Shock Photos: Candidate Obama Appeared And Marched With New Black Panther Party in 2007

by Andrew Breitbart 

New photographs obtained exclusively by BigGovernment.com reveal that Barack Obama appeared and marched with members of the New Black Panther Party as he campaigned for president in Selma, Alabama in March 2007.

The photographs, captured from a Flickr photo-sharing account before it was scrubbed, are the latest evidence of the mainstream media’s failure to examine Obama’s extremist ties and radical roots.

In addition, the new images raise questions about the possible motives of the Obama administration in its infamous decision to drop the prosecution of the Panthers for voter intimidation.

The images, presented below, also renew doubts about the transparency of the White House’s guest logs–in particular, whether Panther National Chief Malik Zulu Shabazz is the same “Malik Shabazz” listed among the Obama administration’s early visitors.

Tomorrow, J. Christian Adams, the Department of Justice whistleblower in the New Black Panther Party case, will release his new book, Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department (Regnery).

The book exposes Obama administration corruption far beyond the Panther dismissal, and reveals how the institutional Left has turned the power of the DOJ into an ideological weapon.
Adams’s book also describes, in detail, the Selma march at which then-Senator Obama was joined by a group of Panthers who had come to support his candidacy.

Among those appearing with Obama was Shabazz, the Panther leader who was one of the defendants in the voter intimidation case that Attorney General Eric Holder dismissed. Also present was the Panthers’ “Minister of War,” Najee Muhammed, who had called for murdering Dekalb County, Georgia, police officers with AK-47’s and then mocking their widows in this video (7:20 – 8:29).

Injustice includes a disturbing photo of Shabazz and the Panthers marching behind Obama with raised fists in the “Black Power” salute.

There are even more photographs.

I have learned that Regnery initially received approval from a person who took pictures of the events in Selma to publish these additional photographs in Injustice.

After the photographer wrote Regnery reversing his permission to include the photographs in Injustice, the images were removed from the photographer’s Flickr account.  Yet we were able to capture them before they disappeared.

The photographs show Obama sharing the same podium at the event with the Panthers.

In the first image, Shabazz stands at the podium, surrounded by uniformed Panthers, including Muhammed. In the second photograph, Obama commands the same podium.
Here are the images:

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The First Amendment allows photographs of such enormous public importance to see the light of day. Cases, including one involving skimpy photographs of Miss Puerto Rico, have established that fair use and the First Amendment allow publication of these photos.

It is true that then-Senator Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton were also in Selma at the same event. But the Panthers explicitly came to Selma to support Obama, as Adams details in Injustice.

They spoke with Obama at the podium shown above, and departed together with Obama for the main march itself, as shown by this grainer image captured from YouTube:



Obama seems not to be reviled by the Panthers in any of the video or photographs. And Obama’s own campaign website would post an endorsement by the New Black Panther Party in March 2008.  As Adams writes in Injustice:

Somehow, the fact that the future President of the United States shared a podium with leaders of the New Black Panthers, marched with them, and received a public, formal greeting from their party has vanished from the history of Obama’s campaign. Apart from [Juan] Williams’ single dispatch, no other media outlets ever reported it.

After NPR initially reported that the Panthers were present at the event with Obama, subsequent reports from Selma omitted any mention of the hate group appearing with the future President.

Had any of Obama’s opponents appeared at an event with the KKK or Aryan Nation, The New York Times would have had to double its ink buy.

Obama’s appearance does much more than expose mainstream media hypocrisy. It also exposes an association between a vile racist organization and a future President of the United States. Only the degree of association is subject to debate.

And only a few voices outside the mainstream media have continued to press the Obama administration about its past and present ties to fringe groups.

I have been calling for the White House to disclose which Malik Shabazz visited the private White House residence on July 25, 2009, two months after the DOJ voter intimidation case was dismissed.  So far, the White House has refused to do so, leaving open the question of which “Malik Shabazz” appears in visitor logs released to the public.

To reiterate: nobody, including Adams, is suggesting that Obama is a secret member of the New Black Panther Party. At a minimum, however, the events in Selma expose the media double standard that has buried this story until this week.

