The Gloves will soon be coming off against Hamas!

I do not buy all that what is written below suggests. It is quite harsh. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating insightful piece that says the coming of the messiah, when a nation is down, makes for an interesting and susceptible mixture. We are currently sinking, the national mood is negative, one of uncertainty and any life saving apparition, even a political one, can appear virtuous. Spengler calls to mind Lewis' Elmer Gantry and I have been substituting Wilson's The Music Man. Both seem appropriate.

Certainly Spengler calls it as he sees it in this "excerpted article."(See 1 below.)

Has Russia really changed its mind regarding Iranian nuclear development? (See 2 below.)

Even a "leader" as weak, confused and inept as Olmert cannot, much longer, tolerate his country being assaulted daily. Perhaps when he returns from Japan and the weather clears he will come to his senses and tell the IDF, go settle the score with Hamas. If he does not, then frustration will mount and the mood in Israel will either turn ugly or desperate. The gloves will have to be coming off soon if I read between the lines correctly.

And the rockets keep acoming!(See 3 and 4a and 4b below.)

America is attacked by illegals daily as they breach our borders to engage in gainful work. Some subsequently commit crimes, some enter for the explicit purpose of drug dealing but, as bad as that may be, it is not comparable to having a town in a border state indiscriminately rocketed each day.

No person cannot escape their background because it colors their thinking, it shapes their view of what is right and wrong and can and often does determine their course of action and response to challenges. Varied experiences and living do matter.

There is no job comparable to being president therefore, a certain amount of OJT is to be expected. Even something as simple as turning on the light switches in a new home and where you put your clothes in a new closet is a new learning experience. Building a team of advisors you trust and will listen to and who will demonstrate loyalty but also be willing to candidly speak their minds is even more complex. Then coping with the entrenched bureaucracy, which always has its own agenda and will be around long after two terms, adds more overburden to the learning curve. By the time most presidents have been in office two years they are just beginning to govern and then they must start campaigning. This is reality - maybe not a wise way to govern ourselves, but that is another matter.

World events do not wait for a new president to get comfortable and, in fact, they often get challenged rather early on in order to test their mettle.

Several critical and revealing matters are swiftly coming to a head: The pursuit of nuclear arms by Iran, the threat of more sanctions and escalating attacks on Israel's sovereignty and their potential response; the U.S. elections and aftermath should either Clinton or Obama win and carry out their pledge to withdraw from Iraq, stalled negotiations with N Korea and the war in Afghanistan post the Pakistan election. Add to these the question of whether we are sliding into a recession, are already in one and whether the Fed will continue to sacrifice the dollar and abandon its commitment to fight inflation in an attempt to soften any economic decline and/or landing. A pretty full plate for both investors and an incoming president to contemplate and deal with, wouldn't you say?.

Might be wise to keep that in ind when you go to vote in November.

Burton and Stewart discuss the metamorphosis that has taken place in al Qaeda since 9/11 and it has now become a more personalized grassroots jihadist threat and our first line of defense has become our local police departments. (See 5 below.)

Dick

1) There is nothing mysterious about Obama's methods. "A demagogue tries to sound as stupid as his audience so that they will think they are as clever as he is," wrote Karl Krauss. Americans are the world's biggest suckers, and laugh at this weakness in their popular culture. Listening to Obama speak, Sinclair Lewis' cynical tent-revivalist Elmer Gantry comes to mind, or, even better, Tyrone Power's portrayal of a carnival mentalist in the 1947 film noire Nightmare Alley. The latter is available for instant viewing at Netflix, and highly recommended as an antidote to having felt uplifted by an Obama speech.

America has the great misfortune to have encountered Obama at the peak of his powers at its worst moment of vulnerability in a generation. With malice aforethought, he has sought out their sore point.

