter to Administrator John S. Pistole, Congresswoman Janice Hahn asks “if TSA is not enforcing its own regulations about loaded firearms in luggage, who is?” Hahn also mentions how “troubling” it is that ten years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, an undeclared, unsecured and loaded firearm escaped detection in baggage screening.These sorts of lapses are par for the course for the TSA, which has virtually unlimited resources and unconditional support from Congress and the White House. The agency has made headlines over the years for guns and bombs regularly getting past screeners during random tests at major airports, failing to meet federal standards by not screening cargo and passengers on hundreds of thousands of planes that fly over the U.S. annually and approving background checks for a dozen illegal immigrants working in sensitive areas of a busy U.S. airport.A few months ago a federal report blasted a $212 million TSA screening program, known as Passenger by Observation Techniques (SPOT), that promised to detect terrorists at U.S. airports. Instead the TSA’s highly specialized Behavior Detection Officers failed to stop terrorists from boarding planes on at least 23 occasions, according to congressional investigators who conducted the probe.Read the full story here. 

• Preparing For Regime Change?: Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Fighters.(StratRisks).Editor’s Note: Things have to go along a planned course.

1.  Strongly oppose Syria’s violent actions.
2.  Use Syria’s neighbors to apply pressure on regime.
3.  Fund and (possibly) arm NGO’s and resistance groups to destabilize the country.
4.  Create an opposing faction in Syria among their own people to fight the regime and stabilize the country after the regime is removed from power. Turkey has always played a key role in this game plan as western nations cannot directly be involved until there is a mass consensus that there must be action taken. –MV

