Investigation Update

Remember the case of the leaked information on the Stuxnet virus designed to degrade Iran's nuclear program? You're not alone--the media seems to have forgotten as well, along with most of the conservative blogosphere.

At last check Obama's "favorite general" Hoss Cartwright was the person of interest, but the Washington Post told us that the investigation had been delayed so as not to interfere with Obama's super-awesome peace-in-our-time nookular deal with the Ayatollahs.

After Ben Rhodes gleefully admitted that they successfully lied their way into that deal, one might think the door would be open to prosecute the Stuxnet leakers because the current administration has taken a scorched earth policy on such things.  And....as everybody was just recently made aware, even joking about leaking can be considered treasonous!

So..... how is the investigation coming along?

And by the way, speaking of generals...

Investigation Update

With all the hoopla over Hillary's emails and Obama's Iran deal, one story has completely been buried--the Stuxnet leak on Iran. Back when Holder was holding fort at DOJ he promised to get to the bottom of a leak about Stuxnet to the New York Times, appointing US Attorney for Maryland Rod Rosenstein to handle the case.

This was way back in 2012--the leak was basically in support of Obama's reelection campaign. Dribs and drabs of information would occasionally bubble out over the years, but in small quantities. Few cared.

Eventually in 2013 we were told the prime person of interest was "Obama's favorite general" retired 4 star Hoss Cartwright. Indeed he was. But then the story went cold again.

Then just recently we learned that Cartwight's case was more or less put on hold because it could have potentially interfered with the peace in our time Iran nuke deal.  Who made that call, by the way?   Obama has said the Attoney General's office is completely independent. 

The president has also bragged about his administration's severe handling of leakers and those who violate their security oaths. Lower level people have been sent to jail. The Defense Department is contemplating a move to reduce the rank of General Petraeus ex post facto. But we have Cartwright's case still in limbo? Did he leak or not? The Iran deal is done, where's the update?

Good News or Bad News?

It's tempting to lay this story on the Obama people.  After all, they just made a nuclear deal with a country that has apparently released five top AQ operatives being held under house arrest in exchange for one of their diplomats captured in Yemen by AQ.

It sounds bad.  It may end up being bad.  But there's a slim possibility it's not all bad.  Iran has released AQ operatives under house arrest before, including bin Laden's son Saad, some of whom were later killed or captured.   One of the Khorasan members operating in Syria and recently killed were previously held in Iran as well. 

A lot depends on how this deal was done.  Evidently they were negotiating with someone in AQ, who had the Iranian diplomat under control somewhere.  And the five operatives have apparently not been swapped to anyone, only released from their house arrest.  They may still be in Iran, or may be trying to sneak away.  

But if there was a deal done, say a side deal as part of Iran's agreement to the nuke deal (and us freeing up over a billion they can use to fund their own proxy terrorists), this may have been the way it was done.  Obviously Iran cannot be seen handing over AQ terrorists to AQ nor can the West be seen making deals with terrorist masters for other terrorist hostages in exchange for more money for their own terrorists.         

So the jury is still out.  If there was a deal it's probably not unprecedented--Pakistan evidently took out a long-wanted AQ operative in their country last year only days after a Pakistani general came to Washington to collect on millions in aid money for the Pakistani Army.    Adnan el-Shukrijumah was a reported high level operative, pilot, and someone the government called very dangerous.  He had been wanted since 9/11 (according to the FBI he is still wanted).  Then suddenly after some money changed hands he was reported to be pushing up daisies.  Funny how that works.  

But that's the way this entire war on terrorism has worked...bodies of lies interspersed within truths and half-truths.  It appears some countries are not only holding US citizens and other westerners as hostages, but also holding AQ members for ransom as well.  Maybe Iran got what they wanted in the deal and part of it was them quietly releasing all their AQ hole cards so we can have access to kill them.

Or maybe this is just another in-your-face-Obama move by the Ayatollahs after they got their deal, like sending General Quds Force to Moscow to make a deal with Putin on Assad in Syria while knowing our position is that he 'must go'.  Or telling the press that Israel will be gone in 25 years, praise Allah, death to America.  Guess we will see.

The Obligatory Peace in our Time Post

Obama seemed to be in a very feisty mood announcing his awesome framework deal with the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and death to America quotes.   The framework deal summary is here; following is an internet yahoo's summary of the summary.

First, imagine making a similar deal with Saddam Hussein.  Imagine had George W. Bush not invaded in 2003 and the No-Fly Zones were still in place and somehow we made it to 2008 without a blow-up and new president Obama extended his hand to the Butcher. 

Imagine a deal that would have allowed the Butcher to maintain some of the enriched uranium under stockpile and retain a nuke program for civilian power, so long as he didn't do anything funny for 10 years, with his reward being a lifting of many sanctions.  Now substitute the slightly less crazy Mullahs for Saddam and that appears to be where we are now, Iran retaining its nuke program.  Wait, could Obama even have made a nuke deal with the Iranians with Saddam still in power?  Probably not.  Use your imagination.   

This bottom line is what the asshole, er, the pain in the ass, uh sorry, the chickenshit in Jerusalem said when he came to DC.  The Mullahs have only to wait for ten years until they reach their goal, with our blessing.  A country that has not allowed full scale inspections--like Iraq--will now be regulated over a deal allowing them to keep a nuke program by rough and tumble international inspectors who couldn't find Iraq's WMD buried all over the desert and completely missed Gaddafy's program.

Ten years goes by fast.  We are coming up on the 14th anniversary of 9/11 this September. 

Anyway, the mainstream media will more than likely be treating the Iranian leaders similar to Gorbachev soon, heralding the historic accord and volunteering them for the Nobel.  Congress, bypassed in the process again, will express displeasure and be ignored and shamed.  If they dare do something bold they will be threatening world unity.

The Euros will slither back to their bicycles and lattes satisfied they did everything they could without having much of an army to back it up, while the the Russians and Chinese will offer somber hope while secretly high-fiving in the background (you know if they are onboard the deal must be better for them than us).

But the bottom line is this:  by coddling the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism and death to America chants and allowing them to keep their nuke program, Obama will not have to grind over authorizing an airstrike at 3am before his term ends, freeing him up for more important things like selfie sticks, April Fools videos, dances on Ellen, and punishing his enemy.