Since the Ronald Reagan boom began in 1984, the year the American stock market doubled, Americans have enjoyed a quarter-century of rising wealth. Even the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2000 did not interrupt the upward trajectory of household assets, as the housing price boom eclipsed the effect of equity market weakness. America's success made it a magnet for the world's savings, and Americans came to believe that they were riding a boom that would last forever, as I wrote recently [1].

Americans regard upward mobility as a God-given right. America had a double founding, as David Hackett Fischer showed in his 1989 study, Albion's Seed . Two kinds of immigrants founded America: religious dissidents seeking a new Promised Land, and economic opportunists looking to get rich quick. Both elements still are present, but the course of the past quarter-century has made wealth-creation the sine qua non of American life. Now for the first time in a generation Americans have become poorer, and many of them have become much poorer due to the collapse of home prices. Unlike the Reagan years, when cutting the top tax rate from a punitive 70% to a more tolerable 40% was sufficient to start an economic boom, no lever of economic policy is available to fix the problem. Americans have no choice but to work harder, retire later, save more and retrench.

This reversal has provoked a national mood of existential crisis. In Europe, economic downturns do not inspire this kind of soul-searching, for richer are poorer, remain what they always have been. But Americans are what they make of themselves, and the slim makings of 2008 shake their sense of identity. Americans have no institutionalized culture to fall back on. Their national religion has consisted of waves of enthusiasm - "Great Awakenings" – every second generation or so, followed by an interim of apathy. In times of stress they have a baleful susceptibility to hucksters and conmen.

Be afraid - be very afraid. America is at a low point in its fortunes, and feeling sorry for itself. When Barack utters the word "hope", they instead hear, "handout". A cynic might translate the national motto, E pluribus unum, as "something for nothing". Now that the stock market and the housing market have failed to give Americans something for nothing, they want something for nothing from the government. The trouble is that he who gets something for nothing will earn every penny of it, twice over.

The George W Bush administration has squandered a great strategic advantage in a sorry lampoon of nation-building in the Muslim world, and has made enemies out of countries that might have been friendly rivals, notably Russia. Americans question the premise of America's standing as a global superpower, and of the promise of upward mobility and wealth-creation. If elected, Barack Obama will do his utmost to destroy the dual premises of America's standing. It might take the country another generation to recover.

"Evil will oft evil mars", J R R Tolkien wrote. It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama. As he recalled in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama idealized the Kenyan economist who had married and dumped his mother, and was saddened to learn that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr, was a sullen, drunken polygamist. The elder Obama became a senior official of the government of Kenya after earning a PhD at Harvard. He was an abusive drunk and philanderer whose temper soured his career.

The senior Obama died in a 1982 car crash. Kenyan government officials in those days normally spent their nights drinking themselves stupid at the Pan-Afrique Hotel. Two or three of them would be found with their Mercedes wrapped around a palm tree every morning. During the 1970s I came to know a number of them, mostly British-educated hollow men dying inside of their own hypocrisy and corruption.

Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals - and nothing can be more terrible for the system. Even those who despise America for its blunders of the past few years should ask themselves whether the world will be a safer place if America retreats into a self-pitying shell.

2) PM: Iran nukes not inevitable; Russia: We may back sanctions


Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday it was not inevitable that Iran would produce a nuclear bomb, while Russia warned Iran that it may sanctions against the Islamic Republic if it does not stop uranium enrichment.

"I think there is time," said Olmert, asked by reporters during a visit to Japan whether Iran could be stopped from achieving nuclear weapons capability.

"The time is not unlimited but it is defined by more than months," he added.

Iran has consistently said it is pursuing its nuclear program to generate electricity, not to make weapons. However, it has also repeatedly flaunted United Nations nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency demands for full disclosure of its nuclear activity, prompting the UN to draft stricter sanctions against it.

Russia said it would support these new sanctions unless Tehran stops uranium enrichment in the next few days.

"If Iran in the next few days does not stop the enrichment activities of its heavy water project then yes, Russia ... has taken upon itself certain commitments... to support the resolution that has been drafted in the past month," Interfax news agency quoted Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin as saying.

