Egypt: First 3 out of 46 Ka-52 Alligator helicopters delivered by Russia

(Egypt) As I mentioned previously the Islamist Government of the Muslim Brotherhood was removed by the military at the behest of the population who took to the streets in their millions to protest at how the Leader of the MB had afforded himself and his petty thugs absolute power.  The liberals in the West, couldn't handle the fact that the vast majority of Egyptians wanted nothing to do with the MB and so they demanded that the MB as the elected government be returned to power. The Egyptians took no notice and saw a certain Human rights lawyer who was living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC become very angry and so he punished Egypt by holding back arms sales to the country. (Thankfully the US Senate saw more sense)  The problem here is at a stroke Obama alienated those Arab nations on the side of the West (Egypt/Saudi Arabia/ Gulf states) and in doing so he allowed others to take his place , which destabilised the region. Saudi Arabia started buying weapons from China . Egypt bought a load of Jets and 2 huge assault ships from France. Instead of using its Apache Helicopters (Egypt has 43)  they purchased 46 Ka-52Ks from Russia in which to bolster its Naval air arm and nobody trusted the US whilst Obama was in the White house.

The Ka-52K Katran Helicopter is a ship-based version of the Ka-52 Alligator reconnaissance and combat helicopter which was designed for operations aboard the French-built Mistral-class amphibious assault ships which Russia was going to purchase. When that sale fell through and the 2 ships went to Egypt. The Russians managed to get one over the Obama administration by selling them to Cairo.

Based on the airframe of the Ka-52 Alligator, which itself is a modified variant of the Ka-50 attack helicopter. The equipment and systems of the helicopter have been modified to suit naval operations. It features an advanced glass cockpit, which accommodates two pilots in side-by-side layout. It can be operated by either pilot and is equipped with advanced avionics and powerful weapon systems, which can be configured for different roles. The helicopter carries a 2A42-1 30mm automatic cannon and high-fragmentation, explosive incendiary, or armour-piercing rounds. It is also capable of launching Kh-31 and Kh-35 air-to-surface missiles.

Well this week the first 3 of 46 arrived in Egypt. Way to go Obama.

Iranian Ballistic Missile Tests Since that Nuclear Deal

(Iran)  A month ago President Barack Obama marked the first anniversary of the Iran nuclear deal by telling the Trump administration that the accord can't easily be undone and is preferable to war.

"The United States must remember that this agreement was the result of years of work and represents an agreement between the world's major powers — not simply the United States and Iran," 

Obama noted that a diplomatic solution that keeps Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is preferable to an "unconstrained Iranian nuclear program or another war.  That is how the liberal Obama saw his relationship with the Mad mullahs. Here is how the Mullahs see that relationship:

Why do I keep thinking of the British Prime minister Neville Chamberlain and his peace for our time speech after his deal with Adolf Hitler.

Transcript claims to show John Kerry and Susan Rice worked with Palestinians on UN resolution

Report published in Egypt has Kerry and Rice advising senior Palestinians on strategy at UN and after Trump takes power.

(Times of Israel) An Egyptian paper published what it claims are the transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials that, if true, would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind last week’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

At the same time, a report in an Israeli daily Tuesday night pointed to Britain helping draft the resolution and high drama in the hours leading up to the vote, as Jerusalem tried to convince New Zealand to bury the Security Council measure.

In a meeting in early December with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Palestinians that the US was prepared to cooperate with the Palestinians at the Security council, Israel’s Channel 1 TV said, quoting the Egyptian Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper.

Also present at the meeting were US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Majed Faraj, director of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service.

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Middle East Leaders Look Forward to Trump — 'No one will weep' for Obama's departure

(WJD) Surprised?

The Wall Street Journal quotes several Middle Eastern leaders who say they are looking forward to working with president-elect Trump after the disaster of the Obama years.

At a recent conference

many principal speakers, including Testament Al-Ketbi, the chairwoman of the conference, and Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah, the former foreign minister of Kuwait, as well as speakers from the floor, returned again and again to the threat Iran had become and the failure of President Obama’s policies to deal with this threat. They professed to be intrigued by Mr. Trump’s statements that seemed “very different” and promisingly so.

