CBS's Lara Logan gives a very tough talk on what is happening in Afghanistan

Did the Obama administration deliberately hide information on the Libyan Attack?

From Bill Gertz in an article titled "The revolt of the Spooks":

Weeks before the presidential election, President Barack Obama’s administration faces mounting opposition from within the ranks of U.S. intelligence agencies over what careerofficers say is a “cover up” of intelligence information about terrorism in North Africa. 

Intelligence held back from senior officials and the public includes numerous classified reports revealing clear Iranian support for jihadists throughout the tumultuous North Africa and Middle East region, as well as notably widespread al Qaeda penetration into Egypt and Libya in the months before the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. . . . 

Intelligence officials pointed to the statement issued Sept. 28 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that raised additional concern about the administration’s apparent mishandling of intelligence. The ODNI statement said that “in the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo.” 

Officials say the ODNI’s false information was either knowingly disseminated or was directed to be put out by senior policy officials for political reasons, since the statement was contradicted by numerous intelligence reports at the time of the attack indicating it was al Qaeda-related terrorism. . . .

Meanwhile, the Obama administration claims that it was given bad information by the intelligence community.

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice told Republican senators that her televised statements last month on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi were based entirely on information she was given by the intelligence community. 

"In my Sept. 16 Sunday show appearances, I was asked to provide the administration's latest understanding of what happened in Benghazi," Rice wrote in a Thursday letter to Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). "In answering, I relied solely and squarely on the information the intelligence community provided to me and other senior U.S. officials, including through the daily intelligence briefings that present the latest reporting and analysis to policy makers. This information represented the intelligence community's best, current assessment as of the date of my television appearances, and I went out of my way to ensure it was consistent with the information that was being given to Congress." 

Rice was responding to a Sept. 26 letter from the GOP senators in which they accused Rice of jumping the gun and disseminating false information about the attack. The letter quotes Rice's comments selectively, leaving out the context where she cautioned that the information was based on initial assessments. Rice emphasized in her response that she had caveated her remarks in her TV appearances. . . . 

CBS has information that "34 highly-trained security personnel" were removed from the embassy earlier this year.  If you combine that with the Ambassador's diaries and his concern over security, you get a real mess.

Sources critical of what they view as a security drawdown say three Mobile Security Deployment teams left Libya between February and August in addition to the 16-member Site Security Team on loan from the military. That's 34 highly-trained security personnel moved out over a six month period. . . .

Meanwhile more information appears that the Obama administration denied other security requests from the Libyan embassy.

ABC News has obtained an internal State Department email from May 3, 2012, indicating that the State Department denied a request from the security team at the Embassy of Libya to retain a DC-3 airplane in the country to better conduct their duties. 

Copied on the email was U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in a terrorist attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya,  Sept. 11, 2012, along with three other Americans. That attack has prompted questions about whether the diplomatic personnel in that country were provided with adequate security support. . . . 

UPDATE: "U.S. officer got no reply to requests for more security in Benghazi"

A U.S. security officer twice asked his State Department superiors for more security agents for the American mission in Benghazi months before an attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, but he got no response. 

The officer, Eric Nordstrom, who was based in Tripoli until about two months before the September attack, said a State Department official, Charlene Lamb, wanted to keep the number of U.S. security personnel in Benghazi "artificially low," according to a memo summarizing his comments to a congressional committee that was obtained by Reuters. 

Nordstrom also argued for more U.S. security in Libya by citing a chronology of over 200 security incidents there from militia gunfights to bomb attacks between June 2011 and July 2012. Forty-eight of the incidents were in Benghazi. . . . . 

The Congressional hearings on October 10th are going to be brutal.  Apparently both the Intelligence community and the Dept of State told the WH immediately after the attack that it was a terrorist in origin, but the WH went public saying that wasn't the case.  Based on what?

Jay Carney has a defense of the administration available here.  Great timeline available here.  See here also:



UPDATE: From the Washington Times (Rep. Mike Kelly, "Libya security cut while Vienna embassy gained Chevy Volt," Wednesday, October 10, 2012):

While the security budget for Libya was being cut, the Department of State was spending a lot of money on Chevy Volts. 

