Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Traveling abroad? You may want to leave the laptop at home

Government Security News reports that international travelers should have absolutely zero confidence in the Internet connections provided by foreign hotels.

The FBI is warning traveling commercial and government laptop users that malicious programs can worm their way onto their machines through hotel connections overseas through bogus software updates.

A May 21 bulletin from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warns that malware disguised as innocuous software updates awaits unwary travelers as they log onto hotel-hosted Internet connections. The agency said recent analysis from its investigators and other government agencies showed that Cyber criminals are targeting travelers through pop-up windows while they connect to the Internet in their hotel rooms. Apparently, criminals set up bogus hotel connections to intercept traffic before the hotel guest can reach the legitimate hotel connection.

It said recent cases show the malware presents the traveler with a pop-up window telling them to update a widely-used software product.

In these instances, the travelers attempting to set up the hotel room Internet connection and was presented with a pop-up window notifying the user to update a widely used software product, it said. The pop-up window looks like a common software update notice, according to the agency. If the laptop user clicks on “accept” to install the update, they install the malware.

IC3 recommended all government, private industry, and academic personnel traveling abroad be extra cautious before updating software using hotel Internet connections. It also recommended checking the author or digital certificate of any prompted update to see if it corresponds to the software vendor. If it doesn’t, it may reveal an attempted attack, it said.

The only way to even try to mitigate these kinds of threats is to surf immediately to a known SSL proxy site (e.g., your company's SSL VPN). By surfing to a known SSL site first, you can avoid the most common man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.

A typical MITM attack delivers a non-SSL web page to your browser, but also includes some very special (and unwelcome) malware. The intent is to exploit your browser's vulnerabilities using specially crafted HTTP/HTML-based attacks. Or, in the case, the MITM attempts a social engineering attack, using the promise of a software update.

Surfing directly to a safe SSL site may help -- but isn't guaranteed -- to mitigate the threat. SSL to a trusted site is, in nearly all cases, impossible to MITM. But I say it isn't guaranteed because a hotel could deliver a landing page (e.g., to prompt you to enter the hotel's Internet pass-phrase) prior to letting you surf SSL. And that landing page could theoretically launch an attack.

The best advice would be to dispense with the laptop on your trip abroad. If you can't do that, travel with a pristine (newly imaged) laptop and then get it re-imaged when you return.


Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Not treasonous at all: New Jersey company exploits federal loophole to assist Iran with nuclear research -- Report

If this report is accurate, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LLP) has some serious explaining to do.

[LLP] announced they've already "signed a contract on May 20 with the Plasma Physics Research Center (PPRC) of I. Azad University in Tehran, Iran." ... A quick Internet search of this Iranian institution — consisting of a chain of colleges — shows that its full name is "Islamic Azad University." It's a small detail, but a little strange of the LLP official press release to diminish their new partner's name to a mere I. It just looked like someone wanted to dust that fact under the rug.

But how is this partnership even possible given U.S.-Iran relations? Well, there's a loop-hole:

The agreement falls within an exemption to the otherwise broad sanctions of the US against Iran. The US Department of Treasury’s regulations include a general license which “authorizes collaborating with “academics and research institutions” of sanctioned countries on the… creation and enhancement of written publications.”

The two research teams will collaborate on writing scientific publications about their joint discoveries on aneutronic fusion. The LLP [site] explains:

In the past three years, Iran has become a major player in the small but growing global effort to achieve aneutronic fusion power—controlled nuclear fusion using fuels that produce no neutrons. Controlled fusion harnesses the power that heats the sun--nuclear fusion--as a source of energy for peaceful purposes. Fuels that don’t produce neutrons are important because neutrons can be extremely destructive, damaging the structure of a fusion generator and inducing radioactivity.

...Fars News Agency reports that LLP's work could be a game-changer, if things go to plan: it's "one of several small companies that believe they can crack fusion far sooner than can ITER or the National Ignition Facility (NIF), another international behemoth, based in Livermore, California. "

Methinks that LLP's head of public relations is fielding some calls as we speak. If this report is accurate, LLP should consider relocating to Tehran to get all of the true benefits of their partnership.


Hat tip: RF.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Sah-weet: Computer Hardware Made In China Includes Anti-Global Warming Features Plus Backdoors for Chinese Military, But Mostly Backdoors for Chinese Military

Rejected backup headline: "Say, I've got an idea: let's buy more crap from China!"