Olmert, who ends a four-day visit to Japan on Thursday, was speaking after Israel's military intelligence chief told a parliamentary committee in Jerusalem that Iran could have a nuclear capabilities by 2010.

Israel has called a nuclear Iran a threat to its existence and has called for tougher international sanctions to press the Islamic Republic to halt uranium enrichment.

3) Ashkelon Mayor joins calls for tough military action against Gaza

The mayor, Ronnie Mahtzari, called on the government to remove the gloves for a tough military operation against the savage Palestinian missile offensive on Israeli locations bordering on the Gaza Strip. He said the town is willing to take more missiles, as long as the IDF is allowed to take effective action against the terrorists.

In recent weeks, all parts of Ashkelon, a thriving city of more than 103,000 with a big oil port, have joined the cycle of Hamas missile targets from Gaza. Wednesday, Feb. 27, its Barzilai hospital which serves the entire region was taking in the wounded from Sderot, the Sapir College and the Off Kor factory, when an extended-range Grad missile landed outside its doors. By sheer good luck, it did not explode and was finally defused after several hours. Another missile knocked out electrical power in some parts of the city.

Military sources report that the targeting of Hamas leaders and operatives evokes further missile violence against civilians without solving the essential security threat which Hamas-ruled Gaza poses southern Israel. Hamas and its allies are free to calibrate their missile attacks at will only because the Israeli government and IDF command desist from striking at strategic terrorist infrastructure deep inside the Gaza Strip.

This week, the infiltration of scores of al Qaeda jihadis to the Gaza Strip was confirmed by Israeli military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, the Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and the UN Secretary-General’s office. Yet nothing is done.

4a) Israel vows unprecedented response to deadly Qassam barrage
By Amos Harel and Barak Ravid

A senior defense official said Wednesday night that the Israeli response to the rocket fire on Sderot and Ashkelon is expected to be particularly harsh, and that Israel does not intend to let pass Hamas' decision to escalate its offensive measures.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday morning, however, that Israel will not change its overall policy in the Gaza Strip. "What is happening today happened a week ago, and is likely to happen in the near future," he said.

The prime minister made the comments during a visit to a Nisan factory in Tokyo.

Olmert added: "We are in a war which sometimes exacts a high cost, and sometimes does not. We will continue fighting in order for the danger to the residents of the south to end. This is a long process, and a painful one, and we haven't any magic formulas to solve this today. We are suffering painful blows, but are returning more painful blows."

Late Wednesday night, Israeli jets blasted a government building in Gaza. Palestinian health officials said a baby was killed in the attack, and 30 people were injured. Witnesses said the building was empty. The IDF said all targets that were attacked were centers of terrorist activity.

Military sources told Haaretz that in the next few weeks the IDF will complete its preparations for a major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. However, they added that the final decision on a wide-scale incursion is in the hands of the government, and no decision has been made yet.

Discussion over entering Gaza ratcheted up Wednesday following the death of a 47-year-old Israeli civilian who was killed by a Qassam rocket in Sderot Wednesday. Hamas fired some 50 rockets at Israel on the worst day of fighting the Gaza Strip border has seen in more than two weeks. Several rockets hit Ashkelon.

Also on Wednesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak went to Sderot to meet with the heads of communities in the area.

Olmert said on Wednesday during his visit to Japan that there is a war going on in the south of Israel and the Gaza Strip.

"No one in Hamas, neither among the low ranks nor among the senior ranks, will be immune to that war," Olmert threatened.

The prime minister added that the Palestinians are "testing Israel's patience" to its limit.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for the rocket attacks on Israel to stop and blamed Hamas for the situation in Gaza, speaking after a meeting with Olmert in Tokyo on Thursday.

Rice is set to visit Israel and the West Bank next week to try to push along U.S.-brokered peace talks complicated by the growing violence.