Antakya, Turkey — Once one of Syria’s closest allies, Turkey is hosting an armed opposition group waging an insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, providing shelter to the commander and dozens of members of the group, the Free Syrian Army, and allowing them to orchestrate attacks across the border from inside a camp guarded by the Turkish military.The support for the insurgents comes amid a broader Turkish campaign to undermine Mr. Assad’s government. Turkey is expected to impose sanctions soon on Syria, and it has deepened its support for an umbrella political opposition group known as the Syrian National Council, which announced its formation in Istanbul. But its harboring of leaders in the Free Syrian Army, a militia composed of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, may be its most striking challenge so far to Damascus.On Wednesday, the group, living in a heavily guarded refugee camp in Turkey, claimed responsibility for killing nine Syrian soldiers, including one uniformed officer, in an attack in restive central Syria.Turkish officials describe their relationship with the group’s commander, Col. Riad al-As’aad, and the 60 to 70 members living in the “officers’ camp” as purely humanitarian. Turkey’s primary concern, the officials said, is for the physical safety of defectors. When asked specifically about allowing the group to organize military operations while under the protection of Turkey, a Foreign Ministry official said that their only concern was humanitarian protection and that they could not stop them from expressing their views.“At the time all of these people escaped from Syria, we did not know who was who, it was not written on their heads ‘I am a soldier’ or ‘I am an opposition member,’ ” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on the condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “We are providing these people with temporary residence on humanitarian grounds, and that will continue.”At the moment, the group is too small to pose any real challenge to Mr. Assad’s government. But its Turkish support underlines how combustible, and resilient, Syria’s uprising has proven. The country sits at the intersection of influences in the region — with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel — and Turkey’s involvement will be closely watched by Syria’s friends and foes.“We will fight the regime until it falls and build a new period of stability and safety in Syria,” Colonel As’aad said in an interview arranged by the Turkish Foreign Ministry and conducted in the presence of a Foreign Ministry official. “We are the leaders of the Syrian people and we stand with the Syrian people.”The interview was held in the office of a local government official, and Colonel As’aad arrived protected by a contingent of 10 heavily armed Turkish soldiers, including one sniper.The colonel wore a business suit that an official with the Turkish Foreign Ministry said he purchased for him that morning. At the end of the meeting, citing security concerns, the colonel and a ministry official advised that all further contact with his group be channeled through the ministry.Turkey once viewed its warm ties with Syria as its greatest foreign policy accomplishment, but relations have collapsed over the eight months of antigovernment protests there and a brutal crackdown that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,000 people.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was personally offended by Mr. Assad’s repeated failure to abide by his assurances that he would undertake sweeping reform. Turkish officials predict that the Assad government may collapse within the next two years.“This pushes Turkish policy further towards active intervention in Syria,” said Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. He called Turkey’s apparent relationship with the Free Syrian Army “completely new territory.”“It is clear Turkey feels under threat from what is happening in the Middle East, particularly Syria,” said Mr. Pope, who noted that in past speeches Mr. Erdogan “has spoken of what happens in Syria as an internal affair of Turkey.”Turkish officials say that their government has not provided weapons or military support to the insurgent group, and that the group has not directly requested such assistance.Still, Colonel As’aad, who thanked Turkey for its protection, made it clear that he was seeking better weapons, saying that his group could inflict damage on a Syrian leadership that has proven remarkably cohesive.“We ask the international community to provide us with weapons so that we, as an army, the Free Syrian Army, can protect the people of Syria,” he said. “We are an army, we are in the opposition, and we are prepared for military operations. If the international community provides weapons, we can topple the regime in a very, very short time.”The words seemed more boast than threat, and with mass pro-government rallies and a crackdown that has, for now, stanched the momentum of antigovernment demonstrations, the Syrian government appears in a stronger position than it did this summer. Though deeply isolated, Syria’s government felt emboldened by the vetoes of Russia and China of a relatively tough United Nations Security Council resolution. Despite predictions otherwise, the military and the security services, in particular, have yet to fracture in the eight months of a grinding, bloody crackdown.Colonel As’aad said he defected from the military and fled to Turkey after protests erupted in his home village, Ebdeeta, in northern Idlib Province, drawing a government crackdown in which several relatives were killed and his sister’s house was shelled. But he also fled, he said, because “I knew there was greater potential to lead operations in a place in which I was free.”He said all the residents of the camp where he lives in Turkey are members of the Free Syrian Army. The camp includes a personal assistant and a “media office” staffed by about a half-dozen people. He said the group’s fighters were highly organized, though only armed with weapons they took when they defected or those taken from slain members of Syrian security and pro-government forces. He would not specify the number of fighters, saying only that it was more than 10,000, and he was unwilling to disclose the number of battalions, claiming that the group had 18 “announced” battalions and an unspecified number of secret ones. None of his claims could be independently verified.“Our strategy for the future is that we will confront the regime in its weak places, and in the next period we hope to acquire weapons so we can be able to face the regime more strongly,” Colonel As’aad said.Though many analysts contend that defectors’ attacks in Syria appear uncoordinated and local, Colonel As’aad claimed to be in full operational control. He said that he was in charge of planning “full military operations” while leaving smaller clashes and day-to-day decisions up to commanders in the field. Nevertheless, he is in daily contact with the commanders of each battalion, he said, spending hours a day checking e-mail on a laptop connected to one of four telephones — including a satellite phone — provided to him by Syrian expatriates living in the United States, Europe and the Persian Gulf.Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the emergence of the fledgling group was crucial to the larger question of whether the opposition would stick to peaceful protest, as it largely has, or if it would “go down another path to fighting back.”“They are organized and they are speaking to people outside,” Mr. Tabler said. “But the question is to what degree are they receiving financial support from people outside, such as individuals in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.”Hmmmm.....Obama .....aiding and facilitating the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.....Erdogan...Obama's best buddy......aiding....?Read the full story here.

