Another Obama Victory--Al Qaeda And Taliban Taking Control Of Afghanistan

House Panel Expert: U.S. ‘Losing in Afghanistan’ as Al-Qaeda Grows Stronger

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Reuters

by EDWIN MORA27 Apr 2017434

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WASHINGTON D.C. — Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is growing stronger with the resurgence of the Taliban in recent years and “remains a direct threat” to America more than a decade and a half after the United States began targeting both terrorist groups in response to 9/11, an expert tells House lawmakers.

In October 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, and the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda has been raging since.

President Donald Trump inherited chaos and overall deteriorating security conditions in the war-devastated country.

Under former President Barack Obama’s watch, the Taliban seized more territory in Afghanistan than during any time since the U.S. military removed the jihadist group from power in 2001 and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) gained a foothold in the country.

The U.S. military “downplayed this problem of the Taliban” during Obama’s tenure, Bill Roggio, an expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and editor of the Long War Journal, told the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism.

“If that’s the attitude of the U.S. military towards the Taliban inside Afghanistan, we will continue to lose this war,” he later added. “We need to reassess Afghanistan… our policy in Afghanistan is a mess frankly, and the Trump administration needs to decide what to do and how to do it quickly.”

“The Taliban—al-Qaeda relationship remains strong to this day. And with the Taliban gaining control of a significant percentage of Afghanistan’s territory, al-Qaeda has more areas to plant its flag,” also said Roggio in his written testimony.

Last Friday, the Taliban carried out its deadliest-ever attack on a major military base in northern Balkh province that left as many as 250 soldiers dead.

Although the U.S. military argues the Afghan conflict is at a “stalemate,” Roggio told the House panel that America is losing the war.

“We are losing in Afghanistan… and The Taliban controls or contests at least half of Afghanistan,” Roggio told lawmakers, adding in his written testimony:

Al-Qaeda’s footprint inside Afghanistan remains a direct threat to U.S. national security and, with the resurgence of the Taliban, it is a threat that is only growing stronger. Al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan has not occurred in a vacuum. It has maintained its strength in the country since the U.S. invasion, launched a new branch, AQIS [al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent], and established training camps with the help and support of the Taliban.

Roggio testified alongside Dr. Seth Jones from the RAND Corporation and Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown from the Brookings Institution.

Echoing the U.S. military, the experts told lawmakers that Russia and Afghanistan’s neighbor Iran are providing military assistance to the Taliban, adding that neighboring Pakistan provides sanctuary to the terrorist group as well as its al-Qaeda and Haqqani Network allies.

According to the Pentagon, the Haqqani Network poses the “primary threat” to the American military in Afghanistan.

The experts noted that a U.S. military withdrawal from the war-devastated country would spell trouble for America’s national security.

The United States has already invested nearly $120 billion in nation-building efforts in the country.

Despite the threat posed by the Afghan Taliban, the group is not officially listed as a terrorist group by the United States like its ally al-Qaeda and its rival ISIS.

Roggio pointed out that although ISIS’s presence in Afghanistan is a problem, the Taliban remains a bigger threat.

ISIS is considered an enemy by both the al-Qaeda and the Taliban, considered the strongest group in the country.

“The reason the Taliban matters is the Taliban and al-Qaeda, they remain tied at the hip,” testified Roggio. “The Taliban refuse to surrender al-Qaeda members — Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. They continued to fight side by side. Al-Qaeda serves as a force multiplier.”

“The Islamic State is on the fringe. It’s a small problem in Afghanistan compared to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Pakistani jihadist groups that operate there (in ISIS’ Afghan stronghold Nangarhar province),” he added. They operate primarily in four districts in Nangarhar province and have a minimal presence in the north, and it certainly is a problem.

This week, ISIS in Nangarhar killed two U.S. troops and wounded another, the Pentagon revealed.

“Our efforts seemed to be focused on the Islamic State at this point in time while largely ignoring what the Taliban is doing throughout the country and that is directly challenging the Afghan military. They’re going toe to toe; They’re raiding their bases; They’re taking control of territory,” said Roggio.

