RattlerGator Blog

Traveling to Havana, Cuba

Thanks to a sister who should have attended the University of Florida but got scooped up by the Ivy League (Penn) and never left Philadelphia after graduation, I'm headed with she and the Penn Alumni Travel group to Havana, Cuba on Saturday for a solid week of cultural exchange lectures and performances.

This trip was planned a year ago, long before Barack made his executive decision. My sister has now retired and come back to Jax; this trip is her retirement gift to herself and she invited me to tag along. I said, of course, heck yeah! We'll be staying at various times at the Hotel Saratoga and the Melia Marina Varadero and I'm very pleased with the looks of the accommodations.

I'm a fan of Marco Rubio and tend to agree with his position on American outreach to Cuba but I do see the other side as well. Greater interaction could be our friend, as long as we aren't primarily propping up the dictatorship.

More in the coming weeks.

2014 11.19 Africa Review

Courtesy of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the U.S. National Defense University, and the United States Department of Defense, here are a representative sample of articles on African matters, either from around the African continent or about Africa-related activities: 

The 'Caliphate's' Colonies: Islamic State's Gradual Expansion into North Africa
The caliphate has a beach. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea around 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Crete in Darna. The eastern Libya city has a population of around 80,000, a beautiful old town and an 18th century mosque, from which the black flag of the Islamic State flies. The port city is equipped with Sharia courts and an "Islamic Police" force which patrols the streets in all-terrain vehicles. A wall has been built in the university to separate female students from their male counterparts and the disciplines of law, natural sciences and languages have all been abolished. Those who would question the city's new societal order risk death. Darna has become a colony of terror, and it is the first Islamic State enclave in North Africa. The conditions in Libya are perfect for the radical Islamists: a disintegrating state, a location that is strategically well situated and home to the largest oil reserves on the continent. Should Islamic State (IS) manage to establish control over a significant portion of Libya, it could trigger the destabilization of the entire Arab world. Der Spiegle

Al Qaeda branch releases video of French, Dutch hostages
Al Qaeda's North African branch, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), released a video Monday purporting to show a French and a Dutch hostage who have been held in the Sahara since being kidnapped separately in Mali in November 2011. In an online video identified by the private SITE jihadist monitoring group, French national Serge Lazarevic and a man identifying himself as Sjaak Rijke appeal to their governments to negotiate their release from the AQIM militants. There is nothing in the footage of Lazarevic to suggest when it was shot, but Rijke says he is speaking on September 26 this year and refers to a US-Taliban prisoner exchange conducted in May. France 24

Mali: Last Chance in Algiers
As northern Mali experiences renewed violence, peace negotiations in Algiers offer a unique opportunity to resolve the crisis. But after almost two months of negotiations, peace remains a distant hope. The Malian government and participating armed groups have struggled to find common ground. Influential radical groups that are absent from the negotiating table are tempted to resort to violence to derail the process. Conflict resolution will require reconciliation of competing interests regarding security in the Sahara, organisation of the Malian state structure and local balance of power between divided communities in the north. In the face of armed clashes, it is tempting for mediators to move quickly to achieve a deal that would only guarantee security in the short term. But rushing the process will not help. Time is needed to build the foundations of sustainable peace. After months of deadlock, Algeria arranged international mediation that had long been handicapped by institutional rivalries. The mediation team led by Algeria should maintain this momentum and take the time necessary to build broad consensus for a future agreement. International Crisis Group

Islamic State Allegiance Could Cost Egypt's Sinai Jihadis Popular Support
Last week, the Egyptian militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (ABM), which operates primarily in the Sinai Peninsula, pledged its loyalty to the so-called Islamic State (IS). In an email interview, Zack Gold, a visiting fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, discussed the implications for Egypt.WPR: What are the major armed groups operating in Sinai, to what degree do they coordinate activities and do they have any foreign support? Zack Gold:Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has been a base of armed activity, both militancy and smuggling, for many years. Following the uprising of 2011, however, the remnants of smaller jihadi groups amalgamated into Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the "Supporters of Jerusalem." World Politic Review

Sinai caught in the middle of Egypt's 'war on terror'
With soldiers firing warning shots to herald the nightly curfew and jihadist militants beheading informants, Sinai's residents find themselves caught in the middle of Egypt's "war on terror". The Sinai Peninsula has become a hotbed of Islamist militancy after decades of neglect under former president Hosni Mubarak, and amid a security vacuum triggered by the army's ouster last year of his successor Mohamed Morsi. Militant attacks remain commonplace almost two years since the military launched its "war on terrorism" in northern Sinai bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip. A brazen suicide bombing on 24 October killed 30 soldiers near the North Sinai capital El-Arish, sparking a state of emergency and a curfew being slapped on several areas of the province. News 24