Summing this all up, Mr. Aldakhil wrote in the Saudi daily Okaz on Nov. 13, “No one will weep” for Mr. Obama’s departure. The president “brought our region nothing but hesitance toward the Iranian axis, while flirting with and rewarding it, and strictness toward the Gulf axis, while evading agreements.” He was referring to security-related guarantees and promises made by Mr. Obama at Camp David in May 2015 to calm Arab fears about the Iranian nuclear deal.

Mr. Obama leaves the region with multiple and worsening challenges, not only the incomplete war against Islamic State. The Obama legacy includes an empowered Iran that threatens American interests, destabilizes the Sunni world, and violates agreements on missiles and nuclear development. Multiple, heavily sectarian Sunni-Shiite civil wars rage.

The Obama legacy indeed.

US: Obama blames Fox news for Clinton losing

(US) In yet another blatant example of how so called champions of free speech, freedom of expression and freedom of thought, the Democrat leader of the United States of America has opined to Rolling Stone magazine that Hillary lost to Donald the other week due to Fox News. I quote:

I've been chewing on for a while now, is that there is a cohort of working-class white voters that voted for me in sizable numbers, but that we've had trouble getting to vote for Democrats in midterm elections. In this election, [they] turned out in huge numbers for Trump. And I think that part of it has to do with our inability, our failure, to reach those voters effectively. Part of it is Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country.

What is it with liberals and their ability to scream 'foul play' when something doesn't go their way?

Trump Warns Obama Not To Harm Israel In Closing Days; Palestinian UN Envoy Threatens Trump

Trump aides said to warn Obama against 11th hour ‘new adventures’ on Palestinian issue

Aides to US president-elect Donald Trump are reportedly warning President Barack Obama not to “even think about” trying to make a new push for progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the final weeks of his administration.

The outgoing president and his team “shouldn’t go seeking new adventures or pushing through policies that clearly don’t match Trump’s positions,” the Politico website reported an unnamed Trump “national security adviser” as insisting.

And that includes “efforts to bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians — even if those initiatives are symbolic at best,” Politico wrote, noting that Trump “has made it very clear he will support Israel and its preferences.”

The Thursday report, which was headlined “Trump team warns Obama not to make major moves on foreign policy,” quoted Obama administration officials wondering about how much influence they could have on the incoming president and his team. “We are asking ourselves: Are we going to be able to have some influence on the transition team or not? There is so much unknown. Nobody really knows these people,” a State Department official was quoted as saying. “I’m not sure I need to feel defensive about what we are working on, but I think it’s important to explain it, and explain options, and to be willing to explore alternatives.”

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Palestinian UN Envoy threatens Trump: If US Moves Embassy to Jerusalem We’ll ‘Make Their Life Miserable’

Prof. Miriam Elman had a post earlier today on Donald Trump’s promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Israel’s capitol, U.S. Embassy: Next Year in Jerusalem?

It’s worth highlighting one piece of news in that post, via Haaretz, Palestinian UN Envoy: If Trump Moves Embassy to Jerusalem We’ll ‘Make His Life Miserable’:

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said in Washington on Friday that if President-elect Donald Trump moves the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem the Palestinians would “make life miserable” for the United States at the United Nations.

“If people attack us by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, which is a violation of Security Council resolutions, it is a violation of resolution 181 of the UN general assembly that was drafted by the U.S. … it means they are showing belligerency towards us … If they do that nobody should blame us for unleashing all of the weapons that we have in the UN to defend ourselves and we have a lot of weapons in the UN,” Mansour said.

Mansour said that the Palestinian response to a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could not be a Security Council resolution because the United States would veto it. “Maybe I can’t have resolutions in the Security Council but I can make their lives miserable everyday with precipitating a veto on my admission as a member state. Italy in 1949 received 3 consecutive vetoes on its admission to the UN from the Soviet Union. These are the kind of things that I can do.”

