Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
US MAY CONSIDER SENDING TROOPS TO LIBYA
IF THE US REALLY WANTS GADDAFI OUT, GROUND TROOPS MAY HAVE TO BE SENT IN AFTER HIM.
Amplify’d from www.military.com
Ham: US May Consider Sending Troops to Libya
April 08, 2011Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels, the former U.S. commander of the military mission said Thursday, describing the current operation as a stalemate that is more likely to go on now that America has handed control to NATO.
But Army Gen. Carter Ham also told lawmakers that American participation in a ground force would not be ideal, since it could erode the international coalition attacking Moammar Gadhafi's forces and make it more difficult to get Arab support for operations in Libya.
He said NATO has done an effective job in an increasingly complex combat situation. But he noted that, in a new tactic, Gadhafi's forces are making airstrikes more difficult by staging their fighters and vehicles near civilian areas such as schools and mosques.
The use of an international ground force is a possible plan to bolster the Libyan rebels, Ham said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Asked whether the U.S. would provide troops, Ham said, "I suspect there might be some consideration of that. My personal view at this point would be that that's probably not the ideal circumstance, again for the regional reaction that having American boots on the ground would entail."President Obama has said repeatedly there will be no U.S. troops on the ground in Libya, although there are reports of small CIA teams in the country.
Pressed by Sen. John McCain, a leading Republican, about the situation in Libya, Ham agreed that a stalemate "is now more likely" since NATO took command.
Ham also disclosed that the U.S. is providing some strike aircraft to the NATO operation that do not need to go through the special approval process recently established. The powerful side-firing AC-130 gunship is available to NATO commanders, he said.
His answer countered earlier claims by the Pentagon that all strike aircraft must be requested through U.S. European Command and approved by top U.S. leaders, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Ham said that process still applies to other fighters and the A-10 Thunderbolt, which can provide close-air support for ground forces. He said that process is quick, and other defense officials have said it can take about a day for the U.S. to approve the request and move the aircraft in from bases in Europe.
Overall, he said the U.S. is providing less than 15 percent of the airstrikes and between 60 percent and 70 percent of the support effort, which includes intelligence gathering, surveillance, electronic warfare and refueling.
Recent bad weather and threats from Gadhafi's mobile surface-to-air missile systems have hampered efforts to use the AC-130 and A-10 aircraft for close-air support for friendly ground forces. Ham said those conditions, which include as many as 20,000 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, contributed to the stalemate.
Ham said he believes some Arab nations are starting to provide training or weapons to the rebels. And he repeated assertions that the U.S. needs to know more about the opposition forces before it would get more deeply involved in assisting them.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, complained that the lack of knowledge about the rebels is a U.S. intelligence failure.
"It strikes me as unusual and maybe something that Congress needs to look at further, that our intelligence capabilities are so limited that we don't even know the composition of the opposition force in Libya, " Cornyn said.Ham said it was important for the U.S. to turn control over to NATO because many of the troops involved in the Libya strikes are preparing to go to Iran or Afghanistan or have just recently returned from the warfront.
"While we can certainly surge to meet operational needs," Ham said, "there is a longer-term effect if greater numbers of U.S. forces had been committed for a longer period of time in Libya and it would have had downstream operational effects in other missions."
Separately, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said U.S. envoy Chris Stevens' talks continue with the Libyan opposition in Benghazi.
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HOW THE U.S. SUGAR COATED THE REAL LIBYA
Amplify’d from www.kansascity.com
WikiLeaks cables show U.S. took softer line toward Libya
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY
McClatchy Newspapers
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Dozens of confidential and secret cables sent in recent years by the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli to the State Department describe a softer and gentler Libya that Americans following the bloody crisis there now would have a hard time recognizing.
Moammar Gadhafi's son Saif al Islam, who has become the most vehement defender of his father's bloody onslaughts against protesters that triggered the civil war, is portrayed as a human rights advocate and reformer on the losing end of a battle with his harder line brother, Muatassim, Moammar Gadhafi's national security adviser.
Moussa Koussa, the former foreign minister who recently defected to Britain, is called a "useful" and "powerful interlocutor" who seeks closer ties with the U.S. But there is no mention of his suspected roles in patronizing international terrorist groups, the 1988 midair bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 190 Americans or the 1989 downing of a plane in Africa that killed the wife of a U.S. ambassador.