 Subcommittee Hearing: Fighting Ebola: A Ground-Level View (video)
Witnesses: Mr. Rabih Torbay, Senior Vice President for International Operations International Medical Corps - Mr. Brett Sedgewick, Technical Advisor for Food Security and Livelihoods Global Communities - Darius Mans, Ph.D. President Africare. House Comittee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations

Obama on Ebola in West Africa: 'We are nowhere out of the woods'
President Obama said Tuesday that despite progress, West Africa is "nowhere near out of the woods" on Ebola. "It underscores how important it is to continue to push forward until we stamp out this disease entirely in that region," Obama said before a meeting on the virus with national security and public health officials. "Until we do, there are threats if additional outbreaks, and given the nature of international travel, it means that everybody has some measure of risk." White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said later that the president was referring to the country of Mali, which was declared free of the virus, only to see it come back. Obama said that attention on the virus in the United States has ebbed in the past week, "the challenge remains." The Washington Post

Guarding The Ebola Border
On a map, a border is a solid black line. On the ground, it can feel like a fiction. I'm standing on the edge of a shallow stream through the forest that separates two West African countries: Ivory Coast and Liberia. Here there is no fence. No sign. No border guard to prevent my crossing. On either side of this stream, people speak the same local language, Yokuba, a language incomprehensible to most of their countrymen. They share the same currency, the West African CFA franc, as well as a currency of trust built up over generations of intermarriage and communal life. There's even one tribal king who can settle disputes on both sides. Ebola changed all that. NPR

Army names new units that will deploy to Africa
The Minnesota National Guard's 34th Infantry Division headquarters and soldiers from 11 other states will deploy this spring to support U.S. Ebola response operations in West Africa, officials announced Sunday. In all, about 2,100 soldiers from the National Guard and Army Reserve are expected to deploy to Liberia and Senegal to relieve troops who deployed to the region in September and October as part of Operation United Assistance. The deployment of the Guard and Reserve soldiers was announced Friday. Army officials released the list of specific units tapped for the deployment on Sunday after notifying soldiers and their families. The soldiers, as well as those already in country, are expected to be deployed for six months. About 1,200 Guard soldiers are expected to deploy from these units. ArmyTimes

Algeria opposition calls for new elections
A coalition of Algerian opposition parties and political figures has called for new presidential elections because of the continued hospitalizations of the country's leader. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 77, was elected to a fourth term in April, but he has rarely appeared in public since suffering from a stroke in 2013. He was briefly hospitalized in France last weekend. Tuesday's opposition statement said the leader's absence is a sign of the "serious crisis in the country." The coalition, which includes Islamist and secular opposition parties, and former government ministers, also called for an independent commission to oversee elections. AP on Yahoo News

Tunisia: Political comeback of Ben Ali's cohort a setback to democracy 
The political party Nidaa Tounes has won 85 seats in the newly-elected 217-member Tunisian parliament. This compares with the 69 seats won by the Islamist party Ennahdha, which after the last election in 2011 held the majority in the Constituent Assembly. The elections on October 26th were welcomed by most Arab, African and international media observers who saw in them a model of democracy for a region torn by strife and dictatorship. Lebanese columnist Rami Khouri described the elections as "the most significant domestic and national political development in the modern history of the Arab world". Despite social unrest and severe economic challenges, Tunisia's political factions were able to agree and compromise for the sake of national unity, "in sharp contrast with the hysteria and hallucinatory emotional excesses" in Egypt where the army overthrew the elected Islamist president to great popular acclaim, Khouri wrote in the Daily Star. African Arguments

Tunisia 2.0 - from revolution to republic
For someone who has not been sleeping much, and working punishing hours for months, 27-year old Anis Smaali is in an extraordinarily good mood. He is running a team of 5,000 election observers for Mourakiboun - a group that monitored Tunisia's parliamentary elections in October and on Sunday will be observing the first freely contested presidential election in the country's history. "These are the most important elections in the history of Tunisia," he says with a broad smile. "After this we will have a real government with a five-year mandate. Tunisia is showing that a real and sustainable democracy is possible in the Arab world." Less than four years ago, Mr Smaali was among hundreds of thousands demonstrating outside the Interior Ministry, calling for an end to dictatorship. BBC

