Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

U.S. - Iran - A Done Deal Obama, Putin and Khamenei Finishing Drafting a Partial Nuclear Accord
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Commentary

Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani gave the game away Wednesday, Oct. 6, when he said Iran has more enriched uranium that it needs and would use the surplus as a bargaining chip at the nuclear talks in Geneva next week.
As one of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s most senior loyalists, Larijani’s words in an AP interview signaled concord between his master and US President Barack Obama on a framework for the way forward in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program, that would be built around a halt on 20-percent grade uranium enrichment.
“Through the process of negotiations, yes, things can be said and they can discuss this matter," Larijani said ahead of the talks opening in Geneva on Oct. 15 with representatives of P5+1 forum (the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany).
The suspension of 20-percent enrichment, which takes uranium to a step short of weapons grade, was the key international demand of Iran, although Larijani argued that this level was necessary for its scientific research facility in Tehran.
What Larijani was saying in effect was that, since Tehran has more than the quantity it needs, the US is welcome to collect the surplus and move it out of the country to a any place it chooses.

The P5 +1 = window dressing

Was Iran offering to follow in the footsteps of Libya in 2004 and Syria in 2013?
Not so fast, say DEBKA Weekly’s sources in Washington. Those regimes agreed to dismantle their weapons of mass destruction, whereas Tehran is willing to dismantle only sections of its nuclear program and give up only part of its enriched uranium stockpile.
But which sections and how much enriched uranium will Tehran hold back? Those details are still up for long and wearisome bargaining, starting up in Geneva next week.
Or so it would seem.
It should be noted that the United States, Russia and Iran have been rolling out a meticulously-choreographed performance – first depicting their understanding on Syria’s chemical weapons as a major breakthrough, then moving on to Act II, namely, the Iranian nuclear program. In this regard, the highly-colored role seemingly assigned the P5+1 forum is not entirely true to life.
In fact, the six powers need not expect to sit down to hammer out the important details with Iranian negotiators, but rather glance through the agreed US-Russian-Iranian draft put before them and more or less rubber-stamp it.
Larijani’s words pointed the way: “I view next week’s negotiations positively, because countries that have been applying sanctions on Iran and leveling threats against my country are opting for a political solution.
"As I see it, this change, if I can use the word, is in itself is positive," he said. "I will further explain by saying that if the collective will is at work here, if it takes up a political solution over others, then finding a resolution to the whole problem would not be that difficult a task.”

A tightly closed loop

The Iranian official added: “I will further explain by saying that those countries who used to think that by applying pressure and leveling sanctions they will be able to force Iran to change its position, have rather come to realize that despite all of these impediments, Iran has persisted and today has a more advanced access to peaceful (!) nuclear technology.”
He was letting it be understood that like its enriched uranium stocks, Iran was also amenable to concessions on centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium – again pending negotiations.
In actual fact, both issues will be settled later in the behind-the-scenes exchanges going back and forth between Washington, Moscow and Tehran.
On October 10, the Iranian parliament contradicted as “false and fundamentally inaccurate” Larijani’s remarks about extraneous stocks of enriched uranium and their usefulness as a bargaining chip in nuclear talks.
Our sources were not surprised. Obama, Putin and Khamenei have kept their negotiations and decisions strictly to themselves, communicating through special channels and not sharing the process with any other arms of their own governments – even at senior policy-making level.
Members of the US Congress and Senate, like Russian lawmakers in both houses of parliament, have been kept in the dark on the common ground reached by the three principals. And Khamenei’s office most certainly dictated Larijaji’s remarks verbatim, as the framework for Tehran’s policy-making henceforth.

Iran’s five concessions for the deal

Revealed here by DEBKA Weekly’s sources are the Iranian leader’s five key concessions for an interim agreement with Obama and Putin on a draft blueprint.
1. The surrender of a certain proportion of Iran’s enriched uranium stocks and cooperation in its transfer out of Iran..
2. Iran’s consent to comply with the ceiling determined for uranium enrichment. This is taken to mean that Tehran agrees to refrain from accumulating the amounts needed to build a nuclear weapon.
3. Tehran will grant International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access for the first time to the Parchin military base south of Tehran, where, according to Western and Israeli intelligence, Iran has clandestinely tested nuclear explosives. This access was hitherto denied.
4. Iran will sign the Additional Protocol of the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty-NPT, which provides for snap nuclear watchdog inspections of suspect nuclear sites and more thorough examinations.
5. Tehran undertakes not to build a plutonium separation plant at the heavy water reactor under construction at Arak. This commitment means that Tehran gives up the option of developing plutonium as a nuclear weaponizing alternative to enriched uranium.
The Iranians are also willing to discuss the partial or complete closure of their underground enrichment plant at Fordo near Qom.

The US quid pro quo

The quid pro quo for these concessions has also been agreed: US and European will start lifting sanctions, one by one, in response to every Iranian concession.
In the opening article of DEBKA Weekly 605 of Oct. 4: Who Orchestrates America’s Iran Policy? Some say I’s Sergei Kiryenko, Rosatom Director, we explored the Russian role in the secret US-Iran exchanges.
This week we can report that President Vladimir Putin has joined the process in person, hoping to short-cut the secret channel and have a partial draft proposal ready in time for the Geneva meeting.
Sensing that a breakthrough is ahead on one of the most challenging issues of the day, many outsiders were trying to jump on the bandwagon this week, including Switzerland. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, tried to put his oar in as well, but was quickly squelched.
Obama, Putin and Khamenei are determined to keep their club closed to all outsiders, granting admission to no one but one individual, Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said, who has acted as their go-between.

