Forums

This forum is not active, and new posts may not be made in it.

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/5/2014 5:07:26 PM
	Questions Of Weapons And Warnings In Past Barrage On A Gaza Shelter www.nytimes.com Posted: 08/04/2014 9:12 am EDT Updated: 08/04/2014 9:59 am EDT A Palestinian child, wounded in an Israeli strike on a compound housing a UN school in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, is pictured at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia early on July 30, 2014. Israeli bombardments early on July 30 killed 'dozens' of Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 16 at a UN school, medics said, on day 23 of the Israel-Hamas conflict. AFP PHOTO / MOHAMMED ABED (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images) \| MOHAMMED ABED via Getty Images JABALIYA, Gaza Strip — An examination of an Israeli barrage that put a line of at least 10 shells through a United Nations school sheltering displaced Palestinians here last week suggests that Israeli troops paid little heed to warnings to safeguard such sites and may have unleashed weapons inappropriate for urban areas despite rising alarm over civilian deaths. Inspection of the damage, a preliminary United Nations review that collected 30 pieces of shrapnel, and interviews with two dozen witnesses indicate that the predawn strikes on Wednesday, July 30, that killed 21 people at the school, in the crowded Jabaliya refugee camp, were likely to have come from heavy artillery not designed for precision use. Israeli officials have argued throughout their 27-day air-and-ground campaign against Hamas, the militant group that dominates Gaza, that it is the enemy’s insistence on operating near shelters and other humanitarian sites that endangers civilians. But in the Jabaliya case, they provided no evidence of such activity and no explanation for the strike beyond saying that Palestinian militants were firing about 200 yards away. “It was clear that they were not aiming at a specific house, but fired lots and it fell where it fell,” said Abdel-Latif al-Seifi, whose three-story villa just beyond the school’s north wall ended up with two large holes in its roof. The Jabaliya strike has already opened Israel to a new level of global scrutiny. International criticism ratcheted up another notch on Sunday after a missile the Israelis say was meant for three militants on a motorcycle also killed people waiting in line for food outside a United Nations school in Rafah that had been turned into a shelter. Though Israeli military leaders have declared definitively that no United Nations facility was targeted, Rafah was the sixth shelter struck during the operation. Such strikes have renewed sharp questions about the tactics Israel uses in dense neighborhoods and, especially, near shelters that are supposed to provide refuge to people who follow Israel’s own orders to leave areas of fierce fighting. U.N. School Struck on July 30 “Why aren’t the safe zones working?” asked Robert Turner, the Gaza director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is sheltering nearly 260,000 people in 90 schools and emails the Israeli authorities with their exact locations twice a day. “Why are the military decisions being made that are leading to these tragedies?” The Israeli general who heads a committee charged with investigating the civilian impact of ground operations said that he did not know the details of what happened in Jabaliya because the troops involved were still fighting and therefore had not been interviewed. Speaking on the condition of anonymity under military protocol, the general said in an interview that “Hamas people were shooting at” a group of soldiers working to destroy a tunnel in the area. No Israelis were killed or wounded. The New York Times emailed Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, a map of where the strikes hit and asked him to point out where Israeli forces were operating, and from where in the 200-yard radius around the school they saw enemy fire; he did not respond. Colonel Lerner and the general refused to say what ordnance was deployed. Asked whether artillery would be appropriate in such a situation, the general said “the question is whether or not they were under great or imminent risk.” “The sheer orders are you are not allowed to fire artillery or mortar shells into urban areas unless there are imminent risks for human lives — meaning only if you are under deadly fire or under great risk,” he said. “The orders are clear. But I find it very difficult to judge those fighters under fire and tell them, ‘Look, please open your textbook and read out loud what we told you.’ ” A Matter of Precision The continuing war makes it impossible to determine exactly what happened that morning in Jabaliya, a refugee camp of 100,000 residents in northern Gaza, where the 24-room school was sheltering 3,220 people who had fled from homes closer to the border. But the number, trajectory and blast marks of the shells all point to artillery. United Nations officials said shrapnel from the site had codes matching unexploded shells recovered from other schools that munitions experts identified as 155-millimeter artillery shells. Damage indicated the shells came from the northeast — where Israeli artillery units are stationed on the hills outside Gaza’s border. Artillery is a “statistics weapon,” not a “precision weapon,” experts said, generally fired from up to 25 miles away and considered effective if it hits within 50 yards of its target. “Heavy artillery shelling into a populated area would be inherently indiscriminate,” said Bill Van Esveld, a Jerusalem-based Human Rights Watch lawyer who investigates war crimes. “You just can’t aim that weapon precisely enough in that environment because it’s so destructive.” Read more