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New York Times to Obama: Hit Israel hard

NY Times tells Obama to pass decision in UN spelling out borders of Israel, 'Palestine.'

(INN) The New York Times has demanded US President Barack Obama use his last months in office to hit Israel hard diplomatically.

Apparently, this is in response to the fact that the Israeli government "approved the construction of a new Jewish settlement in the West Bank," which is simply "another step in the steady march under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to build on land needed to create a Palestinian state."

Last week, the Israeli government approved a plan allowing Amona residents to move to the neighboring town of Shilo, where they would be housed in a new neighborhood on government land planned specially for them.

Shilo is a town in in the Biblical "hills of Ephraim," and is now under the jurisdiction of the Binyamin Regional Council.

In an article written by their "Editorial Board," the NY Times writes that, "The best idea under discussion now would be to have the United Nations Security Council, in an official resolution, lay down guidelines for a peace agreement covering such issues as Israel’s security, the future of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and borders for both states."

The article continues to say that this neighborhood "is designed to house settlers from a nearby illegal outpost, called Amona, which an Israeli court has ordered demolished because it is built on private, Palestinian-owned land."

In truth, no one has yet come forward claiming ownership of the land Amona is built on. Instead, left-wing organizations have found property deeds given out by King Hussein of Jordan. No taxes were paid on the land, no one did anything to it, no one knows who the owners are, and the founders of Amona built in good faith on land they were told was unowned.

Though there has been a de-facto building freeze in Judea and Samaria for several years, the NY Times insists that, "A failure to freeze settlements has long been at the center of tensions between successive American administrations and Israel. This latest decision was especially insulting...If the new settlement was known earlier, it might have affected those [military aid package] negotiations. "

The article continues, "The most plausible pressure would come from Mr. Obama’s leading the Security Council to put its authority behind a resolution to support a two-state solution and offer the outlines of what that could be...it is the kind of political pressure Mr. Netanyahu abhors and has been working assiduously to prevent."

The New York Times ran its editorial just one week before the United Nations Security Council is set to hold a public debate on Israeli "settlement activity" in the Judea and Samaria, as well as Jewish building in greater Jerusalem.

This meeting is known as an Arria Formula meeting, and was set in response to the Palestinian Authority's request. The Palestinian Authority, headed by former KGB agent Mahmoud Abbas, has tried several times to pressure the UN Security Council members to issue a resolution, such as the one described above. The PA also hopes that the Arria Formula meeting will spur UNSC action against Israel.

For years, the Palestinian Arabs have insisted that "settlement activity" is the obstacle to peace and the creation of a two-state solution.

Preferring instead a directly negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, both Israel and the US have opposed any UNSC efforts to dictate the terms of a two-state solution.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner emphasized the US's longstanding position to oppose biased and one-sided UN resolutions against Israel.

“With regard to the UN Security Council and any action at the UN, our position hasn’t changed. We’re always concerned, frankly, about one-sided resolutions or other actions that could be taken within the UN, and we’re always going to oppose those kinds of resolutions that we believe delegitimize Israel and undermine its security,” said Toner.

Toner explained, “We’re going to carefully consider our future engagement, if and when we reach that point, and determine how to most effectively pursue and advance the objective that we all at least claim to share, which is that of achieving a negotiated two-state solution."

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly stated that "all of Israel is the occupation," even cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa, which are within the "Green Line."

Though the US has historically blocked Palestinian-led attempts by the UN to issue condemnations or resolutions against Israel, particularly with regard to the settlements, there is speculation that US President Barack Obama might utilize his lame duck last two months in office to pressure Israel and aid the "Palestinian" cause.

The Palestinian Authority has consistently refused to conduct direct talks with Israel until a list of pre-conditions are met, though Israel has repeatedly called on the Palestinians to hold such talks without pre-conditions.

Even though PA chairman Abbas constantly talks about peace and a two-state solution, he continues to incite hate and encourage terror attacks, in addition to paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists and their families and naming schools and streets after them.