If this doesn't make you leery of every single piece of hardware made in the PRC, I don't know what will:

Backdoor Found in Chinese-Made Military Silicon Chips

We all knew this was possible, but researchers have found the exploit in the wild:

"Claims were made by the intelligence agencies around the world, from MI5, NSA and IARPA, that silicon chips could be infected. We developed breakthrough silicon chip scanning technology to investigate these claims. We chose an American military chip that is highly secure with sophisticated encryption standard, manufactured in China. Our aim was to perform advanced code breaking and to see if there were any unexpected features on the chip. We scanned the silicon chip in an affordable time and found a previously unknown backdoor inserted by the manufacturer. This backdoor has a key, which we were able to extract. If you use this key you can disable the chip or reprogram it at will, even if locked by the user with their own key. This particular chip is prevalent in many systems from weapons, nuclear power plants to public transport. In other words, this backdoor access could be turned into an advanced Stuxnet weapon to attack potentially millions of systems. The scale and range of possible attacks has huge implications for National Security and public infrastructure."

...The chip in question was designed in the U.S. by a U.S. company, but manufactured in China.

Anything (and I do mean anything) manufactured in the PRC could well have some very special -- and undocumented -- functionality courtesy of the PLA (People's Liberation Army).

I am hopeful that most sophisticated buyers were already aware of this possibility.


Hat tip: badblue.com/tech.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Transmit THIS Information to Vladimir: Today, On Memorial Day, We Will Not Forget What's At Stake For America In November

This Memorial Day, when we remember those who paid the ultimate price protecting our precious country, I ask you to remember one recent incident that demonstrates what our president really thinks of us. It occurred in March, when ABC News' Jake Tapper reported that President Obama was caught on an open microphone telling Russian President Medvedev that once he's reelected, he won't have to bother with those pesky Americans who are worried about sharing missile defense secrets.

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Senior GOP officials are rightfully concerned, given that missile defense is a critical element of U.S. national security.

“If there was any doubt how dangerous Barack Obama would be for America’s security in a second term, the president put all uncertainty to rest today,” said the source, who closely tracks foreign policy matters. “The president just told us that he is itching to hand over America’s most secret missile defense data to a country that is arming Syria and fueling Iran’s Bushehr reactor—and he would do it today but for his re-election concerns. With no political constraints in a second term, who knows what Obama will do.”

The adviser also said Obama’s remarks should cause concern among pro-Israel forces in America.

If this is what the president’s promising the Russians on missile defense, God only knows what he’s promising Arab leaders about Israel,” noted the souce. “If you think Barack Obama was bad for Israel in term one, put your seatbelt on and get ready for term two.”

At that time, Rep. Michael Turner, Chairman of a House Armed Services Subcommittee, wrote to President Obama and warned him not to defy Congress by sharing sensitive information with the enemy.

As you know, in the FY12 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress enacted, and you signed into law, a provision constraining your ability to share classified U.S. missile defense information with the Russian Federation. Congress took this step because it was clear based on official testimony and Administration comments in the press that classified information about U.S. missile defenses, including hit-to-kill technology and velocity at burnout information, may be on the table as negotiating leverage for your reset with Russia. Despite signing the FY12 defense authorization legislation into law, you then issued a signing statement signaling that you may treat that provision protecting U.S. missile defense information as non-binding. This morning’s comments, on top of that action, suggests that you and your administration have plans for U.S. missile defenses that you believe will not stand up to electoral scrutiny.

Congress has made exquisitely clear to your Administration and to other nations that it will block all attempts to weaken U.S. missile defenses. As the Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, which authorizes U.S. missile defense and nuclear weapons policy, I want to make perfectly clear that my colleagues and I will not allow any attempts to trade missile defense of the United States to Russia or any other country.

Once again, I've been forced to update President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts to include this missive: "First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government."

Which also helps explain why a recent Gallup survey showed Mitt Romney holding a whopping 28-point lead over Obama among male veterans.


Sunday, May 27, 2012

Uh Oh, Syria's Assad Is In Real Trouble Now

Dan from New York:

Yesterday, Assad’s latest production slaughtered 90 innocent people including 32 children. Today, the reviews are in and the “international community” is hopping mad.

"flagrant violation of international law"

-Kofi Annan

"indiscriminate and unforgivable".

-UN mission head Maj-Gen Robert Mood

"appalling crime"

-UK Foreign Secretary William Hague

"the Government of Syria [must] immediately cease the use of heavy weapons in population centers".

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

"The United States will work with the international community to intensify our pressure on Assad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end"

-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

###

What did I tell you? The heat is really on.

The Two Charts President Obama Never Wanted You to See

When President Obama used a risible column by MarketWatch's Rex Nutting to claim to be a deficit hawk, even the Associated Press couldn't keep a straight face.

