Boots on the ground 101514

U.K. terror trial reveals shocking comments by man behind alleged plot to kill Tony Blair

When police pulled over Erol Incedal’s car for what seemed like a routine traffic offence a year ago, it was a key moment in a case that would make British legal history.
Unbeknown to Mr. Incedal, 26, the officers who ran the rule over his black Mercedes secretly planted a hidden listening device, starting a chain of events that led to the first terrorism trial to be held largely in secret in a British court.
Tuesday, in one of the only parts of the trial to be heard in open court, a jury was told that Mr. Incedal had the address of Tony and Cherie Blair in his car and may have been planning an attack on an “individual of significance” or a more indiscriminate attack modelled on the 2008 Mumbai terrorist atrocity.
Lawyer Richard Whittam, opening the case for the prosecution, told members of the jury at the Old Bailey that they were part of an “exceptional” trial, the majority of which will be heard behind closed doors.
He said the bug planted in Mr. Incedal’s car recorded him saying: “I hate white people” and telling his wife he might have to switch to “plan B” after his car was searched.
When he was arrested two weeks after the initial “traffic offence” on Sept 30 last year, police seized material including a memory card containing a bomb-making manual.

Russell Brand And Naomi Klein Talk Climate Change And The Need For Revolution

Russell Brand and the author Naomi Klein have called for a "revolution" that could potentially see oil giants like Exxon Mobil dismantled.
Speaking to Brand as part of a podcast exclusively shared with The Huffington Post, Klein agreed with the comedian's call for a political and economic revolution, but warned: "It's not going to happen in the right way if we don't talk about the distribution of resources."
The pair zeroed in on multinational oil giants such as Exxon Mobil, referring to them as companies that were "addicted to stupid money", with Klein arguing that the world could convert from fossil fuels to renewable energy within 15 years.
"What the hell's going on," said Brand. "Is there no money in it? Why don't people do it? They could still make money out of windmills couldn't they?"
Klein, author of the new book "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate", cited "really good" research from Stanford University in the United States that noted the technology was available and "it is economically possible". She also warned that the current model of capitalism is causing "spiralling inequality".
Meanwhile Brand, whose own new book "Revolution" is out this month, warned that the choice was whether to "ditch capitalism and save the planet or ditch the planet and save capitalism". He urged people to be "aggressive" and "take down massive corporations" like Exxon.
"Once you've seen corporations have behaved irresponsibly, revoke their charters," he said. "With Exxon you could say that we don't need Exxon anymore."
Moving to dismantle such a corporation, he said, would spark outrage from politicians. However, Brand said that his message would be that "politics is just one big business", proving the argument that "Exxon is destroying the planet and these political figures are trying to prevent us from dismantling something that is destroying the planet.

Five Thug Rapists Killed By Hanging In Front Of Their Victims

Five rapists were executed in Afghanistan on Wednesday in front of the women they brutally raped.
The seven defendants dressed as police during the August 23 rapes, and they targeted a convoy of cars driving home from a wedding. They pulled over the vehicles and picked out four women, then brutally raped and beat them.
During sentencing, five of the men were sentenced to death while two were sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The case captivated Afghanistan, and thousands of people publicly demanded that the defendants receive the death penalty.
In the end, the men were executed in front of the four women they raped.
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Former Charlotte Mayor to be Jailed For Taking Bribes


The former mayor of North Carolina's largest city on Tuesday was sentenced to almost four years in prison for taking bribes from undercover federal agents he thought were developers seeking to fast-track projects.
Patrick Cannon had resigned in the midst of the case that stunned Charlotte residents who had once elected him as their youngest councilman. U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney in a courtroom just blocks from Cannon's old office sentenced the 47-year-old to 44 months. He also fined Cannon $10,000.
"You have seriously tarnished the city's image," Whitney said, adding "this court must send a message that public corruption is unacceptable and will be severely punished."
Cannon apologized for his wrongdoing.
"I have failed as a father, I have failed as a husband, I failed as a servant leader, and I failed as a citizen," Cannon told the judge before he was sentenced.
He said he knows how much he has hurt his family and community, which is why he decided to cooperate from the beginning.
As he walked out of the courthouse, he said, "Hopefully, the community will be forgiving."
In a deal with prosecutors, Cannon pleaded guilty in June to one count of honest services wire fraud. Prosecutors say Cannon accepted nearly $50,000 in bribes between January 2013, when he was a city councilman, and February 2014 — three months after he was elected mayor.
Cannon was arrested March 26 and resigned the same day.
He was elected to the city council in 1993 at 26, becoming the youngest member in Charlotte history. He was elected mayor in November 2013.

Top general says US Army has been cut too small to be able to take on ISIS, Russia and a ‘world changing in front of us’

• The military has already cut its active duty forces from a peak of 570,000 down to 510,000 troops
• Budget reductions approved in 2011 call for troop numbers to fall to 490,000; sequestration could bring that number down to as few as 420,000
• 'I now have concern whether even going below 490,000 is the right thing to do or not, because of what I see potentially on the horizon,' Gen Raymond Odierno said 

A top general warned on Monday that planned reductions in the size of military could have a harmful effect on the United States' ability to fight the Islamic State and counter Russia's aggression in Eastern Europe.

The military has already cut its active duty forces from a peak of 570,000 down to 510,000 troops. Budget reductions approved in 2011 call for troop numbers to fall to 490,000. Automatic spending cuts associated with sequestration could bring that number down to as few as 420,000 troops.