Riyadh Moves to Sabotage U.S. - Russian Steps on Syria and Other U.S. Interests
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

No Let-up on Saudi Rancor

The bitter rancor marring Saudi relations with the Obama administration was sharply manifested Thursday, Oct. 10, in Riyadh’s brush-off of a White House offer to send over a high-ranking US official to clarify President Barack Obama’s intentions towards Iran to King Abdullah and his government. This gesture was intended to cool Saudi fury over Obama’s Mid East policies.
However, the royal court refused brusquely to receive the US emissary. We have an ambassador in Washington, they said. Talk to him.
On Tuesday October 8, Zahren Alloush, chief of the Liwa al-Islam, a Syrian rebel Salafi militia which claims to have enlisted thousands of fighters against the Assad regime, launched an attack on Al Safira, home to a Syrian army military industrial complex and a big chemical and biological weapons depot.
Alloush was acting on orders from his bankrollers in Riyadh
Neither was under any illusions about the rebel brigade’s ability to overpower the Syrian defenders of the base or seize control. But that was not the purpose of the offensive, say DEBKA Weekly’s military and intelligence sources. The Saudi goal was to turn the Al Safira area into a blazing battlefield and make it inaccessible to the UN OPCW inspectors assigned with dismantling the big chemical and biological stocks housed there in line with the understanding reached between Washington and Moscow.
Ultimately, Riyadh is willing to resort to any shift to torpedo the US-Russian deal.

Syria retains a secret list of chemical stocks to be saved

The Saudis are motivated by four pressing considerations:
1. They don’t believe in the integrity of the accord for eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons, especially since it became apparent this week that the task of dismantling the production equipment had been relegated to Syrian soldiers and the international inspectors would merely supervise the work.
Information has reached Saudi intelligence that the Syrian servicemen assigned with the task were handed by their commanders a “List B” which is quite different from the document in the hands of the inspectors.
List B includes the chemical weapons destined for destruction, but also a counter-list of items to be preserved and third list of 30 chemical weapons sites to which the saved weapons should be secretly transferred. Those sites are inaccessible to the inspectors.
2. Saudi backs were further put up by the commendations doled out by US Secretary of State John Kerry and President Vladimir Putin for the efficiency and cooperation displayed by Syrian President Bashar Assad in honoring his commitment to dismantle his chemical weapons.
Riyadh read into their words a calculated gesture to impart the Syrian ruler with legitimacy and airbrush his image from butcher of hundreds of thousands of his own people to a leader dedicated to ending the war in his country.
Hints circulated by US and Russian sources about Assad’s indecision over whether to run for reelection in 2014 are seen by the Saudis as preparing the ground for his re-election.

Syrian machinations as precursor for Iran

3. Like other quarters in the Middle East, the Saudis perceive the deceit and playacting surrounding the crisis in Syria as an alarming precursor for the machinations ahead over Iran’s nuclear program. They have no doubt that just as the Syrian chemical weapons will never be completely eliminated, so too Iran will not be completely divested of its capacity to make nuclear weapons.
4. Sunni Saudi Arabia condemns President Obama for fickleness in his choices of allies. Today, he appears determined to side with the Shiite camp against the Sunnis in the Muslim world.
Riyadh find sufficient evidence to support their mistrust in the Obama administration’s current confrontation with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, an erstwhile Sunni ally, and the way Washington-Cairo relations have descended to the pits after long years of friendship and cooperation between Washington and Cairo.
They are not taking this quietly. Saudi agents are working against American interests in both of its cast-off allies.
Riyadh watched with glee Turkey’s NATO allies’ efforts to draw Ankara away from its preference for a Chinese firm as partner in the co-production of a Turkey missile defense system.
This transaction was quietly brokered by the Saudis. If it goes through, Turkey will become the first NATO member to purchase weapons systems outside the US or any Western country.

Solid Saudi backing for Gen. El-Sisi versus Washington

In Cairo, the Saudis are spending vast political and financial resources on backing the Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Fattah El-Sisi versus Washington.
This week, the White House contradicted itself twice on the suspension of military aid to Egypt.
On Oct. 8, officials announced that US aid would be suspended “in the coming days.” That announcement was dismissed a few hours later as “unfounded rumors.”
But the next day, the State Department said $260 million of the $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt would be frozen, most of it in military assistance, to pressure the military regime to restore democracy as quickly as possible. The suspension would include fighter jets, Apache copters and tanks.
These zigzags connected with the visit Egyptian President Adly Mansour paid to Saudi Arabia Monday, Oct. 7. In his parting statement from Riyadh, Mansour had in his pocket a Saudi pledge to transfer another two billion dollars to Egypt’s account to cover the cutback in US aid.

Report: Obama Brings Chilling Effect on Journalism
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily NewsAP
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The U.S. government’s aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration.

The Committee to Protect Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration’s unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists’ records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad.

Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the 30-page analysis entitled “The Obama Administration and the Press.” The report notes President Barack Obama came into office pledging an open, transparent government after criticizing the Bush administration’s secrecy, “but he has fallen short of his promise.”

“In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press,” wrote Downie, now a journalism professor at Arizona State University. “The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate.”

Downie interviewed numerous reporters and editors, including a top editor at The Associated Press, following revelations this year that the government secretly seized records for telephone lines and switchboards used by more than 100 AP journalists. Downie also interviewed journalists whose sources have been prosecuted on felony charges

Those suspected of discussing classified information are increasingly subject to investigation, lie-detector tests, scrutiny of telephone and email records and now surveillance by co-workers under a new “Insider Threat Program” that has been implemented in every agency.

“There’s no question that sources are looking over their shoulders,” Michael Oreskes, the AP’s senior managing editor, told Downie. “Sources are more jittery and more standoffish, not just in national security reporting. A lot of skittishness is at the more routine level. The Obama administration has been extremely controlling and extremely resistant to journalistic intervention.”