Of course, Obama, Nutting and the rest of the sycophants avoid the real comparison: actual deficits rung up by each president's policy choices (and those of Congress). In the case of President Obama's first two years in office, Democrat super-majorities in the House and the Senate helped him enact a virtual wish-list of Fabian socialism, from the Stimulus, to multiple attempts to fix the housing market, to "financial reform", to Obamacare.

The real comparison, then, is appropriately illustrated as follows.

Over the past 50 years, 10 U.S. presidents have made annual budget requests to Congress, projecting deficits both big and small. But no other president compares to Barack Obama when it comes to the size and scale of the current budget deficit facing the United States.


The country is facing an 8.3 percent estimated average national deficit of a two-term Obama administration — the biggest of the past 50 years.

As for the Left's claims that President George W. Bush "lied us into wasting an unfathomable amount of money on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan", let's ignore for the moment the so-called lies (we know that both military actions had overwhelming support from both parties). But let's ignore that duplicity for the moment.

In the last decade, how much federal spending actually went to national defense?

A striking chart showing that, over the last decade, 65 percent of federal expenditures went to pay for entitlement commitments, not wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense, or national security:


"About 65 percent of federal expenditures over the last ten years have gone towards entitlements," Paul Miller writes. "By comparison, about 15 percent has gone towards national defense, excluding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq has cost three percent, and only about one percent has gone towards the war in Afghanistan (including the cost of ongoing military operations and all reconstruction and stabilization assistance combined), according to my analysis of figures from OMB."

In other words, Miller says, "Afghanistan is the second-cheapest major war in U.S. history as a percentage of GDP, according to the Congressional Research Service."

Iraq and Afghanistan represent a pittance, a rounding error, for this federal leviathan.

And yet another Democrat myth gets obliterated like the propaganda it is. One day these clowns might actually get something right, though that would require kicking the Marxist-Progressive Fifth Column out of the party.


Friday, May 25, 2012

Saturday, May 19, 2012

An Islamist Spills the Beans [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:


You should make it a priority to view the video referenced below.


Via andrewbostom.org:


Dr. Wafa Sultan, a remarkably courageous and thoughtful Muslim freethinker, recently debated Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad.


Dr. Sultan watched passively while the good Sheik expressed without equivocation his pious views—in full accord with classical, mainstream Islamic doctrine on jihad —and then politely added her own plain spoken commentary in response.


This less than 8-minute video segment, if viewed objectively and dispassionately, could do more to educate the American public on the theory animating the practice of “Islamic international relations,” without any further explanation required.

Virtual Book Burning: Amazon Submits to Sharia Law in Europe

An alert reader of Germany's Politically Incorrect -- relayed by Gates of Vienna -- observes that Amazon appears to have deleted Geert Wilder's bestseller from its European stores.

Marked for DeathThe new book by Geert Wilders, Marked for Death, is apparently neither being advertised nor offered in European Amazon. About two months before its publication date, it was possible to reserve the book on your Amazon wish list. In that space now, there is an empty window — without even a dust jacket. Unavailable. Then if you go to amazon.de, you find out it no longer exists.

...If you call up the book on amazon.com and then substitute .de for .com in the address line, so you can order the same book in English, the message appears: “Sorry, the web address you have given does not exist on our website.” If you try this procedure with any other book in English, the “translation” from amazon.com to amazon.de works effortlessly, as always.

Well, OK, not at German Amazon. Maybe British? So instead of dot.com, we put in dot.co.uk. The result is the message: “We’re sorry, the web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site.” Hmm, no active site for the new Wilders book.

If you try the same procedure with another English language book, you get the respective active pages on amazon.co.uk and amazon.co.fr. Just not with Geert Wilders’ book.

Our impression: Amazon does not intend to offer Geert Wilders’ new book in Europe. Since Amazon is having no problems with it in the USA, and the book there is at the stupendous bestseller rank of 459, the suspicion is that someone in Europe has caused some trouble or made some threats. So, is the idea really to keep the book away from Europe?

Why is Amazon worried about listing Wilder's book? Amazon reviewer Bruce -- who gives the book five stars -- describes its content in stark terms.

Geert Wilders new book, "Marked for Death" is an absolute must read and a breath of fresh air. In a methodical way it traces exactly why Islam has been such a curse for all those societies where it is practised. In the words of Mr. Wilders, "Throughout history, Islam has brought poverty, social strife, backwardness, intolerance, and tyranny to societies where it was practiced. This trend continues today, as the curse of Islam hampers the quest for freedom and democracy in the Middle East." The dangers it poses to the West cannot be underestimated and our pandering to Islam and indeed encouraging Muslim immigration to our lands can only undermine our democratic values. Mr. Wilders explains why Islam does not merit the description of it being a "religion." Rather it is really a totalitarian system of beliefs based on hatred and inequality and ultimately control of the human being.

