Underground Stories 090314

Missing Libyan Jetliners Raise Fears of Suicide Airliner Attacks on 9/11

Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen commercial jetliners last month, and western intelligence agencies recently issued a warning that the jets could be used in terrorist attacks across North Africa.
Intelligence reports of the stolen jetliners were distributed within the U.S. government over the past two weeks and included a warning that one or more of the aircraft could be used in an attack later this month on the date marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, said U.S. officials familiar with the reports.
“There are a number of commercial airliners in Libya that are missing,” said one official. “We found out on September 11 what can happen with hijacked planes.”
The official said the aircraft are a serious counterterrorism concern because reports of terrorist control over the Libyan airliners come three weeks before the 13th anniversary of 9/11 attacks and the second anniversary of the Libyan terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.
Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the Benghazi attack, which the Obama administration initially said was the result of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Muslim video.
A senior State Department counterterrorism official declined to comment on reports of the stolen jetliners.
 A second State department official sought to downplay the reports. “We can’t confirm that,” he said.
Meanwhile, officials said Egyptian military forces appear to be preparing to intervene in Libya to prevent the country from becoming a failed state run by terrorists, many with ties to al Qaeda.
Libya remains an oil-rich state and if the country is taken over completely by Islamist extremists, U.S. counterterrorism officials believe it will become another terrorist safe haven in the region.
The officials said U.S. intelligence agencies have not confirmed the aircraft theft following the takeover of Tripoli International Airport in late August, and are attempting to locate all aircraft owned by two Libyan state-owned airline companies, as security in the country continued to deteriorate amid fighting between Islamists and anti-Islamist militias.
Video surfaced on Sunday showing armed fighters from the Islamist militia group Libyan Dawn partying inside a captured U.S. diplomatic compound in Tripoli. The footage showed one fighter diving into a pool from a second-story balcony at the facility.
Tripoli airport and at least seven aircraft were reported damaged during fighting that began in July. Photos of the airport in the aftermath showed a number of damaged aircraft. The airport has been closed since mid-July.

Obama: That's it, we're going to 'degrade and destroy' ISIS

The United States plans to fight Islamic State until it is no longer a force in the Middle East and will seek justice for the killing of American journalist Steven Sotloff, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday.
He added destroying the militant group will take time because of the power vacuum in Syria, the abundance of battle hardened fighters that grew out of al-Qaeda in the Iraqi war, and the need to build coalitions, including with local Sunni communities.
Islamic State released a video on Tuesday showing the beheading of the U.S. journalist, the second American hostage to be killed within weeks, in retaliation for U.S. air strikes in Iraq.
“The bottom line is this, our objective is clear and that is to degrade and destroy (Islamic State) so that it’s no longer a threat not just to Iraq but also the region and to the United States," Obama told a news conference.
“Whatever these murderers think they will achieve with killing innocent Americans like Steven, they have already failed," Obama said. "They failed because, like people around the world, Americans are repulsed by their barbarism. We will not be intimidated."

You want to believe he means it, but it's hard to escape the suspicion that this time he felt the need to go overboard in his bellicosity to make up for his denounce-and-go-golfing performance after the murder of James Foley.
I bolded the part in the second paragraph about the mission taking time because it harkens back to Donald Rumsfeld warning everyone that the War on Terror would be a "long, hard slog." It was Rummy's way of preparing a nation that had become programmed by people-pleasing politicians to expect quick, pinprick attacks that were announced as huge successes, after which we could all immediately get back to watching Orange Is The New Black or whatever.
This turned out to be the very thing that Democrats played into electoral success in 2006 and 2008, as the nation accepted the long-term nature of the effort for awhile, but eventually lost its nerve and started listening to nonsense about how Democrats would instead use "smart power" or whatever.
Does Obama now accept that the United States has no choice but to go after its enemies with abandon? Is he prepared to commit the manpower and firepower necessary? Is he prepared to risk upsetting the princes and emirs of the Arab world? Is he ready to defend the effort when we suffer a setback, make a mistake, accidentally kill civilians, or find that the limited parameters of the mission were unrealistic and we have to do more than we originally thought?
Because George W. Bush understood all that and was willing to risk his political capital to get the job done. It was Barack Obama who came along and took advantage politically. Is Obama now prepared to exercise the same courage in the service of principle?