The Israelis?  If they bomb they are on their own, against the entire world.  Surely that has been made clear.

Co-equal

Here's the Vice President (not sure if he has anything to do with Vice News) talking about impeaching George W. Bushitler if he went to war with Iran without congressional approval.  Matthews' short diatribe at the end is particularly prescient..



Keep that in mind in relation to Biden's boss, who feels like he has special authority over that same Congress because they don't agree with his policies, or compare it to the audience sitting in Bill Maher's studio booing ex-CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson when she simply declares that Congress and the Executive are "co-equal branches"...



What if Cotton had come on Hardball and told Chris Matthews he would move to impeach Obama if he allowed the Iranians to keep their nuclear technology via an agreement that didn't involve Congressional approval?  It's a little different insofar as declaring war (although Obama used "imminent threat" to citizens of Libya to justify his non-approved military action there) but the intent is the same--checking presidential power.  The founders designed the government to keep each co-equal branch in line. 

Who "They" Consider?

Just watching the clip of prez Obama telling "Vice News" he's embarrassed for the 47 Senators and noticed some strange phrasing..



"..for them to address a letter to the Ayatollah, who they claim is our mortal enemy..." 

Uh, doesn't the president consider them a mortal enemy as well?  Or was that a tell?  Guess we'll have to see how the "Vice News" reporter reacts to that question when they release it on Monday.      

Why so prickly?

Watch State Dept spokesbuffy Marie Harf react to a simple question today about the Middle East..



Nothing to see move along!    

Of course she immediately knew the implication of a question about Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia meeting together to discuss an alliance without United States involvement--Iran.  They seem very sensitive about this.

If you want to know what's actually important right now look at what the Obama-approved media isn't harping on:  Iran is closing in on a deal that would almost surely allow them to keep their nuclear program, a deal which if signed would make it harder for Israel to take them out in a bombing raid, and not only due to possible threats such as this, but just based on being called an international pariah and sanctioned by the UN.

At the same time Iran has 1) helped Bashar Assad remain in power (the guy whose days were once said to be "numbered" by the administration),  2) almost certainly helped the Houthi rebels take over Yemen, which just normalized air traffic between San'a and Tehran, 3) continued to fund Hizballah and HAMAS while now providing military assistance via the IRGC to the Iraqi Army in their offensive to retake Tikrit.  It's as if we're now BFF with the Iranians. At what point do they get removed from the list of state-sponsors of terrorism?

While doing all of this they've also managed to blow up a mock US aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf while burning a figure of the president in effigy (along with their usual 'death to America' chants).  More importantly they've managed to scare Netanyahu into flying to Washington to give a speech about the dangers of all of this.

Yet despite all the red flashing lights the American people largely couldn't give two hoots. They are severely war weary, which Obama knows, which is why Netanyahu decided to come and speak, which is why the Obama cabinet was dispatched out of town for the Bibi speech, with an even bigger middle finger message sent by John Kerry, who will be talking to the Iranians the very same day.  Netanyahu is almost getting the Tea Party treatment (the real terrorists).  Hey LA Times--let's see that Rashid Khalidi video, how about it?

So yeah, this administration rilly, rilly wants a nuke deal with Iran.  Seemingly at almost any price.  Yes, we all realize these things are too nuanced for dunce conservative bloggers to understand; that when the dust settles Iran will have been bitch-slapped into lowered sanctions while retaining their nuclear program.  To most people this will sound like paying sticker price for a car but to our super genius negotiators and the press it will be the biggest peace deal in our time, just in time for Hillary.

Of course, if Iran keeps their program and gets lowered sanctions while Israel's hands are tied, and we allow Tehran to project its image all over the Middle East, including taking over Iraq, Syria and Yemen, well, that unconseqential non-story about Sunnis that Marie Harf tried to dismiss today will become front page news.

TAKE THE DEAL, IT'LL BE GREAT!

Obama talked to Reuters today and telegraphed his willingness to make an Iran nuke deal, practically begging the Iranians to do it.



He assured Americans that after any deal that 'inspectors' will be able to keep them honest, even though inspectors are saying Iran is not being honest right now.  And it's not like international inspections weren't a joke in Iraq and Libya. 

So let's think about this.  How can the administration NOT end up with a deal, after two busted self-imposed deadlines and after throwing a flag on Bibi for interference?  Obama is on record of saying he has a firm commitment that he will do everything possible to keep Tehran from going nukular, but everybody including the Iranians knows this does not include a military option. It just doesn't.  Even if Obama wanted it the American peeps would balk.  He has less than two years left and he's not about to open a can whoop-anything on anyone.

So, lacking a deal and no military option he'd have no choice but to re-impose sanctions.  Iran would go back to using their proxies to destabilize the region, a region where they now exert even more influence, including over Iraq and their oil.  Obama would not take much of an immediate political hit for a failed deal followed by re-imposing sanctions because the mainstream media would cover his backside, but in the real world the Ayatollahs would emerge with their nuclear weapons program, more regional control, and a bigger swarth than ever before.

Netanyahu, assuming he's still in power, would almost surely have to attempt to take out the nukes before Obama's term expires, which could get a little messy.  But even if Bibi doesn't win and an Israeli dove lap-dog PM gets elected, there's the specter of that Sunni alliance Marie Harf was trying to downplay today and the resultant nuclear arms race it could produce.  Obama desperately needs a deal to make it to January 2017.  A deal kicks the can but it conceivably holds off the Israelis, the Sunnis, and the Republicans.   

28 pages? How about the UBL docs.. or the Iraq docs

While Bush haters, 9/11 truthers, and transparency lovers push for the release of the 28 pages from a 2003 Senate report that many believe will implicate the Saudis in 9/11, there's another trove of yet-to-be-analyzed docs that may shed some light on the GWoT: the bin Laden docs captured at Abbotabad.

Some of them trickled out a few years ago and a few more came out recently in the NYC trial of yet another African Embassy bomber suspect.  Here's the Long War Journal:

“Our groups inside Afghanistan are the same for every season for many years now,” Rahman wrote. “We have groups in Bactria, Bactica, Khost, Zabul, Ghazni and [Wardak] in addition to the battalion in Nuristan and Kunz,” the US government’s translation reads. Bactria and Bactica are probably poor translations of Paktia and Paktika, two provinces where al Qaeda’s allies are known to have a strong presence. Also, Kunz is likely Kunar.