Nigeria: Policing the Police
[...] The population of the police is about 370,000, a minuscule fraction of Nigeria's 167m. If the police are unable to manage police affairs, how do we expect them to protect millions of Nigerians? How many other cases, like Banor's, are in police's files? Could Banor have acted alone? We are wondering if the police realise the implications of what they are telling the public. Are they confirming stories about dismissed police officers making their way back to service? Could it be that the police take finger prints of criminals, but do not have finger prints of their personnel? Why is the police pay roll not computerised as has been the case with the Nigeria Immigration Service since 2006? How are the police using the technologies that are available to them? How did Banor's matter get to the stage of the allegations against him? Is his case common in the police? Vanguard on allAfrica

Cameroon under pressure from Boko Haram
Cameroon's military are battling cross-border raids by Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram, as the BBC's Thomas Fessy found out when he joined soldiers on a patrol. A soldier is standing on the back of a flatbed pick-up truck leading the convoy. His high-powered twin-barrelled gun is turned towards Nigeria. In reality, though, the weapon is aimed at what Boko Haram call their "caliphate", or Islamic state. The border village of Amchide is mostly deserted. Only a handful of people can be seen as we drive through. They are hastily throwing a few belongings on a cart as they prepare to leave. They probably did not have time to take anything when they fled during an attack, and came back to recover their possessions. BBC

Zambia to hold presidential by-election January 20
Zambia's interim leader announced a presidential by-election on Jan. 20 and called for calm and tolerance amid concerns about a tense contest to succeed President Michael Sata, who died in office last month. Interim president Guy Scott, who became the continent's first white leader since the 1994 end of apartheid in South Africa, said he hoped all contestants, both from the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) and opposition parties, would desist from violence. "It is my prayer that peace continues during the campaigning and the presidential by-elections," he told a news conference. Questions about the stability of Africa's second-biggest copper producer arose when Scott fired a presidential front-runner, Edgar Lungu, as PF secretary-general on Nov. 3, without explaining why. Reuters

The real value of the Zimbabwe torture ruling
The South African Police Service (SAPS) really doesn't want to investigate torture in Zimbabwe. When the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) and the Zimbabwean Exiles Forum (ZEF) first asked it to do so in 2008, even giving detectives a dossier of evidence to get them started, the police took no action. When a court action (brought by SALC) forced it to do so, it appealed. When it lost that appeal, it appealed again. All to no avail. In late October, the Constitutional Court - the highest court in the land - ruled that SAPS must investigate the complaint. Failure to do so would violate South Africa's obligations under both domestic and international law. For SALC and international justice campaigners, the verdict was vindication after a long and difficult fight. ISS

'White Widow alive and well' in Somalia: report
Dubbed the "White Widow," Samantha Lewthwaite - a British convert to Islam who is said to have been involved in the Kenya mall attack last year - is reportedly living in Somalia with her jihadist husband, Marco Costa, a wanted Al-Qaeda suspect, the Daily Mail quoted Kenyan sources as saying. The sources said Lewthwaite was 'alive and well' and living in the south Somalia, the daily reported. The paper said it had obtained a forged Mozambican passport bearing Costa's picture. The document clearly identifies him as Jamal Salim, who the paper said was on the run from Kenyan police since he shot and killed two police officers in Nairobi in 2011. Lewthwaite has previously used a false South African passport and alias. The couple, according to the Daily Mail, also appears in a selfie taken at their home, adding that police are using these and pictures of their two children as part of a countrywide manhunt for the suspects. Al Arabiya

Ivory Coast tells soldiers to return to barracks 
The Ivory Coast government is calling on disgruntled soldiers to return to their barracks after they protested in the streets over their benefits. The Defense Ministry said it would make concessions the soldiers, whose complaints earlierTuesday had raised the specter of widespread unrest. The demands of the soldiers - dominated by former rebels who brought the current president to power - include increased health care benefits and improved opportunities for career advancement in the military. Defense Minister Paul Koffi Koffi said the government will address those issues. Ivory Coast is still recovering from a bitter political standoff that left about 3,000 people dead after a disputed December 2010 election. AP on Stars and Stripes

DR Congo's Katanga 'catastrophic' as 71,000 flee homes: UN
The UN refugee agency said it was "deeply concerned about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Katanga". Rampant violence in the mineral-rich southern region has uprooted about 400,000 people since 2012, and brought the total number of people internally displaced to nearly 600,000, UNHCR said. In October alone, the agency said it had registered 1,737 "incidents" in the territories of Kalemie and the so-called "triangle of death" comprising Manono, Mitwaba and Pweto in northern Katanga. The violence is mainly attributed to the Mai Mai rebel group which is fighting for a better distribution between the north and south of the wealth from the province's immense natural resources. Times Live