What do you think? Call SPIII RADIO tomorrow night at 10pm Eastern and give us your opinion!


Now he did announce yesterday that he's sending 350 ground troops to Iraq, which forces him to backtrack from his all-too-recent promise of never putting boots on the ground there again. Of course, he insists they will be in a non-combat role, only charged with protecting the U.S. Embassy and the Baghdad Airport. Then again, whether our troops have to engage in combat is not entirely up to us, is it? It seems to me that ISIS will have something to say about that.
And how exactly are we supposed to "degrade and destroy" them if we send in troops with instructions not to engage in combat?
None of this makes any sense, and probably the best we can say is that we know Obama's making it up as he goes along - he's already told us he doesn't have a strategy - so whatever he says today will surely be inoperative tomorrow. That's what passes as a reassuring observation with this administration.
Related: Obama given detailed intelligence for a year about rise of ISIS



Middle East Time Bomb: The Real Aim of ISIS Is to Replace the Saud Family as the New Emirs of Arabia

BEIRUT -- ISIS is indeed a veritable time bomb inserted into the heart of the Middle East. But its destructive power is not as commonly understood. It is not with the "March of the Beheaders"; it is not with the killings; the seizure of towns and villages; the harshest of "justice" -- terrible though they are -- that its true explosive power lies. It is yet more potent than its exponential pull on young Muslims, its huge arsenal of weapons and its hundreds of millions of dollars.

"We should understand that there is really almost nothing that the West can now do about it but sit and watch."

Its real potential for destruction lies elsewhere -- in the implosion of Saudi Arabia as a foundation stone of the modern Middle East. We should understand that there is really almost nothing that the West can now do about it but sit and watch.
The clue to its truly explosive potential, as Saudi scholar Fouad Ibrahim has pointed out (but which has passed, almost wholly overlooked, or its significance has gone unnoticed), is ISIS' deliberate and intentional use in its doctrine -- of the language of Abd-al Wahhab, the 18th century founder, together with Ibn Saud, of Wahhabism and the Saudi project:

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the first "prince of the faithful" in the Islamic State of Iraq, in 2006 formulated, for instance, the principles of his prospective state ... Among its goals is disseminating monotheism "which is the purpose [for which humans were created] and [for which purpose they must be called] to Islam..." This language replicates exactly Abd-al Wahhab's formulation. And, not surprisingly, the latter's writings and Wahhabi commentaries on his works are widely distributed in the areas under ISIS' control and are made the subject of study sessions. Baghdadi subsequently was to note approvingly, "a generation of young men [have been] trained based on the forgotten doctrine of loyalty and disavowal."

And what is this "forgotten" tradition of "loyalty and disavowal?" It is Abd al-Wahhab's doctrine that belief in a sole (for him an anthropomorphic) God -- who was alone worthy of worship -- was in itself insufficient to render man or woman a Muslim?
He or she could be no true believer, unless additionally, he or she actively denied (and destroyed) any other subject of worship. The list of such potential subjects of idolatrous worship, which al-Wahhab condemned as idolatry, was so extensive that almost all Muslims were at risk of falling under his definition of "unbelievers." They therefore faced a choice: Either they convert to al-Wahhab's vision of Islam -- or be killed, and their wives, their children and physical property taken as the spoils of jihad. Even to express doubts about this doctrine, al-Wahhab said, should occasion execution.

"Through its intentional adoption of this Wahhabist language, ISIS is knowingly lighting the fuse to a bigger regional explosion -- one that has a very real possibility of being ignited, and if it should succeed, will change the Middle East decisively."

The point Fuad Ibrahim is making, I believe, is not merely to reemphasize the extreme reductionism of al-Wahhab's vision, but to hint at something entirely different: That through its intentional adoption of this Wahhabist language, ISIS is knowingly lighting the fuse to a bigger regional explosion -- one that has a very real possibility of being ignited, and if it should succeed, will change the Middle East decisively.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters: Obama ‘Has a Real Psychological Problem’

Appearing on FOX News’ Hannity  on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters said what millions of Americans have no doubt been wondering for quite some time.

Commenting on Obama’s latest non-response (unless you can call jubilantly golfing a response) to the second barbaric beheading of an American journalist by the evil Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Peters contends that the reason Obama refused to receive personal briefings on ISIS is because he would rather be left in the dark, rather than have to deal with reality.

