U.S. now sees Iran as pursuing nuclear bomb – Los Angeles Times

Funny how Obama now sees that Iran is a threat and is persuing nuclear weapons… I wonder what would have happened had he been privy to this level of intel when the decision to take out Saddam was made… I bet he would have sang a different tune, but then again he was just a state senator in IL and did not have access to intel this level of intel when he spoke out against going into Iraq.

Reporting from Washington — Little more than a year after U.S. spy agencies concluded that Iran had halted work on a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration has made it clear that it believes there is no question that Tehran is seeking the bomb.

In his news conference this week, President Obama went so far as to describe Iran’s “development of a nuclear weapon” before correcting himself to refer to its “pursuit” of weapons capability.

Obama’s nominee to serve as CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, left little doubt about his view last week when he testified on Capitol Hill. “From all the information I’ve seen,” Panetta said, “I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability.” 

The language reflects the extent to which senior U.S. officials now discount a National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 that was instrumental in derailing U.S. and European efforts to pressure Iran to shut down its nuclear program.

As the administration moves toward talks with Iran, Obama appears to be sending a signal that the United States will not be drawn into a debate over Iran’s intent.

“When you’re talking about negotiations in Iran, it is dangerous to appear weak or naive,” said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear weapons expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-proliferation organization based in Washington. 

Cirincione said the unequivocal language also worked to Obama’s political advantage. “It guards against criticism from the right that the administration is underestimating Iran,” he said.

Iran has long maintained that it aims to generate electricity, not build bombs, with nuclear power. But Western intelligence officials and nuclear experts increasingly view those claims as implausible.

U.S. officials said that although no new evidence had surfaced to undercut the findings of the 2007 estimate, there was growing consensus that it provided a misleading picture and that the country was poised to reach crucial bomb-making milestones this year.

Obama’s top intelligence official, Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, is expected to address mounting concerns over Iran’s nuclear program in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee today.

When it was issued, the NIE stunned the international community. It declared that U.S. spy agencies judged “with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”

U.S. intelligence officials later said the conclusion was based on evidence that Iran had stopped secret efforts to design a nuclear warhead around the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Often overlooked in the NIE, officials said, was that Iran had not stopped its work on other crucial fronts, including missile design and uranium enrichment. Many experts contend that these are more difficult than building a bomb.

Iran’s advances on enrichment have become a growing source of alarm. Since 2004, the country has gone from operating a few dozen centrifuges — cylindrical machines used to enrich uranium — to nearly 6,000, weapons experts agree.

By November, Iran had produced an estimated 1,400 pounds of low-enriched uranium, not nearly enough to fuel a nuclear energy reactor, but perilously close to the quantity needed to make a bomb.

A report issued last month by the Institute for Science and International Security concluded that “Iran is moving steadily toward a breakout capability and is expected to reach that milestone during the first half of 2009.” That means it would have enough low-enriched uranium to be able to quickly convert it to weapons-grade material.

Tehran’s progress has come despite CIA efforts to sabotage shipments of centrifuge components on their way into Iran and entice the country’s nuclear scientists to leave.

Iran still faces considerable hurdles. The country touted its launch of a 60-pound satellite into orbit this month. Experts said Iran’s rockets would need to be able to carry more than 2,000 pounds to deliver a first-generation nuclear bomb.

And there are indications that the U.S. and Iran are interested in holding serious diplomatic discussions for the first time in three decades. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said this week that his nation was “ready to hold talks based on mutual respect,” and Obama indicated that his administration would look for opportunities “in the coming months.”

Hassan Qashqavi, spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, on Wednesday warned the U.S. not to wait for Iranian presidential elections this year, because ultimate authority rests with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He also said Iran would be patient.

“Since a new administration came to power in the U.S., we do not want to burn the opportunity of President Obama and give him time to change the reality on the ground,” Qashqavi said.

But experts said Iran was now close enough to nuclear weapons capability that it may be less susceptible to international pressure.

“They’ve made more progress in the last five years than in the previous 10,” Cirincione said.

via U.S. now sees Iran as pursuing nuclear bomb – Los Angeles Times.

Newly Published: Threats in the Age of Obama by Michael Tanji

A must read… Check the link at the bottom of the post to check out the book

If you are on a mission to change the way government works, particularly in the national security arena, this is one a place where some independent and intellectually diverse thinking is to be found. In these essays, we offer our view of some of the more pressing threats the Obama administration will have to deal with in these early days of the 21st century.

via Amazon.com: Threats in the Age of Obama: Michael Tanji: Books.