The cables, part of a cache of 251,287 sensitive U.S. diplomatic communications that the WikiLeaks website first began publishing in November and that it recently passed to McClatchy Newspapers, also describe the problems encountered by U.S. officials charged with trying to foster military, trade and counterterrorism cooperation with Libya.
Mike Hammer, the acting State Department spokesman, declined to comment specifically on the cables' contents.
"The United States strongly condemns any illegal disclosure of classified information," he said in an email. "In addition to damaging our diplomatic efforts, it puts individuals' security at risk, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with countries to solve shared problems. We do not comment on the authenticity of the documents released by WikiLeaks."
Taken as a whole, the cables lift the veil on quiet but persistent efforts by the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama to end Gadhafi's decades of isolation and enlist his cooperation in fighting terrorism and resolving regional conflicts. But in light of current events, they also raise questions about whether U.S. officials were so focused on that mission that they were blind to the ruthlessness with which the regime would crush any challenge to its power.
The views reflected in the cables sent during the Bush and Obama administrations contrast sharply with the views expressed during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
A 12-page November 1991 "white paper" that U.S. embassies were instructed to share with their host governments during the George H.W. Bush presidency recited a litany of terrorist acts blamed on Libya, including the Lockerbie bombing and the September 1989 midair bombing that killed 171 people, including Bonnie Pugh, the wife of the then U.S. ambassador to Chad, Robert Pugh.
The cable identified Koussa by name as a Gadhafi "confidant" who headed the Anti-Imperialism Center, which, the paper said, "is used by the Libyan government to support terrorist networks."
The goal of that cable was to gain support for international sanctions to isolate Gadhafi's regime. But that goal had changed substantially 18 years later.
A cable quotes Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman as having told Koussa at a July 27, 2009, meeting in Tripoli that the U.S. seeks "to press the relationship forward by establishing a series of dialogues on human rights, political-military relations, trade and investment, and civil-nuclear engagement."
Feltman even held out the possibility that Obama would meet with Moammar Gadhafi during the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York that September.
But prospects of progress were repeatedly dashed by a regime that reflected the mercurial and unpredictable nature of its leader, the cables show.
For instance, the regime reneged on assurances to U.S. officials that the intelligence agent convicted of the Lockerbie bombing would receive a low-key reception after his Aug. 20, 2009, release from a Scottish prison on health grounds. Instead, Abdel Bassett al Megrahi received a hero's welcome, triggering angry condemnation from Obama.
In November 2009, the Gadhafi regime resorted to what amounted to nuclear blackmail in an unsuccessful bid to strong-arm the Obama administration into selling Libya U.S. weapons and funding the construction of a nuclear medicine center.
At the last moment, the regime refused on Nov. 25 to allow the last 12 pounds of highly enriched uranium from its abandoned nuclear arms program to be flown to Russia for disposal, prompting U.S. experts to warn that the overheating material would rupture the shipment casks and leak in an "environmental disaster."
Two days later, Saif Gadhafi told U.S. Ambassador Gene A. Cretz that the shipment, which was protected by a single armed guard, had been stopped because Libya was "fed up" with the slow pace of bilateral normalization and a U.S. failure to reward the regime for giving up its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
Saif Gadhafi also relayed a litany of other perceived U.S. slights, including a U.S. refusal to allow his father to stay in a tent while he attended the U.N. General Assembly session two months earlier, Cretz wrote in a Nov. 30, 2009, cable.
"Libya sought a high-level reaffirmation of the United States' commitment to the bilateral relationship, in the form of a message to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in order to move forward on the HEU shipment," Cretz wrote.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reaffirmed U.S. intentions to expand relations in a Dec. 3, 2009, telephone call to Koussa, and the highly enriched uranium shipment was flown to Russia, according to a Dec. 7, 2009, cable signed by the embassy's No. 2 official, Joan A. Polaschik. The cable said that Saif Gadhafi's chief of staff, Mohamed Ismail Ahmed, had told another embassy official that "the secretary's Dec. 3 call to Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa had expressed the statement of commitment requested by Saif during his recent meeting with the ambassador."
There is no indication in the cables that Koussa's suspected role in terrorist incidents ever came up in his frequent meetings with U.S. officials after the George W. Bush administration re-established diplomatic relations with Libya in May 2005.