Muslim Refugees in US Outnumber Christians 12,486 to 68: Leads to Calls of Social Engineering'

(US) Out of a total of 12,587 Syrian refugees admitted in the US during this just-ended fiscal year, The vast majority were Sunni Muslims – 12,363 (98.2 percent) – while another 103 are identified in State Department Refugee Processing Center data simply as Muslims and a further 20 as Shi’a Muslims.

Sixty-eight of the 12,587 Syrian refugees (0.5 percent) were Christians. This was broken down to 16 Catholics, eight Orthodox, five Protestants, four Jehovah’s Witnesses, one Greek Orthodox, and 34 refugees self-identified simply as Christians.

And the liberals laughed when Bush declared mission accomplished. I wonder how they will react when the current Muslim-in-chief leaves the Oval office and comes out with his farewell statement?

Has Obama commented yet on the latest slew of Islamic terrorist attacks on Americans on American soil?

Over the last September 16, 2016, there were multiple attacks and attempted attacks by Muslim terrorists in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota, and the President of the United States Obama has not uttered a single word about this.

"...Obama deliberately letting unvetted Muslim refugees enter US to undo our natl identity" https://t.co/wAgBOA9tKe pic.twitter.com/NRXMoblL6Z

— Lori Hendry (@Lrihendry) September 19, 2016

Russian MPs demand that Russia places missiles on Cuba.

(Moscow) It appears that the Russians really do want to cash in whilst Obama is in power. Their latest attempt in which to play "My dick is bigger than yours" is a proposal by Russian State Duma deputies for Putin to place missiles on Cuba in which to show the US just who's the man.  the last time we saw a US president disarm the country, the Russians deployed SS20 missiles in Europe. Now we see them wanting to deploy missiles on Cuba. I wonder if Obama has the balls to say no. Nah, he most likely will be hitting golf balls

Obama Releases Guantanamo Detainee Who Said He Would ‘Kill Americans’ if Released

Guantánamo Detainee Freed Monday Said He Would ‘Kill Americans’ if Released https://t.co/UjFYyfkmYW by @JordanSchachtel

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 12, 2016

Obama Nuclear Deal Fuels Iran’s Hard-Liners

Since completion of the agreement, Tehran has stepped up arrests of political opponents ahead of next month’s national elections.

The article also exposes how Obama made a strategic decision to NOT help the 'Green revolution' to oust the mullahs and specifically ordered the CIA to not help the democracy movement.

(WSJ) The Obama administration’s nuclear deal was intended to keep Iran from pursuing an atomic bomb, and raised hope in the West that Tehran would be nudged toward a more moderate path.

But there are growing fears in Washington and Europe that the deal—coupled with an escalating conflict with Saudi Arabia—instead risks further entrenching Iran’s hard-line camp.

Since completion of the agreement in July, Tehran security forces, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have stepped up arrests of political opponents in the arts, media and the business community, part of a crackdown aimed at ensuring Mr. Khamenei’s political allies dominate national elections scheduled for Feb. 26, according to Iranian politicians and analysts.

“Americans have set their eyes covetously on elections, but the great and vigilant nation of Iran will act contrary to the enemies’ will, whether it be in elections or on other issues, and as before will punch them in the mouth,” he told a meeting of prayer leaders this week.

And in a challenge to the U.S., Iran in recent weeks tested two ballistic missiles and fired rockets near U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf.

U.S. and European officials had hoped the nuclear accord would broaden cooperation with Tehran, and empower Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to promote democratic change. He was elected in 2013 on a platform to end the nuclear standoff and build bridges to the West.

The agreement, which calls for Iran to scale back its nuclear work in exchange for removal of international sanctions, fueled euphoria in Tehran among residents, students and business executives seeking greater freedom.

But the continuing purge and the conflict with Saudi Arabia stand to weaken Mr. Rouhani, a moderate Islamic cleric who backed the nuclear deal that involved more than two years of negotiations by his closest aides.