In a May 3, 2012, email, the State Department denied a request by a group of Special Forces assigned to protect the U.S. embassy in Libyato continue their use of a DC- 3 airplane for security operations throughout the country. 

The subject line of the email, on which slain Ambassador Chris Stevenswas copied, read: “Termination of Tripoli DC-3 Support.” 

Four days later, on May 7, the State Department authorized the U.S. embassy in Vienna to purchase a $108,000 electric vehicle charging station for the embassy motor pool’s new Chevrolet Volts. The purchase was a part of the State Department’s “Energy Efficiency Sweep of Europe” initiative, which included hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on green program expenditures at various U.S. Embassies. 

In fact, at a May 10 gala held at the U.S. embassy in Vienna, the ambassador showcased his new Volts and other green investments as part of the U.S. government’s commitment to “climate change solutions.” 

The event posting on the embassy website read: “Celebrating the Greening of the Embassy.” 

While the embassy in Vienna was going green, the consulate in Benghazi was getting bombed, and little was done to stop it. 

Before the terrorist attack that took the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, there were more than 230 security incidents in Libya between June 2011 and July 2012. 

Of those attacks, 48 took place in Benghazi, two at the U.S. diplomatic compound and scene of the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks. . . .

CNN: Libyan amb very concerned about security threats in Benghazi and a "rise in Islamic extremism."

From CNN:

Three days after he was killed, CNN found a journal belonging to late U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. The journal was found on the floor of the largely unsecured consulate compound where he was fatally wounded. . . .   

A source familiar with Stevens' thinking told CNN earlier this week that, in the months leading up to his death, the late ambassador worried about what he called the security threats in Benghazi and a rise in Islamic extremism. . . .

Everyone in White House but Obama does about face on Libyan attack

From Fox News:

After the White House for the first time Thursday explicitly called the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya an act of terror, President Obama ducked an opportunity to clear up the confusion about the ever-changing narrative -- appearing to hold firm to the story that an anti-Islam film was to blame. 

The president spoke Thursday at a town hall hosted by the Spanish-language Univision. He declined to get into specifics, even as lawmakers said after an intelligence briefing that there clearly was "some pre-planning" in last week's deadly attack. 

Instead, Obama launched into an explanation about how the U.S. saw something it's seen before, where "there is an offensive video or cartoon directed at the Prophet Muhammad" and that is used "as an excuse by some to carry out inexcusable violent acts" against the U.S. . . .

See also the discussion here. 

Did US Ambassador to Egypt order Marines not to carry "live ammunition"? Did US really have 48 hour notice of attacks?

This claim seems to be the result of statements from Marines themselves:

Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson “did not permit U.S. Marine guards to carry live ammunition,” according to multiple reports on U.S. Marine Corps blogs spotted by Nightwatch. “She neutralized any U.S. military capability that was dedicated to preserve her life and protect the US Embassy.”

Time magazine’s Battleland blog also reported Thursday that “senior U.S. officials late Wednesday declined to discuss in detail the security at either Cairo or Benghazi, so answers may be slow in coming.”

If true, the reports indicate that Patterson shirked her obligation to protect U.S. interests, Nightwatch states.

“She did not defend U.S. sovereign territory and betrayed her oath of office,” the report states. “She neutered the Marines posted to defend the embassy, trusting the Egyptians over the Marines.”

Wouldn't you think that a lot of extra security precautions would have been taken on the 9/11 anniversary?  Presumably this would be done so as to reduce the probability that a Marine would accidentally shot an Egyptian, though that some would believe a Marine was likely to do that would probably have an irrational fear of guns.  In any case, even if that turns out to be false statements from Marines an even worse story comes from the UK Independent:

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and "lockdown", under which movement is severely restricted.

Mr Stevens had been on a visit to Germany, Austria and Sweden and had just returned to Libya when the Benghazi trip took place with the US embassy's security staff deciding that the trip could be undertaken safely.

Eight Americans, some from the military, were wounded in the attack which claimed the lives of Mr Stevens, Sean Smith, an information officer, and two US Marines. All staff from Benghazi have now been moved to the capital, Tripoli, and those whose work is deemed to be non-essential may be flown out of Libya. . . .