Chavez Possibly Supporting Hamas And Hezbollah

Not really that much of a surprise… I wonder how much support and the types he is providing… 

Now let’s not forget Chavez is looking to start up a nuke program, allegedly for power, but I would suspect with a little Iranian help this could very easily be a weapons program…

Wonder if Obama will watch his own backyard or if they will be given the Socialists pass…

A new book published in the United States alleges that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is an active and open supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Lebanese Shi’ite militia with training for its fighters.

In “The Threat Closer to Home: Hugo Chavez and the War Against America,” authors Douglas Schoen and Michael Rowan write that through his support of terror organizations and by providing safe refuge for terrorists, Chavez constitutes a real, concrete threat to the United States.

Venezeula earlier this month cut ties with Israel to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The move came shortly days after Chavez called the attacks on the Hamas-ruled coastal territory a “holocaust.”

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Last August the Los Angeles Times reported that Western governments fear that Hezbollah is establishing a growing number of operational cells in the South American country.

Iran is long believed to have undertaken covert activity in South America in concert with Hezbollah. The LA Times reported that the U.S. State Department believes Iranian operatives were behind two terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires – the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center building. Both attacks killed dozens of civilians and wounded scores more

via Chavez providing aid to Hamas and Hezbollah, says new book – Haaretz – Israel News .

BLACKFIVE: 5 Years after Saddam’s capture (video from Iraq)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “BLACKFIVE: 5 Years after Saddam’s cap…“, posted with vodpod

Liberal Left’s Wrath Unleased On Obama

The “progressive” liberals are getting really pissed off at Obama… His promises of change have become a memory of the past as far as his appointments go… He has transformed himself what his campaign slammed John McCain for being… More of the same… Bowers is correct though, Democrats can’t run the military… However I would expand that to national security as well.

Obama does not know how to handle the job of President and is setting himself up with insiders to mask his inexperience. The majority of his picks so far are nothing more than the Clinton Administration, which is very grave considering they were a major contributing factor to today’s economic crisis…

Change You Can Believe In!

More than a month before he takes the oath of office, President-elect Barack Obama already is testing the loyalty of his liberal base.

On Monday, he is expected to announce his national security team, which will include Robert Gates as his defense secretary, a carry-over from the Bush administration, and retired Gen. Jim Jones, who supported John McCain for president, as his national security adviser.

Liberal blogger Chris Bowers of The Open Left says the message sent by the selection of Gates undermines Democrats.

“The message would be clear,” he writes in his blog. “Even Democrats agree that Democrats can’t run the military.”

Obama’s outspoken opposition to the Iraq war before he became a U.S. senator was one of the reasons he was embraced early in the presidential race by the anti-war faction of the Democratic Party’s base, so his apparent decision to keep a Bush adviser as defense secretary for at least a year has raised some eyebrows within that faction.

Bowers, a member of the Pennsylvania state Democratic committee, argues that Gates provided support and cover for practices from waterboarding to the use of psychotropic drugs on terror detainees. The blogger isn’t as negative toward Jones but still called it “very disappointing.”

“It is just so very frustrating,” Bowers writes. “It seems like the only place progressives are making any gains is in the House. We are being entirely left out of Obama’s major appointments so far. I guess everyone gets to play in Obama’s administration, except progressives.”

Democratic blogger Brent Budowsky, who served as a congressional assistant in the 1970s and 1980s, said he would have preferred to see Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska or former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia get the nod for defense secretary.

Budowsky said he fears that Obama’s national security team will steer him toward a longer military commitment than the one he made on the campaign trail.

“It is unfortunate that on an issue so momentous as who runs the Pentagon at time of war, the views that were stated in the campaign, and supported so deeply by the base of the Democratic Party and the new voters and small donors who were the heart of the Obama campaign, are sacrificed so quickly, for Bob Gates,” he writes in his blog.

GOP strategist Dave Winston told FOX News that some pushback was to be expected.

“The base is clearly going to say, where are you headed in terms of this policy?” Winston said. “And I think it will cause him some headaches with the base, although for the overall country, I think they will see it quite favorably.”

Democratic consultant Bob Beckel told FOX News that objections from liberals over Obama’s Cabinet selections isn’t all bad.

“Not so sure, from Obama’s standpoint, it’s bad politically,” he said. “It helps him in his negotiation with Congress.”

