Cartoonist Luz: “I am a cop. I am Jewish. I am a Muslim. I am an atheist.”

MoonHowler

“I am a cop. I am Jewish. I am a Muslim. I am an atheist.”

3 million copies of Charlie Hebdo went on sale today which is about 4 times the usual distribution. The cover depicts a crying Prophet Mohammad carrying a sign saying I am Charlie. Above the Prophet are the words: All is Forgiven.

As citizens of the strongest democracy in the world. we have to ask ourselves if it is wise to poke the bear at this point. We HAVE to poke the bear. Charlie Hebdo HAS to poke the bear. We won’t back down.

We all live in pluralistic societies where we are free to speak our own minds, regardless of how obnoxious that free speech is. The sword must be the pen. The sword must not be machine guns and other weapons of destruction.

Read More

Terrorist attack on satirical newspaper in Paris

MoonHowler

terror

Washingtonpost.com:

Masked gunmen opened fire Wednesday in the offices of a satirical newspaper in Paris that has faced previous threats for Muslim-related cartoons, killing at least 12 people before escaping in what France’s president described as a terrorist attack.

French officials immediately raised the country’s terrorism alert to its highest level after the shooting at the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, where staff members and police were among the dead.

Across Paris, security was stepped at media outlets, transportation hubs and other sites as a massive manhunt was underway for the suspected assailants.

The weekly had drawn repeated threats for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed and other sketches and articles on Muslim figures.

French President Francois Hollande called the shooting a “terrorist attack without a doubt,” but authorities had no immediate comment on possible suspects or motives.

Two of the dead are French policemen, one of whom was executed outside on the streets of Paris at point blank range.   The magazine was attacked in 2011 because of its satirical cartoons depicting Muslim leaders.    The editor  of Charlie Hebdo is among the dead and was on ISIS’s version of a most wanted list.

What is to keep the USA from becoming the next stop for these terrorists?  Even if these are caught, how many wait to fill their shoes?

Terrorists target French police
Terrorists target French police

Terrorism strikes Canada

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

OTTAWA — A sudden spasm of violence jolted the government center of Canada’s capital on Wednesday morning, as a gunman killed an honor guard soldier at a war memorial and then opened fire inside the nearby Parliament building, triggering a lockdown and hours of confusion in Ottawa.

The assault shocked a country that rarely experiences gun violence but has witnessed two attacks on members of its armed forces in recent days. Earlier this week, a soldier was killed in a hit-and-run that authorities have called an act of terrorism. In each case, the soldiers were targeted by individuals who had been barred from traveling abroad by Canadian authorities.

“We will not be intimidated. Canada will never be intimidated,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday night in an address to the nation.

 

Read More

US embassy officers whisked out of Yemin after shooting would-be kidnappers

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

Two American government personnel were whisked out of Yemen last month after they fatally shot two suspected kidnappers in a commercial district of the country’s volatile capital, U.S. officials said Friday.

The Americans opened fire on armed Yemeni civilians to escape an apparent abduction attempt at barbershop, according to the New York Times, which identified the officials as a Special Operations commando and a Central Intelligence Agency officer.

The U.S. embassy in Yemen has been operating on a limited capacity in recent days as American officials there have sought to limit the movement and exposure of their personnel amid a flurry of threat warnings.

The State Department confirmed Friday night that it had flown out the two officials following the incident.

“We can confirm that, last month, two U.S. Embassy officers in Yemen fired their weapons after being confronted by armed individuals in an attempted kidnapping at a small commercial business district in Sanaa,” the State Department said in a statement. “Two of the armed individuals were killed.”

Both the CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment as of yesterday.  That’s just how they do things, it seems.

Read More

Cliven Bundy: Domestic terrorism?

MoonHowler

The Blaze:

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) claimed on Thursday that armed supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy are “domestic terrorists” and reckless individuals who put their families in danger.

Speaking at a Las Vegas Review-Journal event, Reid was clear: “They’re nothing more than domestic terrorists. I repeat: what happened there was domestic terrorism.”

The rhetoric certainly will do nothing to ease already-high tensions after the Bureau of Land Management prematurely shut down its operation to round up Bundy’s “trespass cattle” on Saturday. The federal agency cited fears of public safety after having run-ins with armed militia members who traveled to Bunkerville, Nev., to support the rancher.

Read More

Stay Away from the Olympics in Sochi!!!

MoonHowler

politico.com:

Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine has a blunt message for U.S. athletes: Don’t go to the Sochi Olympic games.

Citing security concerns ahead of the winter games in Russia, King said: “I would not go, and I don’t think I would send my family.”

“It’s just such a rich target,” King said in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It would be a stretch, I think, to say I’d send my family.”

King’s comments come amid increased concerns from some U.S. officials that Russia hasn’t done enough to combat the possibility of a terrorist attack.

Let’s say money is no object.  Would you go to the Olympics this year?  Would you encourage your family to go?  How safe are they?  Do you expect a terrorist event to take place during the winter Olympics?  I think you can bet on it, I am sorry to say.