“My personal analysis on this is that the reason he didn’t want in-person briefings, is because he just didn’t want briefings at all. “He said ‘I’ll take them electronically, and that doesn’t mean he read them. He probably, at most, skimmed through the parts that didn’t interest him about Islamist terror, etcetera. And so, he was basically, in my view, throwing away the hard-one inputs our intelligence community was trying to send to the White House.”

Peters went on to contend that Obama might actually be being honest when claiming that he wasn’t warned, because he didn’t actually care enough to read the briefings given to him.

No doubt millions have wondered how Obama could immediately, reportedly within less than ten minutes after his emotionless, callous presser following the announcement of American reporter James Foley’s beheading by Muslim terrorists, rush back to continue his round of golf. It led Peters to question Obama’s sanity.

“I’m starting to feel like he [Obama] can’t make a decision–that we have a president who has a real psychological problem–that he can’t face responsibility, and certainly not the responsibilities of his office,” Lt. Col. Peters told Hannity. 

Vladimir Putin Threatens Nuclear War Over Ukraine

As Russian Federation tanks and troops poured across the border into eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin threatened to use his country’s most destructive weaponry. “I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear nations,” he said. “This is a reality, not just words.” Russia, he told listeners, is “strengthening our nuclear deterrence forces.”
Raising the spectre of nuclear war over Ukraine, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is playing a new, and dangerous, game. So when he refers to repelling “any aggression against Russia” and speaks of “nuclear deterrence,” as he did on Friday, the Russian president is really warning us he will use nukes to protect his grab of Ukrainian territory.
To highlight his threat, Putin mentioned “surprising the West with our new developments in offensive nuclear weapons about which we do not talk yet.”
Also in Yalta, where the Duma was meeting, the Russian leader spoke about renouncing the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. The treaty outlaws ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles and is a foundation of the post-Cold War peace.
Earlier this year Russia violated a landmark arms control treaty by testing a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile. And when the State Department’s Rose Gottemoeller raised the concern in May of last year, Russian officials tried to shut down the dialogue. According to The New York Times, they “said that they had looked into the matter and consider the issue to be closed.”
An underlying concern of the Obama administration in dealing with the Russians is that the Kremlin may not be wedded to the I.N.F. agreement. During the George W. Bush administration, some Russians officials argued that the treaty should be dropped so that the Kremlin could augment its military abilities to deal with threats on its periphery.

U.S. military wants multi-purpose sensors in Canada’s Arctic

American military officials have shed some light on what Canada could contribute to the missile-defence program should it choose to join after a decade spent on the sidelines.
Several conversations with high-ranking U.S. military officers point to a common desire: multi-purpose sensors in Canada's Arctic that would sniff out a wider range of potential threats than just intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Those state-of-the-art systems would be designed to track maritime vessels, airplanes and small cruise missiles — all in addition to any large missile fired off by North Korea or some hypothetical rogue state.
That means the missile-defence system that has prompted so much debate in Canada over the years could, potentially, be just one single piece integrated into the broader binational military relationship.
American military brass are aware that the missile-defence debate has been revived in Ottawa, nine years after domestic political pressure prompted the Paul Martin government to abstain.
They're weighing their public utterances carefully, wary of being seen as interfering in Canadian policy-making.
"We respectfully want them to have all the space and time to consider it now that it's been brought to the table, it seems," said U.S. Gen. Charles Jacoby, who heads Norad ​— the Canada-U.S. North American Aerospace Defence Command.
"If Canada decided not to belong to missile defence, then I'm sure that they would continue to play all of their robust roles that they play in missile warning and in the other Norad missions. And if they did decide (to join), I'm sure we'd take great advantage of the capabilities and commitment that Canada brings to every mission."

Union Bosses Scramble to Save Democrat Agenda

On Monday, as millions of American workers gathered with family and friends to celebrate and mark the end of summer, the nation's union bosses were preparing to inject tens of millions of dollars from their members' paychecks into the midterm elections in November. Unions have already spent $70 million to protect the Democrat majority in the Senate. Even this amount is likely to be dwarfed by a flood of money and manpower in the final weeks of the campaign. 

