Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15

[American Patriot]

Obama downplays prospect of strikes in Syria





5:51 PM, August 28, 2014 |


WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama played down the prospect of imminent U.S. military action in Syria on Thursday, saying, “We don’t have a strategy yet” for degrading the violent militant group seeking to establish a caliphate in the Middle East.


Obama said confronting the Islamic State militants requires a strategy with support from other countries in the region. He said it’s time for states there to “stop being ambivalent” about the goals of extremist groups such as the Islamic State.


“They have no ideology beyond violence and chaos and the slaughter of innocent people,” Obama said, alluding to the group’s announcement last week that it had killed U.S. journalist James Foley. The militants also have threatened to kill other U.S. hostages.


The U.S. is striking Islamic State targets in Iraq, and officials have said the president is considering similar action in neighboring Syria in the wake of Foley’s death. However, the president said Thursday that his top priority remains rolling back the militants’ gains in Iraq, where he has said they pose a threat to U.S. personnel in Erbil and Baghdad.
Obama said that if he were to expand that military mission, he would consult with members of Congress, who are due to return to Washington in early September.
Other developments

Syrian troops killed: The Islamic State killed more than 160 Syrian government troops seized in recent fighting and posted pictures of terrified young conscripts stripped to their underwear before meeting their deaths in the Syrian countryside. The images of the slayings that emerged Thursday were the latest in a massacre attributed to the extremist group, which has terrorized rivals and civilians with brutality in Syria and Iraq as it seeks to expand on both sides of the border.
Peacekeepers detained: Gunmen in southern Syria detained 43 United Nations peacekeepers during fighting on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, the United Nations said. It said 81 more peacekeepers were trapped in the area by clashes between rebels and Syrian troops.

[American Patriot]

Video shows Islamic State executes scores of Syrian soldiers

By Sylvia Westall and Mariam Karouny
BEIRUT Thu Aug 28, 2014 4:47pm EDT

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(GRAPHIC IMAGES) Islamic State executes 250 Syrian soldiers (01:11)


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(GRAPHIC IMAGES) Islamic State executes 250 Syrian soldiers


Kurdish forces pound Islamic State militants northeast of Baghdad




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(Reuters) - Islamic State fighters executed scores of Syrian soldiers captures when the militants seized an airbase in the province of Raqqa at the weekend, according to a video posted on You Tube on Thursday.
The video, confirmed as genuine by an Islamic State fighter, showed the bodies of dozens of men lying face down wearing nothing but their underwear. They were stretched out in a line that appeared to be dozens of metres long.
A separate pile of bodies was shown nearby. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
The caption beneath it said the dead numbered 250. An Islamic State fighter in Raqqa told Reuters via the Internet: "Yes, we have executed them all."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence in the war, put the death toll at more than 120.
Islamic State, a radical offshoot of al Qaeda, stormed Tabqa airbase on Sunday after days of clashes with the army and said it had captured and killed soldiers and officers in one of the bloodiest confrontations yet between the two sides.
The capture of Tabqa, the Syrian army's last foothold in that area, and apparent parading and killing of large numbers of its soldiers shows how Islamic State has cemented its grip on the north of the country.
The video begins by showing the captives apparently being marched in the desert with their hands behind their heads and watched by armed men. An Islamic State fighter repeatedly shouts out "Islamic State", to which the men reply "It shall remain".
NOT AN ALLY
Islamic State controls roughly a third of Syria, mostly areas in the north and east of the country. The United States has launched airstrikes on the same group over the border in Iraq and is considering doing the same in Syria.
The Syrian government, which is shunned by the West, has presented itself as a partner in a war on Islamist extremists.

[American Patriot]

Islamic State executes 160 Syrian troops, holds 43 UN troops

Date

August 29, 2014 - 6:17AM

Islamic State executes 250 Syrian soldiers

WARNING - GRAPHIC CONTENT: Sunni militants appear to execute 250 Syrian soldiers after capturing the Taqba air base in northeast Syria.

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Damascus: Islamic State jihadists have boasted they have executed scores of Syrian troops after capturing a key air base, the latest in a string of abuses that have shocked the world.
News of the killings came as US President Barack Obama weighed air strikes on IS positions in Syria and edged closer to greenlighting a mission to aid Shiite Turkmen trapped in an Iraqi town besieged by the jihadists.
It also came as rival Islamist rebels led by al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front seized 43 UN peacekeepers on the Golan Heights, part of a mission that has monitored an armistice between Syrian and Israeli troops on the strategic plateau for decades.
Smoke rises from the Syrian village of Quneitra. Photo: AFP

IS on Thursday posted grisly video footage on the internet of scores of bodies heaped in the desert they boasted were those of Syrian soldiers they captured and executed following its seizure of Tabqa air base.
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Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that IS had executed at least 160 soldiers, among some 500 who had made a desperate bid to escape to government-held territory after their defeat last Sunday.
The footage posted by IS showed a close-up of some 20 bodies, but then panned out to show scores more.
Members of UNDOF wait to cross into Syria, on August 28. Photo: AFP

Other shots showed men barefoot and dressed only in their underwear walking in line with their hands on their head in surrender, escorted by jihadist gunmen.
One held up the black flag of the jihadists. Others chanted: "Islamic State forever."
Tabqa was the last position in Raqa province to fall to the jihadists, who now control a vast swathe of northeastern Syria and Iraq.
A UN-mandated probe has charged that public executions, amputations, lashings and mock crucifixions have become a regular fixture in jihadist-controlled areas of Syria.
Mr Obama was to meet with top national security aides on Thursday to decide whether to expand US air strikes launched against IS in Iraq earlier this month to its strongholds in Syria.
The Syrian government launched air strikes of its own on Thursday, killing six IS leaders, the Observatory said, but Washington has so far baulked at cooperating with Damascus against the group.
Rival jihadists of Al-Nusra Front, backed by other rebels, detained 43 Fijian peacekeepers on the Golan on Thursday, a day after their capture of the sole crossing over the UN-patrolled armistice line to the Israeli-occupied sector of the plateau.
"Forty-three peacekeepers from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force were detained early this morning by an armed group in the vicinity of Quneitra," a UN statement said.
The 43 peacekeepers from Fiji were forced to surrender their weapons and taken hostage, but 81 Filipino blue helmets "held their ground" and refused to disarm, the Filipino defence department said.
It said the Filipino peacekeepers were being surrounded by the gunmen.
The UN Security Council condemned the action and demanded the "unconditional and immediate release" of the peacekeepers, a statement said.
But the Philippines has said it will repatriate its 331-strong contingent, for security reasons, mirroring previous moves by Australia, Croatia and Japan.
Washington has also been weighing both aid drops and air strikes in Iraq to help residents of a Shi'ite Turkmen town besieged by the jihadists since early June, US officials said on Wednesday.
Inhabitants of the Salaheddin province town of Amerli, north of Baghdad, face danger both because of their faith, which jihadists consider heresy, and their resistance against the militants,
Iraq is preparing its own effort, massing forces north and south of the town and carrying out air strikes against the jihadist militants besieging it.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/islamic-...#ixzz3Bj8awybH

[Avvakum]

Obama is a Goddamned liar or an Idiot if he believes this crap;


“They have no ideology beyond violence and chaos and the slaughter of innocent people,” Obama said, alluding to the group’s announcement last week that it had killed U.S. journalist James Foley.

IS has said time and again that they plan on setting up their Islamic Caliphate and conquering the whole world for Islam and governing that world under the Salafist Sunni interpretation of Sharia law. I'd say that they are very much in possession of a political ideology.

[American Patriot]

Obama is both a liar and an idiot. Well, and Damned. That's three things

[American Patriot]

Obama yesterday – We don't have a strategy.


Cameron today – What's this "we" crap?

[American Patriot]

No one shot this fucker?

Driver with ISIS flag leads cops on car chase through Chicago

August 29, 2014 / Daniel Crane

A Chicago man is facing multiple felony counts after he led police on a car chase early Wednesday while displaying the flag of the Islamic State from his vehicle’s window and then threatened to detonate a bomb.


Authorities arrested 49-year-old Emad Karakrah after the Windy City chase and charged him with felony counts of disorderly conduct and aggravated fleeing, as well as a misdemeanor count of driving on a never-issued license, according to the Sun-Times, and three traffic citations related to the ordeal.


According to the Sun-Times report, police say they saw a “suspicious person” driving a silver Pontiac a little after 9 a.m. local time early Wednesday with a flag of the Islamic State group, formerly known as ISIS, waving from his car. Police then attempted to pull the man over, but the official report indicates that Karakrah took off and eluded authorities, forcing them to call for backup. Meanwhile, Karakrah reportedly drove through several red lights before eventually being apprehended.


Once he finally stopped, Jordan Owen wrote for the paper, Karakrah reportedly told police that there was a bomb in his vehicle and he would set it off if the authorities attempted to search it. As a result, the Chicago Police Department resorted to calling in the local bomb squad, as well as representatives from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security, who later determined that there were no explosives.


Read more at RT News

[vector7]

Video shows apparent beheading of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff

By The Associated Press, Scott Thuman
September 2, 2014 - 01:22 pm
Updated: September 2, 2014 - 06:47 pm

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Islamic State extremists released a video Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of a second American journalist, Steven Sotloff, and warning President Barack Obama that as long as U.S. airstrikes against the militant group continue, "our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."

Continue reading

More on this story

• Sotloff follows James Foley as second American journalist executed recently

The footage - depicting what the U.S. called a sickening act of brutality - was posted two weeks after the release of video showing the killing of James Foley and just days after Sotloff's mother pleaded for his life.