Or this story from the Jerusalem Post:

Egypt's General Intelligence Service warned that a jihadi group is planning to launch terrorist attacks against the US and Israeli embassies in Cairo, according to a report Tuesday by Egypt Independent, citing a secret letter obtained by Al-Masry Al-Youm.

According to the report, the attack is being planned by Global Jihad, the group suspected of killing 16 Egyptian border guards in Sinai on August 5.

Al-Masry Al-Youm reportedly obtained a copy of the September 4 letter, sent to all Egyptian security sectors, warning that Sinai- and Gaza-based Global Jihad cells were planning attacks on the two embassies. . . .

UPDATE: I also received this information from someone who has been an embassy Marine guard.

MSGs are armed with sidearms.  Nowadays they MAY have a few shotguns or rifles, but those will be secured unless the end of the world is coming.  And the State Department discourages shooting back.   THEY DO NOT have M60s, M240s, M2s, or ANY explosive weapons.  Were the Marines denied ammunition?  I doubt it.  But they were UNDOUBTEDLY under STRICT RULES OF ENGAGEMENT to not lose a round outside the building (i.e. outside nominal U.S. territory) . . .

Under the Vienna Convention, host nation security forces are responsible for protecting the integrity of ALL foreign diplomatic missions within the host nation.  Theoretically, when host nation intelligence assets determine a threat is developing, or the State Department informs the host nation Foreign Ministry that a credible threat is developing, THEY'RE supposed to beef up external security.
Supposed to.  And if you think Egyptian and/or Libyan intelligence didn't know what was brewing, I have a unilateral disarmament treaty I'd like to sell you (after all, that IS a State Department function: peace through a position of weakness, with kind words and a bazillion dollar foreign aid check). . . .

 Important UPDATE: Even CNN has this update.

Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.
Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.
He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn't good for international business.
"The situation is frightening, it scares us," Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded. . . . .

  Libyan President also says that this attack wasn't the result of the movie.

Libya President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf said Sunday that 50 arrests have been made in connection with last week's "preplanned" attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

"The way these perpetrators acted and moved -- I think we, and they're choosing the specific date for this so-called demonstration, I think we have no, this leaves us with no doubt that this was pre-planned, determined," Magariaf said on CBS's "Face the Nation." . . .

From ABC's This Week: 

RICE: First of all, there are Marines in some places around the world. There are not Marines in every facility. That depends on the circumstances. That depends on the requirements. Our presence in Tripoli, as in Benghazi, is relatively new, as you will recall. We've been back post-revolution only for a matter of months. . . .

RADDATZ: I'm pretty sure there are Marines in Paris. Why weren't they in Tripoli? And I think that's a question the State Department is looking at right now. And Benghazi, I think you had 25 or 30 people in the entire consulate. How many of those really were security? They overran the perimeter so quickly and were able to get to that main building so fast, that is a huge question. . . .

Apparently, the US Department of State wasn't too concerned about anything happening on 9/11.

Did the US Government handle the Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng case well?

A political activist under house arrest by the Chinese government makes a daring escape to the US Embassy.  Publicly the Obama administration praises his bravery.  Privately did they really pressure him to leave the US Embassy?  CNN has this transcript of their interview with Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng:

Q: What prompted your change of heart [about leaving the US Embassy]?
A: The embassy kept lobbying me to leave and promised to have people stay with me in the hospital. But this afternoon as soon as I checked into the hospital room, I noticed they were all gone.
Q: Has the U.S. disappointed you?
A: I'm very disappointed at the U.S. government.
Q: Why?
A: I don't think (U.S. officials) protected human rights in this case.
Q: What would you say to U.S. President Obama?
A: I would like to say to (President Obama): Please do everything you can to get our whole family out.
Q: Is this your most urgent wish?
A: That's right.
Q: What has your wife told you after you escaped?
A: (My wife) was tied to a chair by police for two days. Then they carried sticks to our home, threatening to beat her to death. Now they have moved into the house -- eating at our table and using our stuff. Our home is teeming with security -- on the roof and in the yard. They have installed seven surveillance cameras inside the house and built electric fences around the yard.
Q: What did officials tell her if you didn't leave the embassy?
A: They said they would send her back (to Shandong) and people there would beat her. . . .