Obama’s national security team also will include several former members of Bill Clinton’s administration, eliciting some complaints about recycling people from the Clinton White House. And Obama is expected to pick Hillary Clinton to be his pick for secretary of state.

But Beckel says Obama needs experience from the last Democratic White House.

“If he went to a Democratic administration before that, he’d have to go to the nursing home,” he said.

FOX News’ Wendell Goler contributed to this report.

US Military Operating Under Secret Orders

Well the news itself is no surprise, but what the fact that the mass media is reporting it is. As usual, journalistic ethics are out the door. The media loves to report anything classified, top secret etc… As long as they can get it out to the people who should know… Bullshit.

Operations are on going, as in the recent Syrian raid, which is mentioned in the article, and the publication of news like this only puts our troops in danger. It also escalates tensions between countries because now things are public knowledge, instead of being handled by the respective powers and counter parts in the countries involved.

I guess that is why the UK is looking to censor media outlets from reporting on items that compromise national security. Maybe we should consider doing the same thing, and make it a criminal act… And when items involve national security and put soldiers lives in danger, I think the anonymous sources excuse used by the media must be abolished. If there is no national security issue or potential to put soldiers lives in danger, then fine, let them use all the anonymous sources they want.

The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President George W. Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants’ compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. Officials watched the entire mission — captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft — in real time in the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center at the agency’s headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away.

Some of the military missions have been conducted in close coordination with the CIA, according to senior American officials, who said that in others, like the Special Operations raid in Syria on Oct. 26 of this year, the military commandos acted in support of CIA-directed operations.

But as many as a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past four years, often to the dismay of military commanders, senior military officials said. They said senior administration officials had decided in these cases that the missions were too risky, were too diplomatically explosive or relied on insufficient evidence.

More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policy makers, described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity because of its politically delicate nature. Spokesmen for the White House, the Defense Department and the military declined to comment.

Apart from the 2006 raid into Pakistan, the American officials refused to describe in detail what they said had been nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks, except to say they had been carried out in Syria, Pakistan and other countries. They made clear that there had been no raids into Iran using that authority, but they suggested that American forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.

According to a senior administration official, the new authority was spelled out in a classified document called “Al Qaeda Network Exord,” or execute order, that streamlined the approval process for the military to act outside officially declared war zones. Where in the past the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days when there were only hours to act, the new order specified a way for Pentagon planners to get the green light for a mission far more quickly, the official said.

It also allowed senior officials to think through how the United States would respond if a mission went badly. “If that helicopter goes down in Syria en route to a target,” the official said, “the American response would not have to be worked out on the fly.”

The 2004 order was a step marking the evolution of how the American government sought to kill or capture Qaeda terrorists around the world. It was issued after the Bush administration had already granted America’s intelligence agencies sweeping power to secretly detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in overseas prisons and to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and electronic communications.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush issued a classified order authorizing the CIA to kill or capture Qaeda militants around the globe. By 2003, American intelligence agencies and the military had developed a much deeper understanding of Al Qaeda’s extensive global network, and Rumsfeld pressed hard to unleash the military’s vast firepower against militants outside the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 2004 order identifies 15 to 20 countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf states, where Qaeda militants were believed to be operating or to have sought sanctuary, a senior administration official said.

Even with the order, each specific mission requires high-level government approval. Targets in Somalia, for instance, need at least the approval of the defense secretary, the administration official said, while targets in a handful of countries, including Pakistan and Syria, require presidential approval.

The Pentagon has exercised its authority frequently, dispatching commandos to countries including Pakistan and Somalia. Details of a few of these strikes have previously been reported.

For example, shortly after Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia in late 2006 to dislodge an Islamist regime in Mogadishu, the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command quietly sent operatives and AC-130 gunships to an airstrip near the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa. From there, members of a classified unit called Task Force 88 crossed repeatedly into Somalia to hunt senior members of a Qaeda cell believed to be responsible for the 1998 American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

At the time, American officials said Special Operations troops were operating under a classified directive authorizing the military to kill or capture Qaeda operatives if failure to act quickly would mean the United States had lost a “fleeting opportunity” to neutralize the enemy.

Occasionally, the officials said, Special Operations troops would land in Somalia to assess the strikes’ results. On Jan. 7, 2007, an AC-130 struck an isolated fishing village near the Kenyan border, and within hours, American commandos and Ethiopian troops were examining the rubble to determine whether any Qaeda operatives had been killed.

But even with the new authority, proposed Pentagon missions were sometimes scrubbed because of bad intelligence or bureaucratic entanglements, senior administration officials said.

