President Barack Obama unveils his defense strategy.

President Barack Obama unveiled his defense strategy, which features an
emphasis on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) or Drones.

This coming fresh on the heels of a drone capture by Iran and a "drone
virus" that plagued some aircraft systems this year. Maybe Iran will
catch a virus if it successfully mines data from the captured RQ-170
drone.

So what does a future of UAS drones look like? What sorts of drone craft
are in development? Take a look below to find out.

Take a look at the following link-
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-usa-military-obama-idUSTRE8031Z020120106

"Let us hope James Cameron isn't a prophet...I seriously doubt he is."

Consul Nicholas Moore

Hope

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - The family of a U.S. soldier held captive by
the Taliban for over two years said on Wednesday they were optimistic
about the possibility of talks between the Afghan insurgent group and
countries including the United States.

They expressed hope that Bowe Bergdahl would be freed "as soon as
possible" in a statement issued a day after the Taliban said they had
reached a preliminary agreement to set up a political office in the Gulf
Arab country of Qatar.

"Every member of the Afghan government is set for life. They know when
we leave the people will overthrow the USA controlled puppet government.
That's why all of them have used the USA aid money and built mansions in
Dubai for them and their families and friends to retire at. Last year it
was reported that their VP arrived in Dubai with $76 million in USA cash
strapped on wooden pallets. Our troops are there to protect contractors
who are raping the resources and politicians are playing alone in
exchange for kickbacks and campaign contributions."

Kelly (reviewer on the article)

http://news.yahoo.com/family-u-soldier-held-taliban-hopeful-over-qatar-0
64342848.html

Insight: West in political crisis has echoes of 1930s

(More Confirmation That Our Present Leaders Have Failed The American
People)

By Stella Dawson

http://news.yahoo.com/insight-west-political-crisis-echoes-1930s-1304067
33.html

"When the United States, Europe and China go into a crisis of this sort,
it can reasonably be said that the center of gravity of the world's
economy and most of its military power is in crisis. It is not a trivial
moment," Friedman wrote in "Dominoes of Doom" on the website
EconomyWatch.com.

Heather Conley, a former U.S. Under Secretary of State for European
Affairs and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said this near political paralysis seen in the
United States and Europe is common when governments are at an inflection
point.

"Without decisive direction and leadership, we march in place or attempt
to muddle through, uncertain of which path to take. The West is at such
a moment," she said.

"The best that can be hoped for in 2012 is a muddling through, where
economic growth in the United States averages around 2 percent compared
with zero in the euro zone, analysts said. World growth, buoyed by
emerging markets, looks set to average around 3 percent."

Martin Sass, founder of the New York based hedge fund M.D. Sass with
$7.5 billion under management, is among those pinning his hopes on the
elections breaking the stalemate. "I never expected the level of
dysfunction in the U.S. and European lawmaking ... and I never saw
fundamentals count for so little in the stock market. Politics and
contagion were the drivers of this underperforming market, not balance
sheets and earnings."

"Two narratives have emerged of what went wrong. The left casts the
banker as the prime villain, unpunished by the political elite who
allowed CEOs to violate all the principles of fiduciary and moral
responsibility in pursuit of personal gain, which fuels the perception
of a political system in collusion with a criminal financial elite it is
unwilling to punish."

The right-wing narrative casts big government as the villain for
exploiting the crisis to expand its regulatory powers that intrude on
free markets, and to spend money on huge bailouts and social welfare
programs that have only exploded the budget deficit.

In both narratives, the victim is the average citizen who is left paying
a gigantic bill - through high unemployment, higher taxes and lost
economic opportunity. Either way, the compact between political
governance and economic life has broken."

Although Western democracy has demonstrated the flexibility to reform
when facing severe challenges, the shadow of the 1930s looms large. This
uncertainty over whether strong political leadership can emerge in 2012
is haunting markets.

John Browne, senior economic consultant to Euro Pacific Capital, is
among the pessimists. He told clients in his year end note that American
and European Union politicians have shown utter unwillingness to take
tough decisions they know should be enacted to avoid looming global
economic disaster.