The mainstream media should ask Obama a few questions before they rush to his defense:

What did he and Malik Zulu Shabazz say when they conversed that day–something that Shabazz has said happened?

Did the Obama campaign play any role in having the Panthers travel to support his presidential ambitions?

Who posted the Panthers’ endorsement on the Obama campaign’s website, and at whose instructions?

Who–finally–was the Malik Shabazz who visited the White House residence on July 25, 2009?

Big Government

Hank Williams’s ESPN Appearance Canceled Over Obama Remark (He Should’ve Kept to Palin Rape Jokes)

Posted by Dana Loesch Oct 3rd 2011 at 3:37 pm in Mainstream Media, Obama, Palin, media bias

Hank Williams Jr. was on Fox and Friends this morning and said this:

He was promptly sacked from tonight’s broadcast of Monday Night Football:

Hank Williams, Jr., the voice famous for asking millions of football fans whether they’re ready for some football, has been pulled from tonight’s broadcast of “Monday Night Football” over a comment he made on Fox News this morning.

Williams, who sings the lead-in song to the game each week, criticized the president for his golf summit with House Speaker John Boehner this summer.

“It would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyahu,” Williams told “Fox & Friends.”

USA Today, among others, picked up the quote, speculating on whether the comparison would get Williams booted from the broadcast .

This afternoon, ESPN released a statement to the affirmative:
“While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”

ESPN was fine when their Las Vegas radio affiliate joked about, and seemingly advocated for, the rape of Sarah Palin just a few weeks ago.


From my perspective, Williams didn’t call Obama “Hitler”; rather he made an exaggerated comparison to the political conflict between Obama and Boehner. (Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would have been Reagan and Gorbachev.) It seems that progressives are doing more to call Obama “Hitler” with their accusations than Williams implied with his remark. Of course, only Williams himself can clarify that.

Regardless, ESPN yanked him from tonight’s broadcast. By the way, what’s with progressives’ new sensitivity over comparing a president to Hitler?

Williams’s job would likely be safe had he done what Mike Tyson did on an ESPN radio affiliate and joked about Palin rape.

Related:
ESPN’s Double Standard

Big Journalism

Science, Lies, and Videotape

October 2, 2011
By Clarice Feldman

It is the elite perception that conservatives are beetle-browed, anti-science nutters wedded to faith-based, unverifiable beliefs eschewed by the more sophisticated, scientific-thinking left.

I call this the Garofolo Theory to memorialize this darling of the left's observation this week:

Herman Cain is probably well liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican Party. Conservative movement and tea party movement, one in the same.

So there you have it: the classic damned if you do (in this case, support black candidates), damned if you don't (support them).  Conveniently for Garofalo, the charge is utterly unfalsifiable as made, since the lack of evidence to her way of thinking is itself evidence.

 But beyond the self-congratulatory nonsense exemplified by Janeane Garofolo, the history of who believes in science and who opposes scientific thinking and methods is far more muddled.  There's plenty of evidence that the clown shoes belong on the other (political) foot, and this week, because of the work of Watts Up With That and videotape analysis, we can establish that not only is the left unscientific, but it also relies on demonstrably false "evidence" to make its arguments.

Blogger Judith Curry is the inspiration for my decision to strike at the "conservatives are anti-science" meme.  She pulled together posts where writers and readers debated the issue.

Among the positions progressives have taken which are false and unsupported by science are the following examples I culled there from posts by Mike Hanson of Purdue University and Ken Green.  Collectively these men observe these fallacies supported by those who call themselves progressives:

• DDT causes cancer;
• Alar causes cancer;
• Polar bears are drowning as the icebergs melt;
• Video displays or cell phones cause cancer;
• There are grave risks to hydraulic fracturing;
• Misuse of toxology -- hexavalent chromium contamination in Hinkley, California; amaranth, saccharin;
• Nuclear winter;
• Claims that there's a giant plastic cocoon in the middle of the ocean;
• BPA and Phthalates are carcinogens and endocrine disruptors;
• Claims that organic food is safer and healthier than conventionally grown foods;
• Claims that eating locally grown foods is better for the environment than foods grown further away;
• Cloth grocery bags are better for the environment than paper or plastic ones;
• Claims of species' endangerment based on faked or flawed evidence;
• Claims that climate models have predictive power and that individual weather events represent climate change;
• Claims that frogs died because of climate change;
• Claims that there were alligator penis malformations from endocrine disruptors;
• Claims that bees were dying as a result of climate change;
• Claims that butterflies were dying from Bt crops;
• Unsubstantiated claims about low dose radiation hazards.