The secretary of state also voiced concern about Palestinian civilians killed in IDF operations in the Gaza Strip, but stopped short of an explicit call for Israel to exercise restraint.

Asked if she had urged Olmert not to use disproportionate force in responding to rocket attacks from Gaza, Rice told reporters: "I think that's not a good way to address this issue. The issue is that the attacks - rocket attacks need to stop."

She said she had reiterated to Olmert U.S. concerns for the humanitarian situation.

"I am concerned about the humanitarian condition there and innocent people in the Gaza who are being hurt. We have to remember that the Hamas activities there are responsible for what has happened in Gaza ... But, of course, we are concerned about innocent people and we are concerned about the humanitarian situation," she said after the one-hour breakfast meeting.

Sources in Olmert's entourage said that he was briefed by the military secretary on the rocket fire against Sderot and the Israeli civilian killed there. The prime minister was informed that the Hamas was responsible for that attack, and the assessment was that it came in response to the killing of six members of Hamas during IDF operations in the morning.

However, regarding the possibility of an offensive in the Gaza Strip, Olmert said: "I do not recall speaking even once about a ground operation in the Strip."

Earlier, Olmert said that he had not received any concrete offer from Hamas for a cease-fire with Israel.

4b)Thirteen Palestinian missiles explode on Israeli side of Gaza border Thursday

The last four landed in Sderot’s main square and near its banking center. Several shock victims were taken to hospital.

As Israeli air force continued its strikes against terrorist targets in Gaza, local authorities on the Israeli side of the border tried to organize the towns and villages battered by more than 50 missiles Wednesday for a fresh Palestinian assault. Schools opened Thursday morning for classes, although children were not permitted to play outside. Studies resumed at the Sapir College along with the registration of students for the next academic year. In the afternoon, students and faculty will attend the funeral of the student Ronnie Yihya, who died on campus from a direct missile hit. He will be buried at Moshav Bitcha, where he lived with his wife and four children.

As clamor rises for a massive Israeli ground action to finish off the terror-by-missile plaguing the Southwest from Gaza, the Air Force again struck armed Palestinian bands in the Sejaya district, early Thursday, killing three gunmen, after five overnight air raids which left three Palestinians dead, including a baby.

5) Grassroots Jihadists and the Thin Blue Line
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

As Stratfor has observed for some years now, the global response to the 9/11 attacks has resulted in the transformation of the jihadist threat. Whereas six and a half years ago, the threat came from “al Qaeda the organization,” today it emanates from “al Qaeda the movement.” In other words, jihadism has devolved into a broader global phenomenon loosely guided by the original al Qaeda core group’s theology and operational philosophy. We refer to the people involved in the widespread movement as grassroots operatives.

In analyzing this metamorphosis over the years, we have noted the strengths of the grassroots jihadist movement, such as the fact that this model, by its very nature, is difficult for intelligence and law enforcement agencies to quantify and combat. We also have said it has a broader operational and geographic reach than the core al Qaeda group, and we have discussed its weaknesses; mainly that this larger group of dispersed actors lacks the operational depth and expertise of the core group. This means the grassroots movement poses a wider, though less severe, threat — one that, to borrow an expression, is a mile wide and an inch deep. In the big picture, the movement does not pose the imminent strategic threat that the core al Qaeda group once did.

It is important to recognize that this metamorphosis has changed the operational profile of the actors plotting terrorist attacks. This change, in turn, has altered the way operatives are most likely to be encountered and identified by law enforcement and intelligence officials. As grassroots operatives become more important to the jihadist movement, local police departments will become an even more critical force in the effort to keep the United States safe from attacks. In short, local police serve as a critical line of defense against grassroots jihadists.
Grassroots Operatives

The operatives involved in the 9/11 attacks attended al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, received thousands of dollars from the group via wire transfers and were in regular contact with al Qaeda operational managers. Grassroots operatives have a different operational profile. While some grassroots operatives — such as Mohammed Siddique Khan, the ringleader of the July 7, 2005, London bombings — have had some degree of contact with the al Qaeda organization, others have had no discernable contact with the group. This lack of contact makes it difficult for law enforcement and intelligence officials to identify grassroots operatives because efforts to identify these militants have been designed to focus on such things as personal contact, travel, financial links and operational communication.