According to the 1991 White Paper, Koussa, who became foreign minister in March 2009, had, as head of the Anti-Imperialism Center, overseen the provision of training, arms and other support to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal and other Middle Eastern and Latin American terrorist groups.
By 2005, however, U.S. officials were much more concerned about Gadhafi's agreement to give up secret chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Gadhafi also was quietly helping the U.S.-led fight against al-Qaida, which counted numerous Libyans in its ranks.
A June 25, 2008, cable authored by the U.S. charge in Tripoli, Chris Stevens, said that Libya's foreign intelligence service, which Koussa then oversaw, was working closely with Syria to stop Libyans from crossing into Iraq to fight U.S. troops.
Information provided by Koussa's agency "suggests that over 100 Libyan foreign fighters have been transferred from Syria to the custody of the GOL (government of Libya) in the past two years," Stevens wrote. Stevens is now the special U.S. envoy to the Libyan rebel leadership.
The embassy's "assessment is that the GOL has calculated that returning extremists pose a potentially serious threat to the regime's stability, and that efforts to stem the flow of Libyan foreign fighters to Iraq are in its strategic interest," Stevens wrote.
It wasn't just the administration that was pushing to improve ties with Tripoli.
An Aug. 31, 2006, cable summarizes the second visit to Libya in as many years by the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., then the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee.
Lantos is quoted as telling Libyan officials that having seen Libya removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and full diplomatic relations re-established, "his next goal is to increase the number of Libyan students studying in America from 150 ... to 6,000 over the next three years."
Meeting with Saif Gadhafi, Lantos was quoted as saying he was "very proud" of a speech that Gadhafi's son had made earlier that week calling for major political and economic reforms.
Numerous cables discuss Saif Gadhafi's advocacy of a freer news media, the adoption of a revised constitution and his support for closer ties with the U.S., and the opposition he encountered from his father's more conservative lieutenants.
Once seen as Moammar Gadhafi's hand-picked heir, Saif Gadhafi is described as losing a succession struggle to his younger, less sophisticated brother, Muatassim, who apparently gained the support of his father and the conservatives.
In a June 18, 2009, cable, Cretz, the U.S. ambassador, says that a regime takeover of Saif Gadhafi's media company, the al Ghad Group, represented the "end of nominally independent media in Libya" and a "serious blow" to Saif Gadhafi. The takeover, the cable said of Saif Gadhafi, shows "the limits of the 'soft power' approach he has taken in his effort to effect political-economic reform."
The loss of the company, Cretz said, followed a Cabinet reshuffle that preserved a conservative as prime minister and the rejection by the Libyan parliament of a new constitution that Saif Gadhafi had drafted.
"The seizure of the al Ghad Group is a significant development in the context of the ongoing struggle for primacy between Saif al Islam and Muatassim," Cretz wrote. "It is of a piece of the view that while Muatassim's star is waxing, Saif al Islam's is waning."
The cables describe the frictions between the conservatives and more moderate officials as extending to ties with the U.S. The former are resistant and the later want better relations, albeit in exchange for sales of U.S. military hardware and U.S. funds for civilian nuclear technology that they believe Libya deserves as rewards for giving up its weapons of mass destruction programs.
In a Jan. 15. 2009, cable, Cretz relates a conversation in which a senior Libyan official expresses his "private view" that "Libya would miss its window of opportunity for expanded cooperation and engagement with the U.S. because of disorganization within the regime and lingering ambivalence about the nature of the relationship Libya wants."
The official, whose name McClatchy Newspapers is withholding for safety reasons, told Cretz there was a "pro-U.S. camp and a group that remained suspicious of U.S. motives and steadfastly opposed to a broader suite of engagement."
The pro-U.S. group included Gadhafi, Saif al Islam and Muatassim, the cable said.