It doesn't seem as if the Obama administration followed the expectations of others for this case.  From the UK Guardian:

Jean-Pierre Cabestan of Hong Kong University said if Chen was at the embassy, the two governments would probably try to downplay the issue, at least until the end of this week's talks.
"Then the Obama administration will try to find a solution that may not be asylum, but an assurance from Beijing that they will stop harrassing Chen; but if that does not work, asylum will eventually be granted," he said.
Nicholas Bequelin, of Human Rights Watch, said it was unlikely that the Chinese government would accept Chen's demands for an investigation into his case. In the interim, Washington should offer to take Chen and his family to the US for "medical reasons". "If Beijing is not ready for that either, they should be ready to shelter Chen for a longer time, until a solution is negotiated," Bequelin said. . . .

Apparently, Chen was willing "to spend may years" in the US Embassy.  Did the Obama administration put a lot of pressure on Chen to get him to change his mind?


Boy, if the story below is correct, there is more evidence that turning away defectors is part of US policy.

The office of Vice President Joe Biden overruled State and Justice Department officials in denying the political asylum request of a senior Chinese communist official last February over fears the high-level defection would upset the U.S. visit of China’s vice president, according to U.S. officials.
The defector, Wang Lijun, was turned away after 30 hours inside the U.S. Consulate Chengdu and given over to China’s Ministry of State Security, the political police and intelligence service.
Wang has not been seen since Feb. 7 and remains under investigation. His attempt to flee China set off a major power struggle within the ruling Communist Party and led to the ouster of leftist Politburo member Bo Xilai and the arrest of his wife on murder charges. . . .

Here is a discussion from the WSJ that indicates that the US felt pressure to make a deal quickly.  At least the US got a deal over cleaner burning cook stoves.

Obama ad implies that Romney wouldn't have taken out Osama if he had the same chance

Is this serious?  After Obama past statements, he sure looks hypocritical. 


From 60 Minutes in 2011:

"You know, we don't trot out this stuff as trophies.  . . . And I think--  Americans and people around the world are glad that he's gone. But we don't need to spike the football."

FLASHBACK: Obama Campaign Accused Clinton Of Using Bin Laden To ‘Score Political Points’ In 2008

“Now one of Clinton’s Laws of Politics is this: If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think; if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. That’s the best.”

UPDATE: What is the deal with Obama to keep making this claim?  The press question is nauseatingly kissing up to Obama.

Does the Obama administration know anything about world markets?

If Japan buys less Iranian oil and more oil from some place else, another country will buy more Iranian oil and less from that other place. There very little effect on anything. Possibly the only loss is presumably the oil went where it did to begin with because it minimized transportation costs.

On the other hand exempting 11 major countries from penalties for dealing with Iran's central bank means that any international transactions will be taken care of through those countries (in addition to China or Russia that would ignore the sanctions anyway). From Foreign Policy:

The State Department announced on Tuesday that it would exempt 10 European countries and Japan from penalties for doing business with Iran's central bank, because those countries are making significant progress toward weaning themselves off of Iranian oil.

"I am pleased to announce that an initial group of eleven countries has significantly reduced their volume of crude oil purchases from Iran -- Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. As a result, I will report to the Congress that sanctions pursuant to Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA) will not apply to the financial institutions based in these countries, for a renewable period of 180 days," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Tuesday statement. "The actions taken by these countries were not easy. They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil, which many had been reliant on for their energy needs."

The European Union banned all new purchases of Iranian crude oil as of Jan. 23 and will phase out existing contracts by July 1, Clinton said. Japan was able to reduce its dependence on Iranian oil even despite energy shortages created by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

"We commend these countries for their actions and urge other nations that import oil from Iran to follow their example," said Clinton. "Diplomacy coupled with strong pressure can achieve the long-term solutions we seek and we will continue to work with our international partners to increase the pressure on Iran to meet its international obligations." . . .

Obama broke promise on START Treaty

Obama probably thinks that this is a cute idea. Save money by cutting back on things that he promised but never wanted to do. Another broken Obama promise:

During the ratification debate on the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START), President Obama promised to modernize the U.S. nuclear infrastructure, claiming that such investment is “essential to facilitating reductions while sustaining deterrence under New START and beyond.” However, the Administration failed to include in its budget the additional $4.1 billion that was promised for the nuclear weapons modernization program over the next five years. On top on this, the Administration did not even bother to submit a budget request that is consistent with its nuclear modernization pledge to the Senate for the next fiscal year. The actual request is $372 million bellow what the Administration agreed to, writes Heinrichs. . . .