Obama’s Efforts to Control Media are ‘most Aggressive’ Since Nixon, Report Says
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily NewsWired.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The President Barack Obama administration has “chilled the flow of information on issues of great public interest,” according to a Thursday report that amounts to an indictment of the president’s campaign pledge of a more open government.

The report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-profit dedicated to global press freedoms, said Obama has “fallen short” on his promises of a transparent government while at the same time forging ahead with an unprecedented effort — the “most aggressive” since the President Richard M. Nixon administration —  to silence government officials and the media at large.

“Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press—compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations,” said the committee’s report, prepared by Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive editor of The Washington Post.

In a 2008 campaign speech, however, Obama said: “I’ll make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business. No more secrecy.”

Obama Pushing Israel to Vacate the Jordan Valley
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily NewsBible Prophecy Blog
Categories: Peace Process;The Nation Of Israel

The Obama administration is pressing hard for Israel to give up the strategic Jordan Valley in a deal with the Palestinians, a senior Palestinian negotiator told KleinOnline.

The current round of U.S.-brokered talks is attempting to hash out the specifics of a plan for the valley.

Obama’s proposal calls for international forces to maintain security control along with unarmed Palestinian police forces, the PA negotiator said. Israel will retain security posts in some strategic areas of the Jordan Valley, according to the U.S. plan.

Previous talks incorporated an element of Jordanian authority in the Jordan Valley, but the Kingdom of Jordan is suddenly weary of participating in a future Palestinian state, the negotiator said.

The Palestinian negotiator pointed to the insurgency in Syria and changes of leadership in Egypt for Jordanian reluctance over assuming any security control over Palestinian areas.

The Jordan Valley cuts through the heart of Israel. It runs from the Tiberias River in the north to the Dead Sea in the center to the city of Aqaba at the south of the country, stretching through the biblical Arabah desert.

The negotiator, meanwhile, said Secretary of State John Kerry is urging an all-encompassing final status deal on the Jordan Valley, West Bank and sections of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

Israel, on the other hand, would rather have an interim deal to ensure the Palestinians keep their side of the bargain, according to informed Israeli diplomatic sources.

Temple Mount

KleinOnline first reported in July the terms of the Obama administration plan in which the Palestinian Authority and Jordan will receive sovereignty over the Temple Mount while Israel will retain the land below the Western Wall, according to a senior PA negotiator. That plan remains in effect as the basis for negotiations.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism.

Israel has not agreed to the U.S. plan over the Temple Mount, with details still open for discussion, stated the PA negotiator.

The negotiator, who is one of the main Palestinian figures leading the Arab side of the talks, further divulged Kerry's proposed outline for a Palestinian state as presented orally to Israel and the PA.

He said Jordan has been invited to play a key role in the discussions surrounding both the Temple Mount and Jerusalem while it will be the PA, with some Jordanian assistance, that would ultimately receive control of some of those areas.

KleinOnline was first to report in 2007 that Jordan had been quietly purchasing real estate surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem hoping to gain more control over the area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.

Meanwhile, regarding the rest of Jerusalem, Kerry's plan is to rehash what is known as the Clinton parameters. That formula, pushed by President Bill Clinton during the Camp David talks in 2000, called for Jewish areas of Jerusalem to remain Israeli while the Palestinians would get sovereignty over neighborhoods that are largely Arab. Most Arab sections are located in eastern Jerusalem.

KleinOnline previously reported the Palestinians are building illegally in Jewish-owned areas of Jerusalem, resulting in Arab majorities in some neighborhoods.

When it comes to the West Bank, which borders Jerusalem and is within rocket range of Israel's main population centers, Israel is expected to evacuate about 90 percent of its Jewish communities currently located in the territory, as outlined in Kerry's plan.

Israel would retain strategic security posts along with the West Bank’s main blocs, Maale Adumin, Ariel and Gush Etzion. In return, Obama is calling for an exchange of territory with the Palestinians in other locations inside Israel, with discussion being open for the Palestinians to possibly receive land in the Israeli Negev in the country’s south.

The PA negotiator further said Israel rejected a Palestinian request that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree not to place the final peace plan up for referendum in the Knesset.

The negotiator warned that one of the toughest issues centers on control of water, with Kerry already reaching out to Turkey about the prospect of selling water at a cheaper rate to a future Palestinian state.

Obama and Putin Tout Iran’s Supposed Willingness to Start Mending Fences With Israel
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

US & Russia: Iran Nuclear Deal is Good for Israel

Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin went all out this week to persuade Israel that nothing but good would come to the Jewish state out of the partial deal they had forged with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Iran’s nuclear program.
Holding out the prospect of better relations between Jerusalem and Tehran - and one day even a peace pact - they were avidly pursuing Binyamin Netanyahu this week in an effort to sell him their outreach to Tehran.
The pursuit comes from three directions, say DEBKA Weekly’s Washington and Jerusalem sources:
1. President Obama’s handlers for Tehran are dropping hints that Iranian officials were not only heard referring in upbeat tones to the bright prospects of better relations with America, but even privately to a possible reconciliation with Israel. One of Obama’s staffers said that he had actually heard Iranian officials speak of the Iranian-US accords as a door opening to the beginning of diplomatic, economic and even possible military ties between Tehran and Jerusalem.
These ties would start out as secret understandings on local and regional issues, but eventually, after Iran halts its nuclear weapons program and restricts it to agreed boundaries, those understandings could blossom into full-blown relations.
To convince Netanyahu that this impression was no mirage, those US officials offered to bring to Jerusalem the man who had directly witnessed these remarks in the offices of Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.

