RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13382/inf-treaty-withdrawal

Russia, evidently not restrained by the agreement, is already building missiles outside the INF treaty, according to an October 29, 2018 report from the Congressional Research Service. The bottom line is: If the Russians do not comply with the INF arms control treaty, there is no treaty to be saved.

Worse, as China was never a party to the INF treaty, it is deploying thousands of such INF range missiles in the Pacific, thereby putting the USA and its allies at a serious military disadvantage.

To counter such threats effectively and stand up to the culture of intimidation and threats of both Russia and China, the US needs create a conventional missile and nuclear deterrent capability that is at least on a par with those of Moscow and Beijing. Such deployments, rather than undermining arms control, might even induce Russia and China to negotiate any future arms negotiations with the US in better faith, while simultaneously strengthening US security.

If created with US allies in the Pacific, such relatively inexpensive and easily produced conventionally armed missiles would, in short order, rebalance the Pacific security situation in the favor of the US and its Indo-Pacific alliances.

The US renunciation of the 1987 United States-Soviet Union Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has generated much skepticism in the arms-control community – particularly in much of Europe, and from Japan.

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/isis-groups-nyc-new-years-threat-harvest-them-with-silencers-and-snipers/

An ISIS-supporting media group threatened New York City attacks for New Year’s with suggested tactics including snipers and package bombs.

The latest threat circulated online follows other message from jihadists that have specifically cited Jan. 1 in calling for attacks.

One poster distributed online in mid-November superimposed a masked jihadist wielding a bloody knife over a collage of images from the 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack. It stated that New Year’s Day is “the date of retribution.”

Shortly after that, an ISIS-backing media group released an image of a demolished cityscape with multiple fires, warning, “Soon, Allah willing, the disbelievers will see the very thing they feared: 1-1-2019.”

That same group just released an image of an armed jihadist overlooking New York, stating the city named with a blood-splashed 1/1/2019.

“And hit them with the explosive belts and vehicle bomb, and shock them with adhesive explosives and packages, and harvest them with silencers and snipers, horrify and terrify them with the intrusions,” the text says.

They attribute the directive to late ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the terror group’s chief of its external operations who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2016.

He pressed a detonator on a bomb outside a restaurant, but a federal judge indicates she will allow him to avoid a trial without admitting guilt on a terrorism charge. That’s the situation in a federal terrorism case today in Chicago, and an Obama-appointed judge deserves to be in the national spotlight over her treatment of what is expected to be a most unusual plea. Jason Meisner of the Chicago Tribune explains:

Suburban Hillside teen Adel Daoud was bent on committing a terrorist attack in the Chicago area when he compiled a list of potential targets in August 2012 that included movie theaters, a suburban shopping mall, numerous bars and nightclubs, even a military recruiting center, according to federal prosecutors.

Daoud’s handwritten notes indicated he wanted it to be a “big bomb” and that people would “have to know it’s a terrorist attack,” prosecutors say.There’s more than a note indicating Daoud’s intent to commit a lethal act of terrorism:

A month later, Daoud was arrested by the FBI as he stood in an alley in Chicago’s Loop, pressing the detonator on what he thought was a 1,000-pound car bomb hidden in a Jeep Cherokee he’d parked outside his selected target — the Cactus Bar & Grill on South Wells Street, authorities said.

Mass murder was obviously the intent. And yet, Daoud is reportedly ready to avoid trial without admitting guilt on a terrorism charge:

https://edwardcline.blogspot.com/2018/11/islamic-invaders-from-south.html

Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah is ramping up south of the US border, as witnessed by arrests of its operatives in Bolivia and Peru.

Clarion had an interesting – nay, a startling – description of how Islamic terrorist groups have established footholds in South America to better attack the U.S. And the so-called “caravan” — aka invasion, thousands strong – of illegals is now at the border, with some of them climbing the wall to taunt border guards and U.S. soldiers. The trek from Central America through Mexico is supported by outside parties historically antagonistic to the U.S., but who are these groups?

Clarion reports:

Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah is ramping up south of the US border, as witnessed by arrests of its operatives in Bolivia and Peru.

Information revealed by the State Department’s top counter terror official Nathan Sales confirmed the increased presence of Iran and Hezbollah in Latin and South America.

But will an attack from Canada? Tim Brown of Freedom Post reports:

Canada is today the happy home of thousands of radical Islamists, ex-ISIS fighters and the Muslim Brotherhood. Their numbers continue to grow, with Islamists infiltrating the Canadian government on several levels.

Many Americans assume that all is peaceful and well with their northern neighbor. But security experts here warn that by welcoming radical Islamists, Canada now presents a danger to the United States.

Canada as an ‘Aircraft Carrier’ for Muslim Terrorists to Attack America.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/american-defense-spending-budget-cuts-unwise-global-threats/

A new bipartisan report exposes the dangers facing America.

Last month, when the Treasury Department reported that the fiscal year 2018 deficit was a staggering $779 billion, President Trump made an announcement. Before meeting with his cabinet, the president said he would be asking every secretary to trim 5 percent, “if not more,” from his or her budget. Nor would he exempt the Department of Defense.

Here’s hoping Trump changes his mind. Cutting the resources available to the Pentagon is a bad idea. A new report from the bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission underscores just how bad.