Posted on Thu, Apr. 07, 2011 06:38 PM
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Thursday, April 7, 2011
OBAMA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE
Amplify’d from www.staradvertiser.com
Appeals court rebuffs man seeking Obama birth certificate
By Star-Advertiser staff
POSTED: 11:02 a.m. HST, Apr 07, 2011
<p>The state appeals court affirmed this morning the denial of a request to inspect and review President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.<br />
<br />
In a 3-0 vote, the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld a 2009 ruling by then-state Circuit Judge Eden Elizabeth Hifo, who dismissed the lawsuit by a man identified as “Dr. Robert V. Justice,” who represented himself. He listed a Beverly Hills, Calif., address on his court papers.</p>
<p>In his legal brief to the appeals court, Justice wrote the inspection of the birth certificate will “ensure the health and safety of all 300 million of us by making sure that our military and our nuclear and chemical arsenals are still under our control and not in the control of any one of our enemies.”<br />
<br />
The appeals court said Justice sought the review under the state open-records law requiring the disclosure of documents based on a showing of “compelling circumstances affecting the health or safety of any individual.”<br />
<br />
But the court said the provision relates to access to records in “medical or safety emergency situations.”<br />
<br />
Birth certificates are confidential under state law, except to certain people, such as relatives, who have a “direct and tangible interest” in the records. <br />
<br />
Justice had written a letter dated Dec. 31, 2008, to the state Health Department seeking to inspect the birth certificate to “allow me and other fellow Americans to determine whether or not Mr. Obama is eligible to hold the Office of President,” the appeals court said.<br />
<br />
After the department denied his request, Justice filed the lawsuit seeking a court order directing the department to disclose the birth certificate.<br />
<br />
Chief Judge Craig Nakamura of the appeals court wrote the 17-page opinion. Appeals Judge Katherine Leonard wrote a concurring opinion.</p>
Star-Advertiser archives
This file image shows the certificate of live birth issued by the state of Hawaii for Barack Obama. The Intermediate Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling denying access to a man who wanted to personally inspect Obama's birth certificate.
The state appeals court affirmed this morning the denial of a request to inspect and review President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
In a 3-0 vote, the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld a 2009 ruling by then-state Circuit Judge Eden Elizabeth Hifo, who dismissed the lawsuit by a man identified as “Dr. Robert V. Justice,” who represented himself. He listed a Beverly Hills, Calif., address on his court papers.
In his legal brief to the appeals court, Justice wrote the inspection of the birth certificate will “ensure the health and safety of all 300 million of us by making sure that our military and our nuclear and chemical arsenals are still under our control and not in the control of any one of our enemies.”
The appeals court said Justice sought the review under the state open-records law requiring the disclosure of documents based on a showing of “compelling circumstances affecting the health or safety of any individual.”
But the court said the provision relates to access to records in “medical or safety emergency situations.”
Birth certificates are confidential under state law, except to certain people, such as relatives, who have a “direct and tangible interest” in the records.
Justice had written a letter dated Dec. 31, 2008, to the state Health Department seeking to inspect the birth certificate to “allow me and other fellow Americans to determine whether or not Mr. Obama is eligible to hold the Office of President,” the appeals court said.
After the department denied his request, Justice filed the lawsuit seeking a court order directing the department to disclose the birth certificate.
Chief Judge Craig Nakamura of the appeals court wrote the 17-page opinion. Appeals Judge Katherine Leonard wrote a concurring opinion.
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BAHRAIN'S RULERS TIGHTEN THEIR RULE
Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com
Bahrain’s Rulers Tighten Their Grip on Battered Opposition By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: April 6, 2011
SAAR, Bahrain — Thousands of weeping mourners filled the streets of this dusty village on Wednesday, pumping their fists and calling for the death of the royal family.
Hasan Jamali/Associated Press
Sayed Hameed Sayed Mahfood's relatives awaited his funeral on Wednesday in Saar, Bahrain. They blame the police in his death.
Multimedia
Related
Defense Chief Is on Mission to Mend Saudi Relations
(April 7, 2011)
Shiites in Iraq Support Bahrain’s Protesters
(April 2, 2011)
The protesters did not seem intimidated by the presence of police cars and an army helicopter overhead. “We only bow to God,” they chanted as they carried a coffin draped in Bahraini flags.
The funeral march was for Sayed Hameed Sayed Mahfood, a 60-year-old plumber, who was found dead in a garbage bag, 100 feet away from his car.
Doctors said that there was no sign of trauma and that it appeared that he had died of a heart attack, but no one here believed them. Only the week before, a 15-year-old boy in the village was bludgeoned to death by the police, several villagers said, for doing nothing more than running away from them.
