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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/29/2015 12:42:35 AM

U.S. Saw Islamic State Coming, Let It Take Ramadi

Bloomberg

Fighting the Islamic State is a lonely job. Photographer: Ahmad al-rubaye/AFP/Getty images


The U.S. watched Islamic State fighters, vehicles and heavy equipment gather on the outskirts of Ramadi before the group retook the city in mid-May. But the U.S. did not order airstrikes against the convoys before the battle started. It left the fighting to Iraqi troops, who ultimately abandoned their positions.


U.S. intelligence and military officials told me recently, on the condition of anonymity, that the U.S. had significant intelligence about the pending Islamic State offensive in Ramadi. For the U.S. military, it was an open secret even at the time.

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The Islamic State had been contesting territory in and around Ramadi for more than a year and had spoken of the importance of recapturing the city. The U.S. intelligence community had good warning that the Islamic State intended a new and bolder offensive on Ramadi because it was able to identify the convoys of heavy artillery, vehicle bombs and reinforcements through overhead imagery and eavesdropping on chatter from local Islamic State commanders. It surprised no one, one U.S. intelligence official told me.

Other observers were willing to speak on the record about how many had seen the Islamic State's assault on Ramadi coming. "The operations on Ramadi have been ongoing for 16 months," said Derek Harvey, a former intelligence adviser to David Petraeus when he commanded the counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. Harvey said many observers had seen the Islamic State's series of probing attacks and psychological operations aimed at the Iraqi army and local tribes: "Everyone knew that Ramadi for some reason was a major focus." He conceded that he did not know the exact timing of the Ramadi offensive beforehand and acknowledged that he was surprised at how effective the operations were.

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The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, had also been warning in policy papers that the Islamic State had set its eyes on Ramadi. Kim Kagan, the think tank's president, told me her institute "assessed that ISIS would undertake tactical offensives in different areas of Iraq in April and May in order to disperse the Iraqi Security Forces and prevent them from consolidating their gains after the fall of Tikrit." She said that "ISIS began alternating attacks between Anbar and the Baiji oil refinery in mid-April," which prompted General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to say in Congressional testimony that the U.S. was prioritizing the defense of Baiji over Ramadi. Kagan said the Islamic State's attack on Ramadi was not a "strategic surprise."

A spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command declined to discuss any specific intelligence. But she did say the U.S.-led coalition provided both airstrikes and surveillance to the Iraqi Security Forces in support of the Ramadi defense. The U.S. has also flown airstrikes in the past against Islamic State forces in Ramadi.

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" Conducting air operations in heavily populated areas where ISIL hides can present challenges," the spokeswoman, Genieve David, said. "Through our dynamic targeting process we carefully consider each target, in collaboration with our coalition partners and Iraqi forces, to ensure we do our best to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage"

But other observers said this dynamic targeting process was part of the problem. Dave Deptula, a retired general who was the first deputy chief of staff for the Air Force for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, told me that airmen flying sorties in Iraq "have to call back and ask, 'mother may I' before they can engage."

The restrictive rules of engagement for U.S. aircraft were explored this week in a devastating New York Times article that found that there are on average 15 airstrikes per day in Syria and Iraq in the new war, compared to 800 daily airstrikes in Iraq in 2003. Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, last week said only one in four air missions actually result in airstrikes in the current war.

"If the administration is only going to use airstrikes, they are going to have expand what constitutes a target," Representative Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told me. "I have been concerned for a long time that the limited number of targets would ultimately lead to the fall of many cities in Iraq. This didn't come as any surprise to me that Ramadi fell."

Deptula agreed. "The current rules of engagement are intentionally designed to restrict the effectiveness of air power to prevent potential collateral damage," he told me. "That results in ISIS getting the freedom of action so they can commit genocide against civilians. Does this make any sense?"

To be sure, the rules of engagement for U.S. airstrikes were not the only setback in the battle for Ramadi. The Iraqi military withdrew from its positions in the city. This prompted Defense Secretary Ash Carter over the weekend to tell CNN that the U.S. was surprised the Iraqis lacked the will to fight.

But the forces deployed in Ramadi also were not properly resupplied, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials. Harvey, the former Petraeus adviser, told me that "since September, Iraqi forces deployed to Anbar have had to purchase some weapons and ammunition on the black market because supplies are not getting to them."

Another problem in the battle was that although the U.S. special operations forces have been training Iraqi troops since the summer in bases, they are still not authorized to accompany the Iraqis into battle. This is standard procedure in Afghanistan and other theaters where the U.S. trains security forces.