Could We Be Heading For A Major Electrical Blackout

Iranian Cyber Hackers Infiltrate US Power Grids in Attempt to Cause Blackouts

By Lea Speyer December 22, 2015 , 9:30 am

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“For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.” (Psalm 91:3)

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Iran-flag-cyber-attack-.jpg

(Photo: Breaking Israel News)

Iranian hackers were successful in opening network pathways among US power grids, making the entire country susceptible to a cyber attack, the Associated Press has revealed in a startling new report.

Over the last decade, almost a dozen foreign hackers have successfully gained enough remote access to the US power grid to cause total blackouts. While the public rarely hears of these cyber attacks, the government’s response to them are highly intricate and more often than not, classified.

Although the Iranian hacking incident is worrying, it is not unique. In 2012 and 2013, Russian hackers sent and received encrypted commands to US power generators and public utilities. In separate hacking campaigns, the Department of Homeland Security revealed that Russian hackers had planted malware in private US energy companies that allowed them to engage in espionage.

According to experts who wished to remain anonymous due to security issues, the Iranian cyber attackers gained enough power to control the entire operational capability of the US power grid.

These same experts predict that while the nationwide blackouts most feared by the intelligence community have not yet occurred, these sophisticated hackers are biding their time and have the capability to strike at will.

“If the geopolitical situation changes and Iran wants to target these facilities, if they have this kind of informations it will make it a lot easier,” explained former US Air Force cyberwarfare operations officers Robert M. Lee. “It will also help them stay quiet and stealthy inside.”

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/useful_banner_manager_banners/27-BIN-OpEd-Experts-600WIDE1.png

Lillian Ablon, a cybersecurity expert at the RAND Corporation, explained that hackers “want to be stealth. That’s the ultimate power, because when you need to do something you are already in place.”

As part of its investigation, the AP conducted case studies of the state of the nation’s energy infrastructure and the readiness of the industry against cyber attacks. In one disturbing incident, involving independent power production company Calpine, who calls itself “America’s largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal resources,” Iranian hackers breached the company’s systems as far back as August 2013 and gained access to classified information.

Hackers collected usernames and passwords, detailed engineering drawings of power stations and networks from California to New York, as well as additional diagrams explaining how local power plants transmit information back to the company’s virtual cloud.

All this information, taken together, would eventually allow a hacker to shut down generating stations and network communications as well as cause near blackouts across the country. Cybersecurity experts believe the attack on Calpine could still be ongoing.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/anonymous-hacker-cyber-temple-mount-computer.jpg

A Palestinian youth wearing masks used by computer hackers who attack a number of Israeli websites annually, seen back-dropped by the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem’s Old City. April 08 2013. (Photo: Sliman Khader/FLASH90)

The US power grid is one of the most susceptible targets for hackers wishing to wreak havoc on the American government and public. The network of aging substations and decrepit equipment, which was not built with network security considerations, are easy fodder for cyber attackers. In many cases, the software running local power grids still run on Windows ‘95 and FORTAN, a programming language developed in the 1950s.

“Some of the control systems boot off floppy disks,” explained Patrick Miller, a cybersecurity expert who evaluated hydroelectric dam cybersecurity for the US Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers. “Some dams have modeling systems that run on something that looks like a washing machine hooked up to tape spools. It looks like the early NASA stuff that went to the moon.”

To make matters even more complicated, independent power sources, such as solar panel and wind farms, must be remotely monitored and controlled, adding weaker entry points for hackers to access the power grid.

Cyber attacks by nation-states are not the only cause for concern among intelligence and industry officials. Homeland Security spokesman SY Lee told officials in October that even ISIS is attempting to hack US power companies. Caitlin Durkovich, Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed that “ISIS is beginning to perpetrate cyber attacks.”

Earlier this year, Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood said in a speech that the government is in need of a wakeup call when it comes to protecting the energy grid. “If we don’t protect the energy sector,” she stated, “we are putting every other sector of the economy in peril.”