Therefore, Rahman indicated that al Qaeda had a presence in at least eight Afghan provinces. The size of these “groups” was not disclosed. But earlier in the letter, Rahman mentioned that al Qaeda has “a full battalion in Nuristan and Kunar.” A translator or analyst from the US government estimated that this battalion consisted of “around 70 individuals.”

In other words, the notion that "Core AQ" has been run out of Afghanistan into the Pakistan-drone kill box only to be 'decimated' might not be exactly true. Other docs mention ties to Iran, if only from an enemy of my enemy fashion. Here's Stephen Hayes:

Hayes said the initial "scrub" of the bin Laden documents by the CIA was very successful, producing 400 intelligence reports and leading to U.S. actions around the world against al Qaeda. "Then it all stopped. The CIA basically sat on the documents. ...

I think it's because the Obama administration didn't want to know what was in them," said Hayes, adding that the documents would have had "tremendous implications" for U.S. foreign policy overall. "Once you've exposed these documents in al Qaeda's own hand, it requires the administration to act on them. And the president's argument all along has been that the war on terror is ending," said Hayes.

Emphasis added.  It's appropriate that Hayes is weighing in here--he was at the forefront to get the captured Iraqi regime documents released. Eventually they were, via a DoD web portal, only to be shut down later after the New York Times used them to reprint some sensitive nuclear information. Who knows what else those docs might show.  But by all means, we need those 28 pages!

Of course Hayes and his friend Joscelyn, along with Fox and other conservatives, were among the only outlets to report the suggested bin Laden connection with Iran...


Maybe that's because the mainstreamers want nothing to do with upending Obama's legacy project of normalizing relations with both commie Cuba and radical Iran (with neither of them reforming first).  Today we learn the new rulers of Yemen have approved direct flights from Iran.  So it appears our government has picked a devil in dealing with the other devils.  Maybe there are some documents supporting that premise somewhere. 

Another Ali

One might think that understanding a terror group like al Qaeda would require some historical background.  Yet most seemed satisfied with the abbreviated picture provided by the 9/11 Commission Report, never wondering much about how the two WTC attacks tied together.  After all, there was that August 2001 PDB thing that Bush ignored.

But the history remains, waiting to be uncovered.  For instance, there was that whole thing with Ali Mohammad, an Egyptian double crosser, a story few have ever heard.  And Emad Salem, the Egyptian mole planted in the Brooklyn cell by the FBI but pulled before the group set off a bomb in the WTC on February 26, 1993.  Weird, wild, stuff, to the curious at least.  Not so much for the media, but perhaps they were distracted by the Waco standoff that began only days after the first WTC attack.

But the passage of time is producing more history.   About a year ago it was revealed that the FBI's Los Angeles office might have had a mole in contact with bin Laden way back in the early 90s:

On Wednesday, though, U.S. law enforcement sources were looking into a report in the The Washington Times and then elsewhere that the FBI had actively placed the source in direct contact with bin Laden and hid that fact from both the 9/11 Commission and congressional investigators. In fact, testimony in the lawsuit indicates the source had already met with bin Laden by the time an FBI agent recruited him.

In January 1993, a month before the first World Trade Center bombing, FBI agent Bassem Youssef began recruiting two sources from Los Angeles with strong ties to Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called “Blind Sheikh” who masterminded that first attack on New York City, Youssef testified nearly four years ago in his discrimination case against the FBI. Within two years, one of the sources was handing over “highly sensitive information on the entire network in the U.S. as well as abroad,” Youssef told a federal jury in Washington on Sept. 15, 2010.

None of this was in the commission report because the FBI deemed it irrelevant. Today, another revelation emerged:

An American citizen who underwent al Qaeda training only to later quit the extremist group revealed he was asked to carry out a mid-air assassination against Hosni Mubarak back in 1995. Ihab Mohammad Ali, testifying against alleged al Qaeda leader Khaled al-Fawwaz, says he was asked by Osama bin Laden to use his private plane to ram a plane carrying the Egyptian president.

'It took me by surprise,' said 52-year old Ali while testifying in New York federal court. 'I responded, "Well, wouldn't I be killing myself?"'

Weird.  So there was an unknown mole named Youseff and a terrorist named Yousef, and now an unknown mole named Mohammad Ali and a triple agent named Ali Mohammad.  Scant few Google stories on Ihab Mohammad Ali, odd considering his aviation and terrorist background:

Ali, who had also instructed members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a group that was later absorbed into al Qaeda, on reading flight maps and interpreting air traffic control radio transmissions. The group claimed responsibility for various bombings and attacks throughout the 1990s while it was fighting the Mubarak regime.

That would be the same EIJ who sent some leaders to Baghdad for a meeting before the US invaded in 2003.  The same EIJ who sent anthrax scare letters to Canadian authorities before 9/11 and before the US anthrax letter attacks.

So with all the talk since 9/11 of planes being used as weapons here's a pilot named Mohammad Ali, an EIJ terrorist who hobnobbed with bin Laden and taught jihadists about aviation and interpreting ATC lingo (which could come in handy in a 9/11 type attack) and the public has never been told until now.

It's a big story, after all, a plot to crash his aircraft into Hosni Mubarek's jet in 1995, performing a suicide attack at altitude (gotta love Ali's alleged response). Sounds kind of far-fetched, but then again so did Jack Cashill and James Sanders' scenario in their book "First Strike" about the demise of TWA 800 back in 1996.  If Ali is correct, the terrorists were actually discussing the Cashill/Sanders theory a year before 800.  Not fit to print, though.

At any rate, if this slow-walking history from the 90s seems strange it's really not.  Perhaps one day the true path to 9/11 will become clear but one thing seems clear already--especially with certain political figures from the 90s still vying for ultimate power--it's going to remain slow for awhile.

Investigation Update

Breaking today--the Dept of Justice might charge General Betrayus with leaking classified info to his Lt. Colonel mistress.

