Rand Paul: Ousting Saddam was a 'mistake'

Anarchy - The Real Bush Legacy

(The Hill)  -  It was a “mistake” for the American military to push Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Monday, adding that Iran is now “twice as strong” without Hussein’s regime checking its power.

“All the way back to the Iraq War, I think it was a mistake to topple Hussein. Hussein was the bulwark against Iran. The Sunnis didn’t like the Shiites, now Iraq is a vassal state for Iran,” the presidential candidate said during a meeting with Orthodox Jews at a Jewish day school in Brooklyn, N.Y, according to the New York Observer.

Paul also criticized the U.S.-led campaign that ousted Moammar Gadhafi from power in Libya. While Gadhafi wasn’t a “good guy,” he kept Islamic extremism in the country at bay, Paul said.

The senator added that the U.S. shouldn’t try to depose Syrian President Bashar Assad, amid accusations that Assad used chemical weapons on his own citizens, because Islamic militants could fill the power vacuum.

“Each time we topple a secular dictator, I think we wind up with chaos, and radical Islam seems to rise,” he said.

Paul attended the meeting seeking to bolster his relationship with the Jewish community, as he’s been questioned at times over his support for Israel.

“I think Israel is one of our best allies and best friends around the world," he said, according to theObserver. "They’re the only democracy in the Middle East and I’m very supportive."

Read More . . . .

George Bush's "brilliant" idea
Bush and draft dodger Dick "Darth" Cheney had the brilliant idea of crushing and then disbanding Saddam Hussein's 1,000,000 anti-Iran military leaving a giant power vacuum in the Middle East.  What could possibly go wrong?

Least we forget.

Obama's DHS Opens Office in Silicon Valley to Better Control the Internet

A Bi-Partisan Big Brother

The 1984 Police Surveillance State is fully and eagerly funded by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

(Tech Dirt)  -  If only the endlessly-escalating West Coast cost of living could have prevented this:

Today I am pleased to announce that the Department of Homeland Security is also finalizing plans to open up a satellite office in Silicon Valley, to serve as another point of contact with our friends here. We want to strengthen critical relationships in Silicon Valley and ensure that the government and the private sector benefit from each other’s research and development.

That's Jeh Johnson addressing the crowd at the RSA Conference. Of all the news no one wanted to hear, this has to be close to the top of the list. Three-lettered government agencies are pretty much NIMBY as far as the tech world is concerned, especially after Snowden's revelations have seriously and swiftly eroded trust in the government.

No one wants a next-door neighbor who's going to constantly be dropping by for a cup of decryption.

The current course we are on, toward deeper and deeper encryption in response to the demands of the marketplace, is one that presents real challenges for those in law enforcement and national security.

Let me be clear: I understand the importance of what encryption brings to privacy. But, imagine the problems if, well after the advent of the telephone, the warrant authority of the government to investigate crime had extended only to the U.S. mail.

Our inability to access encrypted information poses public safety challenges. In fact, encryption is making it harder for your government to find criminal activity, and potential terrorist activity.

We in government know that a solution to this dilemma must take full account of the privacy rights and expectations of the American public, the state of the technology, and the cybersecurity of American businesses.

We need your help to find the solution.

"Let me be clear: I understand the importance of what doors bring to privacy. But, imagine the problems if, well after humanity moved out of caves, the warrant authority of the government to investigate crime had only extended to dwellings without doors." 

Bullshit. The DHS, along with other law enforcement agencies -- is seeking is the path of least resistance. It can get warrants to search encrypted devices. It just may not be able to immediately crack them open and feast on the innards. It may also get court orders to compel decryption. This is far less assured and risks dragging the Fifth Amendment down to the Fourth's level, but it's still an option. 

Then there's the option of subpoenaing third parties, like cloud storage services, to find the content that can't be accessed on the phone. So, it's not as though it's locked out forever. This may happen occasionally but it won't suddenly turn law enforcement into a wholly futile pursuit. 