Sultan Qaboos visits Jerusalem after Riyadh

2. This opened up the pursuit of Netanyahu from a second direction with the secret arrival in Jerusalem of Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, the live wire in the exchanges between Tehran and Washington. He quoted the words he said he had heard with his own ears while in Tehran.
The Sultan met the Israeli prime minister after a discreet trip to Riyadh on a similar errand.
There, he sought to persuade King Abdullah and other Saudi leaders that Iran is not just keen on making friends with Israel but even more eager to mend its fences with Saudi Arabia.
Although highly skeptical, the Saudis agreed to send a high-ranking emissary to Tehran to quietly explore the Omani ruler’s message.
Netanyahu later received word from Riyadh that it did not check out.
He was therefore polite but guarded in his response to Sultan Qaboos’s enthusiastic presentation of Oman’s potential as an economic bridge between Iran and Israel and its prospects of evolving into a military relationship. The sultan gave Netanyahu a long list of international companies which do business with Tehran via Oman in defiance of international sanctions.
Israel officials concluded that the Sultan’s mission was to support the Obama administration’s efforts to soften the prime minister’s strong objections to the nuclear accommodations unfolding between Obama and Khamenei.

Does Tehran really seek détente with Israel?

DEBKA Weekly’s sources heard from some Israeli sources an alternative take on this episode.
They estimated that the Obama administration is maneuvering to attach Israel to the Shiite-oriented alliance embodied by Iran, Syria and Hizballah, which is growing out of its joint US initiatives with Moscow on Syria and Iran. This would be a way to lure Israel away form its burgeoning rapport with Sunni Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
3. A third direction was activated by means of another source of information currently under close study in Jerusalem.
Leaders of a state bordering on Russia with close ties to President Putin have reported hearing of an impression gained recently by Russian officials visiting Tehran that the Iranians are feeling their way toward acknowledging Israel without outright recognition.
Those Russian officials discovered a discreet new directive handed down from on high to the Iranian media to qualify their total rejection of Israel’s right to exist, while continuing to excoriate its government’s polices and Netanyahu in person.
According to our sources, this channel continues to function and feed new tidbits of information to Jerusalem in order to keep Israel interested and curious.
At this early stage, there is no point in speculating about any interaction between the pursuit of the Netanyahu government to alleviate its resistance to the Obama administration’s moves for a détente with Tehran and diplomacy on the Palestinian issue which has reached another impasse.

New Extremist Foxes Welcomed Into U.S. Chicken Coop
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily Newsgatestoneinstitute.org
Categories: Commentary

Imagine that in recent weeks alone, dozens of Muslims around the world had been murdered by Christian extremists armed with suicide belts and similar paraphernalia.

Imagine that at the same time, around other parts of the world, Christian mobs had set fire to, and burned to the ground, the holy places of some of the oldest and most established Muslim communities in the world.

Do you think there would be a reaction to such events? Probably yes.

Would that reaction be wholly negative and unceasing in its condemnation? Probably yes.

Would it be remotely conceivable that a senior U.S. government official or advisor would have used the opportunity to claim that Muslims who had been targeted had brought it upon themselves? Probably no.

Welcome then to the mirror-image of the real-world persecution of Christians that is going on across the globe today.

And say hello again to two of the most appallingly over-promoted and sinister figures involved with the current U.S. government: Mohamed Elibiary and Dalia Mogahed.

Of course, you may not want to: as the terror goes on worldwide, and the situation around the globe slips continuously in the Islamists' general direction, there is a growing and terrific ennui among much of the West. Among much of the Western world, terrorists' marauding is another case of, "Oh, just that Islamism again." 

You say a person is not good? Well, we can't be bothered to find out. The very condition that so few people can raise themselves to be bothered is part of the problem: "The trouble with all the nice people I knew in Germany," the British author Stephen Spender wrote in his Berlin diary in the 1930s, "is that they were either tired or weak."

Thankfully there are a number of people who can still rouse themselves to point out how outrageous Western governments' hiring policies are these days -- as when Mohamed Elibiary was promoted to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Advisory Council. Yet despite these heroic individuals pointing out Elibiary's track record of support for Islamists worldwide, the appointment held -- and so it was that the U.S. government welcomed another fox into its chicken coop.

Now an American official can not only fail to stand by America's friends – he can actually blame them for the persecution they are suffering.

Over recent days, one of the effects of this has already been felt: in September, when violence against Egypt's Copts had reached another peak, the new Department of Homeland Security Homeland Security Advisor, Elibiary, used his twitter account to blame American Coptic activists for the murder of their co-religionists by Muslim Brotherhood extremists of the type Elibiary has a track record of supporting.

On September 15, he wrote, "For decade since 9/11 attack extremist American Coptic activists have nurtured anti Islam and anti Muslim sentiments among AM RT wing." A day earlier, Elibiary blamed American Copts for protesting against attacks on their relatives in Egypt, and recommended an article "on need to reform #Coptic activism in #US including stop promoting #Islamophobia."

So while Copts were actually being targeted and killed in Egypt, Mr. Elbiary chose to try to switch attention onto the fictional persecution of Muslims in the U.S. There is nothing quite like someone excusing one crime-in-progress by citing a non-existent other crime -- except for, of course, a U.S. government official doing the same.

Unfortunately, thanks to our enthusiastic, politically-correct attitudes and radical Islamist ideologies, Elibiary is not alone in the U.S. administration.

It was Dalia Mogahed, you will recall, who helped President Obama draft the 2009 Cairo Speech -- a "reset" speech, regarded as seminal across several rooms in the White House. It was Mogahed who helped draft the address which apologized for America's past actions while giving the benefit of the doubt to most of its self-stated enemies.

Mogahed is not only one of the geniuses credited with that speech; her record also includes other glowing occasions. Such as the time, that same year, in which she cropped up on a U.K. television program, which aired on the most notorious satellite Islamist channel. 