"With an estimated $6 trillion plus solvency shortfall of the euro zone
banks, and $16 trillion in U.S. public debt, it will take leadership of
far greater caliber to avert a disaster. Such leadership is nowhere in
sight," he said.

Tortured Afghan girl, Sahar Gul, to go to India for treatment

 

                                   


Sahar Gul, a 15-year-old Afghan girl who was brutally tortured for months by her mother-in-law, will be sent to India for medical treatment, the Associated Press reported.

Gul, a child bride in Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province, was locked in a basement and tortured by her in laws in an attempt to force her into prostitution, police said. She was starved, burned with hot irons, and her fingernails and clumps of hair were ripped out.

A video given to the BBC shows the extent of Gul's injuries. Police told the BBC that she also had chunks of flesh cut out with pliers.
Gul's mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been arrested, Afghan officials told the AP. Police are still searching for her husband.

According to the AP:

"The case has shocked Afghanistan, though rights activists say serious abuses against women and girls in the conservative society are common."

Gul was freed last week, and is being treated at a Kabul hospital. Afghan officials said she would be sent to India for treatment, but there were no further details of the treatment she would receive, the AP said.

The BBC reported that Gul had been married off to a 30-year-old man about seven months ago, when she was 14 years old.

An uncle called the police when her parents hadn't seen her for several months.
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has called for an investigation into Gul's torture, and said that those responsible will be punished, CNN reported.

Guantanamo Bay Taliban Detainees To Be Released: Report

Several high-ranking officials are included among the detainees who
would be released, The Guardian notes. Fox News reported last week that
Mullah Mohammed Fazl, who was suspected of killing Shiite Muslims in
Afghanistan, is among those being considered for release...

Please read the full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/03/guantanamo-bay-taliban-release_
n_1182074.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl10%7Csec3_lnk1%26pLid%3D1246
12

Something Is Wrong With The Program (And this is only a few examples)

Life is a satire...


More than 100 apples mysteriously rained down upon a small British town on Monday night. The still-unexplained apple shower left 20 yards of city streets and car windshields covered in the cascading fruit just after the daily rush hour.
The news immediately brought up comparisons to biblical tales of raining frogs and whether such reported freaks of nature actually occurred. In this instance, no one has officially confirmed when, how or if the apple storm truly took place as described.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/unexplained-shower-apples-falls-sky-over-town-221921738.html

The quiet town of Beebe, Arkansas, woke up on Saturday, January 1, 2011, to find thousands of dead red-winged blackbirds on the ground. The bird corpses stretched for miles, yet an aerial survey showed that no other dead birds were found outside this specific area. "I thought the mayor was messing with me when he called me," a town street supervisor said. "He got me up at 4'oclock in the morning and told me we had birds falling out of the sky." Estimates have put the number of dead birds at between 4,000 and 5,000. Wow, that's nuts. But surely there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this phenomenon, right?

Um, no, actually. Nobody has any idea why or how this happened.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/01/thousands_of_blackbirds_just_d.html

An estimated 20 tons of dead herring fish mysteriously washed up on the cost of Norway and then disappeared. The fish remains turned up on Norway's northern coast on New Year's Eve, and officials are still looking to explain just how and why they showed up.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/20-tons-herring-wash-norway-coast-183358564.html


 

Al Qaeda and Taliban Uniting With Pakistani Terrorists Against U.S. in Afghanistan.

"On the eve of our peace talks with the terrorists no less. Who saw that
coming?!"

Consul Nicholas Moore

Prominent al-Qaida and Afghan Taliban fighters asked Pakistani militants
in a pair of rare meetings to set aside their differences and step up
support for the battle against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, militant
commanders said Monday.

The meetings were held in Pakistan's tribal region in November and
December at the request of the Afghan Taliban's leadership council. They
could indicate the militants are struggling in Afghanistan, or
conversely, that they want to make sure they hit U.S. forces hard as the
Americans accelerate their withdrawal this year. That could give the
Taliban additional leverage in any peace negotiations.

"For God's sake, forget all your differences and give us fighters to
boost the battle against America in Afghanistan," senior al-Qaida
commander Abu Yahya al-Libi told Pakistani fighters at a meeting on Dec.
11, according to a militant who attended.

Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud attended the two meetings on
Nov. 27 in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, and Dec. 11 in the
Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, Pakistani Taliban spokesman
Ehsanullah Ehsan told The Associated Press.

Other prominent Pakistani militant leaders who attended included
Mehsud's deputy, Waliur Rehman, and two commanders who have focused on
fighting in Afghanistan, Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur, Ehsan said. Also
there was Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan militant based in North
Waziristan who leads one of the most feared groups fighting in
Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban fighters at the meetings included Zabiullah Mujahid,
a well-known spokesman, and Maulvi Sangin, who claims to have custody of
U.S. Army Pvt. Bowe R. Bergdahl, captured in Afghanistan in 2009.

The four Pakistani commanders and Haqqani agreed to form a council to
resolve differences, said two Pakistani Taliban commanders who attended
the meetings. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the issue.

Al-Libi, the al-Qaida commander, asked the Pakistani militants to
provide additional fighters to the Afghan Taliban in March, when the
snow melts from the passes connecting Pakistan and Afghanistan and the
spring fighting season begins.

Ehsan, the Pakistani Taliban spokesman, said the militants agreed, but
that did not mean the group would end its fight against the Pakistani
government.

"We will continue our jihad against Pakistani security forces," Ehsan
pledged.

Does anyone see light at the end of the tunnel!?

Read full article-
http://news.yahoo.com/al-qaeda-taliban-uniting-pakistani-terrorists-agai
nst-u-215307378.html

Could A Solar Storm Shut Down The U.S.?

Damage to power grids and other communications systems could be
catastrophic, the scientists conclude, with effects leading to a
potential loss of governmental control of the situation.

Modern power grids are so interconnected that a big space storm - the
type expected to occur about once a century - could cause a cascade of
failures that would sweep across the United States, cutting power to 130
million people or more in this country alone, the new report concludes.

"Impacts would be felt on interdependent infrastructures with, for
example, potable water distribution affected within several hours;
perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; immediate or
eventual loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone
service, transportation, fuel resupply and so on," the report states.

Outages could take months to fix, the researchers say. Banks might
close, and trade with other countries might halt.

"Emergency services would be strained, and command and control might be
lost," write the researchers, led by Daniel Baker, director of the
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of
Colorado in Boulder.

"Whether it is terrestrial catastrophes or extreme space weather
incidents, the results can be devastating to modern societies that
depend in a myriad of ways on advanced technological systems," Baker
said in a statement released with the report.


The race is on for better forecasting abilities, as the next peak in
solar activity is expected to come around 2012.


While the sun is in a lull now, activity can flare up at any moment, and
severe space weather - how severe, nobody knows - will ramp up a year or
two before the peak.


Some scientists expect the next peak to bring more severe events than
other recent peaks.


"A catastrophic failure of commercial and government infrastructure in
space and on the ground can be mitigated through raising public
awareness, improving vulnerable infrastructure and developing advanced
forecasting capabilities," the report states. "Without preventive
actions or plans, the trend of increased dependency on modern
space-weather sensitive assets could make society more vulnerable in the
future."


This report was commissioned and funded by NASA. Experts from around the
world in industry, government and academia participated. It was released
this week.

(It's interesting how after we've entered the new year 2012 NASA has
shown a contradiction to the dire warnings they mention in this article;
apparently they've changed their minds. Don Yeomans from NASA says,
"... the world should expect nothing more next year than the winter
solstice, the longest night of the year.")

Well which is it NASA?

Solar storms a hazard or not?

Astronomer Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object program
office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told
SPACE.com the following:

"Solar storms - deluges of energetic particles from the sun - do happen,
usually waxing and waning in cycles that last roughly 11 years. When
these charged particles collide with Earth, they can trigger auroras and
damage satellites and power lines, although not really inflicting any
lasting harm, Yeomans said.

There are accounts of a solar "super-storm" slamming into Earth in 1859.
Although that caused relatively little damage back then, there are
concerns that such a storm might cause far more harm now that our world
is more dependent on electronics.