Barak Barfi, a spokesman for the family, said that the Sotloffs had seen the video but that authorities have not established its authenticity.

"The family knows of this horrific tragedy and is grieving privately. There will be no public comment from the family during this difficult time," Barfi said.

Sotloff, a 31-year-old Miami-area native who freelanced for Time and Foreign Policy magazines, vanished in Syria in August 2013 and was not seen again until he appeared in a video released last month that showed Foley's beheading. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit against an arid Syrian landscape, Sotloff was threatened in that video with death unless the U.S. stopped airstrikes on the Islamic State.

In the video distributed Tuesday and titled "A Second Message to America," Sotloff appears in a similar jumpsuit before he is apparently beheaded by a fighter with the Islamic State, the extremist group that has conquered wide swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq and declared itself a caliphate.

In the video, the organization threatens to kill another hostage, this one identified as a British citizen, David Cawthorne Haines. It was not immediately clear who Haines was.

Britain and France called the killing "barbaric." In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said U.S. intelligence analysts will work as quickly as possible to determine if the video is authentic.

"If the video is genuine, we are sickened by this brutal act, taking the life of another innocent American citizen," Psaki said. "Our hearts go out to the Sotloff family."

Psaki said it is believed that "a few" Americans are still being held by the Islamic State. Psaki would not give any specifics, but one is a 26-year-old woman kidnapped while doing humanitarian aid work in Syria, according to a family representative who asked that the hostage not be identified out of fear for her safety.

The fighter who apparently beheads Sotloff in the video calls it retribution for Obama's continued airstrikes against the group.

"I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy toward the Islamic State ... despite our serious warnings," the fighter says. "So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."

The killer specifically mentions the recent U.S. airstrikes around the Mosul dam and the beleaguered Iraqi town of Amirli, making it unlikely that Sotloff was killed at the same time as Foley, as some analysts had speculated.

Over the weekend, Iraqi government forces with help from U.S. airstrikes broke the Islamic State's two-month siege of Amirli, a town where some 15,000 Shiite Turkmens had been stranded.

The SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. terrorism watchdog, first reported the video's existence.
In a sign of disorganization - or perhaps dissension - in the extremist group's ranks, a faction of the Islamic State apparently posted the video early, before it was supposed to be released. In a later Twitter message, those responsible apologized and asked fellow jihadis not to "reproach" them.

The Islamic State has terrorized rivals and civilians alike with widely publicized brutality as it seeks to expand a proto-state it has carved out on both sides of the border. In its rise to prominence over the past year, it has frequently published graphic photos and gruesome videos of bombings, beheadings and mass killings.

Last week, Sotloff's mother, Shirley Sotloff, pleaded with his captors for mercy, saying in a video that her son was "an innocent journalist" and "an honorable man" who "has always tried to help the weak."

Sotloff grew up in the Miami area, graduated from Kimball Union Academy, a prep school in New Hampshire, and then attended the University of Central Florida, which said he majored in journalism from 2022 to 2004 but apparently left without graduating.

Just how Sotloff made his way from Florida to Middle East hotspots is not clear. He published articles from Syria, Egypt and Libya in a variety of publications. Several focus on the plight of ordinary people in war-torn places.

In a statement, Foreign Policy magazine said it was saddened by news of his death and called him a "brave and talented journalist" whose reporting "showed a deep concern for the civilians caught in the middle of a brutal war."

Time Editor Nancy Gibbs said Sotloff "gave his life so readers would have access to information from some of the most dangerous places in the world."

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., said the new video demonstrates the Islamic State's "barbarity across the region - beheading and crucifying those who don't share their ideology." He said the U.S. and allies need to step up military action against the group, including through airstrikes.

At Sotloff's parents' home in Pinecrest, Fla., two police vehicles blocked the driveway Tuesday, and officers advised journalists to stay away. Friends of the family could be seen coming and going.

"Everyone's been concerned. Everyone is grieving," neighbor Pepe Cazas said. "It's terrible. I've been praying for him."

[vector7]

AWOL Obama vanishes again: Three hours after another American is brutally beheaded, President is whisked away from the White House - without finding time to say a single word about it

• Presdident walks to Marine One past journalists while ignoring their shouted questions
• State Department's chief Iraq-Iran deputy said 'stay tuned' for a strategy: 'we are building now a broader campaign plan'
• CNN anchor pounces: 'You say "stay tuned," but in the meantime ISIS is busy beheading our colleagues'
• Georgia Republican senator tweets 'There's only one way you deal with ISIS: You kill them'
• California Democratic senator warned Sunday that Obama is 'very cautious. Maybe in this instance too cautious'
• The president will be in Europe for three days, attending international meetings in Estonia and then a NATO summit in Wales

By David Martosko, Us Political Editor for MailOnline
Published: 17:00 EST, 2 September 2014 | Updated: 23:20 EST, 2 September 2014

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Barack Obama left for a three-day European swing Tuesday afternoon without saying a single word in response to a terrorist video showing the beheading of Steven Sotloff, the second American journalist to die that way on camera.

The president's departure came amid equally deafening swirls of helicopter rotors and tough questions about whether and when the U.S. will strike back in a meaningful and public way against ISIS, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.

News of Sotloff's execution broke online at 1:05 p.m., shortly after White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest began his daily briefing with reporters; he said four minutes later that he hadn't heard the news.

By 3:40, Obama was lifting off from the South Lawn of the White House on his way to a waiting Air Force One, which was 'wheels up' by 4:00.
Just two weeks ago, the president was widely criticized for being pictured fist-bumping on the golf course minutes after solemnly addressing the nation about an ISIS video showing photojournalist James Foley's death.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO



Goodbye: Obama jumped aboard Marine One shortly before 3:40 p.m., en route to Air force One at Andrews Air Force base. He took off in his private Boeing 747 at 4:00 p.m. News of Sotloff's execution broke at 1:05.



In a hurry: The president jogged up the steps to Air Force One on Tuesday, less than three hours after the gruesome scene of Sotloff's death was broadcast globally via social media



Walk on by: Obama strode to Marine One, his personal chopper, without acknowledging shouted questions from reporters about how he'll respond to Steven Sotloff's beheading. The helicopter took him to Air Force One

As Obama's chopper left the White House on Tuesday, CNN posted video of an interview with Brett McGurk, the Deputy U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran, who said Americans should 'stay tuned' for a reaction from the Obama administration.

The U.S. is 'developing a broad regional coalition, a broad international coalition, working to get a new Iraqi government stood up, working to get our plans in place,' McGurk said. 'So stay tuned.'

'You cannot just go in militarily and start dropping bombs and hope that it's going to work out,' he said. 'You have to have a very sophisticated approach to this.'

'We are building now a broader campaign plan that we’ll develop over the days and weeks ahead,' he told CNN.

The remark sounded like an affirmative echo of what Obama himself said five days ago, admitting that he hadn't decided whether to expand his anti-ISIS airstrikes beyond the borders of Iraq and into Syria .

'We don’t have a strategy yet,' he said then.

More...

• 'I'm back, Obama': ISIS executioner Jihadi John taunts President as he beheads second US journalist, Steven Sotloff . . . and then threatens to kill a Briton next
• 'American forces are on the ground here': Kurds claim US commandos ARE fighting ISIS with them in northern Iraq, after Obama said no 'combat troops' would fight
• Shocked David Cameron attacks the 'absolutely disgusting, despicable' murder of US journalist Steven Sotloff by ISIS
• ISIS has turned northern Iraq into 'blood-soaked killing fields', says Amnesty International as new evidence of ethnic cleansing against minorities emerges
• 'Your cowardly lack of leadership has left a gaping hole': Parents of SEAL Team Six soldier killed in action call for President Obama's resignation in searing open letter about his handling of ISIS

CNN's Christiane Amanpour seemed out of patience on Tuesday.

'You say "stay tuned," she snapped at McGurk, 'but in the meantime ISIS is busy beheading our colleagues, threatening more of them, massacring people on the ground and conducting the kind of brutality that we haven't seen in a long, long time.'

Shortly after McGurk finished his interview, Obama strode past reporters on his way to Marine One without acknowledging them.

'No questions could be heard above the helicopter engine and no answers were given by the president,' according to a White House pool reporter.

The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, tried to drown out the bad news with press releases about a 'global sports mentoring program,' a groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center,' and the '5th European Transgender Council Meeting.'

After an eight-hour flight, Obama will wake up in Estonia for multilateral talks before continuing to Wales for a NATO summit.

He will be accompanied by a subset of the White House press corps, as he was on Martha's Vineyard when his golf game became international news.
Barely ten minutes after reading a resolute anti-ISIS message from a makeshift podium following Foley's beheading, the vacationing Obama was at the first tee.

The photos that emerged hours later angered Americans who saw the commander-in-chief's grins and fist-bumps as a sign of disrespect while the dead journalist's family mourned.



Video released Tuesday by the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) showed American journalist Steven Sotloff (L) next to an unknown jihadi shortly before his execution by beheading



Getaway chopper: Once out of earshot of the press corps, Obama boarded Marine One for a 15-minute flight to Andrews Air Force Base and a waiting Air Force One ride to Estonia

Jihadi John speaks in Sotloff and Foley beheading videos (audio)




Members of Congress from the political left and right showed Tuesday that they are growing weary of the White House's slow-developing approach to combating ISIS.

