January 26, 2015
King Salman, Saudi Arabia’s newly crowned monarch, has a controversial history of helping to fund radical terror groups and has maintained ties with several anti-Semitic Muslim clerics known for advocating radical positions,

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:45 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 80 words, total size 1 kb.
January 24, 2015
"The Houthis are a legitimate political constituency in Yemen and have a right to participate in affairs of the state. We urge them to be a part of a peaceful transition process," Psaki said.


Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:01 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 800 words, total size 7 kb.
January 10, 2015
Parker said British security authorities had "stopped three UK terrorist plots†in recent months but added that "we still face complex and ambitious plots†by extremists who want to "cause large scale loss of life†by targeting transport networks and iconic landmarks.
The First Phase Known as "the awakening" -- this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby "awakening" Muslims. "The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaida as very successful," writes Hussein. "The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target." The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard "everywhere."
The Second Phase "Opening Eyes" is, according to Hussein's definition, the period we are now in and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the "Islamic community." Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaida wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an "army" set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.
The Third Phase This is described as "Arising and Standing Up" and should last from 2007 to 2010. "There will be a focus on Syria," prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and -- even more explosive -- in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaida's masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.
The Fourth Phase Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaida will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The estimate is that "the creeping loss of the regimes' power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida." At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.
The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaida hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.
The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of "total confrontation." As soon as the caliphate has been declared the "Islamic army" it will instigate the "fight between the believers and the non-believers" which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.
The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as "definitive victory." Hussein writes that in the terrorists' eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the "one-and-a-half billion Muslims," the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn't last longer than

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
11:47 PM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
Post contains 869 words, total size 9 kb.
January 07, 2015

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:39 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 394 words, total size 4 kb.
December 15, 2014
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:07 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 204 words, total size 2 kb.
October 04, 2014

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:46 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 577 words, total size 5 kb.
September 10, 2014
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:28 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 407 words, total size 3 kb.
November 10, 2013

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:16 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 154 words, total size 1 kb.
September 23, 2013
The Daily Mail has pictures of the carnage in Nairobi...lots of very disturbing pictures. This reminds me a lot of the Mumbai raid from a few years ago.
Two suicide bombers slaughtered the congregation at a Pakistani church Sunday.
Al-Quaeda has begun a new phase of attacks, less spectacular but much harder to stop.
As Cdr Salamander notes, it's just a matter of time before we're hit again. Read the whole thing, including the comments.
Remember that a few weeks ago the leader of AlQaeda called for small, scale, and lone wolf attacks (he specifically praised the Boston Bombings). Remember the Beltway snipers and what panic that caused. Remember Boston being shut completely down earlier this year.
I expect we're going to see rather a lot of this sort of thing in the future.
Snipers, Pipe bombs, and false threats to wear down the system.
Keep your concealed carry permits up to date and remember that places you are not allowed to carry are the places most likely to be attacked.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:53 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 182 words, total size 2 kb.
September 11, 2013
UPDATE: Subur Banbanshee has further thoughts on the various events that occurred on this date in history. Remember that 2001 and 2012 were exceptions to what has generally been an auspicious date for civilization.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:12 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 70 words, total size 1 kb.
August 29, 2013
Some of his commentors ask a perfectly logical question. 'Who gassed the civilians?' It is widely assumed that Assad did it and indeed he may have. His motivation for doing it on the anniversary of the 'Red Line Speech' would be to show himself to be powerful enough to stand up to the US and gaining the 'badass cred' so important in that part of the world.
However, Al-Quaeda has a more straightforward motivation. They want Assad bombed and his airforce neutralized. We know from painful experience in Iraq that Al-Quaeda is quite capable of using Sarin gas shells to kill (Iraqi nerve gas shells were used as ICWDs). We know that the rebels have overrun some Syrian arms caches. The attack, while horrific was rather small considering the risk. It was not a tide turning attack but an attack on a small group of noncombatants..mostly women and children. This is unlikely to hurt the rebels materially and can only serve to strengthen their resolve and gain them international support. It also could bring about an attack on the Assad regime by the US....which seems to be happening.
The circumstances of the attack are unclear, but it appears to have been confined to a small area in a refugee camp. This is the sort of gas attack the rebels might be able to pull off.
I dunno who did it, but such ambiguity might be used by the President to not end up being Al-Quaeda's air-force in Syria.
UPDATE: Well....Derp.
Have at it in the comments.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:38 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 292 words, total size 2 kb.
August 28, 2013
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:07 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 74 words, total size 1 kb.
August 24, 2013
Given that Syria decided to nerve gas a town on the one year anniversary of the President's 'RED LINE' speech this may be the least bad option.
I don't believe that proportional responses are generally advisable or ethical. If one must use violence one should, as a rule, use overwhelming force. Such a policy is more likely to have a deterrent effect and save more lives in the long run (either through quick victory or deterring violence in the first place) than a predictable escalation of response which can be planned for and factored into cost benefit analysis by bad actors.
However, an overwhelming response in the case of Syria might topple the government. This would ordinarily be a good thing, but give that the opposition forces are AlQuaeda and similar groups, such an outcome would result in wast quantities of weapons including nerve gas plus Syria's stock of radioactives to fall into the hands of a bunch of feral crazies who dearly want to kill us and our Israeli allies.
So a painful but not crippling attack may be the least terrible option.
Of course, this supposes that the President, in his zeal to thwart the execrable Assad regime has not allowed himself to become blinded to the threat posed by its collapse, and doesn't actually intend to bring it down...which as we have discussed before would probably make things even worse.
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:00 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 621 words, total size 5 kb.
August 11, 2013
A Postal Service mail sorting facility at New York's JFK International Airport has been quarantined today after a suspicious package tested positive for VX nerve gas.
Two Customs agents were sicked Sunday morning after inhaling the strange odor coming from the package, which unconfirmed reports indicate was shipped to the United States from China.
That from this Daily Mail article. I'm quite doubtful the Chicoms are sending us nerve gas. If it IS a terror attack it could just as easily been sent from LA or Savannah.
Interesting times.
UPDATE: Now they're saying it was beauty supplies.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:41 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 123 words, total size 2 kb.
July 03, 2013
Wait...Those aren't cluster-bombs!