I'm sure you could add to their list. Generally, the "dangers" the left invents or exaggerates involve modern technology, existing energy sources, and large-scale production.  They represent a strange amalgam of Rousseau and Luddite notions and hark back to an ideal, never-existing "state of nature."

Mike Hanson continues in his post at Curry's blog:

The National Academy of Science states that "no dose of radiation is safe" but they have no data to back this statement up, only a hypothesis they cannot test. The linear threshold model is a liberal (no pun intended) application of the precautionary principal as you cannot conduct an epidemiological study of radiation exposure at low levels of exposure and get any meaningful data. This being the case, the linear threshold model for radiation exposure is not science, it's a philosophical argument.

Manipulation of "science" is VERY mainstream among liberals. You can hardly pick up a lefty magazine or newspaper and not see it. The left "science deniers" are similar in pathology to Christian millenarianists who await the Apocalypse. They pinpoint a date for wholesale destruction, and they're always wrong. But unlike Christian fundamentalists, liberals have the advantageous distinction of never needing to say sorry. In fact, the worst of them, people like John Holdren and Paul Erlich go onto serve in very high places in the scientific community.

The debate at Curry's site is lengthy and thorough.  At best, it seems, one might argue that both sides of the political spectrum have exhibited the desire to use science for sociopolitical ends, but it seems to me undeniable that the claim that the left is scientific and the right is not must fall.

This week we have more ammunition for this point of view.  On the one hand, we have President Obama ignoring his own scientists and attacking Texas Governor Perry for being a climate skeptic:

On Sunday, President Obama gave Gov. Rick Perry heat for being a climate skeptic, calling him "a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change." But, Obama seems to be denying the conclusions of his own government scientists when it comes to the cause of the Texas droughts. But, earlier this month, Dr. Robert Hoerling, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research meteorologist, who served as the lead author of the U.S. Climate Change Science Plan Synthesis and Assessment, clearly and emphatically dispelled the notion that climate change has anything to do with droughts in Texas.

Then there's Congressman Henry Waxman justifying the waste of a half billion dollars on the Solyndra solar panel factory scam: "Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., railed at Friday's hearing, "We need to face reality and stop denying science."

And the editors of the New York Times, grossly exaggerating the potential contribution of solar energy:

Are New York Times editorial writers complete innumerate nincompoops?  Okay, silly question.  The answer is a self-evident truth.  This sentence finally made me spit my coffee: "Recent studies suggest that, globally, renewable energy will grow faster than any other energy source in the coming decades."

This is simple-minded drivel that wouldn't make a sub-moron's mouth twitch if he'd sat through the first day of a statistics class.  All of these studies are based on pure percentage growth rates -- not absolute amounts of energy produced by source.  It is the same kind of logic as someone who wonders how a swimmer can drown in a Minnesota lake that averages only two feet deep.

Example: if you go from one unit of something to two, look!  Wow!  A 100 percent growth rate!  While if you go from 100 to 105 units of something, we'll that's only a five percent growth rate, even though it five times the amount of end product as the source with the 100 percent growth rate.

All of the renewable energy studies and forecasts play that game because the renewable output is starting from such a low base, and never compare the actual amount of energy growth with other sources. ... According to the BP data, guess which energy source over the last 10 years produced the largest total amount of new energy in the world?  Coal.  A somewhat inconvenient truth.  A student who tried to pass off the Times claim in Statistics 101 would get an F on the exam.  (And this leaves aside the point John makes, namely, that nearly all "renewable" energy sources require huge government subsidies.  Isn't the social welfare state unsustainable enough?  

How does the Times think that scaling up renewable energy won't also end in bankruptcy?