"I am hearing a lot within the special operations community that we are leaving options on the table and not employing lower-risk capabilities that would make a difference," Harvey told me. Harvey added that these low-risk options included using U.S. personnel on the ground to select targets for airstrikes, conducting special operations raids on Islamic State targets in Iraq and embedding special operations forces with the Iraqi units they were training.

Harvey contrasted this approach to the surge in 2007 and 2008, when U.S. soldiers patrolled Iraqi cities and engaged in direct combat with al Qaeda and other insurgent groups. It's not clear whether Harvey's recommendations would violate President Obama's own red lines against authorizing ground combat operations in Iraq. What is clear is that while the U.S. is holding back from those measures nearly a year into Obama's new Iraq war, the Islamic State has been able to hold Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and has just taken the strategically important city of Ramadi.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/29/2015 12:55:52 AM

Baltimore gets bloodier as arrests drop post-Freddie Gray

Associated Press

CBS-Baltimore
Police: 9-year-old Shot During Baltimore Violence Was Not The Target

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BALTIMORE (AP) — A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore's 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city's deadliest in 15 years.

The most recent killings claimed the lives of Jennifer Jeffrey and her seven-year-old son, Kester Anthony Browne. They were identified by Jeffrey's sister, Danielle Wilder.

Jeffrey and her son were found dead early Thursday, each from gunshot wounds to the head.

As family members cried and held each other on the quiet, leafy block in Southwest Baltimore where they lived, Wilder said she felt as if "my heart has been ripped out."

Wilder said a neighbor called their other sister early Thursday, concerned that she hadn't hear any noise coming from Jeffrey's house: no footsteps, Wilder said, no voices, and no gunshots. But when her brother let himself into the house to check on the mother and son, he discovered their bodies.

"She was in the living room," Wilder said. "The baby was upstairs, in the bed."

Wilder said police told her there were no signs of forced entry, and that whoever killed Jeffrey and Browne were let into the house sometime yesterday. Wilder said she thinks whoever killed Jeffrey, who also lived with her niece and grand-niece, wanted to catch her alone, and that the boy was collateral damage.

Thursday's deaths continue a grisly and dramatic uptick in murders across Baltimore that has so far claimed the lives of 38 people. Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year.

Arrests were already declining before Freddie Gray died on April 19 of injuries he suffered in police custody, but they dropped sharply thereafter, as his death unleashed protests, riots, the criminal indictment of six officers and a full-on civil rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that has officers working under close scrutiny.

"I'm afraid to go outside," said Antoinette Perrine, whose brother was shot down three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. Ever since, she has barricaded her door and added metal slabs inside her windows to deflect gunfire.

"It's so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside," Perrine said. "People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They're nowhere."

West Baltimore residents worry they've been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them, leaving some neighborhoods like the Wild West without a lawman around.

"Before it was over-policing. Now there's no police," said Donnail "Dreads" Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was chased down. "People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren't pulling them up like they used to."

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said his officers "are not holding back," despite encountering dangerous hostility in the Western District.

"Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time," Batts said.

Batts provided more details at a City Council meeting Wednesday night, saying officers now fear getting arrested for making mistakes.

"What is happening, there is a lot of levels of confusion in the police organization. There are people who have pain, there are people who are hurt, there are people who are frustrated, there are people who are angry," Batts said. "There are people, and they've said this to me, 'If I get out of my car and make a stop for a reasonable suspicion that leads to probable cause but I make a mistake on it, will I be arrested?' They pull up to a scene and another officer has done something that they don't know, it may be illegal, will they be arrested for it? Those are things they are asking."

The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 on Thursday posted a statement from President Gene Ryan on social media saying that the police are "under siege."

"The criminals are taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore since the unrest," Ryan wrote. "(Police) are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty."

Protesters said Gray's death is emblematic of a pattern of police violence and brutality against impoverished African-Americans in Baltimore. In October, Batts and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake invited the Justice Department to participate in a collaborative review of police policies. The fallout from Gray's death prompted the mayor to ramp that up, and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch agreed to a more intensive probe into whether the department employs discriminatory policing, excessive force and unconstitutional searches and arrests.

Baltimore was seeing a slight rise in homicides this year even before Gray's death April 19. But the 38 homicides so far in May is a major spike, after 22 in April, 15 in March, 13 in February and 23 in January.