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/5/2014 5:29:45 PM
	Russia Is 'Ready' For Battle In Ukraine By Brett LoGiurato7 hours ago RIA-Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Presidential Press Service/AP Russia has significantly built up its troop presence along the Ukrainian border, making it ready for a potential large-scale invasion of southeastern Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin so chooses. The New York Times' Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt report, citing Western officials, that Russia has nearly doubled its battalions along the Ukrainian border in recent weeks. Seventeen more battalions and an additional 19,000 to 21,000 troops now compose a " battle-ready force of infantry, armor, artillery, and air defense within a few miles of the border." They could theoretically strike with "little to no warning." Western officials also told The Times that Russia has upped its number of surface-to-air units to 14 from eight, and it has deployed more than 30 artilleries. Western intelligence officials told the paper it was unclear what Putin was planning, but it is clear they are worried about what would be, for all intents and purposes, an invasion under the guise of a "peacekeeping" operation. "That’s a very real option," a senior Defense Department official told The Times. "And should Putin decide, he could do that with little or no notice. We just don’t know what he’s thinking." The moves come as Ukrainian forces find themselves in increasingly good position on the battlefield against pro-Russian separatists, whom the West has accused Russia of supporting throughout the Ukrainian crisis. Western officials said Putin may be feeling pressure to intervene to tip the balance toward the separatists, but he could be worried about the uncertain repercussions that would come from such a radical escalation. A "peacekeeping" operation is also something about which the White House has worried in recent weeks. "Ukrainian forces are right now making major gains to regain sovereignty in the east, but at the same time, Russia is doubling down on its own efforts to support the separatists and destabilize the country," deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken said last week. "Indeed, it is cynically using all of the attention focused on the crash of MH17 as a cover and distraction for its own efforts. It’s increased the provision of heavy weaponry across the border. We’ve seen convoys of tanks, multiple rocket launchers, artillery, and armored vehicles. There’s evidence it’s preparing to deliver even more powerful multiple rocket launchers. "It is firing from positions inside of Russia into Ukraine — something that we documented this weekend. And we’ve seen a significant re-buildup of Russian forces along the border, potentially positioning Russia for a so-called humanitarian or peacekeeping intervention in Ukraine." The U.S. and European Union last week leveled a new, more punishing round of sanctions on Russia in the wake of Russia's continued buildup of support for the separatists in the wake of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. When asked Monday if he thought the sanctions had at all changed Putin's calculus with respect to Ukraine, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the White House had " not seen the kinds of actions that we would like to see." Related Video Russia staging military exercises near Ukraine Moscow makes no mention of its neighbor as it announces the move, which is likely to alarm the West. Bombers, fighter jets, more
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/5/2014 6:01:13 PM
