Barack Obama's choice for CIA chief ‘converted to Islam' former FBI agent claims
John Guandolo claims John Brennan converted while in Saudi Arabia
Former FBI agent says Mr Brennan visited Mecca and Medina during Hajj
The incoming head of the CIA converted to Islam while working as a station chief in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, a former FBI agent has claimed.
John Guandolo, who retired from the FBI in 2008, said in a radio interview that John Brennan – who has been nominated by Barack Obama as the new director of the CIA – visited the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina accompanied by Saudi officials who may have persuaded him to convert.
‘We reached a point in the fighting, in spring 2012, when we needed proper support. We needed heavy machine guns, real weapons. Money was never an issue: how much do you want? Fifty million dollars, a hundred million dollars – not a problem. But heavy weapons were becoming hard to find: the Turks – and without them this revolution wouldn’t have started – wanted the Americans to give them the green light before they would allow us to ship the weapons. We had to persuade Saad al-Hariri, Rafic Hariri’s son and a former prime minister, to go to put pressure on the Saudis, to tell them: “You abandoned the Sunnis of Iraq and you lost a country to Iran. If you do the same thing again you won’t only lose Syria, but Lebanon with it.”’ The idea was that the Saudis in turn would pressure the Americans to give the Turks the green light to allow proper weapons into the country.
Now suddenly, while on the ground the revolution was still in the hands of small bands of rebels and activists, a set of outside interests started conspiring to direct events in ways amenable to them. There were the Saudis, who never liked Bashar but were wary of more chaos in the Middle East. The Qataris, who were positioning themselves at the forefront of the revolutions of the Arab Spring, using their formidable TV networks to mobilise support and their vast wealth to fund illicit weapons shipments to the Libyans. And of course there were the French and the Americans.
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At the end of January, I met a friend of Abu Abdullah; he’d once been a wealthy man, a merchant, but he’d seen his wealth dwindle as all his businesses came to a halt. His lips were quivering with anger and he kept thumping the table with his fist.
‘Why are the Americans doing this to us? They told us they wouldn’t send us weapons until we united. So we united in Doha. Now what’s their excuse? They say it’s because of the jihadis but it’s the jihadis who are gaining ground. Abu Abdullah is $400,000 in debt and no one is sending him money anymore. It’s all going to the jihadis. They have just bought a former military camp from a battalion that was fighting the government. They went to them, gave them I don’t know how many millions and bought the camp. Maybe we should all become jihadis. Maybe then we’ll get money and support.’
Italy's former intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the rendition of a terror suspect.
The court in Milan also sentenced his former deputy Marco Mancini to nine years in jail over the 2003 kidnapping.
Italy's courts have already convicted in absentia 22 CIA agents over the same case. The abducted Egyptian cleric said he was flown to Egypt and tortured.
In the US, natural disasters have caused the US government to declare national emergencies. Now, an old bill has resurfaced in Congress that allows the government to implement at least six military installations to house US citizens when a national emergency is declared. The National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645 gives the Federal Emergency Management Agency power over the camps and before the bill was shot down due to the broad language and the fears of unchecked government power, but can this bill ever pass? Bob English, civil liberties activist and blogger, sounds off on the issue.
Phi Beta Iota: Buried in the six minutes is the key point — regardless of intentions, this furthers the idea that centralized solutions funded by money that is borrowed or printed, are the solution. It is a good initiative in theory, but in practice it is distant from localized resilience. Think Katrina or Sandy to understand how inept FEMA is with what it already has. The bill leaves open the use of the military as internment overseers — with the National Guard now known to be recruiting internment staff for each of the ten FEMA districts.
BIG BEAR, Calif. (AP) — The extraordinary manhunt for the former Los Angeles police officer suspected of three murders converged Tuesday on a mountain cabin where he was believed to have barricaded himself inside, engaged in a shootout that killed a deputy and then never emerged as the home went up in flames.
A single gunshot was heard from within, and a charred body was found inside.
No matter the outcome, big money and voter suppression crippled the election. This is no way to run the world’s oldest democracy.
Bob Moser
American Prospert, January 28, 2013
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Last November 7, a syndicated cartoon made the rounds in progressive circles. Drawn by Signe Wilkinson, it showed a battered, bruised, patched-up Uncle Sam defiantly flexing his biceps and flashing the dazed grin of a fighter who’d survived a vicious knockdown and prevailed in 15 rounds. The caption, “Democracy Wins,” became a popular meme amid the liberal euphoria that broke out on election night. President Barack Obama had been re-elected, Karl Rove had been embarrassed on national television, and the Sheldon Adelsons and National Rifle Associations of the world had thrown hundreds of millions of dollars down the toilet. Voter suppression had not kept blacks and Latinos from the polls. Citizens United had not done its worst. Democracy had been tried and tested, and emerged banged up but miraculously intact.
Liberals had earned their moment of giddiness. But the assumption that “democracy won” because Obama won and Democrats carried the U.S. Senate is flat wrong. Dangerously wrong. Democracy, already in a weakened state, suffered serious defeats in 2012. The battle to win it back will be long, fierce, and uphill.