Mogahed took part in a discussion about the empowerment of women through Sharia. She participated, seemingly happily, in the program hosted -- and introduced as such -- by a member of the radical Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Mogahed also seemed unfazed when, for instance, passionate fellow participants called for the restoration of the Caliphate (a key pipedream of Hizb-ut-Tahrir).

Incidents like that have been used against her. But these things have a tendency to come and go. A little flare-up of bad publicity here, the rebuttal of legitimate concerns and an accusation of "Islamophobia" there -- it is all part of the mood-music.

Dalia Mogahed's latest popping-up however, makes all her previous ones not only explicable but mild:

After 80 Coptic churches had been burned down by Brotherhood supporters, Ms. Mogahed decided to single out for criticism not the perpetrators but --- the Egyptian media! "The Egyptian media took advantage of the Copts to achieve many personal/political gains which has angered the West," she wrote on one of the Facebook pages to which she spends her time contributing: 

"Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights." All of which adds up to one of the strangest sets of messages any American government has surely ever given out.

If you were one of those Christian Copts standing in the ruins of your village or church, what message would you take from all this? 

If the officials of the current U.S. administration are managing to blame the media, or even fellow Copts in the U.S., for your slaughter and the desecration of your churches, would it be any surprise if they took the message that the current U.S. administration is not just indifferent to the suffering of Christians across the Middle East and the rest of the world, but actively asking them, "Would you mind dying quietly, please?

Netanyahu: Nuclear Weapons will Make Iran’s Brutal Regime Immortal
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told BBC Persian that he wanted to see “a real diplomatic solution” that would involve completely dismantling Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons – “not a fake one." He also said, "If they get nuclear weapons this brutal regime will be immortal, like North Korea. The people of Iran deserve better. They are a great people."

Let the Headlines Speak
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Clues to Lost Prehistoric Code Discovered in Mesopotamia
How these devices would have worked in prehistoric times, before the invention of writing, is a mystery. Researchers now face the question of how people recorded the number and type of a commodity being exchanged without the help of writing.  

Poll: Most Americans see 'gloom and doom' ahead
With no end in sight to the partial government shutdown, the number of voters who believe the country is heading in the right direction has fallen 11 points over the past week to its lowest level in nearly two years. Just 17% of Likely U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction  

NSA data bank hit by mystery power surges Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/nsa-data-bank-hit-by-mystery-power-surges
The new $1.4 billion National Security Agency supercomputer facility in Utah has been wracked with unexplainable, repeated electrical surges and explosions that have destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sensitive computers used to store the vast amounts of data it scoops up on foreign nationals and Americans. In the past 13 months, there have been some 10 electrical meltdowns at the new 200-acre facility in Bluffdale, Utah, which has been unable to run all of its computers and servers.  

Obama Pushing Israel to Vacate Jordan Valley
Obama’s proposal calls for international forces to maintain security control along with unarmed Palestinian police forces, the PA negotiator said. Israel will retain security posts in some strategic areas of the Jordan Valley, according to the U.S. plan.  

California Officials Raid Offices of Major Obama Donor Kareem Ahmed
Officials executed a warrant for the offices of Landmark Medical Management, whose president Kareem Ahmed gave the Obama affiliated Super PAC Priorities USA a $1 million donation. The president of a company in a complex industry, Ahmed claimed Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as a personal friend,  

Jailed Vatican accountant fears death by poisoning
A former Vatican priest arrested in connection with an alleged tax evasion scheme said Thursday he fears he will be poisoned for talking to investigators. In a newspaper interview conducted through his lawyer, the Rev. Nunzio Scarano said, "I have told of episodes that could put me in danger," ANSA news service reported. "I am trying to be stronger than the fear and nightmares that torment me, but despite my prayers, I am certain that I will die by poisoning," Scarano added.  

Iran cancels annual anti-Zionism conference
As part of an apparent effort to rebrand the Islamic Republic in post-Ahmadinejad times, the New Horizon Conference, scheduled to take place in November, was cancelled by the Foreign Ministry, reported The Telegraph. Hardliners in Iran blasted the decision, which they see as another concession on the part of the new government. Iran’s recently elected president, Hassan Rouhani, has made a concerted effort to put a new face on the regime in Tehran.  

Foreigners train Syrian rebels in Afghanistan to use chem weapons - Lavrov
There are reports that some third countries are training Syrian rebels to use chemical weapons in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. The intention is to put the skill to use in new false flag actions in Syria, he explained.  

Bachmann: House could impeach 'dictator' Obama for his offenses
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Tuesday that President Obama has “committed impeachable offenses” and that the House could hold a hearing to impeach.  

Judicial Watch Sues Michael Bloomberg for Gun Records
“We have good reason to suspect that New York taxpayers have been forced to foot the bill for Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-gun group,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “We have records showing that other municipalities also foot part of his anti-gun lobbying efforts. And it is well past time for the public to have a full accounting from Mayor Bloomberg about MAIG taxpayer-funded activities.”  

NBC Blasts Obamacare Exchanges: ‘The Focus of Ridicule’ and ‘A Complete Mess’
NBC’s Nightly News reported on the disastrous rollout of Obamacare Thursday night, with correspondent Tom Costello calling the website “the focus of ridicule” and quoting experts who could hardly fathom a “worse launch of a nationwide site.”  

Allen West: Obama Acting Like 'Spoiled Brat'
Former Rep. Allen West of Florida said President Barack Obama's refusal to negotiate with Republicans is tantamount to the behavior of a "spoiled brat." "I can put it very basic Southern terms: a spoiled brat child," West told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.  

Obama rejects Republican offer of short-term debt limit plan
The President rejected the offer because it didn’t include a provision to reopen the federal government, which has been offering only non-essential services since Oct. 1 because politicians failed to extend spending authority.  