Only fair, right?  Leaking is leaking.  Little guys like Jeffrey Sterling, who will stand trial soon, and John Kiriakou, who went to jail, were not immune. Matter of fact, General Petraeus was quoted as saying the following about Kiriakou:

General David Petraeus, CIA director, made a statement to CIA employees: "This case yielded the first IIPA successful prosecution in 27 years, and it marks an important victory for our Agency, for our Intelligence Community, and for our country. Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws".

Ouch. So there's a little room for schadenfreude there. 

Then again former Clinton NSA Sandy Berger never served time for stealing and destroying documents from the National Archives that might have pertained to 9/11.  And speaking of generals, what about "Obama's favorite general" James "Hoss" Cartwright, who was told in 2013 he was a target in a probe investigating the Stuxnet leak to an Obama-friendly NY Times reporter back in 2012?   What's happening with his case?

We don't know.  We do know that Jill Abramson, the editor of that Obama-friendly newspaper was fired last year only months after calling the Obama administration the most secretive she had ever dealt with in the midst of discussing the record number of leak prosecutions.  

So it's hard to figure whether Holder will go out the door by taking Petraeus down.  It would be typical Obama, but he's a pretty astute politician, too.     

Look over there!

All this fuss about fixing immigration.  Why the rush?  Was something about to expire?  Were masses of illegal immigrants about to be shipped back over the border in a week, in Nazi cattle cars?  No, other than politics there was no pressing need to do anything about a problem that the president himself hasn't put that much effort into for six years and one he only recently said wasn't even possible to fix from the White House.

But it's a big story, and other things aren't.  Other stuff they'd rather not talk about.

Like having their butts whipped, for one.  And others.  But give these guys credit, they know how to make things an issue and whip up the stuff they want to discuss, not the bad stuff. The best defense is a good offense, and it's a good political strategy as long as there's a willing press to help.

Oddly enough, the notion of going on offense in a defensive setting is written all over the recent email release regarding Fast and Furious the DOJ was just forced to FOIA out to Judicial Watch.  Their communications slap dashers made it clear they were bothered by former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson for being a crack reporter and were focused on getting their boss in front of more 'reasonable' reporters to help him explain to the American grubers what he didn't know and when he didn't know it.

But is anyone in the media reporting about this release or what it might mean to press freedoms or what it might say about their role with this administration?  Only the right leaning bloggers, pretty much.

How about Iran?   The president is on record numerous times saying that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be a "game-changer" and that he will not allow them to acquire a nukular weapon on his watch.   But we are only 2 days away from the extended deadline (the first one passed almost unnoticed) in the almost invisible "P5+1" talks designed to get the Ayatollahs to stop making said nuke.

Should this deadline pass (and there has been almost no reportage about it) our country will be right back to square one with Iran, except the sanctions will be lower because the president relaxed them to induce a deal.  So they would have to be revamped.  Or, we would have to start bombing because after all, the administration has never formally taken the military option off the table. Yes, that was a serious comment.

Surely John Kerry will finagle another extension by maybe lowering more sanctions, but won't that signal extreme weakness on our part?  Will anyone on the Sunday Shows mention the fallout from another feckless red line issued by America?

And if the Ferguson, MO Grand Jury decision is released on Sunday as some predict, that's it.  Hell, they could announce an agreement to fund Iran's nuke program and provide Hizballah with Fast and Furious guns and nobody would notice. 

Speaking of South Asia, there are reports the DoD paid a phony ransom to some Afghan terror con man thinking they were going to get Private-Sgt Bowe Bergdahl in return.  They deny it of course, because we don't pay ransoms otherwise we would have paid to not have our folks lose their heads, but they only deny it insofar as calling it a ransom.  Hey look over there, it's 10 feet of snow in Buffalo!  

How about Obamacare?  The HHS just came out yesterday and admitted their enrollment numbers were pretty much bullcrap. Overestimated by almost a half a million.   In other words, more empty words.  Almost no mainstream media outlets are covering it.

And now mysteriously, on a Friday evening before the coming riots, some of Lois Lerner's emails have been found.
 
Let's face it, this administration knows how to play the GOP.  The media helps. Obama's unambiguous but nakedly political declarations made before the mid-terms that he couldn't legally and constitutionally do what he just did would sink any other president, but not this one.  And that makes the GOP even madder and more frustrated. That gives skilled politicians like Obama a huge advantage.

The recent mass shooter at Florida State is yet another example of this bias--since he was black and was known to recite scripture while referencing Black Panther figures the story is pretty much over now, at least from a marketable aspect to bash the Tea Party or "gun nuts" or paranoid wingers thinking the government is out to get them, or something else for Obama to yell "pass a bill" about.  Nothing to see, move along, over here, to this nice immigration story about the nice president who cares about everything more than anyone and the courageous struggling workers changing "yes we can" against those evil xenophobes who don't know their butts from a broomstick when it comes to this kind of trench warfare.  

MORE  11/22/14

Add this one to the other things going on list..

President Barack Obama has quietly approved guidelines in recent weeks to allow the Pentagon to target Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, broadening previous plans that had limited the military to counterterrorism missions against al-Qaida after this year, U.S. officials said late Friday.

Part of ending the war responsibly, no doubt. And of course, this was in the works for a year despite nobody being told about it.

Anyway, back to immigration. Where is the Executive Order? Obama was photographed signing something on AF1 yesterday, but what was it? According to the various sites showing presidential EOs there are no recent orders. The WH is calling these things 'actions', ie, Executive Actions, which NPR almost seems curious about while saying that actions hold far less legal weight than orders. And if he signed something on the plane that means there was no EO signing ceremony, odd for such an historic move (yes there are signing ceremonies for EO, which the NPR link shows).

Risen's Strangely Timed Story on Jund'allah

What an odd story to lead the Sunday NY Times...

Some federal officials blame Mr. McHale for what they describe as an operation that veered out of control. They said that if the United States and Jundallah had too close a relationship, Mr. McHale’s go-it-alone attitude was to blame. But friends and former colleagues say this characterization of Mr. McHale as a rogue operator is unfair.

They point out that the relationship persisted for more than a decade, and Mr. McHale’s actions were approved and applauded by several United States agencies over those years. “I’m not sure what to say about this case,” said Mr. Holt, who is retiring from Congress this year. “Everything is plausible in the freewheeling intelligence world.”