There is a term -- "dhimmitude" -- that perfectly describes Amazon's seeming behavior. I wonder how many other books have been censored for "our own good"?

I liken this kind of conduct to a virtual book burning.


Wednesday, May 16, 2012

"Profiles in Courage: The Bin Laden Hit", by President Barack Obama

To be fair, this is not my work. And no one on Journolist seems to know who created this brilliant piece, but I've now received it from three different people. If you are the author, please email me for full credit, linkage, and job offers (while the "Junior Cub Reporter IV" position isn't prestigious, it is low-paying).











Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Chinese-made smartphones include lovely bezel design and a backdoor into all your data, but mostly a backdoor into all your data

The People's Republic of China (or PRC) is a land rife with slave labor, pollution, intellectual property theft, and repression of religion. In other words, it's Thomas Friedman's (pronounced: fried-man's) ideal society.

And the cyberwar that the PRC (or, rather, the People's Liberation Army or PLA) is waging worldwide, much of it against American assets, continues apace, unremarked upon by the President, his sycophants or the State Department.

Exhibit 9 million: A lovely backdoor installed on Chinese-made smartphones:

The ZTE Score M is an Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) phone available in the United States on MetroPCS, made by Chinese telecom ZTE Corporation.

There is a setuid-root application at /system/bin/sync_agent that serves no function besides providing a root shell backdoor on the device. Just give the magic, hard-coded password to get a root shell:

$ sync_agent ztex1609523
# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root)

Nice backdoor, ZTE.


darn, geek.com says it is real.....

If anyone reading this owns a ZTE Score M Android smartphone, your device has been found to include a backdoor allowing root access without user authentication.
The discovery of the backdoor comes via a post on the text storage website Pastebin. It has since been confirmed via Reddit by Justin Case of Cunning Logic and TeamAndIRC. He has confirmed with someone at ZTE that the backdoor does indeed exist and that a fix is in the works.

Oh look, we'll just make a master key!  You locked that door?  :-)
Nice guys, nice.... oh and ZTE makes more than phones -- they're the 5th largest telecommunications manufacturer in the world. 

It's imperative that more Americans become aware of the danger to our information infrastructure posed by the PLA. I, for one, would be hard-pressed to trust any technology made in the PRC.

And that's a lesson that many companies have learned the hard way.


Stunning: Old Media Silent as 60 Minutes Confirms That Bill Clinton Refused to Kill Bin Laden

Unless you were watching 60 Minutes this Sunday, it's likely you missed its interview confirming that Bill Clinton had Osama Bin Laden in his sights and refused to pull the metaphorical trigger. Ultimately, the 9/11 attacks -- only one of a series of devastating and deadly terror strikes tied to Bin Laden -- became the end-result.

Lara Logan, CBS: That mission actually began five years before 9/11. That's when the CIA set up what became Hank Crumpton's special unit tasked with finding Osama bin Laden.

Hank Crumpton, Former Deputy Director of the CIA'S Counter-Terrorism Center: From '98, '99 all the way up to 2001, the warnings were there ... We had extensive human networks in Afghanistan, Afghan sources that had been reporting on al Qaeda, on the presence of bin Laden.

But Crumpton says the Clinton White House didn't trust the CIA's Afghan sources alone and they wanted U.S. eyes on the target.

Hank Crumpton: So we were driven to look at various technical options. And we looked at a range of things. Long-range optics, they were too heavy, too cumbersome to get over the mountains. We looked at balloons. The prevailing winds would take those balloons to China. That would be a bad thing. We scrapped that. And then we stumbled across the UAVs, particularly the Predator. And sure enough, wasn't long before we had the Predator in theater over Afghanistan, the Predator unarmed at the time. And our human sources took us to a village-- far-- not far from Kandahar.

Lara Logan: And what did you see there?

Hank Crumpton: We saw a security detail, a convoy and we saw bin Laden exit the vehicle.

Lara Logan: Clearly?

Hank Crumpton: Clearly. And we had-- the optics were spot on. It was beaming back to us, CIA headquarters. We immediately alerted the White House. And the Clinton administration's response was, "Well, it will take several hours for the TLAMs, the cruise missiles launched from submarines, to reach that objective. So you need to tell us where bin Laden will be five or six hours from now." The frustration was enormous.

Lara Logan: So at that moment you wanted to kill him?

Hank Crumpton: Yes.

Lara Logan: But you couldn't get permission?

Hank Crumpton: Correct.