South Dakota blizzard kills, buries cows; shutdown leaves ranchers in the cold
Like in a scene from an apocalyptic parable, dark carcasses of cows and steers lie motionless in silent clusters across swaths of South Dakota. An early blizzard caught ranchers off guard this week in the state, killing as many as 20,000 head of cattle, a state official says. But ranchers say they are the real victims. The storm left many of them in ruins, and now Washington is leaving them out in the cold.  

Tornado damage in Eads, Colorado
A tornado hit the southeast Colorado community of Eads Thursday evening, emergency officials in Kiowa County said. Tornado hit about 6:30 p.m. and damaged two houses. Tornado also knocked down power to the communities of Brandon, Sheridan Lake and Towner, The Denver Channel reported.  

Republicans offer to raise US debt ceiling for six weeks
Washington's politicians have taken the first steps towards temporarily ending America's 10-day budget impasse after Republican leaders proposed a plan to raise the US debt ceiling for six weeks to allow time for further negotiations. Senior Republican party members went to the White House to discuss the proposal with Barack Obama seeking to break a political deadlock that threatened to take the US to the brink of default for the first time in its history.  

Earthquake in Thessaloniki Hits 4.4 on the Richter Scale
According to the Athens Institute of Geodynamics, the earthquake occurred at 8.15 in the morning, 40 km east of Thessaloniki and its focal depth was 10 km. It is not yet known whether there are damages resulting from the earthquake.  

Syria: God is at Work
“When you hear about one Muslim coming to Christ, it’s a great thing, and everybody rejoices,” said a VOM Syrian contact. “Today in Syria I’m not talking about one person. We’re talking about hundreds and even thousands of Muslims coming to know Christ.”  

Syria rebels executed civilians, says Human Rights Watch
Rebel forces in Syria killed as many as 190 civilians and seized more than 200 hostages during a military offensive in August, Human Rights Watch says. A report by the US-based group says the deaths occurred in villages inhabited predominantly by members of President Bashar al-Assad's minority Alawite sect near the coastal city of Latakia. It said the findings "strongly suggest" crimes against humanity were committed.  

Cyclone Phailin: India's Orissa and Andhra Pradesh prepare for storm
India is preparing for a massive cyclone, which is sweeping through the Bay of Bengal towards the country's east coast. Cyclone Phailin, categorised as "very severe" by weather forecasters, is expected to hit Orissa and Andhra Pradesh states on Saturday. The Meteorological Department has predicted winds of 205-215km (127-134 miles) at the time of landfall.  

Report: Iran nixes anti-Israel, anti-Zionism conference
Iranian officials have reportedly ordered the cancellation of an annual anti-Israel and anti-Zionism conference set to take place in November, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported Thursday. ...Iran's foreign ministry cancelled the New Horizon Conference, in the latest move to demonstrate that the country is veering toward a new diplomatic direction under the leadership of new President Hassan Rouhani.  

Is the U.S. Prepared for An Emp Event?
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily Newsclarionproject.org
Categories: Today's Headlines;Commentary

The following is Clarion Project National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro’s interview with Michael Maloof:

Ryan Mauro: Are there any serious objections from the scientific community about the danger from a potential EMP event?

Michael Maloof: Scientists generally are in agreement that a natural or man-made electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, can be devastating to our unprotected electrical grid, electronics and automated control systems. Depending on its intensity, an EMP can have a potentially catastrophic, cascading impact on all of the electricity-dependent critical infrastructures on which we rely for survival.

The importance of this problem became apparent after some members of Congress had been told by the Russian Duma, or parliament, members that their country could “bring America to its knees” with one EMP nuclear device exploded at a high altitude, destroying the U.S. grid. As a consequence, Congress in 2000 mandated the creation of an EMP Commission of prominent scientists to look at the effects of an EMP on our national grid and all of the critical infrastructures which depend on it. 

In a 2004 preliminary report and again in a final, more in-depth report, the EMP Commission showed in considerable detail the catastrophic impact an EMP would have on such critical infrastructures as telecommunications, banking and finance, petroleum and natural gas delivery, transportation, food and water delivery, emergency services and space systems. 

In issuing the 2008 report, which proposed a series of recommendations, the EMP Commission chairman, Dr. William Graham, said that an EMP event, whether natural or man-made, would cause “unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures.” In that event, he said, “a regional or national recovery would be long and difficult, and would seriously degrade the safety and overall viability of our Nation.” 

Given the prospect of an EMP event over a wide geographical area of the country, it could push the nation back virtually to the 19th century, with our urban environment being the most severely affected. Some EMP experts suggest the urban centers of the United States could become extinct given the high potential for disease and other secondary effects from an EMP, leading to the prospect of death and starvation to some 90 percent of the U.S. population.

Mauro: Wouldn't above-ground nuclear tests during the Cold War have created a disastrous EMP effect if this science were accurate?

Maloof: The tests were conducted primarily in the Pacific Ocean area and they were not high-altitude bursts. Nevertheless, it was during those tests that EMP was first detected after a test explosion affected communications some 800 miles away in Hawaii. EMP experts say all electronics and instruments were affected in the test area. In seeing this result, further tests were conducted by the British and then Soviets and determined that the potential of an EMP on electronics, communications and the grid were dramatic. Because our electronics today have become more sophisticated, the likelihood of an EMP event on them will be even greater, if left unprotected.

Mauro: What countries are developing EMP capabilities and would the movement of nuclear warheads onto ships and then to the U.S. coast be detected?

Maloof: All countries with nuclear weapons are very aware of the effects of an EMP and know their nuclear weapons create an EMP effect. Some countries, such as North Korea and China, have created what is referred to as a “super-EMP,” designed to emit more gamma rays than to create destruction from the blast.