	9/11 Probe Closing in on Israel Posted by Stephen Cook on August 5, 2014 Stephen: There are some strong sentiments expressed by the author of this story. It is important to remember he is talking about the government (secret and/or public) of the country, rather than the Israeli people. Thanks to KP for the tip off. By Kevin Barrett, truthjihad.com , August 5, 2014 - http://tinyurl.com/mpt92mt Why is Israel committing suicide? Netanyahu’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza has done more to delegitimize the Zionist entity than the work of all the world’s anti-Zionists put together. Yet the Israeli military cannot stop the Palestinian resistance; from an Israeli standpoint, the hecatomb in Gaza serves no military or strategic purpose. Is Israel insane? That is a rhetorical question. The real question is: WHY is Israel lashing out like a nation gone mad? At least since the first Intifada – and arguably since 1948 – Israel has had a de facto official policy of butchering Palestinian children. (For details, see my recent article “Child-Killing Sociopaths of Israel.”) But until now they were sane enough to hide it. Palestinians gather around the body of a baby being stored in a freezer previously used to store ice-cream because the hospital morgue is full at the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, after she was killed in an Israeli strike, August 4, 2014. Today they are bragging about it. On the very day I wrote my article about Israel’s policy of intentionally mass-murdering children, Israeli sniper David D. Ovadia posted a picture of himself with his sniper rifle on Instagram boasting: “I killed 13 childrens (sic) today and ur next *ing muslims go to hell **es.” Rather than prosecuting this war criminal, the Israeli media and authorities are making a half-hearted effort to cover up the crime – just as they did with the more than 600 sniper murders of defenseless children documented by British Medical Journal in 2004. On Sunday, the Israelis intentionally bombed a United Nations school full of refugees, many of them children, killing more than ten and wounding dozens. It was the seventh UN school they have bombed during the current round of slaughter. When they butchered children in a UN school last week, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called it “reprehensible.” This time he called the child massacre a “moral outrage” and a “a criminal act.” The strategic insanity of such actions beggars belief. What do the Israelis think they are doing? Former US Senate Counsel Jeff Gates, author of Guilt by Association, argues that Zionist actions, no matter how crazy they look, are the product of elaborate strategic calculations. The Zionists, he writes, are masters of game theory – a psychopathic technique for following utterly amoral mathematical self-interest in pursuing ones objectives. If Gates is right, the Zionists must be taking desperate measures because they are in a desperate situation. In my recent article “Israel: A Cornered Rat” I explained why the Israelis are desperate: The are facing a demographic challenge; the Palestinian resistance is getting better at asymmetrical warfare; and global public opinion (especially American public opinion) is gradually, inexorably turning against them. But I left out what may be the most important factor: The slow, steady progress of the 9/11 truth movement. The past week brought three landmark breakthroughs for 9/11 truth. First, Richard Gage AIA, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, made a brilliant appearance on the American public affairs channel C-Span. (Stephen: You can see this complete interview, which we posted on Sunday, here). It was the first time since 2006 that C-Span had given national television coverage to the 9/11 truth movement. (I organized the first nationally-televised C-Span 9/11 truth event – David Ray Griffin’s “9/11 and American Empire” talk at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005; and then in June 2006 C-Span covered a Scholars for 9/11 Truth event in Los Angeles.) David Ray Griffin, the unofficial “dean of 9/11 studies” and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, congratulated Richard Gage: “Richard, C-span covered my speech at U Wisconsin in 2005. Now you in 2014. At this rate, I suspect we can expect C-span to cover us again in 2023. However, thanks to your presentation, along with the organization you have built, all the architects and engineers you have convinced, and your successful speaking tours, and media coverage, we can hope things will go a little faster. Congratulations for all of your successes! David” The second 9/11 truth breakthrough this week was the success of the High Rise Safety Initiative in New York City, which would force a new investigation of the obvious (but officially denied) controlled demolition of World Trade Center Building 7. Organizers of the initiative finished gathering the 100,000 signatures they need to override a mayoral veto, virtually guaranteeing that the initiative will be voted on by the citizens of New York. Since Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth has acquired WTC-7’s blueprints and found slam-dunk proof of demolition, and since organized crime kingpin Larry Silverstein’s confession to demolishing WTC-7 has become widely known, the new investigation by New York’s Department of Buildings is threatening to rip the lid off the Pandora’s box of 9/11 scandals. The week’s third 9/11 truth triumph was in the US Congress. The effort to force the declassification of 28 top-secret pages in the Joint Congressional Inquiry got a huge boost when two more Congressmen, Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and John Duncan (R-Tenn), joined the campaign – a bipartisan effort spearheaded by Rep. Steve Lynch (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC), and