He couldn't get permission to do anything, including allowing the CIA's Afghan agents on the ground to attack bin Laden's compound. That missed opportunity in the late summer of 1999, led Crumpton and his CIA team to figure out how to arm the Predator drone with hellfire missiles.

Lara Logan: So the Predator drone strikes that take place in the tribal areas of Pakistan today are a direct result of what happened when you had Osama bin Laden in your sights in Afghanistan and no way to kill him yourselves?

Hank Crumpton: It was a response to the lack of response on the part of the administration or DOD. So the handful of CIA officers that we had, in great frustration, we began the discussion of, "Okay. We find him again we will have to engage ourselves. And we'll have to do it right then, right there."

What a freaking outrage. And equally outrageous? Legacy media's silence.

Remember when Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was caught destroying Top Secret documents related to the Bin Laden debacle? You don't? Maybe that's because legacy media barely reported it.

As Richard Miniter wrote in 2007, Berger's intent was to prevent disclosure of the Clinton cowardice that ultimately led to 9/11.

My informed sources suggest that what Berger destroyed were copies of the Millennium After-Action Review, a binder-sized report prepared by Richard Clarke in 2000—a year and half before the 9-11 attacks. The review made a series of recommendations for a tougher stance against bin Laden and terrorism. There are 13 or more copies of this report. But only one contains hand-written notes by President Bill Clinton. Apparently, in the margin beside the recommendations, Bill Clinton wrote NO, NO, NO next to many of the tougher policy proposals.


You can see why Clinton might be happy to see these records vanish down the memory hole... So Berger was stuffing in pants and socks and later shredding the evidence that President Clinton did not want to take a tougher line on bin Laden, following the 1998 attack on two U.S. embassies that killed 224 people (including 12 American diplomats).

Even now that CBS has confirmed the story, a quick Google News search reveals that no one in old media cares.

3,000 innocent Americans dead. Countless thousands of American warriors fallen and wounded in avenging the terrorist attacks and those who enabled them.

A president who knew Bin Laden was complicit in prior attacks and failed to act.

A cowardly president who was too busy golfing to do his job.

In other words, just another disastrous Democrat president.


Monday, May 14, 2012

Perfect: 49 headless bodies found near U.S. border may have been U.S.-bound illegals attracted by lawless Obama administration policies

The inviting open-borders policies of the Obama Democrats may have contributed to the gruesome slaughter of nearly 50 people, whose decapitated bodies were found close to the U.S border.

Police found 49 mutilated bodies scattered in a pool of blood near the border with the U.S., a region where Mexico's two dominant drug cartels are trying to outdo each other in bloodshed while warring over smuggling routes... The bodies of 43 men and six women with their heads, hands and feet chopped off were dumped at the entrance to the town of San Juan, on a highway that connects the industrial city of Monterrey with Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas.

At the spot where authorities discovered the bodies before dawn Sunday, a white stone arch that normally welcomes visitors to the town was spray-painted with "100% Zeta" in black letters — an apparent reference to the fearsome Zetas drug cartel that was founded by deserters from the Mexican army's special forces.

...Domene said the dead would be hard to identify because of the lack of heads, hands and feet...

De la Garza said he did not rule out the possibility that the victims were U.S.-bound migrants.

...In less than a month, the mutilated bodies of 14 men were left in a van in downtown Nuevo Laredo, 23 people were found hanged or decapitated in the same border city and 18 dismembered bodied were left near Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara. Nuevo Laredo, like Monterrey, is considered Zeta territory, while Guadalajara has long been controlled by gangs loyal to Sinaloa...

...A drug gang allied with Sinaloa left 35 bodies on a main boulevard in the city of Veracruz in September, and police found 32 other bodies, apparently killed by the same gang, a few days after that. The goal apparently was to take over territory that had been dominated by the Zetas... Twenty-six bodies were found in November in Guadalajara, another territory being disputed by the Zetas and Sinaloa... Drug violence has killed more than 47,500 people since Calderon launched a stepped-up offensive when he took office in December 2006.

Let us recall that the Obama administration has sued state after state after state for enforcing immigration laws while systematically endorsing sanctuary cities.

Let us also recall that the Obama administration halted all construction of the border fence, which is supported by a stunning 81 percent of Americans, according to USA Today.

In other words, nearly 50 human beings -- likely lured to the border by the lawless policies of the Obama administration -- lost their lives as part of a turf war spurred in part by -- yes -- the open borders policies of the Obama administration that tacitly permits drug- and human-smuggling.

I guess we can just add 'em to the total of Operation Fast and Furious (300 dead and counting).


Image: Borderland Beat.