Not only China and North Korea know about EMPs, but also Russia, Iran, Pakistan and India similarly know about EMP and have incorporated the concept in their military doctrine. The most recent nuclear tests conducted by North Korea, for example, was low in kilotons but thought to be high in gamma rays –in effect, developing a “super-EMP” that could be exploded at a high-altitude over the United States, greatly affecting critical U.S. infrastructures. 

In knowing what the impact of an EMP would be on electrical grid systems and all electronics, these countries are undertaking efforts to harden their own electronics to mitigate EMP effects on their technology-based systems. 

Unless there is good real-time intelligence, it would be difficult to detect a nuclear device that could be moved by ship toward the U.S. coasts. Indeed, a country with a nuclear weapon really doesn’t need an intercontinental ballistic missile capability. It only needs to use a false-flag freighter to approach the U.S. coast and assimilate into the heavy shipping traffic that exists along our coasts. 

Then, a simple Scud missile which would be in the bowels of the vessel could be raised to the deck and launched off our coasts without warning or detection. For example, such a vessel could position itself along the U.S. East Coast and fire a high-altitude nuclear device over the most populated area of the United States between Boston and Washington.

There also is another growing problem just within our hemisphere, and that is the relationship between Cuba and North Korea. It was a major surprise to the U.S. intelligence community when it recently had a North Korean vessel detained going through the Panama Canal. Intelligence had suggested the vessel was carrying drugs. 

However, upon inspection, the vessel was found to be carrying components and possibly a complete Cuban SA-2, or ground-to-air anti-aircraft missile. The SA-2s are nuclear-capable. The Cubans are assessed to have some 100 SA-2, going back to the days of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Although designed to be used against aircraft, an SA-2 armed with a North Korean “super-EMP” device and fired without any warning along the U.S. East coast to a high altitude of some 50 kilometers would knock out at least the eastern grid, which services some 70 percent of the U.S. population. 

The missile could be fired from a ship whose identity would not immediately be ascertained, if at all. At such a close range, it also is doubtful whether an anti-ballistic missile system would be able to react in time to intercept it. 

Given these possible scenarios, it is all the more reason why it is imperative that the United States federal government, in cooperation with state governments and the local utilities, make it a priority to harden all electronics and the national grids – there are three – Eastern, Western and Texas grids – to mitigate this potential, catastrophic outcome on our technologically based critical infrastructures. 

Mauro: What would it cost the U.S. government to protect the power grid? If it did so, would an EMP attack still be catastrophic?

Maloof: The cost varies, but it can be up to $20 billion over a few years’ period. While that might seem to be a massive amount, it is very little compared to the alternative. 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, for example, has projected the cost from a direct hit from a solar flare would cost some $2 trillion in the first year, take four to 10 years to recover and affect the lives of more than 160 million people, meaning that they would either die or starve. The EMP effect from a high-altitude nuclear explosion, however, could be worse, since it is more intense than the impact of a solar flare. 

A direct hit from a solar flare is perhaps our most immediate threat of an EMP. The sun is fast approaching a “solar storm maximum” which occurs every 11 years. We’re now beginning the most intense period of that 11-year solar cycle. The greatest intensity of an increasing number of solar flares spewing from the sun’s surface is expected between now and all of 2014. 

While some $20 billion would go to harden the major critical infrastructures, it will mitigate greatly the impact of an EMP event, but it won’t be totally foolproof. The nation would be in a far better position to sustain an EMP, whether from natural or man-made events, if the national effort to harden all electronics is undertaken now.

Mauro: What can average citizens do to prepare for a potential EMP?

Maloof: The fact that the federal government has been aware of the effects of an EMP event on our critical infrastructures but has done nothing has placed the burden of preparation on individual citizens at the state and local level.

I have outlined in my recent book on EMP what individuals need and can do to prepare for such an event. It is titled A Nation Forsaken: EMP-The Escalating Threat of an American Catastrophe.

Since the time of the EMP Commission’s revelations of the impact of an EMP event on those technologically-based critical infrastructures, the federal government still hasn’t treated it as a national security issue. For example, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security still does not regard an EMP event as one of its 15 National Planning Scenarios which offer procedures to be implemented in the event of a catastrophic emergency, such as floods or terrorism.

Congress once again has introduced the SHIELD Act to give the federal government more authority to require hardening of the national grid and electronics that affect those critical infrastructures but, to date, it hasn’t been able to pass the Senate even though the House in previous Congresses did pass it.

Consequently, individual citizens need to take the initiative from the ground up rather than waiting for decisions to be made at the national level.

Individuals can initiate action with their state legislatures and governors. Indeed, citizens of Maine took such action last June to harden their grid. The hope is that other state legislatures will take similar action in the near future.

Also, emergency services at the local levels need to determine whether they can respond if an EMP is to occur. Any exercise must assume that all communications have been knocked out and that emergency responders will have difficulty in reacting since emergency vehicles could be affected since they have electronic ignitions. Testimony in Maine from emergency responders revealed that emergency vehicles could be taken out of the game because of an EMP. 

Consideration therefore should be given to creating pre-determined locations where communities know beforehand where there is food, water, medications and shelter to which individuals and families need to report. That means that communities need to begin stocking up on supplies and have locations pre-selected so that there is some degree of orderliness in the face of such an emergency.

Individuals need to prepare so-called “go-bags” that have essentials for each individual of a family, including firearms. 

Under such chaotic conditions, there is no doubt that gangs may begin roaming neighborhoods and more rural locations and individuals need to be able to protect their families and possessions.

People who have experienced the impact of temporarily having no electricity and no means of transportation in times of floods, hurricanes and past natural disasters know what such chaotic conditions are like.

In the case of an EMP, people need to place themselves into a 19th century existence and figure out what they will need in a household, such as a supply of stored food, water and medications on which they may need to survive for weeks, months and possibly years.