All this takes place in a week when a key scientist resigned from the American Physical Society in protest of the Society's stance on global warming (italics in the original):

You don't have to look far to see that impeccable scientific standards can go hand-in-hand with skepticism about global warming. Ivar Giaever, a 1973 Nobel laureate in physics , resigned this month as a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) to protest the organization's official position that evidence of manmade climate change is "incontrovertible'' and cause for alarm. In an e-mail explaining his resignation , Giaever challenged the view that any scientific assertion is so sacred that it cannot be contested.

"In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves,'' Giaever wrote, incredulous, "but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?''

Nor does Giaever share the society's view that carbon emissions threaten "significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security, and human health.'' In fact, the very concept of a "global'' temperature is one he questions. . . [sic]

And all this in the same week when the EPA's own inspector general called the greenhouse gas science used by the agency seriously flawed.  The endangerment finding in question will cost American consumers $300-$400 billion a year, boost energy prices considerably, and destroy "hundreds of jobs," says Oklahoma Senator Inhofe, who this week released the IG Report.

[T]he scientific basis, on which the administration's endangerment finding for greenhouse gases hinged, violated the EPA's own peer review procedure.  In a report released Wednesday (at the request of Inhofe, dating back to April) the inspector general found that the EPA failed to follow the Data Quality Act and its own peer review process when it issued the determination that greenhouse gases cause harm to "public health and welfare."

"I appreciate the inspector general conducting a thorough investigation into the Obama-EPA's handling of the endangerment finding for greenhouse gases," Inhofe said. "This report confirms that the endangerment finding, the very foundation of President Obama's job-destroying regulatory agenda, was rushed, biased, and flawed. It calls the scientific integrity of EPA's decision-making process into question and undermines the credibility of the endangerment finding."

Much of the folderol of calling witchcraft science takes place behind the scenes -- as in the EPA endangerment finding -- but sometimes the fraud takes place before our very eyes.  In his latest big presentation to the world on global warming, "The Climate Reality Project" -- i.e., the latest iteration of the hoax that made him a billionaire -- Al Gore presented a falsified experiment by Bill Nye ("the science guy"), which Gore called "high school physics," to make his point.

The video was not labeled a dramatization, and Anthony Watts of the renowned climate blog Watts Up With That?, taking enormous pains to duplicate the materials used and the techniques followed by careful examination of the video, establishes that this is a "staged production from start to finish."  You can see Gore's and Nye's hocus-pocus unveiled before your eyes, with frame-by-frame analysis.  Of course, the pair consider you stupid anyway, for, as Watts notes:

Of course the whole Climate 101 CO2 experiment is questionable to begin with, because it doesn't properly emulate the physical mechanisms involved in heating our planet. Note the heat lamps used, likely one of these based on the red color we see in the lamp fixture:

Heat lamps like this produce visible red light and short wave infrared (SWIR is 1.4-3 µm wavelength). As we know from the classic greenhouse effect, glass blocks infrared so none of the SWIR was making it into the cookie jar. All that would do is heat the glass. John Tyndall's 1850′s experiments used rock salt windows, which transmit infrared, for exactly that reason.

Adding insult to injury, CO2 has no SWIR absorption bands. What CO2 does have though is higher density than air. The gas in the cookie jars was primarily heated by conduction in contact with the SWIR-heated glass.

Moreover, the CO2 injection in one cookie jar would raise it from 0.04% CO2 to very near 100% CO2 which is hardly comparable to the atmosphere going from 0.03% to 0.04% CO2 during the industrial age. Gore's team provides no indication of the concentration of CO2 in the jar, that's hardly scientific.

James Delingpole of The Telegraph credits the internet for blowing Gore's and Nye's cover and exposing the establishment's fake science generally:

The point that can't be made often enough about the internet is that it represents our best and perhaps only hope of outmanoeuvring the lies, bullying and control of the political establishment.