Republicans especially – but with Democrats softening – are demanding a plan to crush the group in its Syrian safe haven.
'Mr. President,' South Carolina Lindsey Graham tweeted on Tuesday, 'if you can't come up with a strategy, at least tell us what the goal is.'

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, added on Twitter that 'we need to send a clear message to the Middle East and the rest of the world. There's only one way you deal with ISIS: You kill them.'

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, a California Republican, told CNN that the Sotloff video 'is exactly the reason why we have to go after ISIS, why we cannot just let them wreak havoc. They’re killers. They’re brutal.'

Seasoned Capitol Hill Democrats are beginning to question Obama's wait-and-see posture too.

Royce's counterpart Rep. Elliot Engel, who his the committee's ranking Democrat and a New Yorker, said he favored airstrikes in Syria.

'Yes, I do,' he told CNN.

'ISIS is obviously across the [Iraq] border, into Syria ... and they really have to be defeated,' he said.

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, told NBC on Sunday that she has 'learned one thing about this president, and that is he’s very cautious. Maybe in this instance too cautious.'



Confusion: State Dept. official Brett McGurk said Americans should 'stay tuned' for the anti-ISIS strategy that Obama said he didn't have last week

Obama silent on Sotloff beheading before jetting to NATO summit




A Murderous trio of British militants linked with the cash-flush Islamist army are believed to be responsible for the beheading deaths of Sotloff and James Foley, and distributing gruesome videos showing the aftermath.

'The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity,' National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said from the White House.

'If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends.'

At the State Department, a rattled spokeswoman Jen Psaki confused the executions of Foley and Sotloff.

'We certainly consider this act, this reported act, the act of the killing of James Foley, as a horrific terrorist act.' she said.

'If the video is genuine,' Psaki said, 'we are sickened by this brutal act, taking the life of another innocent American citizens.'

Asked if the Obama administration will regard Sotloff's execution as an 'act of war,' she refused to say.

'We certainly – I'm not going to put new labels on it,' Psaki said.

[vector7]

Obama’s Miserable Failure

September 1, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield 191 Comments

It was always obvious what Obama’s supporters wanted. They weren’t willing to settle for a Hillary, just another politician who would punch the clock, deliver tepid speeches and push their leftist agenda.

They wanted someone larger than life. A head made for Mount Rushmore and a body that would be cast in statues across the country. Speeches meant to be studied in classrooms for the next hundred years.

They compared him to JFK and Reagan. He was treated as the icon that his backers wanted him to be. His election was supposed to be a watershed moment in American history.

Instead it ends in miserable failure.

At home, Obama is caught in a desperate tug of war with Republicans. He won the budget battle by sending park rangers to shut down national monuments. His last ditch gamble for holding on to the Senate is using racial tensions in Ferguson to promote black voter turnout.

And if he wins, all he’ll have is what he has now.

This is how shoddy and tawdry the reality of Hope and Change has become. Trapped in a corner, Obama is dragging out the dirtiest Chicago politics. He’s trying to hold off the inevitable by using the same types of tactics that the crooked mayor of his hometown would.

There’s no inspiration here. No words that will resound across time. Just dirty rats on a sinking ship.

Blame Congress has become the new Blame Bush. ObamaCare is a slow motion disaster that requires constant course corrections to keep it from coming apart. It’s not the new Social Security or Medicare. It’s the new HMO; a clumsy construction that most Americans are unhappy with.

Obama’s only power comes from his abuse of his authority, but what one man does, another man can undo. Instead of creating a lasting legislative legacy, Obama’s executive orders and legislation by administration are a house of cards that his successor can topple with the same pen and phone.

They seem intimidating in the way that the actions of tyrants are, but tyranny can be undone with tyranny. What Obama failed to do was build a consensus. He didn’t change the course of American history. He didn’t win the hearts and minds of Americans. Now he’s reduced to vandalizing America.

Obama said that Putin’s actions in Ukraine weren’t a sign of strength, but a sign of weakness. There is some truth to that. Putin’s economic policies have failed and he was unpopular at home. But the Obama tyrannical reign of phone and pen also isn’t a sign of strength. It’s a sign of weakness.

Like Putin, Obama has run out of options.

Unpopular with voters, shunned by his own party in battleground states, he rules by executive order and parties with influential executives while ignoring his responsibilities.

That’s not Reagan. It’s not JFK. It’s not even LBJ.

Stumbling to the microphone in a tan suit, he admits that he has no strategy for ISIS. Why should he? A few months ago he was calling a force that controls much of Iraq and Syria a junior varsity team while claiming credit for defeating Al Qaeda. Now his spokesman insists that the US is not at war with ISIS.

What Obama says has no relationship to reality. It’s always been that way. It’s only becoming obvious to those talking heads inside his media bubble now.

Obama’s foreign policy consisted of a flowchart of how things were supposed to work. There was an arrow from “Outreach” to “Reconciliation” to “New Middle East”. Instead Iraq is on fire. Libya is on fire. Syria is on fire. Everyone else is either mocking him or begging for his help without seriously expecting him to do anything useful.

And the flowchart doesn’t mention any of it.

ISIS was supposed to be a JV team. Iraqis are supposed to reconcile. ISIS isn’t supposed to be at war with the United States. Like most ideologues, Obama confuses what his reading of the inevitable forces of history says should happen with what is actually happening. Political Islam was supposed to stabilize the Middle East. Instead the future will be defined by a clash between national armies and Islamist militias.

Removing US troops from Iraq was supposed to fix the problem. The best anti-colonialist scholarship said it would. Instead combined with the Arab Spring, it let Al Qaeda take over much of the country.

But what else was an ideological fanatic big on theory and short on life experience going to do?

Obama is Fareed Zakaria. He’s Thomas Friedman. He’s Paul Krugman. He read all the books and he talks a good game so that it’s easy to miss the fact that his ideas don’t have much to do with real life.

Friedman babbling about the flattening world, Krugman pretending that money is infinite and Zakaria jumping from one ridiculous globalist idea to another sound good in a lecture hall or a column.

But only an idiot would actually listen to them.

Obama’s speeches sounded good, but only idiots would elect a man with no life experience, no executive experience and no meaningful experience of any kind for speaking well, instead of doing well.

Of course Obama doesn’t have a strategy for ISIS. Why would he?

ISIS wasn’t supposed to happen. His schedule, in between golfing and fundraising, had amnesty and Global Warming unilateral orders penciled in. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine also wasn’t on the schedule. Killing missile defense and being incredibly flexible were supposed to fix that.

As a last resort, sanctions, the universal failure of global diplomacy, were supposed to keep this from happening. But like everything else that Obama tried, they didn’t work.

Obama doesn’t live in the world of “What is” but the world of “What should be”. Inspiration does come from the world of “What should be”, but when it isn’t grounded in the world of “What is” then it manifests as insanity or leads to miserable failures.

The difference between the brilliant architect and the lunatic on the street corner is that while both of them know “What should be”, only one of them knows “What is”.

Obama’s inspiration came from “What should be”. He never did understand “What is”. His followers thought and think that “What is” can be waved away, ignored or beaten down as a last resort. That is what he is doing now with his executive orders and his unilateral rule. He is trying to salvage his miserable failure as a leader by forcing his way on the whole country.

It hasn’t made him popular. It hasn’t made his way into the American Way. It has isolated him. The American people have rejected him in poll after poll. Now the media is slowly accepting their verdict.

And no, he doesn’t have a strategy for that.

[American Patriot]

If I were President....

I'd have had my intelligence people in the office instantly after the first one, found out where those fuckers were located and went in and killed all of them on the spot.

[American Patriot]

ISIS now threaten Russia over its ties to Syria’s Assad

Posted on September 3, 2014

The chilling warning, delivered by an ISIS rebel in Rakka, Syria, puts the Kremlim leader on the same side as the West in holding back Muslim extremism.

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

[American Patriot]

'This message is addressed to you, oh Putin': ISIS now threatens Russia over its ties to Syria's Assad and promises to 'liberate Chechnya and all the Caucasus'

• Vladimir Putin was threatened because of close ties to Bashar al-Assad
• In video, ISIS rebel sits in cockpit of captured Russian-made fighter jet
• Second fighter warns Putin that his 'throne is in danger and will collapse'
• Added: 'With permission of Allah we will liberate Chechnya and Caucasus'
• It puts Putin on same side as the West in holding back Muslim extremism
• At same time, Krelim leader remains at loggerheads with U.S. and Europe
  

By Will Stewart for MailOnline
Published: 07:49 EST, 3 September 2014 | Updated: 07:51 EST, 3 September 2014

View comments

Vladimir Putin was today directly and personally threatened by the Islamic State because of his close ties to Syrian leader Bashar Hafez al-Assad.
The chilling warning, delivered by a member of the terror group, puts the Kremlim leader on the same side as the West in holding back Muslim extremism.
But at the same time, he remains at loggerheads with the U.S. and Europe in the worst crisis since the Cold War.



+5

Warning: Vladimir Putin was today directly and personally threatened by the Islamic State because of his close ties to Syrian leader Bashar Hafez al-Assad. Above, an ISIS rebel delivers the chilling warning on video






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Rebels: In the video, the man was sat in the cockpit of a captured Russian-made fighter aircraft in the Tabak area of the Syrian province of Rakka. He was joined by a number of other fighters (pictured stood on the plane)




In a video on Al-Arabiya TV channel, an ISIS rebel sits in the cockpit of a captured Russian-made fighter aircraft in the Tabak area of the Syrian province of Rakka.