The details of one of those aborted operations, in early 2005, were reported by The New York Times last June. In that case, an operation to send a team of Navy Seals and Army Rangers into Pakistan to capture Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, was aborted at the last minute.

Zawahri was believed by intelligence officials to be attending a meeting in Bajaur, in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command hastily put together a plan to capture him. There were strong disagreements inside the Pentagon and the CIA about the quality of the intelligence, however, and some in the military expressed concern that the mission was unnecessarily risky.

Porter Goss, the CIA director at the time, urged the military to carry out the mission, and some in the CIA even wanted to execute it without informing Ryan Crocker, then the American ambassador to Pakistan. Rumsfeld ultimately refused to authorize the mission.

Former military and intelligence officials said that Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, who recently completed his tour as head of the Joint Special Operations Command, had pressed for years to win approval for commando missions into Pakistan. But the missions were frequently rejected because officials in Washington determined that the risks to American troops and the alliance with Pakistan were too great.

Captain John Kirby, a spokesman for General McChrystal, who is now director of the military’s Joint Staff, declined to comment.

The recent raid into Syria was not the first time that Special Operations forces had operated in that country, according to a senior military official and an outside adviser to the Pentagon.

Since the Iraq war began, the official and the outside adviser said, Special Operations forces have several times made cross-border raids aimed at militants and infrastructure aiding the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq.

The raid in late October, however, was much more noticeable than the previous raids, military officials said, which helps explain why it drew a sharp protest from the Syrian government.

Negotiations to hammer out the 2004 order took place over nearly a year and involved wrangling between the Pentagon and the CIA and the State Department about the military’s proper role around the world, several administration officials said.

American officials said there had been debate over whether to include Iran in the 2004 order, but ultimately Iran was set aside, possibly to be dealt with under a separate authorization.

Senior officials of the State Department and the CIA voiced fears that military commandos would encroach on their turf, conducting operations that historically the CIA had carried out, and running missions without an ambassador’s knowledge or approval.

Rumsfeld had pushed in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks to expand the mission of Special Operations troops to include intelligence gathering and counterterrorism operations in countries where American commandos had not operated before.

Bush administration officials have shown a determination to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provided a legal rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent.

Several officials said the negotiations over the 2004 order resulted in closer coordination among the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA, and set a very high standard for the quality of intelligence necessary to gain approval for an attack.

The 2004 order also provided a foundation for the orders that Bush approved in July allowing the military to conduct raids into the Pakistani tribal areas, including the Sept. 3 operation by Special Operations forces that killed about 20 militants, American officials said.

Administration officials said that Bush’s approval had paved the way for Defense Secretary Robert Gates to sign an order — separate from the 2004 order — that specifically directed the military to plan a series of operations, in cooperation with the CIA, on the Qaeda network and other militant groups linked to it in Pakistan.

Unlike the 2004 order, in which Special Operations commanders nominated targets for approval by senior government officials, the order in July was more of a top-down approach, directing the military to work with the CIA to find targets in the tribal areas, administration officials said. They said each target still needed to be approved by the group of Bush’s top national security and foreign policy advisers, called the Principals Committee.

Bin Laden – Bringing Change To America

Jawa reports that an ex Al Qaeda operative has warned of an imminent attack on the US.  Funny how Bin Laden believes in Change too…

The Age Osama bin Laden is planning an attack against the United States that will “outdo by far” September 11, an Arab newspaper in London has reported.And according to a former senior Yemeni al-Qaeda operative, the terrorist organisation has entered a “positive phase”, reinforcing specific training camps around the world that will lead the next “wave of action” against the West.

The warning, on the front page of an Arabic newspaper published in London, Al-Quds Al-Arabi — and widely reported in the major Italian papers — quotes a person described as being “very close to al-Qaeda” in Yemen.

The paper is edited by Abdel al-Bari Atwan, who is said to be the last journalist to interview Osama bin Laden in 1996. According to the report, bin Laden is himself closely following preparations for an attack against the US and aims to “change the face of world politics and economics”. The operative is quoted as saying that “this will be shown by the fact that we now control a major part of the south of Somalia”.

The ex-operative says he remains in contact with current chiefs of the organisation in Yemen and that only six months ago bin Laden had sent a message to all jihad cells in the Arab world which asked them not to interact with their governments or local political parties and to deny any request for mediation or formal talks.

The source also said that during the next few days the terrorist organisation may send a sign of its violent intentions.