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/56781/iranian-cyber-hackers-infiltrate-us-power-grids-in-attempt-to-cause-blackouts-middle-east/#OIU4x30ZR03isr25.99

ISIS Getting Stronger, More Powerful And Richer Each Day

The ISIS economy just got a huge boost

By Pamela EngelJune 1, 2015 12:15 PM

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(Bassem Tellawi/AP) A symbolic trade caravan representing the prosperous trade during the era of Queen Zanobya 260-273AD during a show held in the ancient city of Palmyra, some 240 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Damascus Friday, Sept. 27, 2002.The US is trying to choke off the Islamic State's revenue streams in Iraq and Syria. But the biggest slice of the ISIS budget may come from taxing the "Caliphate's" captive population, a source of wealth for the group that's harder for international actors to control.

While it's almost impossible to know the exact breakdown of the Islamic State's balance sheet, experts estimate that its biggest source of revenue is taxation. This means that its seizure of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and the Iraqi provincial capital of Ramadi could give the group's funds a big boost since both cities still have civilian populations. 

The US has been targeting ISIS' oil revenues and donations from "overseas benefactors." But that still leaves ISIS free to collect millions in taxes, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh) has claimed territory across Syria and Iraq, forcing those who stay in those areas to pay taxes to the jihadist militants, sometimes in return for government-like services.

For example, sources in Palmyra, the ancient Syrian city Islamic State militants overran in May, told The New York Times that after executing perceived enemies, the group fixed the city's power plant, turned on the water pumps, and handed out free bread.

This is all part of the group's long-term strategy to gain a foothold and establish authority in the areas it claims to govern. ISIS wants to create an implicit social contract with those living in its self-proclaimed "caliphate," or an Islamic empire that aims to unite the world's Muslims under a single religious and political entity.

By collecting taxes from residents and providing civil services in return, ISIS appearst to behave like a government, creating a greater sense of legitimacy for the group's rule. But there's a thin line between taxation and extortion in the Islamic State.

"ISIS makes most of its money from plunder," Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider in May. "We’re seeing that over and over again. They go from one town to the next and knock over a bank or several banks and go house to house and extract whatever is of value."

"It's a racket," Schanzer said. "And that's how ISIS continues to survive and thrive."

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Analysts at the nonprofit RAND Corporation estimated that in 2014, ISIS raked in $600 million from extortion and taxation and $500 million in money stolen from Iraqi banks.

In addition to giving ISIS added legitimacy, this fundraising strategy helps to sustain the group financially so it can continue its rampage across the Middle East.

ISIS also makes money from looting and selling antiquities on the black market, and Palmyra is known for its ancient ruins and museums.

Schanzer noted that the porous border between Turkey and Syria could make it difficult to police smuggling.

"You’ve got these fairly lawless borders, borders that have been exploited repeatedly," Schanzer said. "So the assumption is that we’ve got easy smuggling routes [to bring] illicit goods over the border."

Rand Study Shows LOW Previously Uninsured Enrollment Rate And Most Of Those Have Not Paid A Premium Yet. We Suspect Uninsured Numbers Will Be Around 1 Million (Out Of 40 Million.) That Is What Failure Looks Like!

The Coming Obamacare Shock for 170 Million Americans

 

By Edward MorrisseyApril 3, 2014 5:15 AM

Barack Obama declared victory this week as the deadline to avoid the penalty for the individual mandate to carry health insurance passed on Monday.  “The Affordable Care Act is here to stay,” the President insisted as he announced that 7.1 million people had enrolled in private insurance through Obamacare. “The debate over repealing this law is over.”

Related Stories

• Obamacare Enrollment Is One Of The Biggest Comeback Stories Of The Year Business Insider
• White House Says 5 Million Selected Obamacare Plans The Fiscal Times
• Many uninsured still unaware about ObamacareBankrate.com
• President to Republicans: Obamacare Is ‘Here to Stay’ The Fiscal Times
• What we know - and don't know - about Obamacare CNNMoney.com

Consider that presidential wish casting in a midterm cycle in which Democrats will have to constantly defend their support for the unpopular law. As Jimmy Fallon pointed out later the same evening, the numbers were neither impressive nor reliable. “It’s amazing what you can achieve when you make something mandatory,” Fallon told his laughing audience, “fine people if they don’t do it — and keep extending the deadline for months.” 