A second fighter warns: 'This message is addressed to you, oh Vladimir Putin. These are your aircraft which you sent to Bashar, and with the help of Allah we will send them back to you.


More...

• 'Jihadi John is a dead man walking': ISIS executioner who threatens to behead British hostage will be hunted down like 'Bin Laden' says ex-head of Navy
• 'Justice will be served': Barack Obama says America will not be intimidated by 'horrific' violence of ISIS after another U.S. journalist is brutally beheaded

'Remember this. And with the permission of Allah we will liberate Chechnya and all the Caucasus.


"The Islamic State exists and it will exist and it will expand with the help of Allah. Your throne is already shaking. It is in danger and it will collapse when we get to you. We are on the way with Allah's permission.'







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The warning puts the Kremlim leader on the same side as the West in holding back Muslim extremism




The threatening footage comes with Russian subtitles, but the voice of a Russian speaker can be heard too.


In the sequence, in which the Islamic warriors clamber over the Sukhoi fighter, they also threaten the Syrian dictator, branding him a 'pig' and vowing to 'use these aircraft to get to you'.



The message of hate to Putin follows his strong support for Assad, without which he is likely to have been toppled.
Putin is also loathed by Islamic extremists and terror groups for crushing attempts to set up an Islamic state in Chechnya, and in other mainly Muslim regions of southern Russia such as Dagestan.



The Russian leader has long argued that the West has missed the danger of such extremist groups while criticising him for human rights abuses in his clampdown.



The video was released amid a warning to Putin that far from NATO being his biggest threat - as Russian propaganda is daily arguing - the real danger to him is from Muslim extremism on his southern flank.
This was highlighted today in The Moscow Times newspaper by Judy Dempsey, senior associate and editor-in-chief of Strategic Europe at Carnegie Europe.



'Outgoing NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has repeatedly spoken about an "arc of instability" around Europe,' she wrote.
'He has repeatedly warned Russia that it would suffer the consequences after Putin's decision in March to invade and then annex Crimea, Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine and Putin's call for immediate talks on "statehood" of southern and eastern Ukraine, or Novorossiya.


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Threatening: The footage comes with Russian subtitles, but the voice of a Russian speaker can be heard too



'But it is clear that so far Western sanctions and NATO's threats and rhetoric are no deterrence when it comes to thwarting Putin's ambitions.



'What could deter him is his own combustible southern flank and Islamic State, which Russia would be very unwise to ignore.



'It is these threats that are far, far more dangerous to Russia than NATO's limited intentions in Poland and the Baltic states.





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Ties: The Russian leader was targeted by the rebels because of his ties to Bashar Hafez al-Assad (pictured)






'These threats are also more dangerous than the EU, whose openness has hugely profited Russian companies and ordinary Russian citizens.



'If Putin thinks NATO and the EU are his big threats, competitors and enemies, he hasn't seen anything yet.'

[American Patriot]

'Jihadi John is a dead man walking': ISIS executioner who threatens to behead British hostage will be hunted down like 'Bin Laden' says ex-head of Navy

• News of British hostage emerged during brutal execution of Steven Sotloff
• Foreign Secretary said UK will explore 'every possible option' to rescue him
• Home Secretary added we must protect against 'murderous psychopaths'
• In a video titled 'Second Message to America', Sotloff describes himself as 'paying the price' for Obama's decision to attack ISIS with airstrikes
• Jihadist then says 'I'm back, Obama', before using a knife to cut off his head
• Executioner believed to be same man who killed James Foley two weeks ago
• Barack Obama today called Foley and Sotloff''s executions 'terrible crimes'

By John Hall for MailOnline and Tom Mctague, Mailonline Deputy Political Editor
Published: 02:50 EST, 3 September 2014 | Updated: 07:46 EST, 3 September 2014

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The Government could launch a fresh attempt to rescue a British hostage threatened with execution by ISIS, it emerged today.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond confirmed that the UK Government had been aware of a British citizen being held by ISIS for some time.
He said a previous rescue attempt launched by the US had failed, but added: 'We will look at every possible option to protect this person.'
Details of the 44-year-old British hostage emerged during a chilling video titled 'A Second Message to America', which shows the brutal execution of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff.
Mr Sotloff's killer is believed to be the same British man with a London accent who murdered American journalist James Foley two weeks ago - known as 'Jihadi John'.
Today the former head of the British Navy described the executioner as a 'dead man walking'.
Admiral Lord West, the former head of the Navy, said US Special Forces would go after the killer in same way they tracked down and executed Osama bin Laden.

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Threat: David Cameron is chairing a meeting of the government's Cobra emergency response committee today, where he will rule-out any 'knee-jerk reaction' after ISIS threatened to murder a British hostage (pictured)


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Decisions: David Cameron (right) is seen leaving the emergency Cobra meeting. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond (left) confirmed the UK Government has been aware of a Briton being held by ISIS for some time

Earlier the Foreign Secretary said that a preliminary analysis of a video showing the beheading of Sotloff suggested it was genuine.
The brutal killing is thought to have been carried out by the same masked jihadist who killed US reporter James Foley a fortnight ago.
This afternoon former security minister Lord West said: 'We probably know already who he is, we certainly will know soon.

More...

• British hostage whose life is threatened in latest ISIS execution video was subject of failed rescue attempt by US special forces
• ISIS executioner 'Jihadi John' threatens to execute British hostage after he beheads second US journalist

'I would like to see him arraigned in the Hague for war crimes,' he said, but said it was more likely that the United States would deal with him in the same way as Osama Bin Laden.
'He is a dead man walking, and he wants to think about that,' he added.
Lord West also called for military action against ISIS, saying: 'A year and a week ago I was very, very firmly against an attack on Syria.
'And Assad had never started killing British citizens and had never said he wanted to destroy the British state...That is rather different from Isis and Isil. I refuse to call them the Islamic State because that gives them credibility.'

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Murder: American journalist Steven Sotloff pictured in an ISIS video before he was executed. He was killed two weeks after James Foley died in the same way

'They clearly are happy to kill British citizens and we know they have said they want to destroy the British state... That is a different thing - that is why we have military forces,' Lord West added.
'I'm not saying we should just go immediately and invade them, that would be stupid', he said, but added that military options should be part of the ' overall planning', along with diplomatic methods, interrupting money flows, and working with allies.
Lord West said he was 'sure' that the Government would be looking closely at possible military options to help 'destroy this abhorrent group of people'.
The disturbing threat leaves the Prime Minister with the chilling prospect of one British national murdering another in the name of ISIS' brutal interpretation of Islam.
At Prime Minister's questions this afternoon, David Cameron told MPs: 'This country will never give into terrorism. Our opposition to ISIS will continue at home and abroad.
'A country like ours will not be cowed by these barbaric killers. If they think we will weaken in the face of their threats they could not be more wrong.'
Labour leader Ed Miliband backed the stance, adding: 'Events like this must strengthen not weaken our resolve to defeat them.'
Speaking after this morning's meeting of the Government's emergency Cobra committee, Mr Hammond said: 'You're aware, of course, of the rescue attempt that took place some time ago – unfortunately unsuccessfully.'
'You wouldn't expect me to discuss the various options that we will be considering, but I can assure that we will look at every possible option to protect this person.'
MOMENTS BEFORE HIS DEATH, STEVEN SOTLOFF'S FINAL WORDS



Taunting Obama: Sotloff's masked executioner says the killing is in retaliation for US airstrikes in Iraq

A second message to America:
'I am Steven Joel Sotloff.
'I'm sure you know exactly who I am by now and why I am appearing before you.
'And now this is the time for my message:
'Obama, your foreign policy of intervention in Iraq was supposed to be the preservation of American lives and interests, so why is that I am paying the price of your interference with my life?
'Am I not an American citizen?
'We've spent billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and we've lost thousands of our troops in our previous fighting against the Islamic State, so what are the people's interests in reigniting war?
'From what little I know about foreign policy, I remember a time when you could not win an election without promising to bring our troops back from Iraq and Afghanistan and to close down Guantanamo.
'Here you are now, Obama, nearing the end of your term, and having achieved none of the above and deceivingly marching us the American people in the blazing fire.'