 

A few things in the statement that make sense 1) the importance of Somalia and ergo, Yemen (money, fighters, weapons) 2) the end of negotiations between the Yemeni government and the terrorists (“the period of calmness”) came as a result of an order from bin Laden, not because of agitation from returnees from Iraq, 3) the continuing importance of the original trusted network of Yemenis to the Al-Qaeda eadership..

A “senior” leader would refer to one with connections dating back to the Afghan days. My first guess would be Abu al-Fida, he’s just a very chatty guy, loves to give interviews and was most definitely top echelon. There’s photos of him sitting with UBL. Al-Fida was a prime negotiator between the regime and al-Qaeda and described the truce period that started in 2003 as centrally ordered by bin Laden.

Al-Fida was also the one who reported the line of sucession in al-Qaeda would pass to bin Laden’s son, so he has previously made officially sanctioned statements on behalf of the terror leadership. For prior reporting on al-Fida, click here.

Code Pink’s Jodie Evans Donates to Terrorists And Barack Obama

One of the founding members of Barack Obama’s finance campaign team has ties to terrorists. Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, has personally donated $40,000 to Barack’s campaign and raised between $50,000-$100,000 in donations. Evans has a long history of ties to foreign terrorist organizations and state sponsors, including the “Iraqi Resistance” which is responsible for killing thousands of US Soldiers.

This woman undermines our military, undermines our country and puts American lives in danger.

This is another “Association” that is troublesome. Barack Obama’s relationships, allies and partners, with extremist elements is just beginning to be uncovered, unfortunately the fourth estate will not do their job and dig into his past. They will go to the mattresses to discover what Joe the Plumber is hidding though…

More Change You Can Believe In!

Please read the whole article and educate yourself

Author’s note: It is commonly known that political visitors to totalitarian nations are only let in those nations if the visit serves the purposes of that government, the visitors are accompanied by minders and are monitored at all times and that the government facilitates propaganda events during the visits.

The following article is heavily documented with supporting links. The story it tells is very troubling for our nation. It is a story our news media refuses to investigate and report. Please forward this article widely.

A founding member of the campaign finance team of Democratic presidential nominee Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has been working with state sponsors of terrorism to undermine the United States in the global war on terror since at least February, 2003.

Jodie Evans, co-founder of the leftist anti-American group Code Pink, has documented ties to governments on the State Department’s list of current and former state sponsors of terrorism including Iran, Cuba, Syria and the former Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein. She also has endorsed and worked with the so-called Iraqi resistance that has killed over three thousand American soldiers and thousands of free Iraqis.

Evans is listed on the official Obama website as a bundler of between $50,000 and $100,000 in contributions. According to FEC reports, the official Obama website and news accounts, Evans has personally contributed over $40,000 to the Obama campaign—$4600 to Obama for America and around $36,000 to the Obama Victory Fund.

Evans served as a co-host for Obama’s first Hollywood fundraiser right after he announced his long-shot bid for the presidency in February 2007, just weeks after she returned from Cuba where she and Code Pink worked with the Castro government to protest the terrorist detention center in Guantanamo. Evans and Code Pink, who market themselves as feminists and human rights activists, blew off the Ladies in White, a Cuban human rights group that asked the delegation Evans led to inspect Cuban prisons where democracy advocates were being held by the Castro government.

The propaganda effort against the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo garnered worldwide sympathetic media coverage that undermined America’s efforts in the war on terror.

Evans and Code Pink’s trip to Cuba in January 2007 made up for their aborted effort to visit the communist nation the year before to celebrate the anniversary of Fidel Castro’s violent revolution.

In February, 2003, Evans traveled with Code Pink to Baghdad as a guest of Saddam Hussein’s government to lobby the world to keep him in power. Saddam’s government made a lasting impression on Evans. As late as summer 2008 she was still wishing that the genocidal, mass murdering tyrant was still in power in Iraq. She made a similar statement in 2006 pining for the ‘good old days’ under Saddam:

Let’s go back to the Iraq before we invaded, there was a good education and health care system, food for everyone. That system didn’t belong to Saddam it belonged to the Iraqi, it belonged to years of creating what a civilization needed. If your parents didn’t send you to school they could be put in jail.

Evans made several trips to Iraq in 2003 after the liberation. She worked with anti-liberation Iraqis to set up Occupation Watch in Baghdad. The purpose was to propagandize alleged war crimes by American soldiers and to recruit American soldiers into quitting the war by becoming conscientious objectors.

Evans did a propaganda interview with a communist newspaper in August, 2003, accusing G.I.s of wantonly slaughtering Iraqi women and children.