Chief of Staff to the Army Gen. Raymond Odierno said at a news conference on Monday that he was uncomfortable about a potential reduction in forces because of the threats to the U.S. and it's hegemony from around the globe.

'The world is changing in front of us. We have seen Russian aggression in Europe, we have seen ISIS, we have seen increased stability in other places,' Gen. Odierno said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

'So I now have concern whether even going below 490,000 is the right thing to do or not, because of what I see potentially on the horizon.'

Odierno was speaking at an Association of the U.S. Army event when he levied the complaint. 

It's not the first time the retiring general has spoken up in the last few weeks about his concerns that cuts to the military are becoming too drastic, and he's not the only military expert who is apprehensive about the curtailment.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who is also a former secretary of defense, has vocally opposed the shrinkage.

'I think we're entering a period of considerable danger with the United States that relative to other nations is weaker than we oughta be,' he told The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol over the weekend.

SECOND Top General Breaks Rank To Strongly Criticize Obama

Earlier this month, a highly decorated Four Star General in the Marine Corps broke rank to speak out against Obama’s lax border policies, which allow illegals to flood into America. Now, it’s being reported that yet another top general in the military has come out to criticize Obama, but on a completely separate issue.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Obama’s planned downsizing of the Army could pose security threats to America as the Islamic State is rapidly growing in size and Moscow is making advances across Eastern Europe.
“The world is changing in front of us. We have seen Russian aggression in Europe, we have seen ISIS, we have seen increased stability in other places,” Gen. Odierno said. “So I now have concern whether even going below 490,000 is the right thing to do or not, because of what I see potentially on the horizon.”
BOOM! Straight from someone who knows a thing or two about threats to our national security. He added that the Army is basically being choked out of its funding to be able to fight the proposed downsizing and repeated early calls for Congress to repeal mandated reductions.
Unfortunately, his efforts will probably be in vain, as the Obama administration has already started forcing out mid-level officers and deactivating entire brigades. He’s set to step down in 2015, but he said that under Obama’s revised strategy for the military, which includes sending forces to hot spots to prevent conflict, future leaders may be forced to deploy units that aren’t fully prepared.
“I swore that I would never send soldiers into a place not properly prepared, trained or equipped,” he said. “I will probably get away with that because I will leave … by the beginning of the next year. But I worry for the next chief.”
Gen. Odierno’s comments come on the heels of Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, head of the U.S. Southern Command, criticizing the lax border security and warning it could lead to a flood of Ebola-infected illegals into America.
Speaking to the National Defense University, Kelly stated that if people start fleeing Central and South American nations after an outbreak, it could cause “mass migration into the United States” of people seeking treatment, and our Southern border isn’t prepared for it.
“If it breaks out,” he said. “It’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door.’”
It’s no secret that our military commanders aren’t fans of the President, but to have them speak out in such a way shows their current level of frustration with the sheer incompetence in the White House. Unfortunately, instead of taking notice, Obama will likely force them out and replace them with those who’ll follow his orders, as we’ve seen in the past.

NY Times report DESTROYS biggest myth surrounding Iraq War

For years liberals have enjoyed raking former President George Bush over the coals for the Iraq War, constantly criticizing him for justifying military operations with the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, which they claimed were nowhere to be found. They said his claims that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons were “bunk.”

Today, these same folks will be sitting down to a healthy breakfast of freshly plucked crow.

From IJReview:
The news report from the Times explains the now not-secret revelation that there had been WMDs in Iraq, after all:
“From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.
In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.”

Obamacare website won’t reveal insurance costs for 2015 until after election

Those planning to purchase health insurance on the Obamacare exchange will soon find out how much rates have increased — after the Nov. 4 election.
Enrollment on the Healthcare.gov website begins Nov. 15, or 11 days after the midterm vote, and critics who worry about rising premium hikes in 2015 say that’s no coincidence. Last year’s inaugural enrollment period on the health-care exchange began Oct. 1.

“This is more than just a glitch,” said Tim Phillips, president of free-market Americans for Prosperity, in a Friday statement. “The administration’s decision to withhold the costs of this law until after Election Day is just more proof that Obamacare is a bad deal for Americans.”

Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, said in a Monday column in USA Today that “when it comes to a lack of openness and transparency about Obamacare, this administration has no peer.”
Even so, details about cost increases are trickling out in states with pivotal Senate contests: Alaska, Iowa and Louisiana. All three states are wrestling with double-digit premium hikes from some state insurance companies on the exchange, which has fueled another round of Republican attacks on the Affordable Care Act.

It’s the Democrats’ bad luck that those states may be outliers. PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute reports Oct. 3 that the average premium increase this year is 5.9 percent, according to data collected from 40 states and the District of Columbia.
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Egypt finds large stockpile of arms earmarked for Sinai jihadists 


Egyptian military forces operating in the Sinai uncovered a large cache of weapons near the border with Israel on Tuesday, according to Channel 2.

The weapons, which were discovered near the Egyptian side of Rafah, were earmarked for the radical jihadist group Ansar Bayit al-Maqdis, which in the past has launched rockets at Eilat. More recently, it has claimed credit for the beheading of Egyptian Beduins alleged to have spied for Israel.

It is considered the largest stockpile of enemy weaponry to have been confiscated by Egyptian forces, according to Channel 2. Soldiers discovered five tons of explosives as well as rocket components.

The government of President Abdel Fatteh al-Sisi has waged a campaign to crack down on Islamist forces at war with the military since it engineered the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who won a democratic election.

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