Silicon Valley isn't going to help the DHS "find a solution." There isn't one. The DHS may as well get some legislation going and force companies to provide a stupid "good guys only" backdoor because the tech world already knows you can't keep bad guys out with broken encryption. This should be painfully obvious and yet, the "good guy" agencies seem to think tech companies are just holding out on them. 

From there, Johnson switches to his most disingenuous rhetorical device: the assertion that Americans are clamoring for an unrealistic level of safety.

I tell audiences that I can build you a perfectly safe city on a hill, but it will constitute a prison.

Who the fuck is asking you to do that? The only people pushing for "perfectly safe" are government agencies who like big budgets and increased power and the private companies that profit from this sort of fearmongering. Most Americans are far more pragmatic and they'd rather keep what's left of their privacy and civil liberties, even if it means the safety of the country is slightly less assured. 

Read More . . . .

Jeb Bush Is Pro NSA Spying

Marco Rubio Surges to First Place

Yes, it's way too early

Still, Marco got a nice bump from his announcement.

(Quinnipiac University)  -  U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida wins the support of 15 percent of Republican primary voters and runs best against Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today.

The former secretary of state tops the Democratic field with 60 percent and leads top Republican contenders, except Sen. Rubio, in head-to-head matchups, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds.

The Republican primary field shows Rubio with 15 percent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with 13 percent and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker with 11 percent. No other candidate tops 9 percent and 14 percent remain undecided.

Bush tops the "no way" list as 17 percent of Republican voters say they would definitely not support him. New Jersey Gov. Christopher Christie is next with 16 percent who give him a definite thumbs down, with 10 percent for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Clinton owns the Democratic nod with 60 percent, followed by Vice President Joseph Biden with 10 percent and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont with 8 percent. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has 3 percent and 14 percent are undecided.

Clinton and Biden each get 7 percent on the "no way" list.

"The youngest member of the GOP presidential posse moves to the front of the pack to challenge Hillary Clinton whose position in her own party appears rock solid," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

"This is the kind of survey that shoots adrenalin into a campaign. Marco Rubio gets strong enough numbers and favorability ratings to look like a legit threat to Hillary Clinton."

In a general election matchup, Clinton gets 45 percent of American voters to 43 percent for Rubio. She leads other top Republicans:

45 - 40 percent over Christie; 46 - 42 percent over Paul; 47 - 42 percent over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; 46 - 39 percent over Bush; 46 - 41 percent over Walker; 48 - 41 percent over U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Read More . . . .

Real Clear Politics Average of Polls

Hamas gaining traction in Europe

The Religion Of Peace™

• And the deliberate importation of Muslims into the West goes on and on.

(Jerusalem Post)  -  The 13th Palestinians in Europe Conference on Saturday once again catapulted Hamas’s activities into the spotlight.

The organizers of the event – the London-based Palestinian Return Center and the Palestinian Community in Germany –have ties to Hamas, according to Berlin’s domestic intelligence agency. An estimated 3,000 people pre-registered for the event. Some 200 protesters from the “Berlin against Hamas” campaign demonstrated against the conference, Radio Berlin-Brandenburg reported on Saturday.

Dilek Kolat, a Berlin state senator from the Social Democrats who holds the Integration portfolio, attacked the conference for not distancing itself from the goal of eliminating Israel. “That is intolerable and unacceptable here in Berlin,” she said.

The conference logo shows a map of the Middle East without Israel, and the organizers call for the “right of return” of all Palestinians to Israel.

Ahead of the conference, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post, “We raised this matter with the German ambassador to the US. This is no mere academic exercise. It is about legitimizing those committed in word and deed to the destruction of world’s largest Jewish community, the over 6 million Jewish citizens of the State of Israel. Allowing this conference to go forward in Berlin at this time will further embolden anti-Israel extremists in Germany and further legitimize the demonization of Jews and all other supporters of Israel.”

Yasin Aktay, the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party)’s deputy chairman for foreign affairs, was listed as a guest. It was unclear if he attended. Turkey has provided a base for Hamas operatives to organize terrorist attacks against Israel.