After the Cobra meeting, the Foreign Secretary said the hostage situation would not alter the Government's overall strategy on dealing with Islamic State militants.
'It can't allow us to change our overall strategy. We've been aware of this hostage, of course, for some time, but we have to deal with IS on the basis of the wider threat that they pose to the British public, as well as to this individual.'
Mr Hammond He said the situation would not affect the likelihood of British airstrikes against the militants.
'It doesn't make any difference at all to our strategic planning. As the Prime Minister said, we will look very carefully at the options available to us to support the legitimate government of Iraq and Kurdistan in defending themselves from the threat of Isil.'
'And if we judge that airstrikes could be beneficial, could be the best way to do that then we will certainly consider them, but we've made no decision to do so at the moment.'
Jihadi John speaks in Sotloff and Foley beheading videos (audio)






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'Barbaric killers': At Prime Minister's questions this afternoon, David Cameron (pictured leaving Cobra meeting) told MPs: 'This country will never give into terrorism. Our opposition to ISIS will continue at home and abroad'

HOW US HOSTAGE VICTIM STEVEN SOTLOFF, 31, TRIED TO HIDE JUDAISM FROM ISIS CAPTORS

Steven Sotloff held Israeli citizenship, Israel said today after apparently withholding the information to stem the risks to the captive.
'Cleared for publication: Steven Sotloff was #Israel citizen RIP,' tweeted Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.
Sotloff's death was extensively covered by Israeli media, which identified the 31-year-old reporter as Jewish and an occasional contributor but withheld detail after ISIS announced he could be killed two weeks ago.
'We refused to acknowledge any relationship with him in case it was dangerous for him,' said Avi Hoffman, editor of the Jerusalem Report magazine, which had published Sotloff's work.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, quoting a former fellow captive, said Sotloff had kept his Judaism a secret from the Islamist insurgents, pretending he was sick when he fasted for the Yom Kippur holiday.
Israeli media reports said the U.S.-born Sotloff immigrated to Israel in 2005 and studied at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, a private college near Tel Aviv


Mr Hammond confirmed that British analysis of a video released yesterday appearing to show the British hostage, as well as the execution of Mr Sotloff, had concluded it was genuine.
'The US president will be making an announcement shortly on the basis of US analysis, but our preliminary analysis is that this video is genuine, that it is Mr Sotloff, and that it appears to be the same person with an apparently British voice that appeared in the last video.
'Obviously our thoughts are with the family and friends of Mr Sotloff and we're doing everything we can to reassure the family of the British hostage who was shown in the video.'
At Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon, Mr Cameron strongly condemned the 'sickening and brutal' killing of Sotloff and said he felt 'shock and anger that it again appears to have been carried out by a British citizen.'
'All our thoughts are with the British hostage and his family. Their ordeal is unimaginable,' he said.
'It is important that we are clear about the nature of the threat we are facing. It makes no distinction between cultures, countries and religions. There is no way to appease it.
'The only way to defeat it is to stand firm and to send a very straightforward message - a country like ours will not be cowed by these barbaric killers.
'If they think that we will weaken in the face of their threats, they are wrong. It will have the opposite effect.'
We will be more forthright in the defence of the values - liberty under the rule of law, freedom, democracy - that we hold dear, and I'm sure a united message to that effect will go forward from this House today.'

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Barack Obama landed in Estonia this morning, ahead of talks with leaders of the Baltic states over the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and concerns over the threat posed by Russia for other former Soviet states


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Response: Speaking in Estonia today, Barack Obama said the U.S. will not be intimidated by ISIS after the beheading of Steven Sotloff and will build a coalition to 'degrade and destroy' the group

The threatened British hostage, who UK media are not naming at the request of the family but who has been named and pictured around the world, is believed to be an aid worker that was based on the Turkish border of Syria working with victims of war.
Members of the hostage's family, including his brother, were on their way to his parents home last night to comfort them it is understood, according to the Telegraph. The newspaper quoted an unidentified relation as saying: 'We not allowed to say anything.'
The 44-year-old aid worker from central Scotland is believed to have been taken hostage in a refugee camp near the north Syrian village of Atmeh in March last year, shortly after arriving in the country on a short-term contract.
He is understood to have previously worked in South Sudan in 2012, where a former colleague found him to be 'a very solid, stand-up guy. The sort of person you can rely on,' according to The Times.
During his year in captivity, the man has seen at least six of his fellow hostages freed - one Italian, one Dane and four French - after their governments paid an estimated £5 million ransom per person.
It remains unclear whether the British man's captors have tired to negotiate a ransom for his release.

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Last week: Sotloff's mother Shirley (right) appealed directly for the return of her son last week. Last night, ISIS released a video that purported to show the beheading of her son online


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Under pressure: U.S. President Barack Obama (left) and Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik (right) listen to U.S. national anthem in Tallinn this morning

After the Cobra meeting Home Secretary Theresa May said: 'We are looking at the video that was produced yesterday.
'Yet again we see a barbaric act being undertaken by Isil, who are group of murderous psychopaths. Their brutality is clear.
'Our thoughts today must, of course, be with Steven Sotloff's family and friends at this very difficult time.
'As far as the Government is concerned, we recognise the threat that is posed by Isil and we are taking steps, and will continue to take steps, to make sure we have the powers that are right to protect our national security.
'Our determination to deal with this remains and, as the Prime Minister made clear in the House of Commons on Monday, we are looking at a number of areas of potential legislation where increased powers could help to fill some gaps that there might be in our current ability to deal with these issues.'
ISIS personally threaten Putin and pledge to liberate Chechnya






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Challenge to Obama: The ISIS executioner taunts the President before he kills US journalist Steven Sotloff. He is thought to be the same militant who killed James Foley and tells the President 'I'm back'

This morning Barack Obama said that the U.S. will not be intimidated by ISIS and will build a coalition to 'degrade and destroy' the group.
Obama still did not give a timeline for deciding on a strategy to go after the extremist group's operations in Syria, saying: 'It'll take time to roll them back.'
He vowed the U.S. would not forget the 'terrible crime against these two fine young men,' meaning Sotloff and Foley.
'Our reach is long and justice will be served,' Obama said adding that he will continue to fight the militant threat and the 'barbaric and ultimately empty vision' it represents.
'Our objective is to make sure that ISIL is not an ongoing threat to the region,' he said, using an alternative acronym for the militant group.
'And we can accomplish that. It's going to take some time and it's going to take some effort.'

+20


Following the release of Sotloff's execution footage, another video emerged showing ISIS militants personally threatening to kill Russian president Vladimir Putin if he doesn't declare Chechnya an independent state


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The ISIS militants sit in the cockpit of a captured Russian-made fighter aircraft to make threats against Putin

WAS THE STEVEN SOTLOFF EXECUTION VIDEO POSTED ONLINE BY ACCIDENT?

The video of Steven Sotloff's brutal murder may have been accidentally published online too early by an ISIS Twitter user who jumped the gun.
When news first broke of a new ISIS beheading video, it was not widely available on Islamist websites. James Foley's execution footage, by contrast, flooded social media and the dark corners of the web all at once.
Vocative.com reports that only one ISIS Twitter account initially posted the video.
Another ISIS-affiliated social media account called out the early release and told the user to remove it – but by then, the video was already widely available online.
Later, ISIS even issued an apology to its followers for the confusion.
'Clarification about the mistake was made by 'Uyun al-Ummah' account, that has published the video before the official time,' an ISIS official wrote.
'The user saw a tweet with the video and thought it was published officially. We tried to remove the video after we understood that his was published by mistake, and we are sorry to the followers of the Islamic State.'
The social media back-and-forth – all of it in Arabic – shows just how sophisticated the social media strategy for ISIS has become.
It appears multiple people had copies of the video and that they were meant to wait until the proscribed time to publish it – in order to flood online channels and ensure it was widely distributed.


Former Labour Foreign Secretary Jack Straw backed the government's stance. 'This idea of a knee-jerk reaction should be pushed aside,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
'We need people to look seriously and soberly at the situation.'
He warned against being 'paralysed by the past' in the wake of the 2003 Iraq invasion.
In the video, Mr Sotloff - a freelancer for Time magazine among other publications - is pictured in a Guantanamo Bay-style orange jump suit against a desert backdrop.
He addresses U.S. President Barack Obama directly, saying: 'You've spent billions of pounds US taxpayers' dollars and we have lost thousands of our troops in our previous fighting against the Islamic State, so where is the people's interest in reigniting this war?'
The jihadist, believed to be a Briton nicknamed 'John' by captives,says: 'I am back, Obama, and I am back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State, because of your insistence on continuing your bombings and ... on Mosul Dam, despite our serious warnings.
'Just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.'
Dressed in black and wielding a short knife, the extremist also warns other governments against entering 'this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State'.
The video, which ends with a threat to the British hostage, has surfaced in the week that world leaders are due to gather in Wales for a NATO summit.
Mr Obama boarded Air Force One last night without giving a response to the video, and landed in Estonia a short time ago, ahead of talks with leaders of the Baltic states over the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and concerns over the threat posed by Russia for other former Soviet states.
Mother appeals to ISIS leader to release her son





Pentagon says US will continue to hit IS





PM EXPECTED TO COME UNDER FRESH PRESSURE TO JOIN U.S. AIRSTRIKES AGAINST ISIS TARGETS

David Cameron is likely to come under pressure at Prime Minister's Questions to step up Britain's military involvement.
On Monday, before details of the British hostage were made public, he faced repeated calls in the Commons for the UK to join the US in air strikes.
Former Defence Secretary Liam Fox asked the PM: 'In what circumstances would the United Kingdom decide to join, rather than simply support, US air strikes on ISIL military positions?'
Sir Gerald Howarth, a former Minister for International Security Strategy, said: 'ISIL represents a substantial threat to the continued integrity of Iraq, and American airstrikes have been successful in halting its further advance. Would it not be better for the Royal Air Force to join in that measure?'
Mr Cameron repeatedly stressed that while he supported US air strikes, his judgement to date has been for Britain to 'provide aid and political support and to help with certain military aspects'.
But he suggested that if the circumstances changed, he could order strikes without consulting Parliament.
'If there was a direct threat to British national interests, or if, as in the case of Libya, we had to act very rapidly to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, the British Government must reserve the right to act immediately and inform the House of Commons afterwards,' he said.