Risen and Apuzzo characterize this Port Authority officer as a sort of real-life Dirty Harry, a brusque street-wise operator who can't follow rules or norms but gets intelligence for the frustrated pencil necks at HQ and the Major's office.  He sounds like a hero. So why are they offhandedly trashing him? And why now?  And why top left page one of their internet version?

One thing we know is that it's another in a series of stories from mainly left-leaning reporters about the Bush administration's relationship with Jund'allah.  The first ones came out around 2007 and were used to suggest the US was working with AQ terrorists against Iran.  Seymour Hersh, who wrote about it during the Bush years, has largely been the only one amongst his peers willing to suggest similar cozy arrangements with Sunni terrorists in Libya and Syria.
 
Anyway, just a coincidence on a slow news day?  Commenters at the Times story point to a convenient timing issue--we are coming up on a November 24th deadline to agree to a nuclear deal with Iran through the P5+1 group.  If no deal materializes then Obama will be staring down yet another self-imposed red line, which stated that Iran will not obtain nuclear weapons--that it would be a game-changer.  He has never formally taken military operations off the table, remember.

But really, Obama bomb-bomb-bombing Iran?  How likely is that? 

Then again, he can't afford to cross another one of his own imposed red lines and retain any semblance of a positive foreign policy legacy.  So it would seem that something needs to happen, soon.   Hopefully that something didn't involve screwing a patriotic Port Authority officer who cultivated intelligence about Iran's nuke program in an effort to sweeten a deal with the Ayatollahs.  Because if he'd do that, he might do other worse stuff. 

At the same time it's interesting to see the Times reporting on Balochistan, the veritable Twilight Zone of the GWoT. They point out that KSM is a native Baloch without pointing out that his nephew Ramzi, who tried to take out the WTC in 1993, is also a native.  It's never been explained as to why people in this remote region hated America so much.

Laurie Mylroie claimed the Sunnis of that region collaborated with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, hinting at a long-running tie with Iraqi intelligence, hinting that there might be a tie between AQ and Iraq.  Jund'allah seems more interested in knocking out the Ayatollahs than enemies abroad, but taking out Tehran was on Saddam's bucket list, too. So there's that.  Taliban leaders also sheltered in Quetta after our invasion in 2001, the same place Jund'allah operators have used.  Maybe McHale knew how to connect a few of those dots.

Investigations Update

What happened to Obama's favorite general?

A senior Obama administration official told the Washington Post that the former deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is being investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly leaking information about the computer virus Stuxnet, which was part of the Olympic Games campaign.

He lost his clearance later in 2013.  But the last anyone has heard about this case was this past summer when one Jofi Joseph, fired from the White House in 2013 for running a Twitter account critical of his bosses, which included naming advisor Ben Rhodes as a possible leaker candidate, refused to comment about it.

The former White House national security official who was fired last year after being unveiled as the snarky anonymous tweeter behind the NatSecWonk account declined to comment on Thursday about his exploits and previous accusations that another senior official leaked classified U.S. intelligence information.

It might be nice to know why he thought Rhodes was the snitch. The media certainly has no curiosity.

Meanwhile, the media has had some curiosity about the FBI investigation involving former diplomat Robin Raphel, best known as the ex-wife of the late Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel, best known for being killed in a mysterious plane crash with Pakistani president Zia ul-Haq in the late 80s. Ms. Raphel is described as a friend of Pakistan, even "Lady Taliban" (wow read this story), and an enemy of India, at least by the Indians. Curious, since the relationship between India and Obama hasn't exactly been buttery smooth. Could this be a fig leaf or is it something else ?

Finally, in the process of reading Sharyl Attkisson's book "Stonewalled" something strikes me about her, both in her TV appearances and by reading the first 30 pages of the book--she seems like a person who might be a bit Aspergery, at least in some areas.  For instance, she seems oblivious to the real world of quid pro quo and looking out for number one as she plows forward running down what she calls 'puzzles'.  That kind of singular focus got her called a pit bull, but Asperger's people tend to be narrowly focused on certain subjects while taking things literally.  She also recently said she isn't part of any social circles (ie, most high profile national journalists are often heavily involved with the people they report via social circles, marriage, etc). 

If so it's actually an awesome quality for a journalist to have.  They should all be that way.  Of course, it also tends to piss off almost everyone, ie, her anecdote about the White House calling her unreasonable.  It would also tend to make her fight the harassment instead of looking out for number one and backing down, which itself could be dangerous.   We'll see.

You know it's bad when...

...the UN nuclear watchdog sounds tougher on Iran than our own government...

WASHINGTON — At a moment when American negotiators say they see some signs of movement on the part of Iran toward a broad nuclear deal with the United States, the head of the United Nations nuclear inspection organization declared Friday that Iran had stopped answering the agency’s questions about suspected past efforts to design the components of a bomb.

Combine that with an Obama staffer calling Netanyahu a chicken$h*t and some might surmise the middle eastern pot is about to come to a boil very soon.  After all, how many more extensions will the chicken$h*ts in Jerusalem tolerate before taking their own action?  They have red lines, too.  Real ones. 

Hans Blix didn't find them after all

Is this the October surprise Bob Beckel on Fox was rumormongering about last month?

From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.

In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

It's a pretty slick Times report, complete with animated GIFs, all highlighting reporter CJ Chivers' account of thousands of chemical weapons shells found all over Iraq per ground reports and a Pentagon FOIA.

Wait thousands of shells, doesn't that qualify as a stockpile?   Not so fast, says Chivers...

All had been manufactured before 1991, participants said. Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. Some were empty, though many of them still contained potent mustard agent or residual sarin.

Most could not have been used as designed, and when they ruptured dispersed the chemical agents over a limited area, according to those who collected the majority of them. In case after case, participants said, analysis of these warheads and shells reaffirmed intelligence failures. First, the American government did not find what it had been looking for at the war’s outset, then it failed to prepare its troops and medical corps for the aged weapons it did find.

Chivers stopped just short of saying the United States was manufacturing chemical weapons for Saddam, but he went right up to the waters' edge, saying that American-designed shells had been sold to Iraq by European nations, wink wink, cue the Rummy shaking hands with Saddam photo.  While the story implicates certain European nations of actually selling the material to Iraq, nobody will cue the Jacques Chirac handshake picture with Saddam.