The Egyptian people seem to be taking the military takeover rather well. The Military does not seem to be rolling over the civilians with tanks and the Muslim Brotherhood seems to have lost resoundingly.
I expected far worse.
The military has suspended the constitution...which is usually an even bigger warning sign than a coup, but in this case the constitution had been recently imposed by Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The military leadership has not established a Junta (yet) but has put the Chief Justice of their Supreme court in charge of a civilian panel that has been tasked with running the country and organizing new elections.
This is interesting:
A senior opposition figure says pro-reform leader Mohamed ElBaradei, the top Muslim cleric of Al-Azhar Mosque and the Coptic pope are meeting the army chief to discuss a political road map for Egypt
So the Copts and the Muslims are working together with the secularists and the military to hold democratic elections after deposing a democratically elected government that turned out to be oppressive and fundamentalist Islamic .
There's a concise overview of how this came to be here.
This is not exactly Kemalist as there are religious leaders at the table, but it at least looks like the military is trying to avoid having to run things themselves, and is handing it over to civilian civic leaders which is very promising.
Zero Hedge has some interesting pictures of the protests that are not making it into most of the news here. They show extreme anger at Obama and the US Ambassador to Egypt for backing the Islamofascistic whackadoodle who just got deposed. This via Instapundit who points out that it's telling that the posters are anti-Obama and not anti-US.
This could still go to worms in a terrible and bloody way, but at this point this is about the least bad outcome one could reasonably expect.
UPDATE: Via Ace, comes video of the celebrations.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:55 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 341 words, total size 3 kb.
June 30, 2013

More here and here. Reuters is putting the number of protestors above a million people....almost all Muslims, protesting against Islamism.
This is really a big thing,
There's even a slight chance it might overcome the odds and end up a good thing.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:51 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 53 words, total size 1 kb.
April 20, 2013
The Brit paper reports that the FBI are looking for as many as a dozen additional accomplices in association with the Boston Marathon Atrocity. The paper uses the term "sleeper cell".
A source close to the investigation said: "We have no doubt the brothers were not acting alone. The devices used to detonate the two bombs were highly sophisticated and not the kind of thing people learn from Google.
Keep in mind that the news reports around this story have been unreliable to say the least, in part due to the fact that the BPD was deliberately feeding misinformation to the press to mislead the suspects.
Still, this report, of an Islamist cell is exactly the kind of thing that a lot of us have been expecting for 12 years. I'm frankly surprised we haven't seen more of it before now. I think that something along the lines of the Mumbai attacks is very likely.
If you have a CCP...utilize it, stay alert and be aware of your surroundings.
Also, take everything with a grain of salt, and above all do not despair.
(I'm moving all Boston posts to the Long War Category, where they now belong)
UPDATE: Note that Robert Stacy McCain is highly skeptical of the Mirror's alleged scoop.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:45 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 221 words, total size 2 kb.
The two men arrested last night in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings drive a car with the licence plate that reads: ‘Terrorista #1’
....snip....
They are thought to be from Kazakhstan and had not been seen since the bombings until last night when their ground floor apartment in New Bedford, MA, was raided by a dozen FBI agents at gunpoint.
Huh.
Later on in the article there is a mention of the very odd confrontation the Daily Mail reporters had with two gentlemen who entered the apartment and with thick Russian accents claimed to be Boston Globe reporters.....and later that they were friends of the people in custody.
In the comments of an earlier post Steven predicted that it ".... ain't over yet." I think he may be right, or at least that this may be a somewhat larger group than we are being led to believe.
Update:
On a lighter note I think we may have to entertain the horrifying possibility that David Sirota could very well be a magical girl now.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:23 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 192 words, total size 2 kb.
April 15, 2013
After all the reporting and speculation today, we don't know much except that much of what was initially reported was inaccurate, this was carefully planned, and the person or people behind it are wicked, clever and apparently at large.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:48 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 54 words, total size 1 kb.
September 16, 2012