As much as $100 billion in frozen revenues are expected to return to Iran after sanctions are lifted, which U.S. officials said could happen in coming weeks. The White House hoped the cash windfall would aid Mr. Rouhani’s political fortunes. But Iranian academics close to Mr. Rouhani are increasingly concerned Mr. Khamenei will use the money and diplomatic rewards to entrench hard-line allies, at the expense of the president.

Many of the companies about to be removed from international blacklists are part of military and religious foundations, including some that report directly to Mr. Khamenei. [...]

[...] the ranks of reformists in Iran have been depleted. Many activists are angry at the Obama administration for failing to support them six years ago in a rebuff that hasn’t been previously reported.

Iranian opposition leaders secretly reached out to the White House in the summer of 2009 to gauge Mr. Obama’s support for their “green revolution,” which drew millions of people to protest the allegedly fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The demonstrations caught the White House off guard, said current and former U.S. officials who worked on Iran in the Obama administration.

Some U.S. officials pressed Mr. Obama to publicly back the fledgling Green Movement, arguing in Oval Office meetings that it marked the most important democratic opening since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Mr. Obama wasn’t convinced. “‘Let’s give it a few days,’ was the answer,” said a senior U.S. official present at some of the White House meetings. “It was made clear: ‘We should monitor, but do nothing.’ ”

...Mr. Obama and his advisers decided to maintain silence in the early days of the 2009 uprising. The Central Intelligence Agency was ordered away from any covert work to support the Green Movement either inside Iran or overseas, said current and former U.S. officials involved in the discussions.

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Netanyahu leading effort to thwart Obama bid for U.N. chief

#Israeli PM Netanyahu leading effort to thwart Hussein Obama's bid for U.N. chief. https://t.co/A0lka9SXVD pic.twitter.com/jnv3qNEY1V

— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) January 10, 2016

(WT) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly is planning payback for President Obama’s dismissing Mr. Netanyahu’s objections to the Iran nuclear deal last year. Mr. Netanyahu is said to be rallying moderate Arabs to thwart Mr. Obama’s bid to become the Secretary-General of the United Nations after he leaves the White House next year.

Mr. Obama has already discussed the issue with Republican, Democratic and Jewish officials in the United States, according to Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida.

Mr. Netanyahu recently is said to have gotten wind of Obama’s plans which he calls the Obama Project. “Wasn’t eight years of having Obama in office enough?” Mr. Netanyahu is quoted in the Kuwaiti daily as telling associates. “Eight years during which he ignored Israel? And now he wants to be in a position that is liable to cause us hardships in the international arena.”

“Obama is the worst president Israel has had to deal with and the worst president for the Middle East and its allies, the moderate Arab states,” the paper quotes a Netanyahu aide.

Another source close to the Prime Minister said “his presidency was characterized by [Washington’s] moving closer to the Muslim Brotherhood, toppling the regime of Hosni Mubarak, and attempts to ally itself with political Islam.”

“Obama’s term is ending with him forging an alliance with Iran, coming to an agreement with it on its nuclear program which in the end will result in a similar scenario that took place with North Korea. Israel will not allow this to happen … It will take all of the necessary steps to prevent Iran from manufacturing a nuclear weapon either covertly or overtly.”

Obama and Hillary Created This: Libya Issues 'Cry for Help' as Islamic State Attacks Oil Tanks

(Bloomberg) Libya’s National Oil Corp. issued a “cry for help” as Islamic State militants attacked a second oil tank in the region of Es Sider, the country’s biggest oil port which has been closed for more than a year.

Two members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard were killed and 16 others wounded in clashes with Islamic State militants west of Es Sider oil port, guards spokesman Ali al-Hasy said by phone. The militants attacked an oil tank in Es Sider, setting it on fire, according to a statement on the NOC website. Islamic State had shelled a tank in the nearby Ras Lanuf oil terminal region on Monday during a clash with the guards.

“We are helpless and not being able to do anything against this deliberate destruction to the oil installations” in Es Sider and the nearby Ras Lanuf oil terminals, NOC said. “National Oil Corporation urges all faithful and honorable people of this homeland to hurry to rescue what is left from our resources before it is too late.”