With one weekend still to go, May 2015 is already the deadliest month in 15 years, surpassing the November 1999 total of 36.

Ten of May's homicides happened in the Western District, which has had as many homicides in the first five months of this year as it did all of last year.

Non-fatal shootings are spiking as well — 91 so far in May, 58 of them in the Western District.

The mayor said her office is "examining" the relationship between the homicide spike and the dwindling arrest rate.

Even before Gray's death, police were making between 25 and 28 percent fewer arrests each month than they made in the same month last year. But so far in May, arrests are down roughly 56 percent. Police booked just 1,045 people in the first 19 days of May, an average of 55 a day. In the same time period last year, police arrested 2,396 people, an average of 126 a day.

In fact, police did not make any arrests in the triple digits between April 22 and May 19, except on two occasions: On April 27, when protests gave way to rioting, police arrested 246 people. On May 2, the last day of a city-wide curfew, police booked 140 people.

At a news conference Wednesday, Rawlings-Blake said there are "a lot of reasons why we're having a surge in violence."

"Other cities that have experienced police officers accused or indicted of crimes, there's a lot of distrust and a community breakdown," Rawlings-Blake said. "The result is routinely increased violence."

"It's clear that the relationship between the commissioner and the rank-and-file is strained," she added. "He's working very hard to repair that relationship."

Emergency response specialist Michael Greenberger cautions against directly blaming police. The founder and director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, the spike in homicides is more likely a response to Gray's death and the rioting.

"We went through a period of such intense anger that the murder rate got out of control. I think it's been really hard for the police to keep on top of that," he said.

Lee disagrees. He says rival gang members are taking advantage of the police reticence to settle old scores.

"There was a shooting down the street, and the man was standing in the middle of the street with a gun, just shooting," Lee added. "Usually, you can't walk up and down the street drinking or smoking weed. Now, people are everywhere smoking weed, and police just ride by, look at you, and keep going. There used to be police on every corner. I don't think they'll be back this summer."

Batts acknowledged that "the service we're giving is off-target with the community as a whole" and he promised to pay special attention to the Western District.

Veronica Edmonds, a 26-year-old mother of seven in the Gilmor Homes, said she wishes the police would return, and focus on violent crime rather than minor drug offenses.

"If they focused more on criminals and left the petty stuff alone, the community would have more respect for police officers," she said.



Despite the deadliest month in 15 years, arrest rates plunge as officers pull back from violent neighborhoods.
'Now there's no police'


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/29/2015 10:33:11 AM

Former U.S. House Speaker Hastert indicted on federal charges

Reuters


Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) speaks during a news conference in Batavia, Illinois in this October 5, 2006 file photo. REUTERS/John Gress/Files

(Reuters) - Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted on Thursday on federal charges, including for lying to the FBI, relating to an alleged effort to hide $3.5 million in payments to a person to conceal past misconduct.

The Illinois Republican, who left office in 2007, was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the FBI about his withdrawals, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago said.

Each count of the two-count indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Hastert, 73, was not available for comment, according to his office at the Dickstein Shapiro law firm in Washington where he is listed as a senior adviser.

According to the indictment, the unspecified misconduct involved payments to an unnamed individual who had been a Yorkville, Illinois, resident and had known Hastert for most of the person's life.

Before his terms in Congress, Hastert served three terms as an Illinois state representative and was a teacher at Yorkville High School in suburban Chicago for 16 years, according to a biography from Wheaton College where he graduated in 1964.

According to the indictment, Hastert met with the person several times around 2010 and discussed past misconduct by the former lawmaker. Eventually, Hastert agreed to pay the person $3.5 million in compensation to conceal the misconduct, the indictment said.

Shortly afterward, Hastert began making cash payments to the individual, according to the indictment.

Hastert served as a congressman from suburban Chicago for more than 20 years before resigning from the House in November 2007, having lost the speaker's job when Democrats gained control of the House in the 2006 elections.

Hastert joined Dickstein Shapiro in 2008 as a senior adviser. Hastert resigned from the board of the exchange operator CME Group Inc on Thursday, the company said.

(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington, Tom Polansek in Chicago and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Peter Cooney and Eric Beech)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/29/2015 11:00:53 AM

China Warns Of World War 3 Unless The US Backs Down On South China Sea


Posted By: Vikas Shukla

Posted date:



An increasingly assertive China has warned that World War 3 is "inevitable" unless the United States stops meddling in the South China Sea affairs. Earlier this week, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) said in a new
white paper that it is going to up the ante in the South China Sea. In a sign of its growing self-confidence, Beijing said that it would now focus less on defensive capabilities, and step up efforts to build offensive capabilities.