With Saudi troops now in the country to support King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, Bahrain has taken on the likeness of a police state. There have been mass arrests, mass firings of government workers, reports of torture and, on Sunday, the forced resignation of the top editor of the nation’s one independent newspaper.
Emergency laws give the security forces the right to search houses at will without a warrant and dissolve any organization, including legal political parties, deemed a danger to the state. Even two members of the national soccer team were arrested this week, despite apologizing on television for attending antigovernment rallies last month.
In response, a once joyous but splintered opposition has been forced to come up with new strategies. The intensity of the repression is pushing some toward militancy, while others are holding back, at least for now.
“People are in shock because of the intensity of the crackdown,” said Aqeelah Wahab, the daughter of Abdul Wahab Hussein, the leader of a militant Shiite party, Al Wafa, who was pulled out of his home and imprisoned last month. She is an activist herself. “With this government, you don’t know what they will do. The people are taking a break to see what the government will do with the prisoners.”
There have been signs of wavering. Protest leaders who have not been imprisoned keep their followers informed by Facebook and Twitter, but some recent calls to action have received little response. The 10 Shiite members who protested by quitting the appointed Advisory Council, the upper house of Parliament, have returned to their desks in recent days, as have several Shiite judges who had stepped down.
Only last month, euphoric crowds appeared on the verge of shaking serious concessions from the monarchy. Thousands filled Pearl Square in Manama, the capital, to listen to a cacophony of speeches calling for freedom.
But ever since troops cleared the square in a cloud of tear gas and bullets three weeks ago and then bulldozed the Pearl monument, the area around it has been empty of everything but tanks and armored cars.
The protesters were inspired by the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt, but their struggle and challenges were different. They are predominantly Shiites, who make up 70 percent of the population, in a country whose monarchy and much of the business elite are Sunnis. While their struggle is tinged by ethnic animosity, their chief opponents in the streets are an army and security force who are predominantly foreigners, principally Pakistani, Yemeni, Iraqi and Jordanian.
The demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people last month have given way to small marches and protests at funerals. The centers of rebellion are now in villages outside Manama like Saar and Shahrakkan, where residents have set up barricades of stones and bricks so police officers on patrol need to leave their armored cars and walk through the narrow stone pathways. Every night at 10, residents climb to their roofs and anonymously cry in protest, “God is great!”
“The people will not give up,” said Jawad F. G. Fairooz, a leader of Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, a moderate Shiite party, who resigned in protest last month from the elected Council of Representatives. “The government can keep people silent for a time, but they cannot guarantee that another uprising will not come at any moment.”Next Page »
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The government and pro-government media are celebrating the relative calm in downtown Manama as a return to the kind of normality that has made this tiny island nation an important banking center and regional tourist destination. They charge that the predominantly Shiite opposition is inspired and even aided by Iran, although most Bahraini Shiites are Arabs, unlike Iranians, and associate themselves more closely with Iraqi Shiites.
The Bahraini government had originally appeared willing to compromise with the opposition, particularly the more moderate faction that wants the country to evolve into a true parliamentary monarchy that gives elected lawmakers more power. At one point last month the king even apologized for the deaths of demonstrators on television, and government officials say they are still open to reform.
“Reform is continuing and will never stop,” the prime minister, Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, was quoted in the Bahraini media as telling members of the royal family on Monday. “The determination to carry on with it will never diminish, for it is a means to achieve a sublime goal, which is the national interest.”
Despite the calls for reform, by the accounts of Bahraini human rights activists, 26 people have been killed, most in the past three weeks since Pearl Square was cleared. More than 300 have been imprisoned, and at least 35 people are missing.
Two political prisoners who were released have said that many detainees have been tortured with electric shocks, beatings and sexual abuse, said Mohammed al-Maskati, president of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights. As many as 800 workers have been fired from the government and companies partly owned by the government, apparently on the suspicion that they had attended the rallies, said the lawmakers who resigned in protest. And scores of university students have lost government-sponsored scholarships.
“They are leaving no oppressive stone unturned,” said Dan Williams, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch who is in Bahrain. “They enter the homes of people already detained and ransack their homes; they are keeping people in detention with limited access to their lawyers and families.”
The Obama administration, which considers Bahrain a crucial ally, has issued tempered criticisms of the crackdown but has not pressed for a change in government. Bahrain hosts the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and its Sunni monarchy is strongly backed by Saudi Arabia.