The conference comes after a legal fight over removing Hamas from the European Union’s terrorist list.

In December, the EU’s General Court ruled that Hamas had been classified as a terrorist organization based on inadmissible non-expert media reports, instead of “decisions of competent authorities.”

Hamas remains on the list while an appeal is filed.

Read More . . . .

Boko Haram in Lake Chad canoe attack

The Hydra of Islam

• Noun   Hy-dra  -  1)  a many-headed serpent or monster in Greek mythology that was slain by Hercules and each head of which when cut off was replaced by two others.  2)  a multifarious evil not to be overcome by a single effort.

(Reuters) - Niger's army is fighting to recapture an island in Lake Chad after it was seized by hundreds of Boko Haram militants aboard motorised canoes, army sources said on Sunday.

Boko Haram, hardline Islamists who want to establish a caliphate in the region, attacked the island of Karamga at dawn on Saturday, their second attempt to capture it since February, army and government sources said.

Lake Chad's islands, which lie in dense swampland, are an ideal base for mounting surprise attacks on the countries bordering the lake: Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.Boko Haram, hardline Islamists who want to establish a caliphate in the region, attacked the island of Karamga at dawn on Saturday, their second attempt to capture it since February, army and government sources said.

"There were many (Niger soldiers) dead on Saturday, considerably more than in the first attack," said one of the army sources, referring to a battle in February in which seven Niger soldiers died.

A second army source said a counter-attack to clear the island of militants was ongoing.

Since February, Nigerian forces backed by neighbours Chad, Niger and Cameroon have won back vast swathes of territory from Boko Haram, which previously controlled an area the size of Belgium.

On Friday suspected Boko Haram militants crossed over from Cameroon and forced Nigerian troops out of the border town of Marte, one soldier told Reuters, indicating the group still has a reach beyond Sambisa.

The island of Karamga is hundreds of kilometres away, suggesting that there is at least one Boko Haram cell further north.

Niger suffered a wave of attacks and suicide bombs in its southern border region of Diffa in February and March, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency there.

Read More . . . .

Sunday Comics

(Hope n Change Cartoons)

Multiple Stab Wounds May Be Harmful To Monkeys

The Muslim Genocide Against The Greeks

(Pamela Geller.com)

1,400 years of Genocide by Muslims

The Holocaust they "forgot" teach you about in school.

By Gary;

This last week there has been a modest amount of press regarding the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.  But as usual there is never any press about the longest running genocide in history: the Muslim genocide against the Greek people.

In 629 AD the entire eastern Mediterranean was part of the Christian Greek speaking Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium).  Greek was the language of much everyday business and government from North Africa to Palestine, Syria and Anatolia.

Then in September, 629 AD the invading Islamist Arab armies appeared for the first time.  For the next 800 years the Christian armies of Byzantium fought endless hordes of fanatical Jihadis looking to butcher and enslave men, women and children.

Genocide  -  Christian Syria and Palestine fell. Then the Muslim forces swept across North Africa exterminating Christianity and Greek-Roman culture everywhere except in Egypt where local Christians soon become an oppressed minority.

The Crusades countered the Muslim armies for a time, but Islam picked up steam and their of conquest went on.

Province by province, city by city the Islamists murdered and enslaved the Greek people.  In 1453 they attacked Constantinople itself for the final time.  The city was taken and those not killed were raped and sold into slavery by the "Religion of Peace".

The Muslim armies went on to conquer all of the Balkans and twice attack Vienna itself.

In 1821 the Greeks fought a long and bloody War for Independence from dictatorial Islamic rule.  Greece was reborn after centuries of slavery.

The Greek Speaking Eastern Roman Empire
City by city from 629 AD on the Greek speaking citizens of the Eastern Roman Empire were effectively exterminated (genocide) or enslaved by invading Islamist Arab armies.  Greek speaking cities like Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch were "ethnically cleansed" and turned into Arab Muslim cities.
.
In 1453 the Muslim Turks finished the job capturing Constantinople and making Christians 2nd class citizens under an Islamist dictatorship.