Nowhere is this truer than with the Man Made Global Warming scam. Had it not been for the internet, Climategate would not have been broken, nor the earlier work of McIntyre and McKitrick disseminated, nor a community created in which scientific experts (and interested laymen) all over the world were able to discuss climate science freely without the risk of being defunded, or having their journal closed down or being ostracised by their colleagues. But though the internet was a necessary condition for this to happen, it was not a sufficient one. The other vitally important ingredient was the trainspotterish diligence of men and women like Anthony Watts, and Richard North and Donna Laframboise and Joanna Nova.

Why is this trainspotterish diligence so essential? Because one of the main planks of the defence used by the climate alarmist establishment against sceptics is that they have all the expertise on their side, all the PhDs, all the notable scientific institutions, and that therefore their "authority" trumps the feeble witterings of all those nonentities, crazed Oxford English graduates, and other such verminous specimens who dare to speak out against the mighty, unimpeachable wisdom.

What the internet has proved in these debates, time and again - from Glaciergate to Amazongate to Polarbeargate - is that when the rebellious amateurs of the sceptical blogosphere go head to head with the climate establishment, the bloggers always win. Not as a result of invective or snarkiness or any of the other things that bloggers also do quite well: but on the actual hard science and raw evidence. Look at almost any tussle between, say, WUWT on the one side, RealClimate on the other, and you'll notice that when it finally boils down to the irreducible truth, the side that emerges triumphant is the sceptical one, not the alarmist one. It's partly because the facts are on our side (so we jolly well ought to win if we're doing our job even remotely properly), but also because, being the underfunded underdogs, we've been forced to raise our game to a higher standard than that of our rather complacent, smug opposition.

Well, as the world economy weakens and it turns out that we are sitting on enormous quantities of natural gas and oil, it grows more likely that this childish nonsense -- which, probably not coincidentally, has proven a financial boon for Democrat-backers,  too -- shall pass.  But faster, please, so we can get back to being the world's powerhouse.

American Thinker

The Inside Story Behind The Awlaki Killing

Posted by The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Oct 1st 2011 at 1:38 pm in Africa, Featured Story, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Islam, Islamic extremism, Justice/Legal, Military Technology, Strategy, Terrorism

Note: This story is based on reporting with sources knowledgeable about the Awlaki operation, including three law enforcement and intelligence officials.

 

Anwar Al Awlaki, killed Friday morning in an American strike in Yemen, has been on the U.S. radar for several years, ever since, as one U.S. official stated, he turned from “inspirational to operational.” He was believed to be behind the Nigerian “underwear” bomberwho tried to ignite his explosives planted on his body as his airplane was landing in Detroit. And he was believed responsible for the cargo bomb plot targeting the United States last fall.

U.S. intelligence officials, aware of other planned attacks, had arrested several Muslim American converts who returned here after “studying” in the Sudan. Most of their time was spent on terrorist training and learning from Awlaki and his advisors about the precepts of jihad and Islam. Intelligence officials believe that “hundreds” of American and European converts to Islam, along with other indigenous Muslims from Islamic countries, have trained with Awlaki, making many of them “ticking time bombs.”

Awlaki lived in the southern Yemen province of Shabwa, an area beyond the reach of Yemen’s military and central government. Much of Yemen is like the Wild West, with no central governing authority. The numerous tribes settle disputes among themselves. Awlaki came from the Awalik tribe.

Intelligence gathered last year from Yemeni authorities and from debriefings with several American converts who returned to the United States after training with Awlaki, helped narrow Awlaki’s location to a 100 square mile area. He moved at night, often in convoys of armored SUVs in order to prevent U.S. drones and surveillance from determining which vehicle he was in. But the drones, which have advanced in the ability to recognize faces on the ground, hovered above the area where Awlaki was believed to be. Electronic intelligence – including telephone intercepts –also were used, although Awlaki was said to be careful in limiting his use of electronic communication, aware that he could be tracked that way.

In the past several months, American drone operators were confident they had identified Awlaki as he moved from among a series of underground bunkers. An initial drone missile targeting him was fired at an al-Qaida training camp but missed him.

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agents collected as much personal data about Awlaki as they could from his extended family living in western countries. For example, he had an ex-wife living in Ireland that no one knew about until a close relative living in the United States identified the family tree for agents in early January. The relative proved to be a goldmine of information about Awlaki’s siblings, parents, wives, and children.