Food on Hold, Ex-Rebels in Bangui Face Bleak Future 
Ex-rebels in the Central African Republic have been threatening to blow themselves up to protest a government attempt to relocate them from camps in the capital, Bangui. The rebels are under pressure to move - an international aid agency says their food supply has been put on hold while talks about their relocation continue. Tensions are running high in the streets of Bangui around two camps containing ex-rebels, as negotiations over their future drag on. Peacekeepers from the United Nations mission MINUSCA have deployed to the area to prevent clashes between the ex-Seleka rebels inside the camps and anti-Balaka militia outside. VOA

Traffickers turn to teenagers to drive migrant boats across Mediterranean 
Traffickers in Egypt and Libya are increasingly using children to drive boats of migrants to Italy. Many of these teenagers are then detained and imprisoned by the Italian authorities, facing up to 15 years in jail and fines of hundreds of thousands of euros. This year, 18 children have been sent to jail in Catania, Sicily, on trafficking charges. Others are being held in juvenile detention centres in Agrigento, Palermo, Siracusa and Reggio Calabria. Lawyers in Sicily say more and more minors are being charged with offences as traffickers attempt to evade Italian authorities by sending children in their place. Said, now 19, was only 15 when he was jailed in Italy on charges of aiding and abetting illegal immigration and criminal association. The Guardian

Habyarimana case: the new Rwandan witness disappeared 
The new witness in the case of the attack against the plane of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana - April 6, 1994 on the eve of the genocide - has been missing since Thursday, November 13. He was to be heard soon by the judges Nathalie Poux and Marc Trévidic. According to testimonies collected by RFI, Emile Gafirita was abducted in Nairobi, Kenya, outside his home shortly before midnight. He was stopped by two men who handcuffed him and forced him into their vehicle. No news since. Kenyan police ensures not have arrested him and they are investigating this matter. Emmanuel Mughisa had moved there two months ago, in the district of Dagoretti, Nairobi.Rwandan " without history, rather friendly and open , "according to nearby residents. [...] According to his French lawyer, Maître François Cantier Emile Gafirita had just received his call when he was removed on Thursday, but his name as a witness was known for several weeks by all parties, including the Rwandan regime figures charged in this case. The ProxyLake

 Global report says 36 million people enslaved: Mauritania is biggest offender 
[...] "From the Thai fisherman trawling fishmeal, to the Congolese boy mining diamonds, from the Uzbek child picking cotton, to the Indian girl stitching footballs ... their forced labour is what we consume," read the report. The biggest offender, with the highest proportion of its population enslaved, remains the west African nation Mauritania, where slavery of black Moors by Berber Arabs is an entrenched part of society. Mauritania has anti-slavery legislation but it is rarely enforced and a special tribunal set up in March has yet to prosecute any cases, the report said. In second place was Uzbekistan where, every autumn, the government forces over one million people, including children, to harvest cotton. Countries like Qatar in the Middle East were a major destination for men and women from Africa and Asia who are lured with promises of well-paid jobs only to find themselves exploited as domestic workers or in the construction industry, the report found. Al Jazeera

America: forging partnerships for Africa's future.

 

Nelson Mandela Tribute

1918 - 2013

First, a musical selection in tribute to the great man. South Africa's national anthem performed by Miriam Makeba, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Paul Simon among others:

Second, on this, the day of his burial, I want to post something from a stranger to Nelson Mandela. The gentleman is also a stranger to me. In fact, his represent (I believe) the words of a generic white man who is apparently a Son of the South (apparently a Carolinian), clearly a fan of Mandela, probably liberal, and likely infused with perhaps an unhealthy dose of white guilt. Whatever the case, his words, however conceived *or* received, have merit. They arguably ring true. To me, at least. Here is what the guy who calls himself Sintax.the.Terrific (you can also find him on Facebook) had to say about this towering figure:

I have one take on Mandela, and I’ve made it to others many times before.

I am unaware of any other human in all of history who was oppressed so absolutely and then was given so absolutely the power to invert that oppression on millions of lives in justifiable retribution and yet declined. Not Ghandi or Dr. King or Mother Theresa. All of these individuals, righteous and consistent in their pacisifism, never actually gloved the reigns to violent power that must have tempted Mandela. They were always subject to power, maybe power they declined, but power they never possessed in the way he did. He was the undisputed psychological Monarch of South Africa upon his election. Had he chosen to change the country’s language to Mongolian Chinese and require men to birth the nation’s children he would have had widespread support.