In a statement last night, Mr Cameron said: 'If verified, this is a despicable and barbaric murder. My thoughts and prayers are with Mr Sotloff's family and friends as they deal with this appalling and tragic situation.'
'As I have said consistently over the last few weeks, [ISIS] terrorists speak for no religion...They threaten Syrians, Iraqis, Americans and British people alike and make no distinction between Muslims, Christians or any other faith.
'We have already been working hard to keep British people safe and we will continue to do all we can to protect our country and our people from these barbaric terrorists.
In a brief statement, a spokesman for Mr Sotloff's family said they 'know of this horrific tragedy and are grieving privately'.
The journalist was seized in Syria in August 2013 and had not been seen until he appeared in the video of Mr Foley's killing released by IS on August 20.
Last week Mr Sotloff's mother Shirley made an emotional video plea for the extremists to be 'merciful' and spare her son.
In the video released last night, Sotloff, 31, appears in a orange jumpsuit before he is beheaded by an Islamic State fighter.
The executioner tells the camera: 'I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State.'
Sotloff, 31, from Miami, who freelanced for Time and Foreign Policy magazines, vanished in Syria in August 2013 and was not seen again until he appeared in a video released online last month that showed Foley's beheading.

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'Absolutely disgusting': David Cameron has hit out at the killers that have beheaded a second US journalist and threatened to kill a British hostage. He is currently chairing a Cobra meeting to establish Britain's responce


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David Cameron is chairing a meeting of the government's Cobra emergency response committee this morning, where he will rule-out any 'knee-jerk reaction'

ISIS MURDERED 770 MEN IN MASS EXECUTIONS AFTER SEIZING CONTROL OF THE IRAQI CITY OF TIKRIT IN JUNE, TOP HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP CLAIMS

ISIS militants killed up to 770 men in mass executions at five locations in Tikrit after seizing the city in northern Iraq in June, according to new evidence produced by a top human rights organisation.
Human Rights Watch used videos and satellite imagery, as well information from a survivor of the killings, to identify a further three mass execution sites, tripling the estimated number of victims - all or most of them thought to be captured Iraqi army soldiers.
And the group's researchers believe the actual number killed could be much higher.
The day after taking control of Tikrit - the home town of former dictator Saddam Hussein - on June 11, ISIS claimed to have killed 1,700 'Shia members of the army' and posted videos of hundreds of men in civilian clothing who it claimed were surrendered soldiers.

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ISIS militants lead away a group of captured Iraqi soldiers after seizing the city of Tikrit on June 14

Photos released on social media later showed captives being loaded on to trucks and forced to lie with hands bound in three shallow trenches, where masked gunmen were pictured apparently firing weapons at them.
On June 27, Human Rights Watch identified two of the trenches in a field near Tikrit's Water Palace, where it estimated that 160-190 men died.
Later analysis of a new video released by IS suggests that at least two previously-unknown rounds of executions also took place at the palace, with between 115 and 140 deaths, said HRW.
The organisation has now identified three further sites, where it believes hundreds more killings took place, bringing the number of deaths for which evidence is available to between 560 and 770.



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Sotloff's mother had pleaded for his release last week in a video directed at the Islamic State group

In the new video that shows the killing of Sotloff, the executioner points his knife menacingly at the camera as he speaks.
Clad in the same black garb he wore during Foley's execution, the killer has a pistol strapped under his arm in a shoulder holster.
The black flag of the Islamic State can be seen waving in the background.
Sotloff calmly read a statement moments before his murder. 'I'm sure you know exactly who I am by now and why I am appearing,' he says.
He adds to the camera: 'Obama, your foreign policy of intervention in Iraq was supposed to be for preservation of American lives and interests, so why is it that I am paying the price of your interference with my life?'
While he speaks, a militant calmly holds a knife at his side and stands next to Sotloff.
The man then taunts Obama on camera.

+20


Sotloff's death was extensively covered by Israeli media, which identified the 31-year-old reporter as Jewish

Sotloff's mother had pleaded for his release last week in a video directed at the Islamic State group.
Addressing the leader of the Islamic State group by name, Shirley Sotloff said in a video her son was 'an innocent journalist' who shouldn't pay for U.S. government actions in the Middle East over which he has no control.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest offered his sympathies to the Sotloff family. He said of the video: 'This is something that the administration has obviously been watching carefully since this threat against Mr. Sotloff's life was originally made a few weeks ago,' he added.
'I'm not in a position to confirm the authenticity of that video, or reports, obviously,' he cautioned, 'since I just walked out here.'
'But if there is a video that has been released, it is something that will be analyzed very carefully by the U.S. government and our intelligence officials to determine its authenticity.'

[vector7]

New ISIS threat: America's electric grid; blackout could kill 9 of 10

By Paul Bedard | September 3, 2014 | 6:00 pm

Topics: Washington Secrets Texas Mexico Terrorism Electromagnetic Pulse Drug Cartels ISIS

New concerns are being raised that ISIS could attack U.S. electric systems. AP Photo

Former top government officials who have been warning Washington about the vulnerability of the nation’s largely unprotected electric grid are raising new fears that troops from the jihadist Islamic State are poised to attack the system, leading to a power crisis that could kill millions.

“Inadequate grid security, a porous U.S.-Mexico border, and fragile transmission systems make the electric grid a target for ISIS,” said Peter Pry, one of the nation’s leading experts on the grid.

Others joining Pry at a press conference later Wednesday to draw attention to the potential threat said that if just a handful of the nation’s high voltage transformers were knocked out, blackouts would occur across the country.

“By one estimate, should the power go out and stay out for over a year, nine out of 10 Americans would likely perish,” said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

At the afternoon press conference, Gaffney dubbed the potential crisis the "grid jihad."

A lack of electricity would shut off water systems, impact city transportation services and shutdown hospitals and other big facilities. Fresh and frozen foods also would be impacted as would banks, financial institutions and utilities.

Pry provided details of recent attacks on electricity systems and said that ISIS could easily team with Mexican drug cartels to ravage America.

He told Secrets, for example, that the Knights Templar drug gang blacked out the electric grid of the Mexican state of Michoacan in 2013 to provide cover for killing those fighting the drug trade.

“The Knights Templars and other criminal gangs in Mexico will do anything for money, and ISIS, the richest terrorist organization in history, has hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal,” said Pry.

“ISIS could hire one of the Mexican cartels, or one of their criminal gangs already in the U.S., or activate jihadist terror cells already in the U.S., and inflict a multi-state blackout immediately, within days or weeks. Perhaps even a nationwide blackout,” Pry explained to Secrets.

“I am not saying it is likely they will do so. But given the capabilities and objectives of ISIS and our obvious vulnerabilities, it would be foolish to ignore the threat to the grid, to regard the threat as unlikely. Our planning should be based on imminent asymmetrical threats, and not assume that another 9/11 large-scale attack is years away,” he added.

The Texas Department of Public Safety recently said they believe there is evidence that ISIS plans an attack.

Pry, Gaffney and others have been pushing Congress to protect the electric grid from attacks including terrorists, assaults by U.S. foes like North Korea and even sun spots that can zap unprotected transformers with electromagnetic pulse.

Congress is looking at legislation to protect the grid via the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act.

[American Patriot]

9-11.

EMP


That's what all this has been leading too.

[American Patriot]

Naw... I take that back:

“I am not saying it is likely they will do so. But given the capabilities and objectives of ISIS and our obvious vulnerabilities, it would be foolish to ignore the threat to the grid, to regard the threat as unlikely. Our planning should be based on imminent asymmetrical threats, and not assume that another 9/11 large-scale attack is years away,” he added.

These people are always hedging their bets aren't they?

[vector7]

Hillary Admits We Backed ISIS in Syria

August 11, 2014

Windows Media



BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, I mentioned this, I think, in first hour, previously on the program. Obama has been refusing to help Iraq for at least a year. A year ago, it would have been easy, comparatively, to wipe out ISIS. They were still gathering tightly together in their staging zones.

Had you heard of ISIS a year ago? I venture to say that most people heard of ISIS for the first time in the past couple months. So Obama had plenty of chances. In fact, ladies and gentlemen, if Obama had wanted to take out ISIS, he would not have formed a supportive relationship with them in Syria! ISIS is who is "the rebels" in Syria opposing Bashar al-Assad. Before I get to Syria, I just want to put the exclamation point on this thought.

Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, and the media (their willing accomplices) need Iraq to be always seen as a Bush miserable failure, a Bush war, a Bush failure. Just as Vietnam was supposed to be seen as a failure for Nixon. Now, you may be learning for the first time that the rebels in Syria were ISIS. Over the weekend, it was reported that Hillary Clinton ripped into Obama for his failure to help the Syrian rebels and that this failure to help the Syrian rebels led to the rise of ISIS.

It's in The Atlantic in a story by Jeffrey Goldberg. It's a long interview. But there is this knife-in-the-back criticism that Hillary directs at Obama, a comment that he made while Hillary was his secretary of state. Do you remember he praised her, "best secretary of state ever"? She might be, he said. On the day she resigned or the day they announced of her resignation, there was a joint presser.

Obama is praising Hillary to the nines and talking about how she may be one of the best secretaries of state ever, and now here comes Hillary back-stabbing Obama by claiming that his failure to help the Syrian rebels led to the rise of ISIS. Right here it is, Jeffrey Goldberg: "The former secretary of state, and probable candidate for president, outlines her foreign-policy doctrine.

"She says this about President Obama's: 'Great nations need organizing principles, and "Don't do stupid stuff" is not an organizing principle.'" It's a slam, but I wonder: Are reset buttons organizing principles? Because, let's not forget that Mrs. Clinton actually showed up with a Soviet leader... (pfft, slap myself) a Russian leader with a plastic and red toy that said, in crudely spelled words, "reset button." I kid you not!

The secretary of state went over to Russia and presented him a toy that was a reset button, which was designed to reset our relationship after the disaster that was Bush. Now, how's that worked out? This is just gonna make me angrier. Everything these people have done has led to an absolute disaster! Everything! The economy, health care, foreign policy, the border, immigration. Everything they've done, and they campaigned on being the smartest people in the world and the only ones capable of fixing all this.