U.S. security agencies have made great efforts since 9/11 to recruit human intelligence sources within communities that are likely to harbor militants. Such sources are invaluable, but they can only report on what they observe within their limited areas of operation. It is simply impossible to recruit enough sources to cover every potential jihadist operative within a given city or even within a given neighborhood or large mosque. Human intelligence sources are scarce and valuable, and they must be used wisely and efficiently. Intelligence pertaining to militant activity and planned terrorist attacks is only obtained if a source has had an opportunity to develop a relationship of trust with the people involved in planning the attack. Such information is closely guarded, and, in most cases, a source must have an intimate relationship with the target to gain access to it. Such relationships take a large investment of a source’s time and efforts because they are not est abolished quickly and cannot be established with too many individuals at any one time. This means that the people charged with recruiting and running human intelligence sources generally point them toward known or suspected militants — people who have been identified as having connections with known militant actors or groups. They cannot waste their limited resources on fishing expeditions.

Moreover, in places such as London, Houston and New York, there are so many individuals with some sort of link to Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda or another militant group that it is almost impossible to sort through them all. There is precious little intelligence or surveillance capacity left to focus on finding unknown individuals. The problem is that these unknown individuals many times are the ones involved in grassroots militant plots. For example, Khan came to the attention of British authorities during the course of an investigation that did not directly involve him. After briefly checking him out, however, authorities determined that he did not pose enough of a threat to warrant diverting resources from more pressing cases. Although that assessment proved to be wrong, it is not hard to understand how and why the British authorities reached their conclusion, given the circumstances confronting them at the time.

The strength of U.S. intelligence has long been its signals intelligence capability. The vast array of American terrestrial, airborne and space-based signals intelligence platforms can collect an unimaginable amount of data from a wide variety of sources. The utility of signals intelligence is limited, however; it does not work well when suspects practice careful operational security. In the case of grassroots operatives, escaping scrutiny can be as simple as not using certain buzzwords in their communications or not communicating with known members of militant groups.

In the end, most counter-terrorism intelligence efforts have been designed to identify and track people with links to known militant groups, and in that regard, they are fairly effective. However, they are largely ineffective in identifying grassroots militants. This is understandable, given that operatives connected to groups such as Hezbollah have access to much better training and far greater resources than their grassroots counterparts. In general, militants linked to organizations pose a more severe threat than do most grassroots militants, and thus federal agencies focus much of their effort on countering the larger threat.

That said, grassroots groups can and do kill people. Although they tend to focus on softer targets than operatives connected to larger groups, some grassroots attacks have been quite successful. The London bombings, for example, killed 52 people and injured hundreds.
Grassroots Defenders

As we have said, grassroots militants pose a threat that is unlikely to be picked up by federal authorities unless the militants self-identify or make glaring operational security blunders. All things considered, however, most operational security blunders are far more likely to be picked up by an alert local cop than by an FBI agent. The primary reason for this is statistics. There are fewer than 13,000 FBI agents in the entire United States, and less than a quarter of them are dedicated to counter-terrorism investigations. By comparison, the New York City Police Department alone has nearly 38,000 officers, including a counter-terrorism division consisting of some 1,200 officers and analysts. Moreover, there are some 800,000 local and state police in other jurisdictions across the country. Granted, most of these cops are not dedicated to counter-terrorism investigations, though a larger percentage of them are in a good position to encounter grassroots jihadists who make operational security errors or are in the process of committing crimes in advance of an attack, such as document fraud, illegally obtaining weapons and illegal fund raising activities.