In December 2004, as the Marines were clearing out Fallujah from al Qaeda and Iraqi Sunni terrorists, Evans and Code Pink delivered over $600,000 in cash and humanitarian aid for what Code Pink called “the other side” in Fallujah.

(Giving cash and “humanitarian aid” to the anti-American or anti-freedom side in a conflict is an age old tactic of Western leftists as a way of bolstering their allies and prolonging the conflict without being accused of directly arming the enemy.)

In January, 2006, Evans traveled to Venezuela with Code Pink where she met with Hugo Chavez and protested against President Bush.

In April, 2006, Evans led a delegation to Iran. Blog entries by her and her fellow travelers are filled with propaganda designed to undermine U.S. policy againt the state sponsor of terrorism.

In June, 2006, Evans represented Code Pink at the World Tribunal on Iraq, a leftist-jihadist show trial held in Istanbul, Turkey, that proclaimed the ‘right’ of the terrorists in Iraq to kill Americans and free Iraqis:

There is widespread opposition to the occupation. Political, social, and civil resistance through peaceful means is subjected to repression by the occupying forces. It is the occupation and its brutality that has provoked a strong armed resistance and certain acts of desperation. By the principles embodied in the UN Charter and in international law, the popular national resistance to the occupation is legitimate and justified. It deserves the support of people everywhere who care for justice and freedom.

Evans herself gushed about her support for the so-called Iraqi resistance in an essay written in Istanbul:

“We must begin by really standing with the Iraqi people and defending their right to resist. I can remain myself against all forms of violence, and yet I cannot judge what someone has to do when pushed to the wall to protect all they love. The Iraqi people are fighting for their country, to protect their families and to preserve all they love. They are fighting for their lives, and we are fighting for lies.” (AlterNet, June 26, 2005)

In the summer of 2006, Evans and Code Pink traveled to Jordan and Syria. She and Code Pink wrote extensively about the Jordan visit, where they met with pro-terrorist Iraqi parliamentarians who urged them to seek recognition of the so-called Iraqi resistance.

The stop in Syria is clouded in mystery as none of the Code Pink members have written about what they did and who they met in Syria, except here:

From Damascus to Beirut: Arriving, Safely

By Medea Benjamin

Four of us—Gael Murphy, Judith LeBlanc, Diane Wilson and myself—split off from the rest of the group in Syria to make our way to Lebanon.

As noted at the beginning of this article, Evans traveled to Cuba in January 2007 to undermine America, then just weeks later she co-hosted Barack Obama’s first big Hollywood fundraiser.

In November, 2007, when Obama announced his campaign bundlers, Evans was on the list, as well as her husband Max Palevsky.

Evans got more involved in supporting Obama’s candidacy in 2008. In February she hosted a support Obama event and published an endorsement of Obama co-signed by several New York feminists.

On June 4, 2008, Evans was interviewed by radio talk show host Paul A. Ibbeston (Part One on YouTube and Part Two on YouTube.)

In the interview, Evans expressed her sympathy for the Sept. 11 terror attacks by al Qaeda that led to the murder of 3000 innocents, mostly her fellow Americans:

Jodie Evans:…”We were attacked because we were in Saudi Arabia, that was the message of Osama, was that because we had our bases in the Middle East, he attacked the United States.”

Paul A. Ibbetson: “Do you think that’s a valid argument?”

Evans: “Sure. Why do we have bases in the Middle East? We totally violated the rights of that country. Why do we get to have bases in the Middle East?”

Evans also expressed her “love” for the anti-American leader of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez, calling him a “sweetheart”, and admitted that Code Pink is trying to “undermine the war effort” of the United States in the war on terror.

Several weeks after that interview, Obama received Evans at a high-dollar fundraiser. Evans is listed by the FEC has having made a $7250 contribution to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fundraising vehicle of Obama’s presidential committee, Obama for America, and the Democratic National Committee. The legal limit, $2300 of Evans’ contribution, was given to Obama’s general election coffers as she had already given the maximum allowed by law to his primary campaign, also $2300, at the Hollywood fundraiser she co-hosted in February, 2007. The balance of the $7250 went to the DNC.

Days after the event, a video was published featuring Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin bragging about Evans’ meeting with Obama.

In July, 2008, Evans joined other leftists in signing a letter urging Obama to keep left in his campaign that was published by The Nation.