Friday, May 11, 2012

One Man's Moderate is Another's Islamic Fanatic [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:

Thanks to Caroline Glick for bringing this inspiring exercise in Egyptian Democracy to our attention. See if you can spot the the “moderates.” They’re the apoplectics in dark gray suits screaming about killing Jews and invading Jerusalem with a million “martyrs.” Can’t say for sure whether or not any of these guys were included in the Muslim Brotherhood contingent that swung thru D.C. last week as guests of the Obama administration. Cosi fan tutte. After you’ve seen one, you’ve probably seen them all.

You may also like: “Egyptian presidential candidates Amr Moussa and Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh split over whether Israel is an enemy or adversary.”

Oh, and remember: Glick reminds us that President Obama just released $1.5 billion to Egypt's "moderate" government, the stated goal of which is to build a new Caliphate.


Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Picture Story: Party of Weakness

This is one of Iran's medium-range missiles, which it is placing on Venezuelan soil according to a November 25, 2010 report in Die Welt.

The same report asserts that Venezuela will permit Iran to open a military facility staffed with Iranian missile officers and soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Medium-range missiles launched from this base could reach cities in the United States; a likely first-strike scenario involves the detonation of EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) weapons over the continental U.S.

Where did Iran get such sensitive missile guidance and avionics technologies? Western intelligence services pin the blame on China, which reportedly sold the Mullahs the Nasr-1, -2 and other missile technologies.

These missiles are now mass-produced by Iran, but were "originally developed and built in China, and have been advertised as being in service with the Chinese armed forces."

Missile technologies are only part of the problem. This is an Iranian defector, the former diplomat Mohammad Reza Heydari. He and others report that North Korea has collaborated with Iran on the design of nuclear weapons, including warhead design techniques.

This is a Pyongyang military parade that took place in October. The military dictatorship has become increasingly belligerent since it detonated a small fission weapon and demonstrated increasing expertise with missile guidance systems.

And where did North Korea get its nuclear- and missile-guidance technologies? Experts point to China, with scientists stating that, "[t]here is no possibility of North Korea achieving what nuclear capability it has without Chinese help."

It is worth asking: how did Red China move so quickly to acquire sophisticated missile guidance and other avionic technologies?

In 1998, in an unprecedented repudiation of the wishes of numerous defense and intelligence officials, President William J. Clinton signed a waiver allowing a sophisticated Loral satellite to be launched into orbit by a Chinese rocket.

Why would Clinton sign such a waiver when it risked allowing sophisticated weapons guidance technology to fall into Chinese hands? In fact, Loral would later plead "no contest to a long list of U.S. national security violations, including the unauthorized transfer of missile guidance technology to the Chinese army."

This is Clinton with the chairman of Loral, Bernard L. Schwartz, who coincidentally was the largest single donor to the entire Democrat Party in 1997.

Clinton repeatedly met with and entertained other Democrat contributors -- several of whom turned out to be operatives of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Exactly what they got for their money remains unknown to the general public.

That is because full investigative report of the Clinton administration's actions is embodied in The Cox Report, the complete version of which is still classified "Top Secret". Its summary, however, is enough to send chills down the reader's spine: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has stolen design information on the United States’ most advanced thermonuclear weapons.

In short, Clinton and the Democrats allowed sensitive technologies to escape to China. Later they rippled from China to rogue terror states like Iran and North Korea.

Thus, thanks in large part to the wanton greed and criminality of the Democrat National Committee and Bill Clinton, subsequent generations of Americans will be needlessly exposed to the risk of rogue regimes gaining access to America's most sensitive nuclear and missile guidance secrets.

"The missile technology passed by Loral and Hughes to the Chinese army has matured into a nuclear-tipped monster called the DF-31, which can waste whole American cities in a blinding flash of nuclear hell... ...the results of years of abuse during the 1990s remain with us well into the 21st century." -- (source)

Evil is on the march--evil aided and abetted by the Clinton administration, just one in a series of disastrous Democrat presidencies.


Related: Operation Starfish.


Monday, May 07, 2012

Un-freaking-believable: American POW left to languish while Obama gives away Taliban prisoners

An American POW has has been held by a Taliban-affiliated terror group for almost three years. And he is never mentioned while Barack Obama releases high-level Taliban detainees from Gitmo in exchange for... their promises not to commit more acts of terrorism.

...The United States has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, a bold effort to quell violence but one that U.S. officials acknowledge poses substantial risks...

...As the United States has unsuccessfully pursued a peace deal with the Taliban, the “strategic release” program has quietly served as a live diplomatic channel, allowing American officials to use prisoners as bargaining chips in restive provinces where military power has reached its limits.