• Turkey and The mother of all problems.(HurriyetDaily).Are you following the organizational mess surrounding the earthquake in Van? Those coordination failures highlight Turkey’s underlying problems. What, really, is the mother of all problems in Turkey? The Kurdish issue comes to mind, doesn’t it? Or the Armenian question, perhaps? I don’t think that these 19th century leftovers will challenge Turkey in the first half of the 21st century. The challenge is the economy. Let me explain: The challenge lies in the country’s institutional capacity in preparing the grounds for a new beginning. Turkey will either rise to be a high-income country or get trapped in its current middle-income state. But all reforms that can contribute to the former outcome have been postponed these past 10 years. Not ideal for a new beginning.We managed to change the structure of our economy in the past 30-something years. Turkey has transformed itself from an agrarian society into a mid-tech industrial economy. The customs union agreement and relative economic and political stability have contributed to the increase in urbanization rate to its current 75 percent level. But Turkey’s transformation failed to enrich and empower the population of the country as a whole. We cannot solve our 19th century problems without empowering the population.Take a look at the figures of the 20 largest economies in the world. Turkey was 25th in 1980. We rank 17th today, right above Indonesia, the second Muslim-majority country on the list. The political leadership is now aiming to become the 10th largest in 2023, which is easier said than done. Turkey enjoys the cushion of a large domestic economy in these times of crisis, but qualitative indicators are pointing towards the need for structural reforms.Currently, output per worker in Turkey is about a third of that in developed countries. It is definitely five times larger when compared to China and India, but we still need a productivity boost. Up until now, productivity growth has largely been coming from internal migrations that speed up the process of reallocation of resources from low to high productivity activities, more specifically from agriculture to services and industry. It is time to focus on intra-sector productivity. And that is the hard part. Rapid growth is not possible from here on without structural reform.Looking at age, the young population is out there with an average age of 28.5. That’s younger than China’s average of 35.5. Average schooling is around six years in Turkey, one the lowest in the list of the first 20 largest economies of the world. That means our population is young but uneducated. If you compare English proficiency results on that list, Turkey definitely ranks one of the worst. We can’t speak English, which means we’re not connected to the world. We also rank dead bottom in the women’s labor force participation ratio. The ratio in Turkey is 24.5 percent, far behind Indonesia’s 52 percent.Young, uneducated, unequal and unconnected: That dismal list spells out Turkey’s challenge in the 21st century. Is rapid productivity increase in the face of severe structural limitations doable? Yes, but it requires our immediate attention. The problem is that our decision makers are preoccupied with 19th century problems. If they would focus on the real challenges, perhaps they would understand that the problems of old are, in reality, non-issues.Read the full story here.

• New Saudi crown prince is Hardliner Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz Al Saud.(HurriyetDaily). Saudi Arabia has named a new crown prince: the tough-talking interior minister who is known for cracking down on Islamic militants and resisting moves toward greater openness in the ultraconservative kingdom.Late on Oct.27, Saudi state TV announced the naming of Prince Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz Al Saud as heir to the Saudi throne following the death of the previous second in line, Crown Prince Sultan, last week. Nayef would assume the throne upon the death of King Abdullah, 87, who is recovering from his third operation to treat back problems in less than a year.Prince Nayef, 78, was also named vice prime minister and will also keep his job as interior minister. Nayef has earned praise in the West for leading crackdowns on Islamic extremist cells in Saudi Arabia, which was home to 15 of 19 of the Sept. 11 hijackers. He has also opposed some of Abdullah’s moves for more openness in the strictly conservative society, saying in 2009 that he saw no need for women to vote or participate in politics. There is thought to be little chance that the changeover at the top of Saudi Arabia’s leadership would affect the country’s close relations with the United States. On Thursday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met with members of the royal family to offer condolences to King Abdullah. A White House statement said Biden noted Sultan’s “lasting contributions to the enduring partnership between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.”Read the full story here.