vocally supported by former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL). A few days ago Sen. Graham once again spoke out, saying: “None of the people leading this investigation think it is credible that 19 people — most who could not speak English and did not have previous experience in the United States — could carry out such a complicated task without external assistance.” Graham added that a “huge breakthrough” is coming for 9/11 truth. Whose “external assistance” enabled the 9/11 attacks? Rep. Walter Jones, who has read the suppressed pages of the Report, blames “one or more foreign governments.” The two countries on everyone’s lips are Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Report apparently does not mention a third government whose officials helped perpetrate 9/11: the government of the United States of America, whose Vice President briefly usurped the role of the President of the United States and directed the 9/11 false flag operation from the White House Situation Room. But back to the Saudis and Israelis. In 2001 Saudi Arabia allowed the CIA to borrow fifteen Saudi intelligence assets and bring them to the US on “snitch visas” – special visas used to reward Saudi CIA assets with a trip to America. These fifteen young men, some from the Kingdom’s leading families, were shadowed, impersonated, and in some cases apparently replaced by doubles. (The pork-chop-loving “Mohammed Atta” in Florida was a fluent speaker of Hebrew according to his stripper girlfriend Amanda Keller.) The Israeli Mossad appears to have been responsible for surveilling and setting up the 19 patsies, 15 of them Saudis, who would be blamed for 9/11; reports by journalists Christopher Ketcham and Justin Raimondo, and an investigative report by Carl Cameron of Fox News, revealed that Israel mounted the biggest spy operation ever against the US as it surveilled (or “ran”) the 9/11 hijacker-patsies. Hundreds of 9/11-related Israel spies were arrested; all were quickly released on orders from above. The Israeli Mossad also set up the controlled demolitions of the Twin Towers and WTC-7. Zionist crime kingpins Larry Silverstein, Lewis Eisenberg and Frank Lowy arranged for the condemned-for-asbestos World Trade Center to be “privatized” two months before 9/11 and doubled the terror insurance; and Mossad agents Paul Kurzberg, Silvan Kurzberg, Israelis Yaron Shmuel, and Omer Gavriel Marmari were arrested on the morning of 9/11 as they were filming and celebrating their agency’s handiwork. Though the 9/11-perp Mossad agents failed polygraph tests, Michael Chertoff, a US-Israeli dual citizen then in charge of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, killed the investigation and ordered the “dancing Israelis” sent back to Israel. Three Israelis were also arrested in New York on 9/11 with a truck load of explosives in an apparent effort to blow up the George Washington Bridge. Chertoff ordered mobbed-up New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to destroy all records of the arrest, and witnesses have been murdered; but the New York Police audio recording of the arrest escaped destruction and can be heard on YouTube. This is only a tiny fraction of the evidence implicating Israel in 9/11. For more information, visit the Wikispooks web page entitled “9/11: Israel Did It.” What can Israel do about the coming revelations of its role in the 9/11 attacks? The answer is simple: Israel must “flee forward” into an ever-widening spiral of global war; because if peace ever breaks out, America’s post-9/11 wartime State of Emergency will end, secrecy restrictions will be lifted, 9/11 will be investigated and prosecuted, Israel will be exposed, and Zionism and US imperialism will go the way of apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union. That explains why the neocon Zionists are pushing for a wider war in the Middle East by madly tormenting the Palestinians, supporting sectarian terrorist groups like ISIS, and pushing for a US attack on Iran. It is also the reason the Zionist neocons are pushing so hard for a war with Russia. If a nuclear World War III breaks out, Israel’s role in 9/11 will be at least temporarily forgotten. Maybe they call that strategic thinking. I call it madness. Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for Congress in 2008. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance, and author of the books Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007) and Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009). His website is www.truthjihad.com. Sign the petition to “The World’s Leaders: Tell Us the Truth in 2014″ today* at:https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/the-world-s-leaders-tell-us-the-truth-in-2014. –and keep sharing it everywhere! Facebook, Google+,Twitter, email, blogs etc.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Ibrahim 503 39 Madurai	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/5/2014 6:50:54 PM
	thank you
	Please visit the website www.goldenduas.com towards public safety and peace in the world
	+1