...On June 30, 2009, almost three years ago, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl of Idaho was kidnapped by the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network. He is the only prisoner of war currently held by the Taliban and recent video releases seem to indicate that he is being kept alive for ransom by the group.

...In December, The Daily Beast was the only outlet to report on a heroic escape attempt by the sergeant. After working for over two years to gain the trust of his captors, Bergdahl jumped out of a first-story window, running into the wilderness [and evading capture for] three days without food or water—hiding in a shallow trench he had dug with his own hands and covered with leaves.

...Even [after he was discovered], he put up a ferocious fight. The two gunmen who found him first were unable to subdue him. “He fought like a boxer,” Hanif was told. It took five more militants to overpower him. Now back in custody, he is kept shackled at night, and his jailers are taking no chances.

This is the caliber of soldier that the United States and its military produces, the American that the president seems to have forgotten about for almost three years.

...In 2008 it was Barack Obama’s policy not to engage with terrorists under any circumstances. In 2009, his administration was comfortable exchanging American prisoners for British hostages. In 2012, it has become clear it was the long-standing policy of the administration to release American-held terrorist prisoners while asking for nothing in exchange, not even an American POW.

Keep Sergeant Bergdahl in your prayers.

And contact the House Foreign Affairs Committee at (202) 225-5021 to express your outrage.


Hat tip: Bethany. Also see: Ten burning questions for Obama’s secret terrorist release program

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Uproarious: former Carter national security adviser Brzezinski grades Obama's foreign policy between a 'B+ and A-'

Giving The Onion a run for its money, the so-called National Journal -- if that is its real name -- offers up the following laugh-out-loud headline:


Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, graded Obama’s foreign policy performance “somewhere between B-plus and A-minus,” lauding his achievements with Chinese and Russian relations but criticizing his failure to move forward on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

“It would be higher if he had moved more decisively on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, because he had a chance to do so. But admittedly, he was overwhelmed by domestic problems,” he said on CBS’s Face the Nation.

Yep, that was what I was thinking. A good, solid B-plus.

• Obama scorched Egypt's Mubarak after an uprising was squelched, helping hasten the U.S. ally's fall and allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to ascend to power.

• Though tens of thousands were killed, he failed to act during Iran's green revolution, helping the Mullahs continue on the road to nuclear terrorism.

• He remained virtually silent as Syria's Iranian-allied dictator Bashar Assad slaughtered tens of thousands.

• He continues to defy Congress, sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian authority that has promised to wipe Israel from the face of the Earth.

• He leaked a key military relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel, leading a former Marine strike planner to state that allies should start "viewing this administration as an existential threat to Israel."

As Mark Langfan observes, "Obama’s true foreign policy objective seems to be nothing less than the full nuclear weaponization of Iran."

And the rise of a new Caliphate.

Brzezinski and his ex-boss are both disgraceful, anti-American kooks, but everyone already knew that. Except for the hacks at National Journal.


Hat tip: Weasel Zippers. Related: Crazy conspiracy theory? Or is it so sane that you just blew your mind?

Saturday, May 05, 2012

Smart Power: Iranian Students Jailed for Speaking Out

Almost three years ago to the day, Iran's citizens erupted to protest the Mullahs' fixed elections.

Egypt's Mubarak is gone, but somehow Iran's Mullahs live on, slaughtering dissidents and crushing the pro-Western rebellion

...[Human Rights Watch] called for the unconditional and immediate release of the 32 students in prison on various national security-related charges. Authorities rounded up many of these students after the disputed June 2009 presidential election, and revolutionary courts convicted and sentenced them on charges such as “propaganda against the system,” “participating in illegal gatherings,” and “insulting the president.”


...Therefore all were convicted specifically for exercising their rights under international law to freedom of speech, of association, and of peaceful assembly. Security, intelligence, and university officials have disciplined, suspended, or expelled hundreds of other students who criticized the government during the past few years.

Egypt's Mubarak is gone, but Iran's Mullahs live on, building nukes and planning for the apocalypse.

Excellent news: 23 bodies discovered either hanging from bridges or decapitated in "secure as it's ever been" border area

Remember how Janet Napolitano, our beloved baritone DHS secretary, claimed that the border area was "as secure as it's ever been", even though the Obama administration halted construction of a security fence?

Well, citizens, don't worry when you read about the complete breakdown of society right on the border, as our ultra-secure, but non-existent, border fence will protect us. Somehow. Because Nappy's on the case.

The bodies of 23 people were found hanging from a bridge or decapitated and dumped near city hall Friday in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, where drug cartels are fighting a bloody and escalating turf war.

Authorities found nine of the victims, including four women, hanging from an overpass leading to a main highway, said a Tamaulipas state official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide information on the case.