As the mourners in Saar marched in their village, they called for the death of the Saudi and Bahraini royal families.
Members of the dead man’s family insisted that he had never been involved in politics, unlike many others in the village. “Maybe they killed him because he is Shiite, no other reason,” said his cousin Mohammed Saeed.
Whatever the man’s politics, he was hailed as a martyr of the cause. Members of the crowd called out for revenge.
“Whether you participate or not, this is what happens,” Mr. Saeed said. “Now, we have to fight for our rights.”
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Wednesday, April 6, 2011
PRESIDENT ALONE CAN SIGN DEATH WARRANT
Amplify’d from www.nypost.com
Prez alone can sign death warrant: law
By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent
Last Updated:
4:59 AM, April 6, 2011
Posted:
3:09 AM, April 6, 2011
Comments: 5
WASHINGTON -- President Obama will have to personally sign the death warrant for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed if the military tribunal he's going to face sentences him to the ultimate penalty.
Mohammed would likely have faced the death penalty in a civilian proceeding -- an avenue the Obama administration rejected yesterday after confronting withering pressure from lawmakers and families of Sept. 11 victims.
They did not want the trial held in lower Manhattan, only blocks from the scene of the monstrous crime.
The rules governing special military commissions, updated by a 2009 law, are entirely different.
EPA
Khalid Sheik Mohammed
The lives of the defendants would be in the hands of a jury of military officers in Guantanamo Bay who would follow special rules for evidence and witnesses.
Among the rules buried in a 2010 procedural manual is a provision that gives Obama ultimate authority over the man prosecutors will charge led the conspiracy to plan the deadly attacks.
"A punishment of death may be ordered executed only by the President," according to the manual.
The president would also have the authority to "commute, remit, or suspend the sentence, or any part thereof, as he sees fit."
But such a reprieve would be highly unlikely.
Obama has written that he backs the "ultimate punishment" in cases that are "heinous" and "beyond the pale."
A Senate staffer told The Post, "there are going to be all kinds of charges brought up on these [defendants] so they'll [Mohammed and his four co-conspirators] certainly be eligible for the death penalty."
But Joanne Mariner, who directs the human-rights program at Hunter College, said, "It's likely to be a really unpredictable trial.
"I've seen KSM in court. He basically tries to plead guilty every time he comes into the courtroom," she said.
That, strangely, could cause difficulty for prosecutors, because military-commission rules are ambiguous on whether a guilty plea is sufficient to get a defendant to the penalty phase.
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) have proposed legislation to clarify that defendants like Mohammed could still be executed if they choose to plead guilty and avoid trial.
Meanwhile, the White House and Attorney General Eric Holder backed the decision to try to Mohammed and his four co-conspirators at Guantanamo -- after realizing there was so much opposition to trying them in New York.
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Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
THE ADMINISTRATION IS WAFFLING AGAIN
FIRST THEY SAY THEY SUPPORT YEMENI'S GOV'T, THEN THEY DON'T.
Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com
SANA, Yemen — The United States, which long supported Yemen’s president, even in the face of recent widespread protests, has now quietly shifted positions and has concluded that he is unlikely to bring about the required reforms and must be eased out of office, according to American and Yemeni officials.
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END OF "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL"
IF THEY REPEAL THIS LAW DOESN'T IT MEAN GAYS CAN'T SERVE.
Amplify’d from www.watertowndailytimes.com
REPEAL TO END THIS SUMMER
'DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL': Law to be implemented after Army finishes training
By MARC HELLERTIMES WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department will let gays and lesbians serve openly in the military around midsummer, Pentagon officials said Friday.
How quickly the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law can be implemented depends on the Army, which has the greatest number of soldiers to train in the new policy, said Clifford L. Stanley, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
The military's adjustment to open service by gays and lesbians was the subject of a hearing at the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel. Mr. Stanley withstood criticism and skepticism from some Republicans who continue to support banning gays from the military, though attention has largely turned to how the military can make the transition as smooth as possible.
"We're looking at midsummer to go toward certification," Mr. Stanley said, referring to the congressionally mandated process that determines that the military is ready to change the policy.