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Obama admin to release 17 Muslim terrorists, including 'Al Qaeda followers', from Gitmo 'within days'

17 GITMO terrorists, including al-Qaeda followers,to be transferred & it's being kept hushed😠https://t.co/nuKeRJjbKU pic.twitter.com/KCuSjA1Z9I

— Feisty☀️Floridian (@peddoc63) January 5, 2016

(Fox News) The group of 17 detainees expected to be transferred out of Guantanamo Bay as early as this week includes “multiple bad guys” and “Al Qaeda followers,” a source who has reviewed the list told Fox News.

Little is known publicly about which prisoners are being prepared for transfer, but the Obama administration has notified Congress it plans to ship out 17 detainees – some of whom could be transferred within days.

While the identities of the men are closely held, the source who spoke with Fox News said it includes “multiple bad guys … not taxi drivers and cooks.”

This is a reference to the administration’s transfer of Ibrahim al Qosi to Sudan in 2012. Despite entering a “re-integration program,” the one-time cook for Usama bin Laden has now fled to Yemen, where he is among the leadership of Al Qaeda in Yemen. That transfer is now said to be a source of considerable heartburn for the Obama administration.

As for those on the docket for immediate transfer, the source told Fox News the administration will not identify the detainees until they are relocated in their new home countries -- because knowing who they are in advance would create further roadblocks and increase the controversy.

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Turkey's Erdogan, a Foreign Leader Most Respected and Admired by Obama, Says Hitler’s Presidential System Is Worth Emulating

(TheDC) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes the Third Reich presidency of Adolf Hitler is a good example of the kind of executive power he would like to have.

In an interview late Thursday with reporters, Erdogan was asked if it is possible his proposed plan to transform the president from a ceremonial office to the role of chief executive could work without disrupting Turkeys unitary political structure.

“There are already examples in the world. You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany,” the head of state replied, according to Reuters. “There are later examples in various other countries.”

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Is it any wonder why just 2 days ago the German human rights chief said that Turkey does NOT belong in the European Union?

Russian Navy deploys advanced cruise missiles, Obama cuts US Navy budget

Russia Deploys Advanced Cruise Missiles in Major Navy Reboot

The Russian military intends to expand deployment of its most sophisticated non-nuclear cruise missiles for attacks at land and sea under a sweeping naval modernization, according to an analysis by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence.

Plans to install the Russian navy’s new KALIBR-class missiles even on vessels such as corvettes, or small warships, “is profoundly changing its ability to deter, threaten or destroy adversary targets,” the U.S. agency, known as ONI, said in a report posted on its website. “With the use of the land attack missile, all platforms have a significant ability to hold distant fixed ground targets at risk using conventional warheads.”

The KALIBR class is “a more capable Russian domestic version” of weapons it has marketed for export over the past decade, according to the report. The new weapons include sea-launched, land-attack models that were fired into Syria from a submerged Russian submarine, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news service.

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Meanwhile, Obama Defense Cuts Threaten U.S. Navy's Ability to Project Power

[...] While America’s strategy depends on having a powerful Navy, it’s more difficult to say whether that Navy should have 275 ships, 300 ships or some other number. McGrath points out that “two consecutive independent National Defense Panels” said the right number is significantly more than 300. The first panel said 346; the second said somewhere between 323 and 346.

Getting there will be difficult, however, because of deep cuts to the defense budget as a result of sequestration. As a result of $1 trillion in cuts that are now underway, it isn’t just the Navy that is struggling. The Army, Air Force and Marine Corps chiefs also told Congress that they cannot execute the national strategy with the resources they have. In simplest terms, they said, “Americans’ lives are being put at risk.”