Luis Miguel

1162

61587

Lima

RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

8/5/2014 10:44:10 PM

Afghan soldier kills US general, wounds about 15

By ROBERT BURNS, RAHIM FAIEZ and LOLITA C. BALDOR1 hour ago

Watch original video

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An American major general was shot to death Tuesday in one of the bloodiest insider attacks of the long Afghanistan war when a gunman dressed as an Afghan soldier turned on allied troops, wounding about 15 including a German general and two Afghan generals.

The American officer was Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, a U.S. official said. An engineer by training, Greene was on his first deployment to a war zone and was involved in preparing Afghan forces for the time when U.S.-coalition troops leave at the end of this year. He was the deputy commanding general, Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan.

Greene was the highest-ranked American officer killed in combat in the nation's post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the highest-ranked officer killed in combat since 1970 in the Vietnam War.

Five major generals were killed in Vietnam, the last Maj. Gen. John Albert Dillard whose helicopter was shot down.

The attack at Marshal Fahim National Defense University underscored the tensions that persist as the U.S. combat role winds down in Afghanistan — and it wasn't the only assault by an Afghan ally on coalition forces on Tuesday. In eastern Paktia province, an Afghan police guard exchanged fire with NATO troops near the governor's office, provincial police said. The guard was killed in the gunfight.

It wasn't clear if the two incidents were linked, and police said they were investigating.

Early indications suggested the Afghan gunman who killed the American general was inside a building and fired indiscriminately from a window at the people gathered outside, the U.S. official said. There was no indication that Greene was specifically targeted, said the official who identified Greene. The official was not authorized to speak publicly by name about the incident and provided the information only on condition of anonymity.

The wounded included a German brigadier general and two Afghan generals, officials said. A U.S. official said that of the estimated 15 wounded, about half were Americans, several of them in serious condition.

U.S. officials still asserted confidence in their partnership with the Afghan military, which appears to be holding its own against the Taliban but will soon be operating independently once most U.S.-led coalition forces leave at the end of the year.

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have taken more than 6,700 U.S. lives.

Insider attacks rose sharply in 2012, with more than 60 coalition troops — mostly Americans — killed in 40-plus attacks that threatened to shatter all trust between Afghan and allied forces. U.S. commanders imposed a series of precautionary tactics, and the number of such attacks declined sharply last year.

The White House said President Barack Obama was briefed on the shooting. Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel both spoke with Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top U.S. general in Kabul, who said a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation was underway and who assured his bosses he still had confidence in the Afghan military.

The Pentagon's press secretary, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, announced that the U.S. general officer was killed in the attack but he refused to be specific about his rank, citing concern that his family had not yet been fully and officially notified. Another U.S. official said the officer was a major general. There are only a few U.S. generals in Afghanistan.

Kirby said the general and other officials were on a routine visit to the military university on a base west of Kabul.

Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Defense Ministry, said a "terrorist in an army uniform" opened fire on both local and international troops. Azimi and U.S. officials said the shooter was killed.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid praised in a statement the "Afghan soldier" who carried out the attack. He did not claim the Taliban carried out the attack, although in the past the Taliban have encouraged such actions.

Such assaults are sometimes claimed by the Taliban insurgency as proof of their infiltration. Others are attributed to personal disputes or resentment by Afghans who have soured on the continued international presence in their country more than a dozen years after the fall of the Taliban from power.

Mark Jacobson, a former NATO deputy civilian representative to Afghanistan and now a senior adviser at the private Truman National Security Project, said the threat of Afghan troops turning their guns of their American partners is a serious problem.

"Any sort of insider attack, no matter who the victim is, is going to have an impact on the morale of soldiers," Jacobson said, adding that when a higher-ranking officer is killed, "you might see a wider impact on morale."

Foreign aid workers, contractors, journalists and other civilians in Afghanistan are increasingly becoming targets of violence as the U.S.-led military coalition continues a withdrawal to be complete by the end of the year.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned Tuesday's attack as "cowardly."

It is "an act by the enemies who don't want to see Afghanistan have strong institutions," Karzai said in a statement.

The site of the attack is part of a military compound known as Camp Qargha, sometimes called "Sandhurst in the Sand"— referring to the famed British military academy — because British forces oversaw building the officer school and its training program.

Soldiers were tense in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One soldier in a NATO convoy leaving Camp Qargha fired an apparent warning shot in the vicinity of Associated Press journalists who were in a car, as well as pedestrians standing nearby. AP photographer Massoud Hossaini said he and an AP colleague were about 15 feet from the soldier at the time. Hossaini said he thought the soldier fired a pistol.

"The vehicle before the last one, someone shouted at me," Hossaini said. "The last one, the soldier opened fire."

No one was wounded.

Elsewhere Tuesday, a NATO helicopter strike targeting missile-launching Taliban militants killed four civilians in western Afghanistan, an Afghan official said. NATO said it was investigating.

___

Burns and Baldor reported from Washington.

___

Associated Press writers David Rising in Berlin, Danica Kirka in London, Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jon Gambrell in Cairo. AP Radio correspondent Sagar Meghani and AP Researcher Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.

.

View Gallery

American general killed in Afghan shooting