The day after US troops left Iraq things started falling apart

The last American troops left Iraq on December 17th. Is it really a coincidence that things fell apart as soon as American troops left?

Immediately the Shite majority put out an arrest warrant for the leading Sunni politician.

Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned that a challenge to his government by Sunni politicians could destroy the ethnic and sectarian power-sharing system that underpins Iraq's democracy—and take more power into the hands of the Shiite majority.

The threat signals the most dire political crisis Iraq has faced since an agreement on a governing coalition one year ago smoothed over a long-running conflict that has re-emerged with the official pullout this month of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The latest faceoff was triggered when a judicial panel issued a warrant for the arrest of Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on Monday, as the Ministry of Interior aired televised confessions by members of his security detail allegedly implicating him in ordering and funding attacks against Shiites. . . .

In a final tactical road march, the last U.S. troops in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait on Sunday morning, ending almost nine years of a deadly and divisive war. . . .

Lots of bombings targeting just about everyone.

Dozens of people were killed on Thursday in a series of coordinated explosions that struck several neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital, within days of the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, amid a political crisis that has renewed fears of an outbreak of sectarian and ethnic warfare.

The attacks during the morning rush hour targeted Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods, hitting mostly civilian targets, including an elementary school. Some bore the hallmarks of bombing campaigns by al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants. . . .

Sachs' amazing claims don't seem to hold water

The Economist Magazine points out that there might be a few problems with Jeffrey Sachs phenomenal claims.

Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University argues that if public investment and foreign aid are big enough, they will boost household incomes, spurring savings and boosting local investment. They should also “crowd in” external investment by improving infrastructure.

Unlike most economists, Mr Sachs can put other people’s money where his mouth is. He set up the “millennium village project”, taking 14 places in rural Africa with about 500,000 people and, since 2006, making them the subjects of a $150m project run by his university and African governments.

The project—motto: “no single intervention is enough…we must improve them all”—carries huge hopes. Touring a village in Malawi, the UN’s secretary-general says he saw the potential of technologies such as smartphones and drip irrigation “to advance human well-being in ways that simply were not feasible even a few years ago”. George Soros, a financier, gave the project $47m and predicted that it would transform entire regions. . . .

The projects’ backers claim extraordinary results: a 700% increase in the use of antimalarial bednets; a 350% increase in access to safer water; a 368% increase in primary-school meal programmes. On closer inspection, though, these numbers turn out to be less dramatic. . . .

Michael Clemens of the Centre for Global Development, a think-tank, and Gabriel Demombynes of the World Bank says that a randomised trial is needed to disentangle what the millennium programme is doing from what is happening anyway. In such a trial, each village would be paired with a similar one not getting the same help—and the results compared. . . .

Now a Kenyan economist, Bernadette Wanjala of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, has raised further doubts about the project. She interviewed 236 randomly selected households in Sauri who had been offered the benefits and 175 randomly selected ones who had not. In a study with Roldan Muradian of Radboud University, she concluded the first group had raised their agricultural productivity by an impressive 70%. Yet she found that the impact on household income was “insignificant”, and that there had been little extra saving or investment. The villagers had grown more food—and eaten it. They became better nourished, but this did not affect the wider economy. . . .

Obama tried to apologize to the Japanese for Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Possibly even the Japanese realize that the bombings on net saved a lot of Japanese lives. From IBD:

Leaked cables show Japan nixed a presidential apology to Hiroshima and Nagasaki for using nukes to end the overseas contingency operation known as World War II. . . .

Another stop on the tour was in Japan, where Obama in November 2009 bowed to the emperor, something no American president had ever done. It could have been worse if plans to visit Nagasaki and Hiroshima to apologize for winning the war with the atom bombs had come to pass.

A heretofore secret cable dated Sept. 3, 2009, was recently released by WikiLeaks. Sent to Secretary of State Clinton, it reported Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka telling U.S. Ambassador John Roos that "the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a 'nonstarter.'"