In February, Obama requested a $35 billion increase in annual defense spending. That will only reverse a small portion of the cuts imposed during his tenure. In the House and Senate, Republican majorities will soon unveil their own budget proposals, which will indicate whether they understand the severity of the problems facing our troops. Congressional Republicans have consistently attacked Obama for his half-hearted response to threats from the Islamic State group, Russia and other adversaries. Now that their hands are on the purse strings, it is time to give this commander in chief (and his successor) the tools they need to defend our country.

Under Obama, ISIS if formed and captures huge land swaths, Taliban resurges and al-Qaeda re-emerges

Once you accept that he's not on our side, everything he does makes perfect sense. #Obama #WakeUpAmerica #tcot pic.twitter.com/ZLNzTIvE4n

— Linda Suhler, Ph.D. (@LindaSuhler) December 29, 2015

WASHINGTON (NYT) — Even as the Obama administration scrambles to confront the Islamic State and resurgent Taliban, an old enemy seems to be reappearing in Afghanistan: Qaeda training camps are sprouting up there, forcing the Pentagon and American intelligence agencies to assess whether they could again become a breeding ground for attacks on the United States.

Most of the handful of camps are not as big as those that Osama bin Laden built before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But had they re-emerged several years ago, they would have rocketed to the top of potential threats presented to President Obama in his daily intelligence briefing. Now, they are just one of many — and perhaps, American officials say, not even the most urgent on the Pentagon’s list in Afghanistan.

The scope of Al Qaeda’s deadly resilience in Afghanistan appears to have caught American and Afghan officials by surprise. Until this fall, American officials had largely focused on targeting the last remaining senior Qaeda leaders hiding along Afghanistan’s rugged, mountainous border with Pakistan.

At least in public, the administration has said little about the new challenge or its strategy for confronting the threat from Al Qaeda, even as it rushes to help the Afghan government confront what has been viewed as the more imminent threat, the surge in violent attacks from the Taliban, the Haqqani network and a new offshoot of the Islamic State. Former administration officials have been more outspoken — especially those who were on the front lines of the original battle to destroy Al Qaeda’s central leadership.

“I do worry about the rebirth of AQ in Afghanistan because of what their target list will be — us,” said Michael Morell, the deputy director of the C.I.A. until two years ago, whose book, “The Great War of Our Time,” recounts the efforts of the Bush and Obama administrations to destroy the Qaeda leadership.

“It is why we need to worry about the resurgence of the Taliban,” Mr. Morell said, “because, just like before, the Taliban will give Al Qaeda a safe haven.”

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UK Declares Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Group, Breaks With Obama

Wonder if Oprah will claim that this disrespectful move was made solely because Obama is black.

(Newsmax) The United Kingdom declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group after an 18-month study ordered by British Prime Minister David Cameron — and the Obama administration slammed the document as flying in the face of the Brotherhood's history as a "nonviolent Islamist group."

The report, which Cameron presented to the House of Commons on Thursday, described the Muslim Brotherhood as anti-democratic, openly supportive of terrorism, dedicated to establishing an Islamist government — and opposed to the rule of law, individual liberty, and equality.

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DHS Whistleblower: Obama More Concerned with Protecting the Rights of Islamists Than Protecting the American People

(PJM) Philip Haney, the Homeland Security whistleblower whose investigation into Islamic infiltration of the U.S. might have prevented the San Bernardino attack, has written an important op-ed for The Hill, warning of President Obama's misplaced priorities when it comes to national security. In brief, says Haney, "the Obama administration is more concerned with the rights of non-citizens in known Islamist groups than with the safety and security of the American people."

There are terrorists in our midst and they arrived here using legal means right under the noses of the federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to stop them. That is not due to malfeasance or lack of effort on the part of these officers; it is due to the restrictions placed on them by the Obama administration.

Not only did the Obama administration shut down an important investigation that could have connected enough dots to prevent the San Bernardino terrorist attack, they went back and erased the dots Haney was "diligently connecting." Worse yet, when he complained to the DHS inspector general, the DHS and the Department of Justice subjected him "to a series of investigations and adverse actions, including one by that same inspector general."

None of them showed any wrongdoing; they seemed aimed at stopping me from blowing the whistle on this problem.

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