Many terrorist plots have been thwarted and dangerous criminals captured by alert officers doing their jobs. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, for example, was not captured by some terrorism taskforce or elite FBI team; McVeigh was arrested shortly after the bombing by an Oklahoma state trooper who noticed McVeigh was driving his vehicle on Interstate 35 without a license plate. A large federal taskforce unsuccessfully hunted Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph for more than five years, but Rudolph ultimately was arrested by a rookie cop in Murphy, N.C., who found him Dumpster diving for food behind a grocery store. Yu Kikumura, the Japanese Red Army’s master bombmaker, was arrested on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1988 by an alert New Jersey state trooper. Additionally, Hezbollah’s multimillion-dollar cigarette smuggling network was uncovered when a sharp North Carolina sheriff’s depu ty found the group’s activities suspicious and tipped off the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, thus launching the large “Operation Smokescreen” investigation.

Local traffic cops also have identified several potential grassroots jihadists. In August 2007, two Middle Eastern men stopped by a sheriff’s deputy for speeding near Goose Creek, S.C., were charged with possession of a destructive device. The deputy reported that the men’s behavior and their Florida license plates led him to believe they were involved in drug smuggling. A search of the car, however, turned up bombmaking materials rather than dope. Likewise, a traffic stop by a police officer in Alexandria, Va., in September 2001 led to an investigation that uncovered the Virginia Jihad Network. In that case, network member Randall Royer was found to have an AK-47-type rifle with 219 rounds of ammunition in the trunk of his car. However, at least one notorious militant was able to slip through a crack in the system. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, there was an outstanding bench warrant for the operation’s leader, Mohamed Atta, for failure to appear in court after driving without a license.

In July 2005, police in Torrance, Calif., thwarted a grassroots plot that came to light during an investigation of a string of armed robberies. After arresting one suspect, Levar Haney Washington, police searching his apartment uncovered material indicating that Washington was part of a militant jihadist group that was planning to attack a number of targets, including the El Al Israel Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport; synagogues in the Westside area of Los Angeles; California National Guard armories in western Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach and Torrance; and U.S. Army recruiting centers in Long Beach, Torrance and Harbor City.

Cases such as this highlight the fact that grassroots operatives are more likely to indulge in petty crimes such as credit card theft, cargo theft or armed robbery than they are to have telephone conversations with Osama bin Laden. When these operatives do commit such crimes, local cops — rather than the National Security Agency, FBI or CIA — have the first interaction with them. In fact, because of the lack of federal interaction, any records checks run on these individuals through the FBI or CIA most likely would turn up negative. Indeed, even Atta had no CIA 201 file until after Sept. 11, 2001. Therefore, it is important for local cops to trust their instincts and hunches, even if a suspect has no record.

Also, since jihadism is a radical Islamist concept, when we discuss fighting grassroots jihadists, we are talking about militant Islamists, including converts to Islam. With that in mind, there are certain crimes that, when perpetrated by Muslims, warrant thorough investigation. Most observant Muslims are excellent law-abiding citizens. However, it should be a red flag to law enforcement when an otherwise-observant Muslim is found engaging in document fraud or financial frauds such as bank fraud, credit card fraud, interstate transportation of stolen property, fencing stolen property, cigarette smuggling, selling pirated goods (such as software or designer handbags) or even dope smuggling. These crimes are especially significant if the perpetrator has made millions of dollars and yet still lives modestly, raising questions about where the proceeds from such crimes have gone. Obviously, not every Muslim who commits such crimes is a terrorist, but these crimes are an indication that further investigation is required. Of course, this follow-on investigation could prove difficult — getting leads run in Pakistan or Lebanon can be tough — but it can be successful if the officer has determination and the proper mindset. An officer with such a mindset will look at such crimes and consider whether they could have been perpetrated for some purpose beyond self-enrichment — such as terrorism.

Like in the cases of Operation Smokescreen and the Virginia Jihad Network, the instincts and observations of an experienced street cop can launch an investigation with far-reaching implications. This fact makes local cops a critical line of defense against grassroots operatives.