• China’s Bailout Of Europe Will Come With Political Strings Attached.(BigPeace).European leaders announced yesterday their plan to stabilize the Euro and avoid a potential debt crisis. Reportedly they received a helping hand from China. Pure benevolence, right? A straight business transaction, yes?Well, they do want to make money. China is said to want “water-tight financial guarantees on its investments.” But it also apparently wants to muzzle European speech. According to Germany’s left-leaning Der Spiegel, one condition may be that European leaders stop criticizing China’s policy of keeping its currency artificially low. That is one of the conditions as laid out by Li Daokui, a member of China’s central bank monetary policy committee. ”It is in China’s long-term and intrinsic interest to help Europe because they are our biggest trading partner,” Li told the Financial Times. “But…the last thing China wants to do is throw away the country’s wealth and be seen as just a source of dumb money.”Should we really be surprised about this? China has in the past demonstrated that it will firmly protect its national and commercial interests overseas. And if Euro comes with hands wide open, we should not be surprised that they will use it as leverage to muzzle criticism. What this demonstrates, of course, is that debt and the need for help from foreign governments not only creates economic challenges–but political ones as well. China doesn’t believe in free speech at home. Why should they tolerate from foreign leaders if they don’t have to? This reality applies not only when Europe accepts their help, of course, but also when the United States does.China is well positioned to help Europe with cash. They reportedly have $3.2 trillion in hard currency reserves–a quarter of which are already in Euros.Read the full story here.

• From an Arab Spring to an Islamist Winter.(DocsTalk).The "revolutionaries" who sodomized and lynched Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi chanted the famous Islamic battle cry "Allahu Akbar!" [Allah is Greater].When the leaders of the revolution announced Gaddafi's death at a press conference, even secular Muslim journalists started chanting "Allahu Akbar!"A few days later, the leader of Libya's National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, declared at a rally in Benghazi that his country would now become an Islamic state."As a Muslim country, we have adopted the Islamic Sharia as the main source of law. Accordingly, any law that contradicts Islamic principles with the Islamic Sharia is ineffective legally." At this stage, it is still not clear what version of Islamic law the new rulers of Libya are planning to enforce.Will Libya take example from Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia where adulterers are stoned to death and convicted thieves have their hands cut off and beheaded in public squares?Or will Libya endorse a more "moderate" version of Islam, as is the case in many Arab and Islamic countries?Either way, what is clear by now is that the post-Gaddafi Libya will be anything but a secular and democratic country, but one where there is no room for liberals and moderates.Those who thought the Arab Spring would bring moderation and secularism to the Arab world are in for a big disappointment.The results of the first free elections held under the umbrella of the Arab Spring have now brought the Islamists to power in Tunisia.But the Islamists who won the election in Tunisia are already being accused by their rivals of being too "moderate" because they do not endorse jihad and terrorism against the "infidels."What happened to all those young and charismatic Facebook representatives who told everyone that the uprisings would bring the Western values and democracy to the Arab countries? Some of the secular parties that ran in the Tunisian elections did not even win one seat in parliament.What many Western observers have failed to notice is that most of the antigovernment demonstrations that have been sweeping the Arab world over the past ten months were often launched from mosques following Friday prayers.This is especially true regarding Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Jordan.Thanks to the Arab Spring, the Islamists in these countries are beginning to emerge from their hiding places to become legitimate players in the political scene.The writing on the wall is very big and clear. In a free and democratic election, those who carry the banner of "Islam is the Solution" will score major victories in most, if not all, the Arab countries.The Palestinians were the first to experience this new trend back in 2006, when Hamas defeated the secular Fatah faction in a free and fair parliamentary election held at the request of the US and the EU.The leaders of the Arab Spring have failed to offer themselves to their people as a better alternative to the Islamists. As far as many Arabs are concerned, this is a faceless Facebook revolution that has failed to produce new leaders. The Arab Spring is becoming the Islamist winter.Read the full story here.