Intelligence officials learned about the American relative in January through other Yemeni expatriates living here who knew her. She agreed to cooperate and provided extensive information about close relatives living either with him, elsewhere in Yemen, or in different parts of the world. Telephone numbers belonging to a close relative living in Yemen’s capital Sanaa that the American relative provided to U.S. intelligence officials proved the most critical.


The relative knew that Awlaki called that number. The National Security Agency (NSA) quickly was able to triangulate the phone numbers and determine almost exactly where Awlaki was when he called the Sanaa number. The American relative also provided information on other Awlaki relatives who apparently had direct contact with Awlaki, either through email or other electronic means. That knowledge helped track other communication and confirm Awlaki’s whereabouts.

Up to a dozen additional drones were dispatched to the southern part of Yemen in a search for the exact coordinates of Awlaki’s location. Drone operators felt that Awlaki was most vulnerable during the day whenever he was outside moving from one hideout to another. Officials also had recruited Yemeni informants to pose as Awlaki students to try to provide intelligence on Awlaki’s location. But the drones, which could not be seen by the naked eye, hovered nonstop in a massive effort to cover large parts of southern Yemen and ensure that Awlaki had not left. He knew the United States wanted to assassinate him, as evidenced by the lawsuit brought by his father, Nasser Al-Awlaki—a U.S. citizen living in Yemen. The suit challenged the legality of a presidential order to kill Awlaki, an American citizen, without due process.

In the last month, drone operators became convinced they had identified Awlaki in various convoys. Previous strikes were considered but withheld out of concern of causing too many civilian casualties. Although the Yemen central government claims that it was in charge of the operation, the reality is that the United States acted independently.

A recent intelligence tip indicated that Awlaki was going to be traveling Thursday or Friday in a multi-SUV convoy. By early Friday afternoon Yemen time, the drones had clearly identified Awlaki’s convoy—which apparently was distinct from other traveling cars in the poor region of his province—providing a clear video to drone operators in Virginia. President Obama had already given the orders to kill Awlaki if a clear shot was available.

The president was notified on Thursday about Awlaki’s expected travel via convoy and that drone operators likely would have a clear shot at him. The president authorized the strike and was joined overnight by aides to monitor the video that was beamed from the drones. At one point, believed to be around 4 a.m. in Washington, the drones broadcast images of Awlaki’s convoy traveling openly and without any cloud cover.

Several missiles were fired. At least two of the vehicles were destroyed. Within hours, Yemen’s military has secured the area and taken DNA samples from several of the remains of the bodies in the decimated vehicles. The samples were flown to Washington this morning and matched with Awlaki’s relatives living here.

One source offered a slightly different version of events, saying that the relatives’ DNA samples were within the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. In either case, forensic scientists compared the DNA samples and confirmed the match.

In addition, two other top lieutenants to Awlaki were also killed. One was Samir Khan, also an American, but the name of the other top assistant could not be obtained.

There was jubilation at the CIA, the Pentagon and the White House as the leading global al-Qaida recruiter had finally joined his mentor, Osama bin Laden. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to field offices around the country to be on guard against any revenge attacks. The charismatic English speaker and leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had been eliminated.

Big Peace

Iran’s Naval Martyrdom Strategy

Posted by Kerry Patton Oct 1st 2011 at 2:15 pm in Homeland Security, Iran, Islamic extremism, Latin America, Strategy

Ahmadinejad’s regime once again boasts its military capabilities by threatening the coast of the United States with its “supreme naval might.”  Security experts have immediately discounted Iran’s recent claims. But could Iran actually conduct a naval operation against the U.S. seaboard?

Considering Iran’s oceanic naval force consists of approximately six frigates and destroyers and three submarines, Iran’s vision is highly unlikely. While they do possess other naval vessels, they are incapable of prolonged oceanic voyages. But with a small handful of capable vessels, Iran’s threat should not be discounted.