Hours later, police found 14 human heads inside coolers outside city hall along with a threatening note. The 14 bodies were found in black plastic bags inside a car abandoned near an international bridge, the official said.

...Local media published photos of the nine bloodied bodies, some with duct tape wrapped around their faces, hanging from the overpass along with a message threatening the Gulf cartel...

...[In 2003, k]illings and police corruption became so brazen that then President Vicente Fox was forced to send in hundreds of troops and federal agents, and the only man brave enough to take the job of police chief was gunned down hours after he was sworn in... The Zetas won that fight and have since ruled the city with fear, threatening police, reporters and city officials and extorting money from businesses. They broke off their alliance with the Gulf cartel in 2010, worsening the violence across northeast Mexico.

But last month, 14 mutilated bodies were found in a vehicle left in the city center. Some media outlets reported that the Sinaloa cartel took responsibility for those bodies and in a message allegedly signed by its leader, Guzman, said the group was now back in Nuevo Laredo "to clean" the city.

The Democrat Party's quest to buy votes among illegal aliens trumps any concern over the security of American citizens.


And that, my friends, is why the border area is wide open, despite the ongoing, narco-fueled civil war occurring just a few dozen yards south of our border.


Bridge photo: Borderland Beat (Caution: graphic photos).


Thursday, May 03, 2012

Have I mentioned lately that Democrat Elijah Cummings is a hack?

Elijah Cummings (D-MD), if that is his real name, is the ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. For nearly a year-and-a-half, Cummings has witnessed Eric Holder's Justice Department commit perjury, stonewall and otherwise impede the committee's investigation into "Operation Fast and Furious".

The DOJ gunrunning operation, which allowed guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels unimpeded, has thus far resulted in 300 dead. Among the victims: Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and the brother of the Chihuahua state attorney general.

Seven months ago, DHS head Janet Napolitano stated that she couldn't comment on the case because Justice was awaiting the results of the Inspector General's investigation. We're still waiting. And even interim results have been unlawfully withheld from Congress.

Finally, it would appear, the House has had enough. Committee chairman Darrell Issa has drafted a contempt order against Attorney General Eric Holder.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) circulated a draft contempt order against Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday for a “refusal to cooperate” in the investigation of the Fast and Furious gun-walking operation.

“In describing the results of the Justice Department’s refusal to cooperate — including the hardships the family of a fallen Border Patrol agent have faced in seeking the truth, and retaliation against agents who blew the whistle on gun-walking — this briefing paper provides the facts, on which decisions will be made,” the House Oversight Committee chair said in a statement... The briefing paper sharply criticizes the Justice Department’s response to the committee’s investigation of the botched gun program, alleging that the department failed to provide many of the documents the committee requested.

...“For over a year, the Department has issued false denials, given answers intended to misdirect investigators, sought to intimidate witnesses, unlawfully withheld subpoenaed documents, and waited to be confronted with indisputable evidence before acknowledging uncomfortable facts,” it reads. “’Operation Fast and Furious’ outrageous tactics, the Justice Department’s refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation, and efforts to smear and retaliate against whistleblowers have tainted the institutional integrity of the Justice Department.”

The stonewalling, intimidation and lies have been copiously documented, blatant and -- plainly -- outrageous.

If Democrats had an ounce of integrity among them, they would be likewise demanding an explanation from Justice and some measure of comfort for the 300 killed by Holder's operation.

But the modern Democrat Party has no integrity as evidenced by the words of ranking member Elijah Cummings.

“Holding someone in contempt is one of the most serious actions Congress can take, but it is being used in this case as part of a partisan election year witch-hunt,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement. “Unsurprising these draft contempt documents were leaked to the press and Republican House leaders before Committee Members ever saw them, and are based on an investigation characterized by repeated claims that turned out to be false.”

...Issa spokesman Frederick Hill brushed away the accusation, promptly shooting back, “It’s disappointing, but not altogether out of character, for ranking member Cummings to dismissively ignore the struggles of fallen Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s family to learn the truth about his death.”

The Justice Department has repeatedly defied House subpoenas by withholding or redacting nearly all of the requested documents. They claim -- which has no basis in fact -- that Executive Privilege (which the administrative state does not possess) allows their inspector general's investigation to complete before presenting documents to Congress.

Did I mention that Holder's I.G. used to work for him and that her investigation has now gone on longer than the Warren Commission's investigation into JFK's assassination?

So a legitimate inquiry into DOJ actions -- which has resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people -- is now positioned by hacks like Cummings as a "partisan witch-hunt".

I'm going to love it when Republicans are in power of all branches of government and follow precedent: using all of the pathetic Democrat tactics against them.