So she slams Obama: "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."

Is reset button an organizing principle, Mrs. Clinton?

The former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is out there saying that Obama's failure to aid Syrian rebels led to ISIS. Now, she's doing two things. She's distancing herself from Obama, but at the same time she's trying to head off criticism of her own recommendations because she didn't speak up for these rebels at the time. She may want convince people that she did. But nobody in this Regime did.

"President Obama has long ridiculed the idea that the US, early in the Syrian civil war, could have shaped the forces fighting the Assad regime, thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspired groups -- like the one rampaging across Syria and Iraq today -- from seizing control of the rebellion. ... Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it.

"In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the 'failure' that resulted from the decision to keep the US on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising. 'The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad -- there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle -- the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,' Clinton said."

Which is funny, because that's the same exact thing that Hillary and Obama said about the protesters in Egypt, whom we aided, and they turned out to be the Muslim Brotherhood. "As she writes in her memoir of her State Department years, Hard Choices, she was an inside-the-administration advocate of doing more to help the Syrian rebellion. Now, her supporters argue, her position has been vindicated by recent events."

I'm telling you, these people, well, yeah, of course it's convenient, but it also turns out not to be true. And, by the way, it is reported that the Hillary camp gave the White House a heads-up on this, that this was coming. It's kind of like, "Hey, you know, I've got to do this. I'm running for president. Please bite the bullet for me on this." And the White House said, "Screw you, babe," and they have responded saying that they don't agree with this description of events. Oh, yeah. The long knives are out.

You do not sabotage Obama. You do not even give him a heads-up that you're gonna sabotage him and have him go along with it. You just don't do that. Ask his white grandmother how that goes. You just don't do it. But let's go back and let's revisit this Syrian business, because I want to play you a sound bite of me. This is September 11th, 2013, this is about a year ago, and I said this about US policy toward the Syrian civil war, and at the time I was -- I don't mean it to sound braggadocios, but I think I was a lone voice or one of very few.



The conventional wisdom was that Assad was gassing his own people. Remember, Obama, in the previous summer of 2013, issued this red line and dared Assad not to cross it. (imitating Obama) "You cross that red line, pal, you're gonna have me to deal with," and we never did anything. But the word was out that Assad was gassing and harming his own people. And I remember saying on this program -- Koko, go back to that era and just for the website today, go find what I said on those days and relink it, 'cause I made the point, I asked the question, "What if it isn't Assad? What if the people creating mayhem in Syria are actually Assad's enemies disguising themselves as protesters of Assad and trying to make it appear as though he's doing this, when in fact he's not?"

And after I'd mentioned that, I got an e-mail from a friend who is somewhat aware of the circumstances in Iraq and I was told that I was more right than I knew. And Hillary is now coming along and essentially saying the same thing. She's not suggesting that ISIS was there. She is suggesting that our lack of doing anything about it led to ISIS taking over the anti-Assad movement, when in fact it was ISIS all along. ISIS was doing it and they were making it look like Assad did it. And just like the media was biased toward Hamas, so was the media biased toward the same type of people in Syria who are trying to make it look like Assad was doing this.

I had never seen any evidence that Bashar Assad -- his father was different. His father, Hafez al-Assad, was a brutal guy and did commit atrocities to keep people in line. But there's no evidence that Bashar had really done it. I knew that Al-Qaeda's on the march and they're trying to gain control. The Muslim Brotherhood's trying to gain control, that whole area. It was a lot of Christians in Syria that were being beaten up, killed, assaulted, what have you, and it was made to look like it was Assad, and now we've learned that it wasn't.

The point is I called it. I was right, and that's what Hillary is now claiming that Obama missed and that she was right about, but she never said it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. Here's me, folks, from this program on September 11th, 2013. By the way, Koko, if you want to find the website history to link to what I originally said about this, find September 2nd, 3rd, 4th, somewhere in there, my memory is. But this was September 11th of last year.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Here we are 12 years later after 9/11, and think about it. Twelve years later we are supporting Muslim terrorists in Syria. Muslim terrorists who are threatening to kill Syrian Christians if they don't convert to Islam. That's who our allies are. Those are the rebels that Bashar Assad is supposedly gassing. So we're aligned with 'em because we're aligned against Assad. They're threatening to kill Syrian Christians if they don't convert to Islam.

RUSH: This was ISIS, folks, and we were anti-Assad. It was made to look like Assad was doing the gassing. He wasn't, as it turns out. This morning on Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade spoke to retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney about Clinton's remarks criticizing Obama's handling of ISIS and here's what the general said about Hillary's remarks.

MCINERNEY: I happen to agree with her. I'm not sure why it's just coming out now. I was pushing for the Free Syrian Army. They were a huge ally. We ended up arming the wrong people over there, and, remember, ISIS was formerly Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and so look at what we have now create -- we didn't create it. By doing nothing, we let it create itself. And if we don't stop it now and stop it and protect the Kurds, we have a huge problem not only in the Middle East, but globally.

RUSH: Well, that's General McInerney. I've got 15 seconds before the break. It turns out that my sources on this way back a year ago were absolutely right, that Assad was not the bad guy.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, I tell you what's funny about this is Hillary Clinton. It's clear to me that Hillary Clinton obviously thinks that foreign policy is still gonna be her strong pantsuit, as she heads into the campaign. She really does. That's why she's doing all of this. But I want to play this audio sound bite again from General McInerney, because there's a gem in this that is another example of how Obama and the left, the Democrats, the media lied for five years, 2004 to 2009. Actually, 2003 to 2008 would be the specific time period, bashing Iraq every day, every night, every day of the year.



One other thing. Koko has found exactly what I was talking about. There was a post at RushLimbaugh.com on September 3rd, "What if Assad Didn't Do It?" And my memory has now been refreshed. I had a couple of sources and an e-mail from a friend confirm, so three different confirmations here from people, that what we were getting in the news every day that Assad was gassing his people probably wasn't true. That it was, it turns out ISIS, at the time known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq that was doing it, and making it look like it was Assad, and that's who our allies were. We were anti-Assad and we actually had an alliance, loose though it was, formed with the very people we're now bombing in Iraq.

I remember I took my fair share of heat, and I always do when I'm not part of the conventional wisdom. Assad's easy to hate. Assad's a dictator. Assad has a typical bad image and when somebody says he's gassing his own people, it's automatically believed. And here I came, all of Washington supports the idea that Assad was doing it, and I said, "I'm not so sure. What if."

"Rush, you didn't have to say anything. Why are you going out on a limb? Why do you want to sound like you're defending Assad?"

I said, "I'm not defending Assad. As always, I'm interested in the truth, and I just don't believe --" I had to work hard to get to a point where I automatically reject everything I hear coming out of the news media in Washington when the Democrats are in power because, by and large, when it comes to foreign policy, every story is made to cover up for their inadequacies, their incompetence, and the fact that they're wrong about everything. But here's McInerney again because there's a little hidden gem in this sound bite that I want to see, if by some chance, some of you picked up.

MCINERNEY: I happen to agree with her. I'm not sure why it's just coming out now. I was pushing for the Free Syrian Army. They were a huge ally. We ended up arming the wrong people over there, and, remember, ISIS was formerly Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and so look at what we have now create -- we didn't create it. By doing nothing, we let it create itself. And if we don't stop it now and stop it and protect the Kurds, we have a huge problem not only in the Middle East, but globally.

RUSH: In the early days of 2002 when Bush was traveling the country making the case for invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam Hussein, I remember a couple of instances pointing out that Al-Qaeda, prior to 9/11, had done some training in Iraq. And one of the things that had been found was a hollowed-out shell of an airliner fuselage.

Now, the conventional wisdom was that Al-Qaeda had never been in Iraq, that Bush was making this up, or that the intel was all wrong, but likely it was just Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld lying to make their case, because Al-Qaeda was clearly the enemy after 9/11. Al-Qaeda had hijacked the planes at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and Al-Qaeda was the evil, Osama bin Laden, and Bush was going after them in Afghanistan and Saddam in Iraq.

The Democrats and the media, led by Obama starting in 2002, and other Democrats, Teddy Kennedy, they were all -- I mean, John Kerry, they were all making fun and mocking the idea that Al-Qaeda had anything to do with Iraq. Al-Qaeda was never in Iraq and nobody can prove it, they said. Saddam had nothing to do with 911. Now, the Bush people at the time were saying, "We can't afford --" 9/11 had just happened. "What happened here is real. And any time there is anybody in the world vowing to do that or more, we are going to take it seriously."

They were making the case for preemptive military strikes. That's what all this was called, because the left and the Democrats were arguing that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, therefore it was not moral or strategically wise to hit Iraq. They had nothing to do with it. The Bush people were saying, whether they did or didn't, it doesn't matter, they're threatening to do the same thing. And after it's happened once, we are in charge of protecting this country and defending the people, and we can't sit here and take these threats lightly.

Saddam at the time was lying to the UN inspectors about his weapons of mass destruction. It turned out that he was big timing and he was trying to look like the most powerful Arab in the region by being the most feared. So he was lying about at least the size of his weapons of mass destruction stock. And part of the lie, part of the illusion was to not let the inspectors in. He wanted everybody to conclude that he had a boatload of the stuff. And the Bush administration was trying to tell everybody we can't afford to wait to be hit again to take action. We've got to hit preemptively.