Call it strategic or contrived, he elected, in the face of significant opposition from his own and victimized people, to largely integrate and accommodate. If you notice, throughout much of the rest of the developing world, when abused society obtains power they return the abuse.

The only parallel is in the lives of famous religious figures, like Christ. They are disqualified from this conversation insofar as they profess either actual divinity or divine authority or x-ray vision. As far as we can tell, Mandela was not any kind of incarnation or supernatural peeping tom.

Just a man who chose to do right in the face of so much opportunity to do wrong.

Maybe the greatest human that ever lived. Seriously.

That's a powerful testimony on the mystical reach of the legend that is Nelson Mandela.

Finally, a poem commissioned by the United States Department of State in anticipation of Nelson Mandela's death:

His Day Is Done

By Maya Angelou

His day is done.
Is done.

The news came on the wings of a wind
Reluctant to carry its burden.

Nelson Mandela’s day is done.

The news, expected and still unwelcome
Reached us in the United States and suddenly

Our world became somber.
Our skies were leadened

His day is done.

We see you, South African people
Standing speechless at the slamming
Of that final door
Through which no traveler returns.

Our spirits reach out to you
Bantu, Zulu, Xhosa, Boer

We think of you
And your Son of Africa,
Your father
Your One More Wonder of the World.

We send our souls to you
As you reflect upon
Your David armed with
A mere stone facing down

The Mighty Goliath,
Man of strength Gideon,
Emerging Triumphant

Although born into the brutal embrace of Apartheid
Scarred by the savage atmosphere of racism,
Unjustly imprisoned
In the bloody maws of South African dungeons.

Would the man survive?
Could the man survive?

His answer strengthened men and women
Around the world.

In the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas
On the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco,
In Chicago’s loop
In New Orleans Mardi Gras
In New York City’s Times Square

We watched as the hope of Africa sprang
Through the prison’s doors

His stupendous heart intact
His gargantuan will
Hale and hearty

He had not been crippled by brutes
Nor was his passion for the rights
Of human beings
Diminished by twenty-seven years of imprisonment

Even here in America
We felt the cool
Refreshing breeze of freedom

When Nelson Mandela took
The seat of Presidency
In his Country
Where formerly he was not even allowed to vote
We were enlarged by tears of pride
As we saw Nelson Mandela’s
Former prison guards
Invited, courteously, by him to watch
From the front rows
His inauguration.

We saw him accept
The world’s award in Norway
With the grace and gratitude
Of the Solon in Ancient Roman Courts
And the confidence of African Chiefs
From ancient royal stools.

No sun outlasts its sunset
But will rise again
And bring the dawn

Yes, Mandela’s day is done,

Yet we, his inheritors
Will open the gates wider
For reconciliation and we will respond
Generously to the cries
Of Blacks and Whites,
Asian, Hispanics,
The poor who live piteously
On the floor of our planet
He has offered us understanding
We will not withhold forgiveness
Even from those who do not ask

Nelson Mandela’s day is done

We confess it in tearful voices
Yet we lift our own to say

Thank You.
Thank You, Our Gideon.
Thank You, Our David.
Our great courageous man

We will not forget you
We will not dishonor you
We will remember and be glad
That you lived among us

That you taught us
And
That you loved us
All !!!

-- The End --

There are difficult days ahead for South Africa. Political pettiness has already reared its ugly head, and a brutal dose of reality is surely on the agenda in the coming days. Many are reflecting on a different path that could have been taken, a disastrous path taken by Zimbabwe. Can they hold their country together?

I hope and pray they can. Just as Mandela did.

Mandela, Spear of the Nation: Spear of the World

Take your leave, old Soldier. A gratefull community pauses around the globe to marvel at your legacy.

Words fail me at the moment, so I can only fall back and present here some iconic images of the great man:

The youthful Mandela:

Mandela released from prison:

Mandela speaks before a special session of the United States Congress:

Catullus 101

Wandering through many countries and over many seas
   I come, my brother, to these sorrowful obsequies,
to present you with the last guerdon of death,
   and speak, though in vain, to your silent ashes,
since fortune has taken your own self away from me
   alas, my brother, so cruelly torn from me!
Yet now meanwhile take these offerings, which by the custom of our fathers
   have been handed down -- a sorrowful tribute -- for a funeral sacrifice;
take them, wet with many tears of a brother,
   and for ever, O my brother, hail and farewell!

Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Van der Leun's "Name in the Stone"

Always a worthy and memorable read, Gerard Van der Leun has re-posted a piece well worth your time on this Veterans Day:

I tried to understand what such a sacrifice meant to my grandparents and parents, but I could not. I was a child of the long peace who had avoided his war and gone on to make a life that, in many ways, was spent taking-down the things that my namesake had given his life to preserve. I was thirty then and not yet a parent. That would come a few years later and, with the birth of my daughter, I would at last begin, but only begin, to understand.

Today it makes me feel cheap and contemptible to think of the things I did in my youth to point out all the ways in which this country fails to achieve some fantasied perfection. I was a small part of promulgating a great wrong and a large lie for a long time, and I'm sure there's no making up for that. My chance to be worthy of the man in the photograph, the name on the wall, has long since passed and all I can do is to try, in some way, to make what small amends I can.

I would say you've done a fantastic job, Gerard. A truly fantastic job.

What in the Hell Has Made the Obama Administration Panic Over Benghazi?

The administration claim that the Benghazi attack in Libya was related to a video disrespectful of Islam has never made any sense to me. So, the obvious question remaining to be answered is this -- what the hell is going on, and why did it -- whatever *it* is -- freak out the Obama Administration?

The story is still unfolding this glorious Sunday, but slowly and surely some meat is being put on the bone. Over at PowerLine they referenced today a transcript released by the State Department that details the heroic actions of American personnel at that compound during the terrorist attack. You should read the excerpt provided by PowerLine but you should also try to read the full transcript (I haven't yet).

Wretchard the Cat / Richard Fernandez, however, has a post up (Wanted: Pills for Dementia) that discusses the oddity of the actions taken by Clinton and Obama on this matter. And their subsequent attempts to finesse the story in hopes it eventually slips down the rabbit hole of forgotten memories. But in the comments, Wretchard has some interesting speculation on what this all means:

Some days back I cited an report saying that Bill Clinton had retained a legal team to advise Hillary on this Benghazi thing because he believed the President was setting her up to take the fall. That suggests the danger that, if enough facts came out, there could be criminal liability lurking around inside there.

While I’m no lawyer I dimly remember that government officers are immune while in performance of their duties or following instructions from other or higher authority. Hence Hillary has to start saying “I was only following instructions” or she’ll wind up holding the bag.

Note that she hasn’t said exactly whose lead she was following. That will give the ‘other’ — whoever it may be — time to back off. This is a warning shot. Once they start exchanging broadsides chances are both ships will sink.

Now the knowledge of the Benghazi assault was probably known to at least three agencies: State, DOD (which provided the drone) and CIA, whose safe-house came under attack. It’s almost inconceivable that the national command authority chain was not cut into the loop almost immediately, so I’d guess the President was in the loop also. ‘Other’ is going to be one of those.

Now let me put on my tinfoil hat and really go out on a limb in this comment. Being incompetent in Benghazi isn’t important enough to go through all this trouble. But using it as a cover up for something much, much larger is. So here’s my guess. There’s another shoe waiting to drop. Either a penetration in the State Department, CIA or the White House. Or a secret deal nobody wants to talk about. That’s the bomb.

The problem with Benghazi is that it took the al-Qaeda line. In addition to the attack itself being orchestrated by the AQ, it almost looks like the State Department or White House lines were written by them as well. By accident perhaps but possibly to cover the bigger bomb.

So to be linked to the cover story is to be linked to what was covered up. So that’s my wholly insane speculation, which is probably off the wall. But I just don’t see either Obama or Hillary taking all these risks just to keep the faults in security under Bengazi under wraps. They could have said “we took a calculated risk”.

If you read the link the Powerline story, the security staff on the ground acquitted themselves very well. That could have been touted as a ‘victory’ — yet the unnamed ‘other’ decided to push the cock-and-bull video story? Why? Why?

No this was an act of panic. What were they panicking about?

Exactly.

What is the hell are they so panicked about? What could possibly have spooked them so much that they tell this obvious lie? More from Wretchard:

Think about it. According to the Colonel in the radio program hundreds of people were monitoring the assault in near real time in the various command centers. They had a drone taking video. State sent back video. Thirty seven witnesses got out alive.