Did Obama Promise to Leap to the Defense of Israel’s Nuclear Program?
Oct 11th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Commentary

Steps for Divesting Mid East of WMD

On Thursday morning Oct. 10, Israel Radio reported the arrival of British and French officials “for discussions with their Israeli counterparts on the Iranian nuclear issue.”
Citing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office as its source, the report disclosed that the visitors met with Minister for Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz and staff as well as senior staff of the Foreign Ministry and the National Security Council.
The radio correspondent was informed that the European position on the subject was “stable” and they were proof against being won over by Iranian proposals that were “not serious.” The Europeans appeared ready to meet the Iranians half way, said the PMO source, yet they did not take exception to Israel’s demands for Iranian nuclear disarmament and promised to “seriously take them into account” at the nuclear talks opening in Geneva next week.
This picture was wholly contrived by Netanyahu’s office, DEBKA Weekly’s sources report.
Netanyahu knows as well as those visitors that Israel has no choice but to swallow the partial US-Russian-Iranian blueprint (outlined in the first article in this issue) unless he is ready to go for a military strike against Iran without further delay.
This is unlikely to happen, although on Oct. 1 Netanyahu thundered at the UN: “I want there to be no confusion on this point. Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.” The fact of the matter is that Israel can’t really stand up to the concerted front backing the mighty push by Washington, Moscow and Tehran for a diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear controversy.

Netanyahu abandons hope of US forcing Iran’s nuclear disarmament

That the Europeans promised to “seriously” address Israel’s demands implied that Washington had turned them down.
And indeed, upon learning of the accommodations Barack Obama was close to finalizing with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Netanyahu put in a hurried call to the White House. In a conversation with Obama’s aides, the prime minister warned against “a bad deal” and proposed certain riders for slowing down the president’s precipitate embrace.
One was to ban Iran’s use of the advanced IR-2 centrifuges which spin at three or four times the speed of the machines in current use. Netanyahu tried explaining that the use of just a few of these wonder centrifuges would render US-Iranian agreements meaningless. But no one at the other end of the White House line was ready to listen.
By the time he met President at the White House on Sept. 30, the prime minister had given up hope of persuading Washington to try and force Iran to give up its nuclear program. He knew it would be a waste of time. Instead, he asked the president to guarantee his espousal of Israel’s nuclear weapons and promise to keep them off the international agenda.
Obama gave Netanyahu this guarantee in 2009.
DEBKA Weekly’s sources were not informed of the president’s response on this point. But we have plenty of information about Obama’s counter-arguments. He insisted that the Washington-Tehran rapprochement would be a net gain for Israel too, because it had the potential to evolve one day into ties between Jerusalem and Tehran and, who knows, even an eventual peace accord between the Islamic Republic and the Jewish State.
(More on this in a separate article in this issue.)

Israel need no longer fear Tehran

Obama’s argument was corroborated from another quarter.
Leaders of a state bordering on Russia with close ties to President Vladimir Putin reported that they were reliably informed by high-ranking Russian officials during their latest trips to Moscow that Tehran may be groping its way toward acknowledging Israel – if not recognition.
Those Russian officials said a discreet new directive had been handed down from on high to the Iranian media to qualify their total rejection of Israel’s right to exist, while continuing to excoriate its government’s polices and Netanyahu in person.
In the view of those Moscow sources, Tehran has adopted separate policies for Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Netanyahu government received a good mark for not pouncing on the US-Russian deals for Syria. The Saudis in contrast are flat against the deal on Syria and its effective perpetuation of the rule of Bashar Assad, and so Tehran expects Riyadh, by the same token, to try and disrupt any accord with Washington on its nuclear program.
(More on the Saudi campaign against those deals in a separate article in this issue.)

Putin: Israel doesn’t need nuclear arms

Some Israeli analysts interpret those leaks as a combined effort by Washington and Moscow to disarm Netanyahu by presenting Israel’s prospects in rosy colors and persuading him to temper his campaign against US-Russian plans for Tehran and its nuclear program.
Other informed Israeli sources suspect the US and Russia of conniving to break up the united front Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates have formed ad hoc for defeating those plans. The two powers are counting on driving a wedge between the Saudis, by cajoling them into accepting the Iranian deal and leaving Israel out in the cold in isolation.
Either way, Israel suspects President Obama is not keeping Netanyahu abreast of his moves in relation to Iran and Russia, as he promised, and red lights are flashing in Jerusalem on another score. In a speech delivered at the 10^th anniversary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club on Sept. 19, President Putin defended Syria’s acquisition of chemical weapons as a justifiable response to Israel’s nuclear weapons.
He argued that Israel is so technologically advanced that it does not need nuclear weapons and their possession only makes the country a target.

Putin and Obama moves for divesting the Mid East of WMD

That argument was interpreted as a bid to use the US-Russian understanding on Syria’s chemical arsenal as a lever for jumpstarting a comprehensive disarmament process in the region that would divest Israel of its nuclear armaments.
The Russian president has long spoken in favor of making the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, an ambition known to be shared by Obama.
Israeli policymakers no doubt took note of five points:
1. Putin’s comments at Valdai were made to an audience that included a number of American officials and they were seen taking down every word;
2. Only a minimum of invitations were sent to Israel this year - none to key Israeli figures in US-Israel relations.
3. It was hard to tell whether Putin’s remarks were the fruit of a tactic shared with Obama, or an attempt to pull the US president still further into the Russian net by stepping out of their agreed boundaries.
4. Or perhaps Obama and Putin are playing good cop-bad cop on the Iranian question as they did over Syria’s chemical weapons. Putin would then take the lead role in issues whose handling would embarrass Obama leaving the US president to play along as though he had no choice.
5. Was the Putin speech the manifestation of a secret US-Russian arrangement – known to Iran, but not Saudi Arabia or Israel - to convene an international conference under the aegis of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to discuss measures for removing weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East?