Yet, there is no evidence that such a super-storm will happen on Dec. 21
of next year, Yeomans said."

-
http://news.yahoo.com/apocalypse-not-now-2012-doomsday-predictions-debun
ked-nasa-055304813.html

Does Astronomer Don Yeomans speak for all of NASA? Because a report
commissioned and funded by NASA with participation from experts from
around the world in industry, government and academia say different;
"The race is on for better forecasting abilities, as the next peak in
solar activity is expected to come around 2012."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478024,00.html

Negotiations With The Taliban; Negotiations With Terrorists Still A Go

Please read the full article at the following link-
http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-open-office-us-looks-afghan-political-solu
tion-125535808.html

"Direct negotiations between the United States and the Taliban began
early this year and sped up starting in the summer, in part because the
White House has doubts about the military's ability to decisively win
the war, according to two Western officials. The war's costs, widespread
corruption in the Afghan government, Pakistani intransigence and
continued violence in eastern Afghanistan - even as violence in southern
Afghanistan decreases - have led many to lower expectations for what can
be accomplished by a shrinking number of U.S. troops. (Negotiations with
the very people who have been killing American service members are now
seen as the only way to salvage a positive outcome.)"

"Insurgencies end with political processes," said a senior
administration official. "We have been very clear that we are open to a
reconciliation process provided Taliban who engage in it recognize that
the process will be Afghan-led and that at the end of the day they break
ties with al Qaeda, renounce violence, and accept the Afghan
Constitution, including its protections of women's and human rights."
(If you believe this is going to happen then perhaps you still believe
in the tooth fairy.)

Virtually all of the Taliban's senior leadership live in Pakistan, (Our
Allies), and the Afghan government is hoping to move senior Taliban
leaders - estimated at more than 100 families - from their homes in
Pakistan across the border into Afghanistan, according to two Afghan
officials involved in the peace process.

As part of the negotiations, the Taliban have long identified five
prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay who should be transferred as a
"confidence building measure."

"When asked about the murders, [Fazl] and [Noori] did not express any
regret and stated they did what they needed to do in their struggle to
establish their ideal state," reads a Feb. 2008 Guantanamo assessment of
Fazl that was released by Wikileaks. "[Fazl] had operational
associations with significant al-Qaida and other extremist personnel...
If released, [Fazl] would likely rejoin the Taliban and establish ties
with anti-Coalition militias participating in hostilities against US and
Coalition forces in Afghanistan."

"Their intention isn't wrong. But they're in a hurry and want to get the
credit," the official said. "The best way forward is to be patient, well
coordinated, consistent... and it should come from an Afghan voice."

"Washington's desire to reconcile was never more apparent than in a
recent interview by Vice President Joe Biden with Newsweek. The Taliban
is, "per se, not our enemy. That's critical," he said. "There is not a
single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy
assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S.
interests." (Not our enemies? So, then are they our friends? What kind
of a stupid statement is "The Taliban is, "per se, not our enemy.")

"The goal in Afghanistan, Biden continued, was restricted to diminishing
al Qaeda, strengthening the Afghan government, "and at the same time try
to get the Taliban to move in the direction to see to it that they,
through reconciliation, commit not to be engaged with al Qaeda or any
other organization that they would harbor to do damage to us and our
allies." (Well let's hope our alliance with the Taliban works out, huh?
Let's also hope for world peace, and money to grow on trees? Why can't
we just learn from our past mistakes?)

Biden's statement went down poorly in Afghanistan, where Taliban bombs
continue to kill thousands of Afghan citizens. (Those narrow minded
victims who are intolerable of the Taliban culture... Absolutely
ridiculous for one to wonder why Biden's statement went down poorly!)

"We are moving in the right direction toward a commitment that the
mistakes made in the past won't be repeated," said the senior Afghan
official involved in the peace process.

Please read the following article for a breakdown (validated evidence)
for where our leaders went wrong with this war, and read what our
organization is about on the homepage to see how we can begin making
things right-

http://consulmoore.blogspot.com/2011/10/origin-of-our-threat-danger-of-t
heir.html