There was so much evidence to the contrary out there that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the video story was going to fly. Yet they went with it. Not only did they go with it, they sent Rice to shop it around. Hillary gave a bunch of speeches on TV. President Obama called Mitt Romney out on it. They took out a friggen ad in Pakistan.

They done took a noose, slipped it over their heads, stepped on the trapdoor and pulled the lever themselves. They wired themselves into the electric chair, clapped the steel hat on their heads and repeatedly threw the switch. Am I dead yet? Let’s do it again. All without being aware of what they were doing?

I guess Occam would have me believe that stupid is as stupid does. But if they are actually this dumb then we are really in a world of pain. If Occam is right these guys can’t figure out how to pop a beer can. These are people who think you move a mouse pointer up by lifting it from table. These guys would make Elphinstone seem like a genius.

And now here comes Hillary saying she never bought into it in the first place. That she was just saying these things because some unnamed ‘other’ prevailed on her to do it. Does she actually expect this line of explanation to work?

It’s very strange. Or maybe the ancient saying is right. Those who the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.

And in response to a request for clarification, Wretchard wrote:

I don’t grasp what you mean by a “penetration in the State Department, CIA or the White House.”

The attackers knew where the secret annex and safe house were. And they blindsided the security people in Benghazi and the CIA itself. This doesn’t prove there’s a penetration but it does raise the possibility that there may be one.

By ascribing the attack to the video you avoid this question. “It evolved from a demonstration”, then you are home free. Just bad luck. Just something which grew out of Islamophobia. But the moment you acknowledge is a terrorist attack then you must address the question of how the enemy knew the dispositions of the US official establishment.

You will also recall that the senior Yemeni security officer for the US mission in in Sanaa was just hit. Again this suggests surveilance. State Department was asked whether it was possible the enemy had the entire list of Yemeni employees and they could not rule it out.

Maybe there’s no penetration but the question is now unavoidably on the table. Who was it who said: the Taliban are inside the building? How can they not think this?

So the kindest scenario is that Panetta pretended to go along with the video story so that he could send out the counter-intel people without the enemy suspected he was on to them. He was going to cover his investigation with their own cover story. That might have been a misjudgment but I think it just barely plausible that is what happened.

But is that right? Could the penetration lie elsewhere? With an ally we deeply trust, perhaps? Remember, the whole "leading from behind" nonsense in Libya was in furtherance of some European aspirations, wasn't it? Here was my speculative addition to the thread:

Wretchard, I think you're correct about the penetration -- as far as that goes. But who was penetrated? I don't think it was any of the American entities you listed. I suspect the penetration (and subsequent double-crossing) was of one of our trusted European allies. Said ally probably had set up something of a "fake but accurate" scenario for a 9/11 protest of the video at that compound. Unfortunately for them, and us, our jihadist enemies infiltrated the ruse and saw it as the perfect opportunity to inflict severe damage (it was curious to me to see multiple protests around the region of the video; we know the video excuse was bogus, but right on cue the protests crop up -- hmmmmm -- with an apology to the Pakistanis -- hmmmm).

Which they did. With our drone overhead, watching but not fully understanding what was really happening on the ground.

Now, I suspect we're scrambling to try and isolate the source of the fire and limit the damage (the silence from Petraeus is ominous to me). But the damage has been done and the "leading from behind" exercise in Libya has been officially trumped by the jihadists.

Something really strange is going on, that's for sure. Right now, we just don't have a real good clue as to what.

America, Again

While racing through some of the morning papers and websites, I ran across this article in the London Telegraph, World Power Swings Back to America. Here's a representative sampling:

As Cleveland Fed chief Sandra Pianalto said last week, US manufacturing is "very competitive" at the current dollar exchange rate. Whether intended or not, the Fed's zero rates and $2.3 trillion printing blitz have brought matters to an abrupt head for China.

Fed actions confronted Beijing with a Morton's Fork of ugly choices: revalue the yuan, or hang onto the mercantilist dollar peg and import a US monetary policy that is far too loose for a red-hot economy at the top of the cycle. Either choice erodes China's wage advantage. The Communist Party chose inflation.

Foreign exchange effects are subtle. They take a long to time play out as old plant slowly runs down, and fresh investment goes elsewhere. Yet you can see the damage to Europe from an over-strong euro in foreign direct investment (FDI) data.

Flows into the EU collapsed by 63 [percent] from 2007 to 2010 (UNCTAD data), and fell by 77 [percent] in Italy. Flows into the US rose by 5 [percent].