The Final Solution: Greek Genocide

The Muslim Ottoman Empire began the Greek genocide in 1913.  It was the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population from its historic homeland in Anatolia during World War I and its aftermath (1914–23). It was instigated by the government of the Ottoman Empire against the Greek population of the Empire and it included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches, summary expulsions, arbitrary execution, and the destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, historical, and religious monuments.

The Greek death toll in the Pontus region of Anatolia ranged from 300,000 to 360,000. Estimates for the death toll of Anatolian Greeks as a whole are significantly higher with the death toll of Greeks killed may approaching 900,000 people killed.

Bishop Chrysostomos of Smyrna
Murdered by Muslims

According to the figures by the Greek government a total of one million people were estimated to be massacred.

Henry Morgenthau, the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916 accused the "Turkish government" of a campaign of "outrageous terrorizing, cruel torturing, driving of women into harems, debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at 80 cents each, the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to and starvation in the desert of other hundreds of thousands, [and] the destruction of hundreds of villages and many cities", all part of "the willful execution" of a "scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian Christians of Turkey."

In 1922 the Greek Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Smyrna Chrysostomos Kalafatis was murdered by Muslims.

According to French soldiers who witnessed the lynching but were under strict orders from their commanding officer not to intervene:

"The mob took possession of Metropolitan Chrysostom and carried him away... a little further on, in front of an Italian hairdresser named Ismail ... they stopped and the Metropolitan was slipped into a white hairdresser's overall. They began to beat him with their fists and sticks and to spit on his face. They riddled him with stabs. They tore his beard off, they gouged his eyes out, they cut off his nose and ears."

Bishop Chrysostomos was then dragged (according to some sources, he was dragged around the city by a car or truck) into a backstreet of the Iki Cheshmeli district where he died soon after.

The stories go on and on.  But the bottom line is for 800 years Greek Christians were "ethnically cleansed" by Muslims and the history is NEVER taught in schools.

Read More:  Greek Genocide      Assyrian Genocide        Armenian Genocide

Greek Genocide 1914-1923

The Greek Genocide
Areas with the presence of Anatolian Greeks in 1910.  Demotic Greek speakers in yellow. Pontic Greek in orange. Cappadocian Greek in green with individual towns indicated.  The Greek people were murdered by the tens of thousands by the "Religion of Peace".  Today only Muslims remain. 

Johns Hopkins Bans Chick-fil-A from Campus Claiming Restaurant a “Microaggression”

The Thought Police of Johns Hopkins

Eat what we tell you to eat.  

Think what we tell you to think.

(Pundit Press)  -  Johns Hopkins University has banned Chick-fil-A from its campus saying that the restaurant is a “microaggression” against its students.

In an 18-8 vote, the Student Government Association at Johns Hopkins voted not to “support the proposal of a Chick-fil-A, in a current or future sense, particularly on any location that is central to student life.”

The anti-Chick-fil-A bill listed seven main reasons why the restaurant should be banned from campus. The first is that “the Student Government Association of Johns Hopkins University aims to provide a safe, supportive environment for all university affiliates now and in the future.”

The fourth is that “visiting prospective and current students, staff, faculty, and other visitors who are members of the LGBTQ+ community or are allies would be subjected to the microaggression of supporting current or future Chick-fil-A development plans.”

The sixth is that “several universities and colleges such as North Carolina State University and Indiana University have already launched efforts to ban already established Chick-fil-A’s.”

And the seventh is that the college should seek out “other similar non-discriminatory alternatives.”

For those reasons, as well as the statements of “Chick-fil-A’s former CEO Dan Cathy,” the resolution pushed for a ban on Chick-fil-A.

The bill was proposed and carried by a 18-8 vote.

Read More . . . .

Saturday Sultress - Lindsey Vonn

Lindsey Vonn is an American World Cup alpine ski racer on the United States Ski Team. She has won four World Cup championships. Vonn won the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the first ever in the event for an American woman. She has also won seven World Cup season titles in the downhill discipline (2008–2013, 2015), five titles in super-G (2009–2012, 2015), and three consecutive titles in the combined (2010–2012).