But we're left with this--there WERE chemical weapons in Iraq, lots of them, and they were never acknowledged.  Now ISIS likely has possession of the remainder.  All of which makes the reports out of Syria last year about rebels having used Sarin gas more credible.  And if true, part of the blame lies with Maliki, since the Iraqis, as members of the Chemical Weapons Convention, were responsible for getting rid of their old rusty chemical stockpile--but they never finished before ISIS rolled into town. 

But the Times didn't splash this report across the front page to vindicate BushCheneyBurton.  They did so presumably to give Obama an out card by saying the Pentagon/Bush covered up the fact that chemicals were found because they weren't the right chemicals, so it's not the Democrats' fault.  And Bush still lied because he said Saddam had active programs.

But Ace of Spades challenges the definition of "active", ie, the Times piece says, "The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West."

Hmm, looking back at history Bush had been fairly careful to avoid saying Saddam had active chemical weapons programs as a casus belli for war. He did leave the impression there were active programs, but mostly stuck to the idea that Iraq possessed chemical weapons and the facilities to produce them, which the Times has now authenticated.  Let's go back to the Iraq AUMF that Hillary, Biden and Kerry voted for:

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

That's to say Iraq entered a cease-fire agreement to destroy their chem-weapons and program.  While they might have mothballed their active program, they didn't destroy the "means to deliver" such as artillery shells. Instead they buried them all over the place.  And there were likely individuals who had the treasure maps to dig them up later.  One of those was not Hans Blix, whose UN team never found them in 2003 before the invasion.  Ergo, Saddam was in material breach.  Back to the AUMF:

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Doesn't thousands of shells constitute a stockpile?  At what point does a stockpile stop being a stockpile if they are not destroyed or rendered inert?  And notice again it says nothing about an active chem-weapons program.  More..

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;

"Continuing to possess"--check. The left will point out "and develop" in reference to the chemical weapons (and biological), perhaps dredging up this brutal report by the WaPo in 2004 describing the Duelfer Report, which noted:

...no chemical weapons existed and that there is no evidence of attempts to make such weapons over the past 12 years. Iraq retained dual-use equipment that could be used for such an effort.

Which was simply wrong--munitions were there, buried underground.  What else did Mr. Duelfer get wrong?  The Kay Report on the Iraqi Survey Group done a year earlier stated:

We have multiple reports that Iraq retained CW munitions made prior to 1991, possibly including mustard - a long-lasting chemical agent -- but we have to date been unable to locate any such munitions.

Which was closer to correct.  The Times has finally located them.  Kay's report also left open the possibility that Saddam had explored reactivation of the chem program as late as 2002-2003, something Duelfer threw cold water on a year later.  Which was correct, considering the current revelations?

Of course this story leaves open the obvious political question:  if chemical weapons were indeed found in large quantities in Iraq why did the Bush administration remain silent about them?  Was it, as the left might say, a reminder of past sins in helping to arm the tyrant in an attempt to stop a worse band of tyrants (Iran), actions which might implicate the Bush family and friends?  Did we get rolled by our realpolitik of the past to the point where Dubya just said "the heck with it, we got Saddam, let's move on"?

Possible.  It would interesting to hear what James Baker has to say about it, assuming he could ever talk candidly. Hell, or George HW Bush.

Or maybe the Bush folks felt they couldn't justify going to war over old shells alone, which, even if passed along to AQ wouldn't do the kind of damage a bio or nuclear (or dirty bomb) would do.  This was borne out by the several attacks on coalition soldiers in Iraq using Sarin shells, which did relatively little damage.  Such munitions are also not easily transportable.  With terrorists swarming the country during the insurgency years it probably made no sense to start trumpeting "but they had chemical stockpiles"!  In the end this story is probably not going to change any minds either way.

But we don't live in history, we live in the present. Presently ISIS controls a lot of the areas where shells were found and were never destroyed, ergo, ISIS has chemical weapons. They may have already used them. A current political question would be "who allowed this"? The simple answer is partially contained in the idea that a certain president 'ended the war' in Iraq a little too soon.  In non-political terms perhaps this could explain why the 60 nation coalition hasn't been able to do very much to stop the advance of ISIS yet.

Denial runs deep

On Thursday a woman in Moore, OK was beheaded by a converted Muslim after he was fired from her company.  The suspect was reportedly yelling religious chants during the episode.   For some reason it didn't become a big story until Friday, whereupon it was explained as, although a little weird, just another episode of "workplace violence" with no 'nexus' to any terrorism.

Today the Drudge Report has a headline regards a nexus to terrorism, but a check of the mainstream news websites shows the story is already starting to fall off the front page.  

Meanwhile several reporters grilled White House press flak Josh Earnest on Friday over his steadfast contention that "Core" AQ has been "decimated". 



The White House is holding on to the thinnest of reeds to make the case, ie, Afghanistan is no longer home to AQ and Bin Laden is dead, so they can't easily hatch international plots.  Aside from the fact Bush had a lot to do with reducing their numbers, it doesn't really matter.  AQ has branched out into affiliates across the greater Islamic world to include individuals like Major Hasan.  The ideology is still being pumped by former number two Zawahiri and several other top leaders and operatives, who are training others to take over.  ISIS is a virtual state.  Continuing to say AQ has been 'decimated' makes our administration almost sound insane. 

Besides, it doesn't take a large personnel infrastructure, command and control, and millions of dollars to pull off attacks in the West that can kill thousands.  Our free society is full of vulnerabilities. 

The denial even extends to this new Khorasan Group, aka AQ, aka "AQ from Iran".   Iran has been helping AQ strategically to use them as leverage with the West over their nuke program as both factions understand that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a game-changer regards Israel and the Western powers.  Meanwhile our embassies in Tripoli and San'a have been abandoned due to unrest despite Obama recently using our actions in Yemen as a benchmark for success.

The sad fact is that despite the money we've spent and lives lost, Islamic radicalism isn't dead.  It's not on the run.  It hasn't been decimated.  It's a religious movement grounded in a harsh interpretation of a holy book that lays our political steps as to how lives are to be led, which is 180 degrees opposite of western values. It is literally a clash of civilizations.  The fight will be long and messy.  We have no choice but to continue or surrender large chunks of the world to this ideology.