Union money, which is continually replenished through dues from members' pay, is just the most public expression of union political power. More critical in many campaigns are the thousands of rank-and-file union members the bosses can mobilize to provide on-the-ground manpower. Many union members are given election day off from work, allowing them to work the polls for Democrats and help boost turnout. 
To a point, this is a snapshot of recent political history in America. Projecting political power has always been a part of labor's tool-box. What's unusual is that this political power, in recent years, has been employed to defend a Democrat party policy agenda that is generally unrelated to workplace or labor issues. 
Soon after Obama's reelection, a top political priority for Senate Democrats was enacting sweeping new gun control legislation. A second priority has been implementing ObamaCare, which itself is built on a new tax on union health care benefits. Senate Democrats have also spent a considerable amount of political capital on amnesty and dramatically boosting the number of unskilled workers in labor force. 
On the economic front, Senate Democrats have tried to slow down domestic energy exploration and production and blocked a vital new pipeline. The party has abetted an effort to close hundreds of coal mines and utility plants and supported even more environmental regulations on new construction. The entire energy sector, which provides lots of high-paying union jobs, is reeling from self-inflicted wounds championed by Democrats in the Senate. 

Email Reveals Lois Lerner Ignored Political Expenditures By Unions

According to an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the Internal Revenue Service tea party scandal once dismissed complaints that labor unions were not reporting millions of dollars in political activities on their tax forms. In 2007, Lerner responded directly to a complaint that some major labor unions reported completely different amounts of political expenditures when filing with the IRS and the Department of Labor. At the time of the email, Lerner was the Director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS. Lerner wrote, “We looked at the information you provided regarding organizations that report substantial amounts of political activity and lobbying expenditures on the DOL Form LM-2, but report little to no political expenditures on the Form 990 filed with the IRS.”??

EX-CIA employee admits President Obama is a radical Islamic enemy of America

It’s an explosive charge, one that practically accuses the president of treason.
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Today, a former CIA agent bluntly told the newspaper, World Net Daily, that America has switched sides in the war on terror under President Obama. Clare Lopez was willing to say what a few members of Congress have said in private, but declined to say on-the-record.
Clare M. Lopez is the Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy and Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and the Canadian Meighen Institute and formerly with The Clarion Project . Since 2013, she has served as a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi. Also Vice President of the Intelligence Summit, she formerly was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011.
Lopez said the global war on terror had been an effort to “stay free of Shariah,” or repressive Islamic law, until the Obama administration began siding with such jihadist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. Lopez believes that the Muslim Brotherhood has thoroughly infiltrated the Obama administration and other branches of the federal government. One of the most outrageous of those appointments is Mohamed Elibiary, a senior member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, Elibiary supports brokering a U.S. partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group. Two months ago, a firestorm erupted online after Elibiary tweeted that a “Caliphate” is inevitable and compared it to the European Union.
Ms. Lopez also believes Obama had essentially the same goals in the Mideast as the late Osama bin Laden: “to remove American power and influence, including military forces, from Islamic lands.” The former CIA operative’s perspective affects her prescription for what the U.S. should do about the terror army ISIS, as she called for caution and restraint.

DHS loses track of 6,000 foreign nationals who overstayed student visas 

• OVERWHELMED - The Department of Homeland Security has lost track of more than 6,000 foreign nationals who entered the United States on student visas, overstayed their welcome, and essentially vanished -- exploiting a security gap that was supposed to be fixed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

•  WHERE'S THE HOPE? - According to the latest Investor's Business Daily/TIPP Economic Optimism Index, nearly half of Americans believe the U.S. is still in recession.

• TARGETED - The official at the center of the Internal Revenue Service tea party scandal once dismissed complaints that labor unions were not reporting millions of dollars in political activities on their tax forms, according to an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

• SHOCK - The Islamic State released a video on Tuesday purporting to show the beheading of American hostage Steven Sotloff, raising the stakes in its confrontation with Washington over U.S. air strikes on its insurgents in Iraq.

• CRISIS - President Obama was given detailed and specific intelligence about the rise of the Islamic State as part of his daily briefing for at least a year before the group seized large swaths of territory over the summer, a former Pentagon official told Fox News.

•  WORRIED - President Obama's recent statement that "we don't have a strategy yet" to deal with the Islamic State (ISIS) has Americans worried.