China ready to use force beyond its borders

China is aggressively building artificial islands in the disputed Spratly Islands. The construction includes runways and port facilities that could harbor military planes and warships. Islands in the region are also claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam, who have all protested against China's expansion.

Last week, a U.S. military plane ignored repeated warning from the PLA to fly a reconnaissance mission over the disputed islands. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has refused to recognize artificial islands as "maritime zones control by a nation." He said Washington was determined to protect the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, as is allowed under International conventions.


The Chinese military's new white paper notes that it is ready to use force beyond its borders in the air and at sea "to safeguard its maritime possessions." Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Communist Party, said that China does not want a war. But if the United States' bottom line was to make China halt its activities, then a World War 3 was inevitable.

U.S. interference could trigger a World War 3

The newspaper suggests that China will not stop construction of these artificial islands at any cost. Any more interference by "external countries" could trigger a World War 3 and Beijing will "accept" it. Experts say neither United States nor China wants to back down. They fear that even a minor incident around the artificial islands could escalate rapidly into a full-fledged war.

Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at the Temple University, said that China misjudging the situation is the real concern. Neither country wants a war if it can be avoided, but both countries have some red lines, said Dujarric.


(ValueWalk)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/29/2015 11:14:09 AM

Few regrets in Mideast over Blair resignation

AFP

Tony's Blair resignation as Middle East peace envoy has been widely welcomed by Palestinians who say his term was useless, and even some Israelis agree he failed to accomplish much (AFP Photo/Ben Stansall)


Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Tony's Blair resignation as Middle East peace envoy has been widely welcomed by Palestinians who say his term was useless, and even some Israelis agree he failed to accomplish much.

For the past eight years the former British prime minister had been tasked by the Mideast Quartet to help mediate a peaceful settlement to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- had appointed him to support the Palestinian economy and institutions in preparation for eventual statehood.

But the Quartet's goal of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel has not been met, and talks between the two sides have been frozen since April 2014.

Palestinians accuse Blair of siding with Israel at their expense, and unleashed a torrent of criticism against him.

"He did nothing for the Palestinian cause but was used by Israel to justify its occupation and settlement policy," Palestinian negotiator Mohammad Shtayyeh said.

"We are happy that Tony Blair is going. He should have resigned a long time ago."

Blair tendered his resignation to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and sources close to him say he would step down officially next month from his unpaid position.

- 'He was totally biased' -

"He was not the Quartet's envoy, he was Israel's envoy and the envoy of the United States. He was totally biased," said Samir Awad, a political science professor at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank.

Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Fatah, the main component of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said Blair did "nothing for the Palestinians during eight years".

Blair had no formal role in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but his mission included organising international aid for the Palestinians and steering projects to support their economy.

The aim was to help build Palestinian institutions ahead of the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

But even on that track he did not impress the Palestinians, and some Israelis agree that Blair's mission achieved few results.

Blair did not exploit "his human and personal potential" to help bridge the gap between Israelis and Palestinians, said Tamar Hermann, a professor at Israel's Open University.

The envoy only managed to secure "a few isolated economic initiatives", he said.

Ali Jarbawi, a Palestinian former cabinet minister, agreed, saying Blair's "only success" was the opening of the Jalameh crossing between Israel and the northern West Bank.

"To achieve results, he should have confronted Israel and insisted that (more) crossing points be open, that movement (in the West Bank) be facilitated, that the Gaza blockade be lifted, but he did not want that."

- Doomed from the start -

Officially, Blair won praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who cited his "big efforts" for the sake of peace.

But Yossi Alpher, an adviser to former premier Ehud Barak during US-brokered peace talks at Camp David in 2000, said Blair's assignment was doomed from the start.

"Tony Blair is one of those international political figures, like US Secretary of State John Kerry, who wrongly believe that there is a clear solution to the conflict," said Alpher.

He said it was a mistake to think that by trying to build up the Palestinian economy there could be progress at the negotiating table.

"This conflict is first and foremost a political one, and ideological. Nothing to do with economics," he said.

In criticising Blair, Palestinian officials have also echoed Israeli and British media reports which claimed that he stacked up huge bills on his trips to the Middle East.

"He did not live in Palestine but would only come every two or three months for a photo op," said Shtayyeh, adding that he had "huge expense accounts for a mission which failed to push things forward, not even by an inch".

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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