Related: Obamacare is a “Haves and Have Nots’ Health System 

The public has hardly been in a celebratory or a laughing mood. Polls show that the American public remains as opposed to the ACA as ever, with 55 percent of Quinnipiac respondents disapproving of the law. Only 39 percent approve of Obama’s handling of health care policy, which has until recently been a Democratic Party strength. For that matter, Obama only gets a 40 percent approval rating on the economy and jobs, to which House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants the debate to turn now that the Obamacare debate “is over.” 

Pelosi and Obama may want to be careful with that wish casting, because the two debates are now closely related. A new study from the American Health Policy Institute – recently launched by former Bush administration Deputy Secretary of HHS Tevi Troy – shows that large employers expect to face steep compliance costs, starting in the fall. Their cost estimates range between $4,800 and $5,900 per employee over the next decade.  The total cost to large employers over the next decade will run between $151 billion and $186 billion, according to the 100 companies surveyed by AHPI that employ 10,000 or more people. 

That doesn’t include additional price increases from insurers attempting to cover bad bets in their 2014 premium rates after the first round of Obamacare. "I do think that it's likely premium rate shocks are coming,” CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield CEO Chet Burrell told Reuters. “I think they begin to make themselves at least partially known in 2015 and fully known in 2016.” The consensus is that premiums will rise by double-digit percentages next year from their already-inflated levels for 2014 coverage. 

The Obama administration unilaterally delayed a portion of the employer mandate, but it still takes effect for those employing more than 200 workers at the beginning of January 2015.  Large employers have to budget as soon as this summer to deal with those costs.  Most of them will start scaling down their so-called “Cadillac” health care plans to avoid the taxes those will accrue by 2016, getting ahead of the curve. 

Related: Obamacare--Taxpayers in the Hole for $1.5 Trillion 

Many may choose to give up on offering health insurance at all. The data from HHS after the passage of Obamacare showed that the Obama administration expected as many as 93 million Americans to be thrown out of their existing coverage, with employers opting to either scale down or get out, paying the fine instead. 

Either way, the ACA imposes massive costs on employers, whether those come in the form of fines, higher premiums, red tape, or a combination of all three. Businesses that have new and massive costs imposed on them by regulatory changes no longer can use that capital for investment, risk-taking, and expansion. That means fewer new jobs for Americans, and fewer opportunities to move up the economic ladder as well. 

Now, perhaps this would make sense if the program that plans to impose all these costs actually did what Democrats promised it would do – insure the uninsured. However, the numbers offered up by Obama on Tuesday fall very far short of the numbers his administration used to argue that a systemic overhaul was needed to address “the fierce urgency of now” with the uninsured, which the LA Times recalls as between 45-48 million. 

In fact, it’s not clear at all that the so-called enrollments hailed on April Fools Day offer a break-even point with the uninsured the ACA created. Those numbers are estimated at five to six million Americans in the individual market, many of whom now pay higher premiums and have to clear higher deductibles as the cost of buying more insurance coverage than they believed they needed in the first place. 

Related: Obamacare Spells the End of Employer-Based Coverage   

So how many of these seven-million-plus claimed by Obama actually started off without any insurance at all?The Times reported that from an unpublished Rand Corporation study that of the six million who signed up through Obamacare exchanges for private insurance, a third of those had no insurance previous to the rollout. That would come to 4.4 percent of the low end of the LA Times estimate, if that number represented actual enrollments – but it doesn’t. 

The Daily Mail’s David Martosko reports that the same Rand study shows that only 53 percent of those previously uninsured have actually paid premiums for their selection. The Rand estimate of the newly covered comes just short of 859,000 – or just 1.9 percent of the total number of uninsured that Democrats insisted had to be helped through a costly and disruptive overhaul of the health-insurance industry. Even adding in the estimated six million added to Medicaid – most of whom would have qualified without Obamacare – the first pass only accounts for 15 percent of the problem, as defined by Obama and his fellow Democrats in 2009-10. 

The debate is far from over on Obamacare, no matter what the President declares from the White House, although it’s easy to understand why Obama wishes that were true.  His signature initiative will be a huge “stinkburger” to the 170 million Americans dependent on employer-sponsored insurance.  The businesses that provide this benefit and their employees will have to deal with the “meanwich” Obamacare delivers in higher costs when its mandate forces those employers to react – just weeks ahead of the midterms.