The Japanese feared the apology would be exploited by anti-nuclear groups and those opposed to the defensive alliance between Japan and the U.S.

Whatever Tokyo's motive, Obama's motive was to once again apologize for defending freedom, this time for winning with devastating finality the war Japan started. . . . .

From the NY Post:

In a September 2009 cable prior to Obama’s official visit to Tokyo, our ambassador informs Washington that Tokyo had denied Obama’s bid to go to Hiroshima to publicly apologize for America’s dropping the atom bomb there -- in short, to turn the defeat of Japan into a matter of national humiliation for America.
The Japanese government told the ambassador this would be a “non-starter,” because the gesture would encourage domestic anti-nuclear groups and leftist groups opposed to Japan’s military cooperation with the United States. . . .
A president who is either ignorant or blind to the fact that if we hadn’t used the bomb and had been forced to invade Japan instead, at least 2 million Japanese would have died in a full-scale invasion of Japan, instead of the 300,000 killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- not to mention the 1 million US casualties that the War Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff calculated would come in that assault.
And a president who thinks that such groveling is the way to build good relations with an Asian ally -- when a far better way passed him right by. . . .

Boston Herald Editorial:

We shouldn’t be surprised that President Barack Obama wanted to visit the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to apologize for the atomic bombs dropped on them in World War II. Obama has been willing to “blame America first” for almost anything wrong with the world, but these visits would have marked a new low.

Fortunately, the Japanese government refused to permit such abasement. Obama had to be content on his 2009 world apology tour with lamenting (in his Cairo speech to Muslims of the Middle East) a “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims” (Which part of the Middle East was colonized by Americans again?) and with begging Iran, in a totally ineffective televised plea, to play nice. . . .

"Political optics" drives Obama's Iraq policy

Concern about costs are a fine reason to include in making foreign policy decisions. Concerns about short term political considerations is not so laudable. From Fox News:

The Obama administration has decided to drop the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of the year down to 3,000, marking a major downgrade in force strength, multiple sources familiar with the inner workings and decisions on U.S. troop movements in Iraq told Fox News. . . .

The generals on the ground had requested that the number of troops remaining in Iraq at the end of the year reach about 27,000. But, there was major pushback about "the cost and the political optics" of that decision that the number was then reduced to 10,000. . . .

Outrage: Administration caught apparently releasing staged photo of Obama and others watching military operation against Osama

This is outrageous. Putting together a staged photo that did not accurately describe what happened should generate a lot of anger, though I am still waiting for an explanation for why the administration gave orders to kill and not capture Osama.

Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off.
A photograph released by the White House appeared to show the President and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound.
Mr Panetta said: "Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.
"We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound." . . .
The President only knew the mission was successful after the Navy Seals commander heard the word “Geronimo” on the radio, a code word from commandos reporting that they had killed bin Laden.
The absence of footage of the raid has led to conflicting reports about what happened in the compound. According to Pakistani authorities one of bin Laden’s daughter’s, who was present during the raid, claimed that her father was captured alive before he was killed.
There was also growing doubt about the US claims that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies involved in the raid.
Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, former head of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service, said it was "inconceivable" that his government was unaware of the US raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. . . .

The rest of the article details how the administration is going back and forth with the Pakistani government over whether the Pakistanis were involved in the operation. If the Pakistanis were involved, why would the Obama administration keep insisting that they were when it is obviously putting the Pakistani government in a difficult position? If the Pakistani weren't involved, it makes even less sense to make these claims.

Question: Where is the liberal anger over Obama ordering Special Forces to kill and not capture Osama?

I thought that liberals abhorred assassinations. Here is what Obama said in 2008:

'What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he's engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism.' . . . 'First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden's head,' Mr Obama said. 'And if I'm president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive.' . . .

Where is the push back on not making any attempt to capture Osama? On a practical matter there is the information that could have been obtained from capturing Osama. From Reuters:

The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him, a U.S. national security official told Reuters. . . .

BY the way, couldn't Obama bring himself to say anything nice about Bush and his efforts. Apparently some of the key intelligence information used to get Osama was developed under the Bush administration. Obama only mentions Bush once in passing and it has nothing to do with acknowledging his efforts.

I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. . . .