But speaking that kind of truth to the electorate really doesn't help garner votes because Americans like their wars short and concise, not long and messy.  And they like their ideological sides, right and left, because the other side contains the evil stupid bastards responsible for the mess their side is having to clean up.  Not much room for understanding when this divide is allowed to remain wide open by political leaders for their own means.  

Back to Moore, Oklahoma.  If people truly wonder about what might turn a troubled young convict into a jihadist, read Morten Storm's book "Agent Storm", the chronicles of a Danish motorcycle thug who after years of trouble with the law converted to Islam and eventually befriended some of radical Islam's top leaders. Like Storm, Jah’Keem Yisrael, aka Alton Nolen of Oklahoma, found religion after years of trouble, perhaps drawn to the rigidity and paternalism of Islam.  He was possibly acting against an 'enemy' (bin Laden considered no Americans as innocent) by attacking his former employer.  Agent Storm, aka "Murad", eventually comes to his senses over the killing of innocents and turncoats to western intelligence to help them infiltrate AQAP and al-Shabaab.

It's a fascinating read (even if embellished some) not only shining light on radical thought but also on the contradictions of a free Western society that allows gay marriage, drugs, booze, rampant sex, scantily clad young women with tattoos and lax morals, which can be every bit as big a recruiter as was George Bush's Iraq war or GITMO.  The problem always goes back to the Muslim Sharia solution to such things, evidence of which keeps coming out on grisly web videos and is the main reason our Nobel Peace Prize President "who ends wars" has started bombing Iraq again and now Syria, even as his minions claim over and over that the enemy has been decimated.  

Sense out of Chaos

The Middle East has devolved into a tangle of alliances and factions so ridiculous it seems only a drunk man could make sense of anything.   A year ago the United States was calling for bombing raids on Bashar Assad, the new Hitler of Syria who had used WMDs on his own people; a year later, after no raids on Assad, America likely informs him (and Iran) of bombing raids on his enemies via Iraqi emissaries and he assists by not shooting at them. 

Over the same year Obama teetered on aligning with AQ factions, Syrian Islamic Freedom fighters, Iran, Iraqi Shiites, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Russia, and Hizballah.  Not to mention the craziness still taking place in Libya, which is being completely ignored by the US mainstreamers.

One of the goofier conundrums has been the Khorasan gang.  The leadership of this AQ-faction operating out of Syria formerly operated in Iran with the Mullah's blessings.  This is the same Iran that Obama and the West are negotiating with over a nuclear weapons program.  What in the world?!   We were told Iran's Shiites hate Sunni extremists.  And they do--but in this case the relationship might be a microcosm of how the game is played in the desert sands of Arabia, Persia and South Asia.

Iranian president Rouhani seems to have cleared it up in his UN speech:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday sought to leverage the crisis in the Middle East to ease sanctions on his country as part of nuclear talks, suggesting during a United Nations address that security cooperation between Iran and other nations could only occur if they struck a favorable nuclear deal.

Iran has a long history of holding AQ figures under 'house arrest', ie, outright supporting our sworn enemy. The Treasury Department long ago weighed in on this and only recently identified another supported group.

So we have a country holding Core AQ figures under their protection, allowing them to plot and plan free from Western drones, bombers and Special Forces, now telling Western nations if they want help get rid of a threat (Iran helped create) they best treat them right in the nuclear negotiations.  They are basically trying to hold us hostage, which should bring into question a lot of other things from the past.  

Hopefully the Hacker-in-Chief has a nifty poker hand to play on this one.  Give him credit so far--going after the Khorasans in the ISIS bombing raids was probably designed to remove one of Rouhani's poker chips, although word is the Khorasans have been "dark" since mid summer suggesting some had been tipped.  Eh, where is the booze...   

Of Naked Pictures and Emperors

Some in the media are actually beginning to notice that our president's grand RtP policy in Libya might be springing a leak..

Libyan militia members have apparently turned the abandoned U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, into a water park, judging by amateur video posted to YouTube on Sunday. The video, which reflects the anarchy that currently reigns in Libya's capital, shows fully clothed men diving into and swimming in a pool.

To those who say the embassy was abandoned so this means nothing--consider this: while the State Dept may consider it a vacant building the Islamists certainly do not and will broadcast their frolicking around the pool to the Arab Street as a powerful symbol of US decline in the face of fundamentalism. Coupled with the murdering of our ambassador in Benghazi, they've got a point.  

By the way, there are rumors the other captured American journalist held by ISIS, Steven Sofloff, was taken in Libya, not Syria.  And of course as mentioned on this blog numerous times CNN reported that AQ in Iraq (ISIS) fighters were present for the attack in Benghazi.   There appears to be a nexus. 
 
So recapping.....we have a failed policy in Libya after US air power intervention, a failed policy in Egypt trying to prop up the Muslim Brotherhood only to see it upended by a military coup and new dictator, a loss of all our progress in Iraq with the advent of a Saddam regime-led insurgency army using captured US military hardware who have killed an American, and a black eye over Syria, where the leader of the free world set a red line then allowed WMDs to be used without harsh consequences.

Is it any wonder why Mr. Flexible, Vlad Putin, is about to invade Ukraine after "helping" our president on the red line problem while being a cog in the nuke negotiations in Iran?  Is it shocking that a Chinese fighter jet did di-do's around one of our surveillance planes in international airspace now claimed by them, immediately following a visit to Vietnam by Joint Chiefs Chairman Dempsey?

No.  But worry not, Bush's military-security apparatus constructed after 9/11 will continue to keep presidential fundraising and golf safe, negating the need for any immediate strategies against ISIS that might put the mid-terms in jeopardy.  First things first--winning the war against the real terrorists. 

Meanwhile the press is certainly outraged--about nekkid pictures of Jennifer Lawrence pilfered off 'the cloud'.  Outrageous!   The cloud is supposed to be safe!   This must be stopped!    Hey--they should all be thankful they aren't waking from a coma like Joan Rivers. 

Mother of all Battles Update

Saddam Hussein, January 7, 2002:

"The mother of all Battles continues to this day,"

Indeed it does. Few analysts disagree on the nexus between the Naqshbandi Army and ISIS/ISIL, now Islamic State. Here's Foreign Policy:

The Islamic State has conquered broad swaths of Iraq thanks to a surprising alliance with secular veterans of Saddam Hussein's military.