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Sunday, April 3, 2011
LIGHTS OVER CHICAGO
PHOENIX LIKE LIGHTS/UFOs OVER CHICAGO
Amplify’d from abcnews.go.com
UFOs Over Chicago? Strange Lights in Sky Caught on Video
Row of Unexplained Lights Seemed to Move and Blink Together
By DEAN SCHABNER
April 3, 2011
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A strange group of lights moving together across the Chicago sky Saturday night has some residents there wondering if what they saw were UFOs.
One of those people, Nicole Dragozetich, caught the unexplained phenomenon on her cell phone video camera.
She said she was driving down 35th Street and Western on Chicago's South Side at approximately 8 p.m. Saturday when she noticed at least a dozen people stopped in their tracks, staring at the sky.
The video she shot shows a line of several lights seeming to fly together low in the nighttime sky. The lights were orange, and they all seemed to blink together.
At first they were traveling in a straight line, but then formed different patterns.
On the video voices of the people watching the lights can be heard saying, "They came from Roswell," and "That's creepy. I want to know what it is."
Mark Bishop, meteorologist ABC station WLC-TV in Chicago said there were no unusual weather occurrences in the area Saturday evening reported by the National Weather Service.
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Saturday, April 2, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
MORE FIGHTING AROUND THE WORLD
Amplify’d from news.sky.com
vory Coast: Fierce Clashes In Abidjan
7:05pm UK, Friday April 01, 2011
Fierce fighting has turned Ivory Coast's largest city into a war zone, as the country's president refuses to step down after losing an election.
Troops loyal to Laurent Gbagbo have clashed with forces seeking to install presidential rival Alassane Ouattara - the man named by UN-certified results as the rightful winner of the November 28 election.
The heaviest clashes have centred around the state television station in Abidjan, which went off the air after it was attacked by pro-Ouattara forces. They now claim to have seized control of the building.
Heavy weapons fire could also be heard from near Mr Gbagbo's residence and presidential palace, both of which have come under attack, as well as two military bases.
Threats from looters have seen hundreds of foreigners taken to a French military camp, amid reports of massive looting sprees in Abidjan's leafy Deux Plateau suburb.
Mr Gbagbo has refused to step down after losing November's election
United Nations helicopters have also been seen circling above the the city, but have so far not intervened.
However, the peacekeeping mission has confirmed its headquarters were fired on by Gbagbo's special forces on Thursday, and that they returned fire in an exchange lasting about three hours.
French officials have also said a French language teacher has been found shot dead in a hotel room in the city of Yamoussoukro. It is not known whether the teacher was targeted for his nationality, or whether the death was as a result of the ongoing violence.
Hundreds of people have been killed in violence since the election, reigniting the civil war of 2002-3.
Earlier this week, Mr Ouattara's forces advanced from several directions, taking the capital, Yamoussoukro, and the cocoa port of San Pedro with little resistance.
Pro-Ouattara forces on patrol
They are now in charge of an estimated 80% of the troubled West African country.
Journalist Monica Mark, in Abidjan, told Sky News: "The chief of the army has defected and the regime is crumbling.
"Mr Gbagbo has adopted a scorched earth policy and handed out weapons to thousands of young followers so his successor will have to deal with that security issue."
In power since 2000, Mr Gbagbo's mandate ran out in 2005, but the presidential election was delayed until 2010 because of instability in the country.
A Sorbonne-educated history professor, he rose to prominence as firebrand lecturer who challenged the autocratic rule of Ivory Coast's first post-independence president.
The conflict has forced around a million people to flee Abidjan and some 112,000 others have crossed into Liberia, to the west, according to the UN.
Former northern rebels from the civil war now back Mr Ouattara
Residents across the city said the state broadcaster stopped transmitting at 10.45pm on Thursday after repeatedly showing images of Mr Gbagbo and his close entourage. Mr Gbagbo has been due to speak on state media for days.
Fears remain for ongoing instability as opposing forces seek to control Abidjan in the coming days.
"Although Mr Ouattara has tried to distance himself from insurgents they have contributed with his rise to power and he has to grapple with those factions who want a slice of the pie for helping bringing him into power," Miss Mark said.
A Foreign Office spokesperson condemned the clashes.
"We are gravely concerned by the violence that continues to occur in Abidjan and deplore any loss of life. We call on all sides to exercise restraint. Reports of human rights violations must be investigated and those responsible held to account."
:: Save the Children have evacuated three members of their international staff from Abidjan, amid escalating violence.
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