“Providing for the Common Defense” is the consensus of a dozen national-security experts, including Jack Keane, Senator Jon Kyl, Eric Edelman, Gary Roughead, Michael Morell, Anne Patterson, and Roger Zakheim. These are sober people. Experienced people. They are not given to exaggeration. Yet their conclusions are alarming. “The security and wellbeing of the United States are at greater risk than at any time in decades,” they write. “America’s military superiority—the hard-power backbone of its global influence and national security—has eroded to a dangerous degree.”

Great-power competition returned as our military advantage dissipated. “America’s ability to defend its allies, its partners, and its own vital interests is increasingly in doubt.”

That’s more than a wakeup call. It’s an air horn inches from your ear.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/google_cloud_is_busted_by_russians_and_chinese.html

Perhaps it is a good thing that Google employees convinced their management not to do business with the Pentagon, thereby pulling out of participating in a $10 billion cloud computing contract called JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure).

On November 12th, Google’s services were hit by a massive hack allegedly carried out by Russians, Chinese, and Nigerians. The hack redirected all of Google’s search, business, and cloud computing operations through servers run in these countries using a hack called the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This gave the hackers unprecedented access to extremely sensitive information on users and direct access to any data that was not independently encrypted (one presumes that the typical computer network security protocols were automatically compromised by being run through servers that did not belong to Google). Even more critically, it gave the three countries complete control over all of Google’s operations and data. While the hack only lasted about an hour and a half, it demonstrated in clear terms just how vulnerable computer networks are and showed that the critical infrastructure could have been taken down, had the hackers wanted to do so.

For the record, the Google Cloud and Google’s G-Suite business services have good security practices, and the Google Cloud in particular has some security features that are quite advanced. But that did not stop the BGP hack, because BGP hacks exploit the IP addresses and information routing addresses that are built into the modern internet. Worse yet, computer experts say that current technology can’t stop a BGP hack.

The Pentagon with its JEDI contract wants to migrate its computer networks to the cloud, and just not any old cloud but a cloud system run by private enterprise that is shared with the public. While the Pentagon doubtlessly will use some form of encryption for its cloud operations, it cannot protect the exploitation of its networks if exposed on a public network. Moreover, the Pentagon has yet to explain how it will back up the system if it fails for any reason.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271930/return-taliban-five-lloyd-billingsley

In the run-up to the November election, five Taliban commanders freed from Guantanamo in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl rejoined the Taliban’s political office in Qatar. That development calls for a look at the back story.

“One big concern is that the U.S. will be releasing five Taliban commanders in exchange for Bergdahl,” the Washington Post explained in 2014. “So who are these men? And what might they do when released?” The Post weighed in on both counts.

Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhw helped to create the Taliban movement in 1994 and once served as its interior minister. According to his Guantanamo case file, he was known to have close ties to Osama Bin Laden of al Qaeda, prime mover of the 9/11 attacks.

Mullah Mohammad Fazl had served as a senior commander in the Taliban army during the 1990s, rising to chief of staff. He likely supervised the killing of thousands of Shiite Muslims near Kabul and was present during a prison riot that claimed CIA operative Johnny Spann. According to his file, if released Fazl would likely rejoin the Taliban and resume hostilities against the United States and coalition forces.

Mullah Norullah Noori was one of the Taliban’s provincial governors and rumored to be a player in the massacre of Shiites. According to his file, he is a significant figure who encourages acts of aggression.

Abdul Haz Wasiq, deputy intelligence chief for the Taliban, used his office to support al Qaeda. Wasiz also forged alliances between the Taliban and other Islamic militants.

For his part, Mohammed Nabi Omari was a member of a joint al Qaeda-Taliban cell, and one of the most significant Taliban leaders detained at Guantanamo. All five Taliban bosses were high risk and posed considerable threat to the United States and its allies. Even so, POTUS 44 pushed for their release, which came as a surprise to Senate Intelligence Committee boss Dianne Feinstein, a left-leaning San Francisco Democrat.

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/homegrown-jihad-10-years-of-terrorist-radicalization-in-the-somali-american-community/

Ten years ago today — the same day that Barack Obama was elected president — a group of young Somali-American men left Minneapolis intending to join the al-Shabaab terrorist group in Somalia. Nearly two dozen men were part of that first wave of terror recruits, but they wouldn’t be the last. And Somalia wouldn’t be their only destination.

This proved to be one of the first major signs of an escalating problem of terrorist radicalization in the Somali-American community that has continued for the past decade. Among the fallout from that radicalization has been several attempted terror attacks here in the U.S., and the death of these youths in fields of jihad abroad.

I was one of the first to speak out about the problem nearly a year before.

In December 2007, I wrote about my attempts to get Homeland Security to prevent the entry of a known deputy of a U.S. designated terrorist leader from keynoting a series of fundraisers in Minneapolis, Columbus, and Washington, D.C. — three of the largest Somali communities in the country.

That speaker, Zakariya Mahmoud Haji Abdi, was here to raise funds and to recruit for the jihad in Somalia. I noted in my report that a summary, published in Somalia, recorded the fundraiser held in Minneapolis. That event summary is still online.

It was later acknowledged that the fundraisers I warned federal officials about were the tipping point for radicalization in the Somali community.

The first group composed of six men from Minneapolis left only several days after the Zakariya Abdi fundraiser.

Among that group was Shirwa Ahmed, who conducted a suicide terror attack on October 28, 2008, just a few days before the next group left. Ahmed had arrived in the U.S. at an early age, had done well in school, went to college, and had a good job. But he fell into a group at the Abubakar as-Siddique mosque in Minneapolis, where most of the men who later left for Somalia attended.