The Obama Libyan mess

This is from someone at Brookings attacking Obama's policies. I still don't understand why we are involved in Libya but not another country such as Syria, where soldiers are shooting into crowds and 120 are dead in just the last two days. Apparently, even the Washington Post can't quite figure out what the administration is doing. The logic seems Ad Hoc.

“Deterring Qadhafi’s forces from moving forward doesn’t remove him from power, doesn’t create a functioning economy, doesn’t solve humanitarian problems of people being out of their homes, out of work — all of which comes from having this war drag on and on,” said Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. “What gets totally lost here is you have hundreds of thousands of people displaced here — refugees … you’re losing economic opportunity, losing jobs, the educational system is breaking down, the whole infrastructure is coming under pressure.”

“The problem we face, is, having started this without evidently any clear plan as to what the outcome would be, we are everyday making this worse. These are not casual costs: When you don’t have medical services, you may not see people killed, but they’re dying,” Cordesman said. . . .

I will be interested in seeing what happens at the May 20th date. It seems to me that will be the crucial point in time for Obama with his base.

Under the War Powers Act, Obama is supposed to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the Libya operation by May 20 if Congress has not authorized the mission. Presidents have generally complied with the notification requirement in the act, while contending the law is unconstitutional. . . .

Rand Paul has it right:

“I think it’s a big mistake and it’s a very bad precedent to allow a to be fought with no vote in Congress,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a policy luncheon this week in his home state. “Now, it also shows you the hypocrisy of the way politics goes. Many on the left criticized Bush to no end about the Iraq war. In fact, I wasn’t in favor of going to Iraq. But at the very least, Bush came to Congress and we voted before going to Afghanistan and Congress voted before going to Iraq.” . . .

Obama's inconsistent foreign policy: Libya and Syria

Despite big demonstrations and Syrian police opening fire on protestors, Obama isn't going to intervene in Syria. In Egypt, Obama said that the demonstrations showed that Mubarak had lost the support of the Egyptian people. But Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is viewed as "a reformer" despite firing on his citizens? Do we really want to get into a debate over whether Libya had the worst dictatorship? Does anyone really believe that there aren't lots of countries that are at least as bad? What is next bombing Cuba or North Korea? It will be interesting to see whether Obama can provide more of a logical rationale for why he is at war with some countries and not others.

"Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab" of war

Some notes on the Libyan war. From ABC News:

America may be handing off some of the responsibility of Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya to other nations, but it is clear America's service men and women still will be bearing a heavy load, and Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab.

Today, British fighter jets flew high above the Libyan desert searching for targets, taking out six tanks with precision guided missiles. Yet, despite a plan to get the rest of the world more involved, more than half of the nearly 100 strike missions in Libya in the past 24 hours were done by Americans. . . .

The U.S. Navy now has 12 ships in the Mediterranean, in less than a week, firing 184 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The USS Kearsarge is the largest of these ships. The crew has actually been underway for 210 days, with only 4 days in port. In September it was Pakistani flood relief. In January, many of its Marines sent to Afghanistan. In February, it stood by for possible evacuations from Egypt, and now, it's targeting Libya.

Adding to that, American fighter pilots routinely are flying five- to six-hour missions along with 24/7 coverage from communications planes and those aerial refuelers.

But with other nations now taking the lead on enforcing the no-fly zone, the number of American fighter jets at least should be reduced, even though so many of the other aspects of this operation will continue to fall to the U.S. . . .

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

One also has to wonder whether Obama's foreign policy is causing this to happen: "Pakistan Switches Sides, Expanding Arms Allegiance With China and Leaving U.S. Behind . . ."

So what does the Israeli Stock Market think of events in Egypt?

I was surprised that there wasn't more of a change in the Tel Aviv stock market with the events in Israel. Sure the stock market has fallen from its recent peak, but it is still only down about 3.3 percent. Now I assume that there could be further changes that could make a real impact on stock prices. If the military gives control to the Muslim Brotherhood, you might then see a real big change. But whether the stock market doesn't think that will happen or whether it is likely but not of great consequence, the stock market seems to think that it won't make very much difference.

"2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Hosts the Man Who Has Imprisoned the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner"

There is an irony here that won't be mentioned by the mainstream media. Here is an interesting take on this.