The current China fixation is the "Japan, Inc." phenomenon from the 1980s all over again with a major, extended worldwide recession thrown in right now, rather than looming on the horizon. I haven't been able to watch this video (embedding of the video has been disallowed) from one of the authors of the book that serves as much of the basis for the article, The American Phoenix: And Why China and Europe Will Struggle After the Coming Slump, but I'm sure it's an interesting five minutes.

Rarely is it a good bet to wager against the United States of America. However, as the article concludes:

The switch in advantage to the US is relative. It does not imply a healthy US recovery. The global depression will grind on as much of the Western world tightens fiscal policy and slowly purges debt, and as China deflates its credit bubble.

Yet America retains a pack of trump cards, and not just in sixteen of the world’s top twenty universities.

It is almost the only economic power with a fertility rate above 2.0 - and therefore the ability to outgrow debt - in sharp contrast to the demographic decay awaiting Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Russia.

Europe's EMU soap opera has shown why it matters that America is a genuine nation, forged by shared language and the ancestral chords of memory over two centuries, with institutions that ultimately work and a real central bank able to back-stop the system.

The 21st Century may be American after all, just like the last.

Hubba Hubba !!!

Allen West on the Campaigner-in-Chief

Congressman Allen West released this statement yesterday on the news that Barack Obama was ending America's military campaign in Iraq:

(WASHINGTON)--- Congressman Allen West (FL-22) released this statement today:

“Today, the President announced the withdrawal of all combat forces from Iraq by the end of the year.

As a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom who served during the initial battles of this conflict, I am proud to be among the more than one million Americans who served in Iraq. What my fellow comrades in arms achieved in Iraq is nothing short of historic. Together, we defeated one of history’s most tyrannical dictatorships and replaced it with a free and democratic government. American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines fought and defeated a radical Islamic insurgency, and helped create an ally and partner in freedom.

I will never forget those who I served with, and those who served after I left. I will never forget the sacrifice borne by so many of our service members and their families.

However, I must question the motives of President Barack Obama for this sudden announcement. Why now? Did the President consult with any of our American Generals on the ground before making this decision? What kind of message will this send to our allies, the Kurds, in the Northern part of Iraq, and will they feel abandoned? My fear is that political expediency drove this decision, not recommendations by the Military’s leadership.

Much is at stake and many questions are yet to be answered. I fear that our President is acting as “Campaigner in Chief” rather than “Commander in Chief,” thus putting the entire Middle East at risk.

Right now, the American people deserve answers.”

It has been a long engagement; it has also had historically low casualties -- something rarely reported. I would feel much better about this exit if this President wasn't driving the train but it is what it is. We've gained tremendous assets, both from a person-to-person contact perspective and from a culture-to-culture perspective, from this war. These contacts will serve us well as America moves forward in the 21st century.

Questions will be asked, as Congressman West has shown, and they should be. Vigorously. More important to me is how do we move forward in that region? How do we honor the sacrifice that America has made there? And the naive person who made an incredibly ignorant World Apology Tour as his presidency began a few short years ago had better not piss me the hell off this time around.

Osama Sleeps with the Fish

Not only is Osama bin Laden dead, he died at American hands. Not only did he die at American hands, it wasn't a missile that did it but a bullet to his noggin. Not only was it a bullet to his noggin, it was in his Pakistani safe haven.

Uncle Sam said, "Hello, punk bitch. Quit running, MoFu! And shut the hell up! What, ninja!?! Ninja, what!?! BOOM !!! That's what !!!"

Now his earthly body sleeps with the fish -- his soul, however, writhes in hell.

Yes, this is a personal national holiday for me. No, it doesn't make me feel better about President Obama. Yes, I still believe the President is screwed and yes I marvel at all of these people on the left who don't even believe in the CIA or know how to support the American military -- not simply the "troops" -- but expect me to forget that fact.

No, sir.

But I do congratulate the President for allowing the mission to move forward. And I especially compliment the finest fighting force on the planet, America's military, and the CIA's paramilitary forces for staying ever-vigilant and getting the job done. This modified photo of Lady Liberty (via Pajamas Media The Tatler) speaks volumes.

Yes! Yes! Yes! As for Pakistan, I'm 100% with India right now. They were right all along; the Pakistanis were, and are, full of scheisse.

Phenomenal Tsunami Video from Japan

The situation in Japan is still unfolding but this new video of the tsunami hitting a Japanese town bring home the unrelenting terror that must have been experience by millions of Japanese who had to deal with this disaster. It's awe-inspiring to watch the steady, methodical advance of the destruction:

Wow.