Vonn is one of six women to have won World Cup races in all five disciplines of alpine skiing – downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and super combined – and has won 67 World Cup races in her career.

Vonn was a correspondent for NBC News covering the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Lindsey Vonn and boyfriend Tiger Woods

Lindsey Vonn and her 2010 Olympic Gold medal

Vonn Rankings

Season	Age	Overall	Slalom	Giant slalom	Super-G	Downhill	Combined
2002	17	93	—	—	35	41	—
2003	18	118	—	—	—	47	—
2004	19	30	38	45	26	14	—
2005	20	6	28	35	3	5	5
2006	21	5	9	49	4	2	3
2007	22	6	37	—	3	3	7
2008	23	1	32	13	6	1	2
2009	24	1	3	8	1	1	2
2010	25	1	14	28	1	1	1
2011	26	2	19	12	1	1	1
2012	27	1	20	2	1	1	1
2013	28	8	—	20	4	1	—
2014	29	68	—	—	25	36	—
2015	30	3	—	29	1	1	—

Tens of thousands of AK-47s and $1.3 billion "missing" in Afghanistan

 "Corruptus in Extremis"

• SNAFU  -  "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up."
• The insanity of government never ends.  Mountains of U.S. provided weapons and cold hard cash are "missing" in Afghanistan.   Meanwhile the American military is protecting Drug Lords.  Ain't life just fucking grand?

(McClatchy News)  -  The Defense Department can’t account for $1.3 billion that was shipped to force commanders in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2014 for critical reconstruction projects, 60 percent of all such spending under an emergency program, an internal report released Thursday concludes.

The missing money was part of the relatively small amount of Afghanistan spending that was routed directly to military officers in a bid to bypass bureaucracy and rush the construction of urgently needed roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, water treatment plants and other essential infrastructure.

About 70 percent of the $100 billion the United States has spent to rebuild Afghanistan during more than 13 years of war went through the Pentagon, with the rest distributed by the U.S. Agency for International Development and other civilian departments.

A yearlong investigation by John F. Sopko, the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, found that the Pentagon couldn’t – or wouldn’t – provide basic information about what happened to 6 in 10 dollars of $2.26 billion it had spent over the course of a decade on the Commander’s Emergency Response Program.

“In reviewing this data, SIGAR found that the Department of Defense could only provide financial information relating to the disbursement of funds for CERP projects totaling $890 million (40 percent) of the approximately $2.2 billion in obligated funds at that time,” Sopko’s report says.

When Sopko’s staff divided the Pentagon expenditures into 20 categories set under the emergency program, from transportation and education to health care, agriculture, water and sanitation, by far the largest category was a 21st that the inspector general termed “unknown.”

The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, a post Congress established in 2008 to track U.S. nonmilitary aid to Afghanistan, has issued dozens of reports documenting billions of dollars lost to waste or corruption.

In a report released last July, Sopko and his staff found that many of the tens of thousands of excess AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons the Pentagon had shipped to Afghanistan since 2004 had gone missing, raising concerns that they’d fallen into the hands of Taliban or other insurgents.

A report released in October 2013 concluded that the United States was continuing to give Afghan security forces a planned $1.4 billion to buy gasoline through 2018 despite evidence that some of the money had been siphoned off for other, unexplained, uses.

Read More . . . .

As an added bonus the U.S. and NATO have been protecting Afghan Drug Lords since the 2002 invasion.

A
2001 Blast from the Past Article
Only a "crazy" fringe person would suggest that the US and NATO went into Afghanistan in order to keep the supply of drugs flowing.  Only a conspiracy nut would suggest that governments want to keep their populations in a perpetual drugged stupor so they will not question their Masters.  It would be wrong to say these things, so I will not do it.

The U.S. - Protecting Afghan drug lords since 2002.
Also see our 2012 article:
What Drug War? NATO increased Afghanistan opium production