Meanwhile Jack Murphy at SOFREP is questioning the very existence of al-Baghdadi himself, suggesting he may be a doppelganger figure, which is prudent considering the past.  He believes the group is more than likely controlled, or heavily influenced both tactically and strategically, by the likes of Izzat al-Duri.

But one really doesn't need experts to know there's a Saddamist component to the rise of ISIS to re-establish Sunni rule in parts of Iraq--just look at the news reports. The question is, where does it go from here? The FP writer goes on to suggest their marriage of convenience is heading for a divorce as the Islamists have double-crossed their 'enemy of my enemy' friends.

Perhaps, but perhaps that depends on their real sources of support within Arabia. While it's fun to slam Obama for playing golf instead of bomb, bomb, bombing the IS, the situation seems almost indeterminably complex. A strong IS in Iraq makes it harder for Iran to support Bashar Assad, which hurts the Mullahs and by extension, Putin.   Sounds like a good thing. Conversely, crippling IS in Iraq opens the door for a stronger Shia rule across the region, helping Iran and Assad, and by extension, Putin. Sounds like a bad thing.  It's a real mess.  The US is in a position where it can't even applaud Assad for attacking IS.  

But it's a mess that can't be allowed to get much more messy.  As some analysts have suggested, Obama may have to eventually chose a side, as deplorable as the side may be. One possibility is choosing Izzat al-Duri and his JTRN group and assisting them in dividing and conquering the Islamists. Yes, the guy with the 25 million dollar bounty still on his head.  How that might shake out in Baghdad is anyone's guess.

If that happens it will probably happen at the CIA level, since nobody in the US government will want to be seen acting in concert with the likes of al-Duri.  Of course there's always a link-up with Bashar Assad,  but that bridge has already been politically burned.  No matter what we do there's always the potential for blowback--remember Saddam once warned April Glaspie about "individual Arabs".  

Speaking of politics, Obama has spoken to the nation on the IS "folks" and he will do more pin prick bombing to support "our interests" but it's likely he'll try to pivot to anything else as the mid-terms approach. There's simply no easy political win in the Middle East right now.  He got a little one today in the strange release of the US hostage by al-Nusra, but he knows the public will be more than happy to whistle past the Middle Eastern graveyard with him, as everyone is tired of war.  But the fighting will go on, and on, and on.  And the US will continue to be involved, even if Rand Paul wins the presidency.

MORE  8/25/14

As to which enemy Obama might turn friendly with in order to go after ISIS-ISIL-IS, well it looks like Bashar Assad.  Sounds like a better bedfellow than al-Duri--probably less fleas.  But if true, the administration's press mousekateers are really going to have to spin up some PR magic to make reporters believe this is something other than what it is.

That was then...

John Kerry at the Democratic National Convention in 2012..

Again and again, the other side has lied about where this president stands and what this president has done. But Prime Minister Netanyahu set the record straight—he said, our two countries have "exactly the same policy…"—"our security cooperation is unprecedented..." When it comes to Israel, I'll take the word of Israel's prime minister over Mitt Romney any day.

President Obama promised to work with Russia to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and signed an historic treaty that does just that. He promised to lock down nuclear materials around the world, and he has done just that. He refused to accept the false choice between force without diplomacy or diplomacy without force.

When a brutal dictator promised to kill his own people "like rats," President Obama enlisted our allies, built the coalition and shared the burden, so that today—without a single American casualty—Moammar Gadhafi is gone and the people of Libya are free.

So on one side of this campaign, we have a president who has made America lead like America again. What is there on the other side? An extreme and expedient candidate, who lacks the judgment and vision so vital in the Oval Office. The most inexperienced foreign policy twosome to run for president and vice president in decades

Emphasis added to point out his perceived successes.  But that was then, this is now:

• Time Mag headline announcing a "Cold War II" after Russian complicity in the shoot-down of a passenger jet, with no significant consequences; 
• Israel and HAMAS locked in battle after a failed secret 9 month peace effort was abandoned;
• Iraq down the drain due to instability in Syria, where the administration failed to effectively intervene leaving over 200,000 dead civilians with a renewed precedent of allowing a dictator to remain in power after using WMDs;
• part of Ukraine ceded to Putin, who remains one of the main interlocutors over the US-led Iranian nuke agreement talks (which the Iranians just violated without penalty);
• and a teetering pause in Afghanistan after a contested election with the Taliban salivating as US troops prepare to bug out (after we traded 4 top terrorists for an Army deserter). 

Now this:

The U.S. Embassy in Libya evacuated its personnel on Saturday because of heavy militia violence raging in the capital, Tripoli, the State Department said. About 150 personnel, including 80 U.S. Marines were evacuated from the embassy in the early hours of Saturday morning and were driven across the border into Tunisia, U.S. officials confirm to CNN.

It's hard to imagine how things could be going much worse in all these hotspots.  Meanwhile, the US's fuzzy foreign policy has surely reduced the confidence and trust of our partners and allies around the world.  But this post isn't about reveling in failure to score points, as all these events are bad for America.  No, it's about confirming that blind arrogance sputtered by inept politicians trying to parlay past US failures (or media-fueled narratives of failure) into political victories does nothing to actually prevent bad things from happening once they get into power.  Photo-ops of politicians pushing reset buttons aren't magic. Words and deeds can and should come back to haunt those who use them just to get ahead or belittle opponents.

The president's current projection of nonchalance (going out fund-raising, drinking beer in pool halls, eating hamburgers and such) is no doubt a planned strategy, perhaps to show the world these terrible blow-ups are still beneath the level of alerting a US president.  However, the posturing has done nothing to solve the problems, while raising concern from the American people.  For any other leader it might be time to give a prime time address on foreign policy.   For this president it's not entirely clear whom he believes to be the main enemy.

KERRY TODAY...

Here's part of a statement from the guy who proclaimed that Obama had freed Libya:

He blamed the "freewheeling militia violence," caused by jihadist groups that have only grown in power since the ouster of former president Muammar Gaddafi, for creating an environment in which the diplomatic activities at the Libya embassy had to be suspended.

"A lot of the violence is around our embassy but not on the embassy, but nevertheless it presents a very real risk to our personnel," Kerry said.

Does the pottery barn analogy apply here?