The next month, Evans’ success at infiltrating the Democratic party was recognized with her being given the “Inside the Party” award by the Progressive Democrats of America, a group founded in 2004 at the Boston Democratic national convention to pull the party further to the left. Evans is known by her fellow leftists as a master of the ‘inside-outside game’.

Later that month, Evans attended the Democrats’ national convention in Denver. While Code Pink did their usual street theater outside the convention, they did not disrupt the convention inside. That is most likely because as a bundler for Obama, Evans was invited to private meetings with Obama and his vice presidential nominee Delaware Sen. Joe Biden after their respective acceptance speeches. From the National Journal:

After Biden’s speech on Wednesday night, bundlers are invited to an hour-long reception with the vice presidential candidate in a private room in the Pepsi Center, and then on Thursday morning, Barack and Michelle Obama are hosting a breakfast at the Hyatt Regency. After Obama’s acceptance speech, he is scheduled to mingle with bundlers at a private lounge inside Invesco Field.

The next week, at the Republicans’ national convention in St. Paul, Evans made headlines by trying to storm the stage during the acceptance speech by Republican vice presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Evans spent her time in St. Paul committing identity theft to gain access to the convention and related events.

Less than two weeks later, Evans was again received by Obama, this time at an intimate $28,500 per person fundraiser in Hollywood and again later that evening at a $2500 per person fundraiser that featured a performance by Barbra Streisand.

Evans capped off her month by meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York City. Ahmadinejad’s government has been funding, training and equipping terrorists in Iraq who have killed American soldiers and free Iraqis, as well as Hezbollah in its war against Israel, among many other activities that threaten the free world including seeking nuclear weapons.

Evans, who is no fool but is a propagandist, told Fox News after meeting Ahmadinejad that he is “really about peace and human rights and respecting justice.”

Ahmadinejad is also no fool. He would know that Jodie Evans, who visited his country in 2005, is in tight with the Democratic party’s presidential nominee and that Obama has stated his willingness to meet with Ahmadinejad and has downplayed the danger of Iran to the free world.

This raises the question of whether Evans was acting as an intermediary between Obama’s campaign and Ahmadinejad.

The American news media has utterly failed the nation by its willful failure to investigate and report the alliance between Barack Obama and the terrorist supporter Jodie Evans.

Evans has brushed off the few queries about this by saying her husband, Max Palevsky, is an old friend of Obama’s from Chicago and she’s just along for the ride. The evidence belies that story. Evans is a player in her own right.

In addition to working with state sponsors of terrorism, Evans works with pro-terrorist communist groups in the U.S. Those groups include The World Can’t Wait, ANSWER, Troops Out Now and United for Peace and Justice. Evans is the tip of spear of the pro-terrorist left into the heart of mainstream American politics.

There have been several calls from troop support groups for Obama to renounce Evans. He has ignored them and instead has drawn closer politically to Evans as the election draws near.

Obama said this summer he knows he needs to earn the trust to be commander-in-chief. He has failed to earn that trust, completely, by allying with Jodie Evans.

Jodie Evans and Barack Obama, photo by Code Pink

Jodie Evans and Code Pink lead protest against Marine Corps, Berkeley, CA. Feb. 12, 2008.

Jodie Evans being interviewed about anti-Marines protest, Berkeley, CA. Feb. 12, 2008. Photos by ZombieTime.com
More photos and story from that protest by Zombie Time here.

Cindy Sheehan, Jodie Evans, Hugo Chavez, Medea Benjamin in Venezuela. Photo by Code Pink. Jan. 28, 2006.

Jodie Evans in at Chavez speech, Caracas, Venezuela. Jan. 27, 2006. Photo by Code Pink. (Sign translation by Code Pink: Women Say Bush Must Go)

Jodie Evans and Jane Fonda.

ACORN Fraud Investigation In Las Vegas

ACORN busted. False and Duplicate Names. Dall Cowboy’s names used in fraud. People on the streets are being “PAID” to scrounge up votes for Obama, with BONUS pay for recruiting more voters.

People wake up this is not an isolated incident. This is country wide. ACORN is on an all out assult of our Electoral Process. 

The Las Vegas headquarters of the nation’s largest grassroots community organization for low-income people was raided today by Nevada state authorities as part of a voter-fraud probe. 

The raid was initiated by Nevada’s Secretary of State, Ross Miller, after a series of accusations that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN, was submitting voter registration lists to the state that contained false or duplicate names of voters. 

“When we got [to the headquarters], no one was there so, there were no arrests,” Secretary of State spokesman Bob Walsh told CBS News. But, he added “agents did seize lots of records.” 