Iran has an incredible track record of utilizing Shiite radicalized forces to conduct suicide missions. In fact, since 2005, Iran established an actual martyrdom training camp called Gharar-gah-e Asheghan-e Shahadat (Congregation of the Lovers of Martyrdom). Considering the current Iranian naval capacity is weak at best due to its nautical mileage capabilities, the only possibility for Iran to achieve its recently released threat to the United States is through a naval martyrdom operation.

Iranian navy special forces

Considering Iran has an incredibly unique friendship with Venezuela and Cuba, both countries would be needed assisting any maneuverability for Iran’s naval endeavors. They could utilize Venezuela and or Cuba for refueling operations. If this were conducted, the likely U.S. target would constitute our Gulf States.

Getting from Tehran to the Florida Key’s wouldn’t be easy. According to timezonedistance.com, Iran’s navy would need to be capable of traveling 6321.6 nautical miles. While they do have Russian made Kilo Class diesel-electronic propulsion submarines capable of traveling distances of approximately 7,500 nautical miles, they are limited and would only be capable of such voyage without any worthy protective fleet to accompany such.


Excluding submarine vessels, Iran’s current naval capabilities entering U.S. territorial waters is virtually impossible without going detected. However, considering the U.S. Gulf Coast territorial waters are incredibly short before entering international waters, Iran can possibly stage in Caribbean international waters. From there, they can launch attacks into the United States easily hitting cities like Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, etc.
U.S. Gulf cities can be attacked by Iran’s navy. Just this week, Iran’s publicity department of the defense ministry announced deliverables of the Ghader cruise missile to the Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corp naval force. The Ghader missile is capable of launch from land or sea and it has a range of 200 kilometers or 124.27 miles. This news demonstrates its naval intent.

Iran’s naval threat should not be discounted. Very few ever imagined 19 fully embraced and ideologically demented martyrdom seeking Islamists ever take over three U.S. charter aircraft–but they did. Very few ever imagined one vehicle born improvised explosive devise driven by a radicalized martyr kill over 241 service members back in 1983—but it happened. Virtually no one could have imagined a nation state build a martyrdom training camp like Gharar-gah-e Asheghan-e Shahadat—Iran did. Iran mastered the social conditioning ideological practice of martyrdom. Today, Iran’s threat to the United States with a naval force is not unlikely if they incorporate martyrdom into their naval strategy.

Kerry Patton is the Co-Founder of the National Security Leadership Foundation, a non-profit organization pending 501c (3) status. He has worked in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, focusing on intelligence and security interviewing current and former terrorists, including members of the Taliban. He is the author of “Sociocultural Intelligence: The New Discipline of Intelligence Studies” and the children’s book “American Patriotism.” You can follow him on Facebook.

Big Peace

The Left’s Rage Over ‘Assassination’ Of US Citizens Begins

Posted by Jason Bradley Oct 1st 2011 at 5:13 pm in Featured Story, Homeland Security, Islam, Islamic extremism, Justice/Legal, Terrorism

I wasn’t quick enough this morning to head this off. I knew it was coming and that it would only be a matter of time before the Left reacted to Anwar al-Awlaki’s death.
From the heart and mind of Glenn Greenwald.

It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki. No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was “considering” indicting him). Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even has any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt.

Grenwald, if nothing else, has been consistent in his displeasures and disagreement over US policy to track down and kill radicalized terrorists who happen to be US citizens. I’ve commented before on Greenwald’s assumptions. Here his Glenn’s thoughts from back in June, 2010.

I’ve written at length about the reasons why targeting American citizens for assassination who are far away from a “battlefield” is so odious and tyrannical, and I won’t repeat those arguments here. Suffice to say — and I’m asking this literally — if you’re someone who believes, or are at least willing to acquiesce to the claim, that the U.S. President has the power to target your fellow citizens for assassination without a whiff of due process, what unchecked presidential powers wouldn’t you support or acquiesce to? I’d really like to hear an answer to that.

My own thoughts to his are unchanged. On a very basic level, Greenwald’s and others who agree with him have a point. Assassinating US citizens without due process is in fact wrong. But there is nothing basic about the kind of terrorists’ threats we face daily. We do not have drones patrolling the skies of Los Angles and we are not targeting American civilians in all out military offensive. These terrorists are not simply breaking laws.