• Pakistan Successfully Tests Nuclear Capable Stealth Cruise Missile.(BigPeace).ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said it had successfully test-fired Friday a stealth cruise missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.The military said the “Hatf VII” missile had a range of 700 kilometres (438 miles) and was a “low-flying, terrain-hugging missile with high manoeuvrability, pin-point accuracy and radar avoidance features”.Capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the military said the special feature of Friday’s launch was the validation of a new multi-tube missile launch vehicle (MLV).“The three tube MLV enhances manifold (times) the targeting and deployment options in the conventional and nuclear modes,” the military said.Pakistan carried out nuclear tests in May 1998 just days after similar tests by its old rival India, Reuters reported.The South Asian nations have fought three wars since independence in 1947.They carry out missile tests regularly and Friday’s exercise was not expected to lead to any increase in tension between them.Hmmm......A warning to the U.S.?Read the full story here.

• Pakistan: American drone attacks are war crimes.(PakObserver).As we recently reported, U.S. and Nato are shifting hundreds of troops, heavy arms and helicopter gunships to the Afghan border Pakistan, at the Waziristan tribal area. New media reports say that U.S. and Nato forces have completely sealed the border along North Waziristan, risking a major confrontation with Pakistan’s army. A large segment of Pakistan’s population believes that America is at war with Pakistan, and many believe that the American drone attacks that kill civilians are war crimes.No independent confirmation could be made that US has shifted hundreds of its troops along with heavy arms and gunship helicopters to the area bordering North Waziristan. It is also wrong that Pak-Afghan border has been sealed for all types of movement. In fact, the Afghan authorities clamped curfew in Ghulam Khan area as there was movement of military stores to unidentified location, probably for outside Afghanistan. The traffic jams on the Pakistani side was caused due to increase in the level of security near Pak-Afghan border. A foreign newspaper has reported that according to Pakistan Army sources, the US had informed Islamabad about the planned build-up and described it as part of a “cordon and search  operation” in which Haqqani Network fighters will be pushed over the Afghan border from North Waziristan and then encircled, arrested or killed by American forces…However, the local officials in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) warned that Pakistan’s armed forces would repel any incursion across the border by American forces. Media reports claim that US President Barack Hussain Obama has given green signal for a more aggressive approach towards Haqanni group. The last week series of drone attacks that killed at least 35 civilians and two suspected militants is claimed to be carried out in the same regard. Analysis of US war tactics during complete one decade in Afghanistan reflects that Washington has neither the capability nor courage to fight ground battle without the assistance of other countries. In Afghanistan, at least 46 countries fought against Taliban Mujahideen for ten years and suffered humiliating defeat. US’ troops confine to castling of its troops and drone and missile attacks of suspected targets from safe locations.Washington’s claim that drone attacks are being carried out with the consent of Pakistan is not justified under the International Law. Article 20 of the United Nations’ “Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts” states, “Valid consent by a state to the commission  of an act by another state precludes the wrongfulness of the act in relation to the former state to the extent that the act remains within the limits of that consent.” The drone attacks by the US violate the charter of United Nations, Rome Statue and the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which prohibit willful killing. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The attacks also violates articles of the Additional Protocol I; Article 51(2) prohibits the civilian population from being the object of the attacks under any circumstances; Article 51(5) talks about the principle of discrimination and regards an attack to be indiscriminate when bombarded by any means or methods which may lead to an incidental loss of civilian life. Similarly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICC-PR), which has been ratified by US, prohibits extrajudicial executions. According to its Article 6(1) “every individual has the inherent right to life and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” According to Article 6(2) of ICC-PR the penalty of death can only be rendered by a competent court of law.Washington and its allies are also guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity as per Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It is quite clear that if US guilty of committing one or more of these grave offences, Washington is guilty of war crimes and crime against humanity. Drone attacks on suspected targets, in which civilians are killed accounts to state sponsored terrorism. One wonders why human right organizations and activists are silent on such grave human rights violations and if this is the law, can any other country carryout similar drone attacks on targets in other countries. It is high time that US should be prevented from putting drones in operation against other countries, without openly announcing war against that country. There is a need to carryout trial in International Court of Justice against all those countries which participated in attacks on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and other sovereign nations.Hmmm........Someone did his homework it seems.Read the full story here.