For those of you who don't watch the news or tend to write in a vote for Davros just to show how hip you are, here is a brief review of what's going on.
On September 11th The US Embassy in Cairo and a US Consulate in Benghazi Libya were overrun by Islamists. The Cairo staff fled to safety but the ambassador to Libya was among 4 US personnel murdered in Libya.
Ostensibly they were protesting a preview for a low budget, poorly crafted film mocking Islam.
It makes Troma films look like Citizen Kane
The film had been on Youtube for months, and just happened to go viral in the Middle East just in time to put angry Islamic rage boys out in the streets on Sept 11. In actuality the mob seems to have been stirred up by Al-Queada or similar operatives to give cover to the attacks.
Since then the Arab world has exploded into violence directed at US, UK and German embassies. The protests concerning the film have even reached Sydney (Via Pixy, who is OK)
Fortunately for our Australian friends the Sydney police are dealing with this more forthrightly than our executive branch.
You see, Ambassador Stevens bloody handprints had not yet dried when the Cairo Embassy issued an apology for the film. They've 'memory holed it' so here it is the copypasta
U.S. Embassy Condemns Religious Incitement
September 11, 2012
The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.
Ummm...no.
We ought'a condemn those who go on a wilding spree when somebody publishes something that offends them.
Shortly after that apology was issued, Mitt Romney, who was not my first...nor my third choice for the Republican nomination issued a tweet condemning the above press release. Romney is being castigated for this despite the fact that Secretary Clinton issued a concurring condemnation.
It gets worse...
There was then a huge hue and cry to shut down this mans film because it got a bunch of violent nasty troglodytes angry.
Romney has been clear that his criticism is directed at the blinkered notion that this idiotic film is an abuse of free speech and should be censored.
On the other hand, The Obama administration actually told YouTube to pull the film. Remarkably, YouTube suddenly chose this moment to develop a spine regards such matters and is refusing to pull the clip.
Now the Obama administration has hauled in the filmaker for questioning because he made a video that offended people.
This is because those people blow up things and slit throats when they are offended.
Well, that is exactly the behavior they are rewarding.
And then there is the whole troubling precedent of hauling people away and censoring art because a vocal constituency finds it offensive.
Glenn Reynolds, a constitutional law professor has an unusually long post on this that I urge you to read in full. Here's a key bit though...
When taking office, the President does not swear to create jobs. He does not swear to "grow the economy.†He does not swear to institute "fairness.†The only oath the President takes is this one:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Ann Althouse has thoughts, and a sobering corollary to Sturgeons Law.
"90% of everything is crud," said Theodore Sturgeon. It's Sturgeon's Law... to which I humbly offer the Althouse Corollary:
If there's a crud exception to freedom, we are only 10% free.
Ace of Spades responds to Will Saletan's idiotarianism and nails it in a post that defies excerpting.
Through all this, Romney, who has a well deserved reputation as a political weather-vane, has been remarkably firm and consistent on this matter. He has repeatedly said that we do not apologize for our nations tradition of free speech...even if that speech is offensive. Indeed it is the offensive speech that is rather the point. He's taking a hell of a lot of flack for stating this simple truth, which is disheartening...but not as disheartening as seeing the White House and DOJ haul a uy away in the middle of the night for making a film that is considered blasphemous.
Those of you who told me that you were going to once again write in a vote for Davros because both the candidates remind you of early '30s Germany or early 20's Italy...well, I'll concede something that I would not have a short time ago.
Namely, that you are half right.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:16 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 882 words, total size 8 kb.
77 queries taking 0.3164 seconds, 258 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.