CBS News has learned that the state’s investigation is focusing on the conduct of ACORN’s work force. Critics allege that ACORN hires workers “off the street” to sign up new voters, paying them by the number of voters registered – sometimes resulting in false and duplicate names. But an ACORN spokesman dismisses this allegation and told CBS News that workers are paid “by the hour” and “not by the number of people they sign up.” 

In an official statement, ACORN Interim Chief Organizer, Bertha Lewis, called today’s raid “a stunt” and said it “serves no useful purpose other than discredit our work registering Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting every eligible voter to the polls.” Lewis says any time ACORN “identified a potentially fraudulent application” they notified election officials. But, Lewis claims Nevada election officials “routinely ignored” ACORN’s concerns and “failed to act.” 

The raid comes two months after state and federal officials formed a task force to go after election-fraud allegations. Earlier this year, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey issued a memo to all Justice Department employees telling them in no uncertain terms that “politics must play no role in our efforts.” 

ACORN has been around since the 1970’s and has offices nationwide to assist low-income people with a number of issues. Part of the organization’s mission is to help low-income Americans, minorities, and youth, who are “historically disenfranchised” from voting register for elections. ACORN’s website says they “helped more than 1.68 million citizens register to vote” for the 2004 and 2006 elections. And just yesterday, ACORN announced it had conducted its “largest and most comprehensive” voter drive for the upcoming presidential election helping “over 1.3 million Americans register to vote.” 

Barack’s Original Foreign Policy Advisor – Invade Israel

Barack refused to answer the question if Iran were to attack Israel, if he as President, would back up Israel militarily without UN approval. Well if he feels this way about Iran, how does he feel about Palestine…

Well his original Foreign Policy Advisor, Samantha Power advocates invading Israel, remove all financial support of Israel and give it to the Palestinians…

Now notice the question was posed as if either side commited genocide against the other. Her response is simple if Israel commits genocide against Palestine.

Does she think that Palestine would support us in the region if we needed them? 

Well there is a good chance, that this woman would come back into the fray should Obama get elected. The only reason she stepped down in the first place was because of pressure from the Clinton camp after she called Hillary a monster. One has to imagine what Barack’s foreign policy will be should he get elected and if he bring Power or some other version her into his cabinet…

 

Samantha Power left the Barack Obama campaign in March of this year, after a somewhat overblown kerfuffle over her reference to Hillary Clinton as a “monster”. Power advised Obama on foreign policy, having spent her career detailing genocides and international responses to them, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the subject. Power had some interesting ideas about how to resolve one particular instance of what she sees as a genocide in this April 2002 interview at Berkeley with Harry Kreisler:

This should give us some insight into the foreign-policy objectives of Barack Obama, who had Power as an adviser from 2005 until the “monster” comment in March of this year. He didn’t bounce her from his team over her views on Israel and … well, let’s recall how she described the pro-Israel lobby:

Putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import.

For those who may not catch the reference, Power means the Joooooos.  And why would that alienate the Jewishcabalthatsecretlyrunseverything?  For one thing, Power wants to spend billions on bolstering Palestinian military strength, instead of spending it on helping the Israelis to defend themselves.  Bear in mind that this interview takes place about seven months after 9/11, when people supposedly still knew how dangerous radical Islamist groups like Hamas and al-Qaeda were.  Power wanted to send them money and stop funding Israeli efforts to fight them.

Even more ridiculously, Power’s ultimate aim is to send a massive American or Western force into Israel to stop what Power apparently sees as an Israeli genocide against the Palestinians.  She specifically states that the force has to be “massive”, not like a Srebrenica- or Bosnia-sized force.  Why would it need to be so large?  In order to neutralize the Israeli Defense Force, and protect the forces of Fatah and Hamas.

Had Barack Obama kicked her off of his advisory panel (rumored to number 300)after making remarks like this, it could have assuaged fears about his intentions towards Israel.  Instead, he invited Power to advise him after making these remarks.  She resigned only after calling Hillary a monster and after insinuating that Obama may not retreat from Iraq in 16 months if the ground situation changed — which Obama later adopted as his own position after the primaries.

This is the same Barack Obama who served in a board that gave a $75,000 grant to Rashid Khalidi, Yasser Arafat’s toady in the PLO.  This is the same Barack Obama who had Robert Malley as another of his advisers on the region — and who conducted meetings with Hamas.  Obama’s church used its bulletins to give voice to Palestinian activists.  How much more clear can this get?