They are more than just your common criminal or gangbanger. They are continuously plotting to kill as many Americans as possible. They are financed and organized by governments and terrorists organizations that stretch the globe and have plenty of resources from which to operate. That makes them threatening in such a way that due-process would actually be a hindrance in protection of the homeland.


Al-Awlaki’s ‘citizenship’ is the product of an outdated and erroneous interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

He is about as much of a citizen of the US as Osama bin Laden was. If he was truly a US citizen he would live here, pay his taxes, and be a productive member of society. If individuals like al-Awlaki can be considered a US citizen with a straight face, then perhaps there is need to approach the ideas that constitute citizenship. Al-Awlaki stopped being a US citizen the moment he sat down with terrorists and collaborated with them to kill American citizens.

Killing al-Awlaki is no different than cops or the FBI killing a US citizen. It happens plenty enough. Some wacko walks into a restaurant or a mall and opens fire on innocent civilians. If he refuses to surrender or flees, the cops kill the perpetrator. In al-Awlaki’s case, he was in Yemen and never considered surrender. The US government tracked him down and removed an enemy of the American people. It’s as simple as that. I call it justice and about damn time, too.

Big Peace

One More Time: Consumption Spending HAS Already Recovered

by Robert Higgs 

Commentators and pundits, some of whom ought to know better, continue to harp on the idea that the recession persists because consumers are not spending. Every Keynesian seems to believe that because consumers are in a dreadful funk, only government stimulus spending can rescue the moribund economy, given (to them, at least) that investors will not spend more because the Fed, having already driven interest rates to extraordinarily low levels, cannot use conventional policies to drive them any lower and thereby elicit more investment spending.

People, please look at the data. They are conveniently available to one and all at the website maintained by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the outfit that generates the national income and product accounts for the United States.



According to these data, real personal consumption expenditure recovered from its recession decline by the fourth quarter of 2010. Continuing to grow, it now stands (as of the most recent data, for the second quarter of 2011) even farther above its pre-recession peak.

Real government expenditure for consumption and investment (this concept does not include the government’s transfer spending, such as unemployment insurance benefits and social security benefits) is also running higher than its pre-recession level. In the second quarter of 2011, it was running more than 2 percent higher (recall that this is “real,” or inflation-adjusted spending; nominal spending has grown substantially more).

The economy remains moribund not because consumption spending has failed to recover and not because government spending has failed to increase, but because the true driver of economic growth—private investment—remains deeply depressed. Gross private domestic fixed investment fell steeply after the second quarter of 2007, and in the second quarter of 2011 it remained 19 percent below its pre-recession peak. This figure fails to show how bad the investment situation really is, however, because the bulk of the investment spending now taking place is for what the accountants call the “capital consumption allowance,” the amount estimated as necessary to compensate for the wear and tear and obsolescence of the existing capital stock.

The key variable is net private domestic fixed investment—the investment that builds the productive private capital stock. Quarterly data through this year are not currently available at the BEA website, but the annual data show that an index of its real amount peaked in 2006, fell substantially in each of the following three years, and recovered only slightly in 2010, when the index showed net private domestic fixed investment was running about 78 percent below its level in 2005 and 2006. Here is the true reason for the recession’s persistence.

Private investors, despite the full recovery of real consumer spending and the increase of real government spending for final goods and services, remain apprehensive about the future of new investments, especially new long-term investments. I have argued repeatedly during the past three years that an important reason for this apprehension and the consequent reluctance to make new capital commitments is regime uncertainty—in this case, a widespread, serious fear that the government’s major policies in areas such as taxation, Obamacare, financial reform, environmental regulation, and other areas will have the effect of depriving investors of control over their capital or diminishing their ability to appropriate the income that the capital generates. President Obama’s harping on the desirability of making “the rich” pay their “fair share” (that is, more) of the government’s ever-rising costs only exacerbates regime uncertainty. Business leaders have spoken again and again of how the present political environment is discouraging risk-taking and entrepreneurship.

In any event, it should be crystal clear that the problem is not the failure of consumer spending to recover. Let us please have more respect for the facts than to continue singing that old, thoroughly worn-out tune.

Big Government