I'll never forget any of this, folks. Because I'll never forget the Democrats arguing about it. Because the Democrats, even after 9/11, after a week of solidarity went by, the Democrats conceived a political strategy, the purpose of which was to make sure Bush did not secure any long-lasting credit for any policy he instituted following 9/11.

Also remember this, along those same lines. Bill Clinton, it was reported -- he later denied it -- but Clinton, according to some famous well-known Democrats, was lamenting that 9/11 didn't happen on his watch, because it prevented him an opportunity to show greatness and leadership. He was upset that it had happened with Bush. If it was gonna happen, why couldn't it have happened during his time? We reported that and all hell broke loose. A string of denials were forthcoming.

But the point is they politicize everything. There was unity for a week and after that the Democrats devised a political strategy, the purpose of which was to make sure Bush did not secure one positive achievement in the aftermath of 911. So these guys began opposing everything Bush wanted to do when it came to Iraq. At first they even opposed the use of force in Afghanistan. That's when they asked for the vote a second time.

Remember, there was a memo uncovered, a memo that was written by Jay Rockefeller, Democrat senator from West Virginia, in which it was stated that as a strategy -- and this had come from James Carville and Stan Greenberg in a memo. It was then written up by Rockefeller, who was the Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat in the Senate. He said that they had to make Bush out to be a liar.

And it said if they were to succeed with this, that their strategy depended on convincing people that Bush was lying about all of this in order to depress and lower his high approval numbers. So, as I say, here's the gem that was in McInerney's piece ('cause I'm running out of time here). Throughout all of this in the run-up to invading Iraq, whenever the possibility that Al-Qaeda might have been in Iraq came up, the Democrats said, "No way!

"Al-Qaeda never found its way to Iraq! They wouldn't know how to get to Iraq if you gave 'em a map. They haven't been to Iraq. They don't have anything to do with Saddam! They were helpless." Now listen to what we just heard here. ISIS was originally known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Now, some of you might be saying, "Well, maybe so, Rush, but Al-Qaeda in Iraq didn't exist before we attacked."
It did!

We were able to confirm that elements of Al-Qaeda did connect with Saddam for training exercises and so forth. But the point is, in hindsight, look at what we're learning here. ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Iraq are all over the Middle East, just like the Muslim Brotherhood. And in Syria, we were actually, stupidity and maybe unknowingly (given this bunch, I could believe it was unknowingly) supporting them.

Because we had concluded that Bashar Assad was the one gassing his own people. I had never seen any evidence that Assad treated his own people that way. I knew he treated political enemies that way, which is why it was not a very long leap to making people believe that he might gas his own people if he's gassed others. Ditto, Saddam and the Kurds. But there hadn't been any evidence that Bashar Assad gassed his own people.

So, anyway, that's that, and it's just... Some of it's ancient history, but some of it's just last year and some of it's just yesterday, and so much of it is lies. And so many of these lies are why we're even here today. So all of these lies about all of this stuff is one of the very large reasons why Obama was elected in the first place. It's just dispiriting in a way -- and in another way, surely frustrating, and that's why I've been so ticked off all day.

END TRANSCRIPT

[American Patriot]

US backed ISIS. So Obama is covering...

[American Patriot]

ISIS in US? DHS has lost track of 6,000+ foreign nationals who entered US on student visas, overstayed welcome, then vanished!

Posted on 2014/09/03 by Jim Lantern



THE LANTERN JOURNAL – Special Report and Editorial Article by Jim Lantern – 9:45 p.m. CT Wednesday 3 September 2014
Immigration and the U.S. border problem with Mexico is not the only wide open doorway into the United States, thanks to government SNAFU and law enforcement FUBAR. The widest door of all: GREED. Money opens doors. Those who hold the doors open for money are guilty of treason against the United States of America. That’s my opinion, my conclusion, and this posting explains why, with proof.


I live near Oklahoma University in Norman Oklahoma. There are thousands of foreign students here, who get very special treatment because of the amount of money the university gets out of them and their families.


Most are from India, the Far East, and the Middle East. They all have arrogant superior than Americans attitude. I’ve overheard many of them make extremely angry and hateful remarks against Americans, our government, and our country.


I know some of them are no longer students. So how and why are they still in this country? I know a few got jobs, but most are living off of money sent from relatives back home, or from businesses in their countries, or from the government of the country they came from. Many of the college students bring their parents and other relatives with them, sometimes up to 6 members of a foreign family living in a one-bedroom apartment.


By the way, those from India brought bedbugs into the U.S. in their luggage and shipping boxes, and did so deliberately. India has a severe problem with bedbugs. I overheard some of them saying we deserve the misery caused by the bedbugs, that it is God’s punishment for our relationship since 11 September 2001 with Pakistan – enemy of India. The bedbugs invasion at the apartments complex I live at cost my landlord at least $10,000 resulting in a 10% increase in rent for the 250 apartments. Of 250 tenants, 50 moved out and another 50 had to trash bedbug infested furniture – costing them an average of about $5,000 each in loss and then cost to buy some new furniture. That’s just one location. It happened to many apartment complexes, hotels and motels, college dorms, movie theaters, and the downtown public library – then spreading it to private homes. It has been like a virus. Only the very expensive “heat treatment” can kill them. It continues to be an ongoing problem because the landlords can’t legally discriminate against the students from India, and nothing is done by Customs or any other government agency to stop them from bringing the bedbugs into the United States. Imagine what could be done with a real virus that could kill Americans, brought into the U.S. by foreign students.


I’ve sensed a growing threat during the past 6 years here from foreign students and their families. Now I know why. Make no mistake about it. Members of ISIS are here in the U.S. on student visas, and DHS can’t find them.


This was briefly covered by CNN and FOX News on TV this evening. I found the following article…



Lost in America: Visa Program Struggles to Track Missing Foreign Students – ABC News – 2 September 2014.


Excerpts – most important information from the article…



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.


“My greatest concern is that they could be doing anything,” said Peter Edge, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who oversees investigations into visa violators. “Some of them could be here to do us harm.”


ABC News found that immigration officials have struggled to keep track of the rapidly increasing numbers of foreign students coming to the U.S. — now in excess of one million each year. The immigration agency’s own figures show that 58,000 students overstayed their visas in the past year. Of those, 6,000 were referred to agents for follow-up because they were determined to be of heightened concern.


“They just disappear,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. “They get the visas and they disappear.”


Coburn said since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, 26 student visa holders have been arrested in the U.S. on terror-related charges.


Tightening up the student visa program was one of the major recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, after it was determined that the hijacker who flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, had entered the U.S. on a student visa but never showed up for school.


Despite repeated concerns raised by Congress, federal immigration officials have also continued to grant schools certification to accept overseas applicants even if the schools lack accreditation, state certification, or any obvious measure of academic rigor.


There are now more than 9,000 schools on the government approved list. The list includes such top flight American colleges as Harvard and Yale, but it also includes 86 beauty schools, 36 massage schools and nine schools that teach horseshoeing. Foreign students can enter the U.S. on a visa to study acupuncture, hair braiding, or join academies that focus on tennis and golf.


Once the student arrives in the U.S., it is up to the schools to keep track of the visa-holder’s whereabouts — and report to the government if they repeatedly miss class.
That is a serious concern, Coburn said, because a number of for-profit schools appear to have been operating with a primary goal of selling visas, not educating students.
“We know we have a lot of non-accredited universities that are using this system to bring people in, collect money, and not educate them at all,” said Coburn, who is part of a bi-partisan group of senators that has been trying to tighten controls on student visas. “To me, it’s a mess.”


One school on the approved list, MicroPower Career Institute, licensed by the state of New York, continues to have four campuses on the approved list, even though five of the school’s top officials — including its president — were indicted on charges of visa fraud in May. According to the indictment, 80 percent of the foreign students enrolled MicroPower had delinquent attendance, putting them out of compliance with their visas. But the school did not report them, the indictment says. All five school officials have pleaded not guilty in the case.


Thomas Kean 9/11 Commission Co-Chair said the government has yet to address the security gaps the program has created. He said was stunned the federal government continues to lose track of so many foreign nationals who had entered the country with student visas. He noted that, even before the 9/11 terror attacks, federal officials had been aware of the gaps in the student visa program. The man who drove the van containing explosives into the World Trade Center garage in 1993 was also a student visa holder who was a no-show at school.


“It’s been pointed out over and over and over again and the fact that nothing has been done about it yet… it’s a very dangerous thing for all of us,” Kean said. “The fact that there’s been no action on this is very bothersome.”


Janice Kephart, who was counsel to the 9/11 Commission and co-author of a separate report looking at how the hijackers entered the U.S., said the credibility of schools certified by ICE is another significant concern.


“When schools are not legitimate that enables terrorists to come here under a fraudulent basis and disappear into the fabric of society without anybody knowing that they are here for illegitimate reason,” Kephart said, “because the system itself will say they’re here legitimately when in fact they’re not.”


Edge said part of the blame for the continued trouble with the student visa program stems from a Congress that has been unwilling to impose tighter limits on schools — many of which profit from tuition paid by foreign students.


Coburn, as well as Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Chuck Schumer, D-NY, were among those pushing for limiting ICE certification to accredited schools in 2012. But that effort stalled in the House of Representatives.


The effort to expand options for foreign study appear to be prevailing. According to figures gathered by congressional investigators, the number of foreign nationals obtaining visas to study in the U.S. has grown from 662,966 in 2003 to more than 1.2 million in 2012.


Edge said his agency has accepted that those numbers represent a continued challenge for the Department of Homeland Security.