Domestic Terrorism: 50 years ago yesterday

MoonHowler

September 15, 1963

Birmingham Sunday

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Terrorism is really nothing new in this country. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was just as much as act of terrorism as Oklahoma City. The KKK has long been known for its terrorism. Perhaps we should make sure we call their actions exactly what they were. Terrorism. People who commit terrorism are terrorists. It’s really that simple.

The death of 4 girls whose only sin was going to Sunday School let America know that no one was safe.  Perhaps on that day Americans were shaken from their complacency. Perhaps that day, September 15, 1963, real change began.

Is Ted Cruz ‘a political terrorist’?

MoonHowler

politico.com:  (Dylan Byers)

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews called Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a “political terrorist” on Wednesday after the tea-party favorite called on fellow Republicans to defund Obamacare and said that a government shutdown wouldn’t necessarily spell disaster for Republicans.

“I believe it’s terrorism: This is the first time I’ve seen a political party, or even a fraction of it, say that their number one goal is to shutdown the American government, kill a bill that’s already been passed by congress, and refuse to pay bills already run up by congress in an attempt to basically risk default,” Matthews said on MSNBC’s Hardball. “This is an attempt to destroy all we know of the republican form of government in this country.”

The term “terrorist” elicited discomfort from both Republian (sic) strategist Steve Schmidt and former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, both of whom said the word should be reserved for people like the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Read More

Paul Ryan embeds with former terrorists?

MoonHowler

 

These are NOT the same video.
[There are] … transcripts of a guy named Jerry Boykin, retired general and a guy named Frank Gaffney explaining their cockamamy conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton had secretly rigged the Egyptian elections to favor the Muslim brotherhood. people in Egypt read that. They did not know the people who were talking were wing nut right wing conspiracy theorists.

Those same right wing nut jobs have also said that Anthony Weiner’s wife, was an instrument of the Muslim Brotherhood.  They also asserted that if the US passed any immigration reform, “we’d all be wearing ragheads.”  What do you expect from a group that says Roe vs. Wade is Sharia law?

You don’t have to go to the Middle East to hear crazy talk.

Meanwhile, after the series of blunders by Mitt Romney as he desperately tried to comment on foreign policy, the Republicans plop their appointed 2nd in command down in the middle of all this?

What were they thinking?  There aren’t that many stupid Americans and there isn’t enough tin foil.

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Romney remarks muddle the works in Egypt and Libya crisis

MoonHowler
Ambassador Christopher Stevens

UPDATE:  Confirmed reports indicate that the person killed was the U.S, Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.    Information is being updated by the minute.  4 Americans in all were killed.  Ambassador Stevens helped free the Libyan people.  President Obama issued the following statement:

“I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America’s commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives. I have directed my Administration to provide all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe. While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.”

ABCnews.com

 

wsj.com:

Demonstrators attacked a U.S. consulate in Libya, killing one American, and breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, amid angry protests over a film by a U.S. producer that mocks and insults the Prophet Muhammad.

The movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” was directed and produced by an Israeli-American real-estate developer who characterized it as a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam. It has been promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of Qurans previously sparked deadly riots around the world.

Read More

9/11/12 Reflections: 11 years later

MoonHowler

Each of us remembers 9-11 in our own way.  It has been 11 years.  In many ways, on this day we are stuck in a time warp of disbelief and will forever visualize those planes hitting the buildings, the falling bodies, the crumpling buildings and that huge cloud of poisonous debris hurling forward at those trying to escape its fury.  When do we move on from those horrible visuals to a quieter more reflective mood?

It’s another clear, cripsy fall Tuesday in September, just like 9/11/01.  I am going to try to start today.  I may not make it.  Feel free to share your 9/11 thoughts.

 

Colonel Morris Davis: 9/11 at 11: the lost United States of 10 September 2001

MoonHowler

Guest Post:  Colonel Morris Davis

Disclaimer: All guest posts are the opinion of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration.

M-H

9/11 at 11: the lost United States of 10 September 2001

September 11, 2001 is a milestone date in history that nearly everyone living at the time will recall in detail for the rest of their lives. I will always remember sitting at my desk in my office at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, eyes fixed on the television in the credenza sitting on the other side of the room. I recall watching the towers fall and wondering how it would change America.

Like this 10 September, 10 September 2001 was a Monday. The only reason I know that is because it was the day before an enormous tragedy that is permanently etched into my mind, and that happened on a Tuesday. I went to the same office and sat at the same desk on Monday as I did on Tuesday, but I have no recollection of one day and a vivid recollection of the other. Even though I do not recall any of the details of Monday 10 September, sometimes I think about how America might be different if we could turn back the clock.

Read More

Morris Davis: The controversy surrounding the book on the Bin Laden raid

MoonHowler

Moe explains the process that one goes through upon exiting the military as far as what you are and are not able to do.  He says there is no time limit on classified information.

Matt Bissonnette is a former navy seal who claims the book, “No Easy Day,” is not political.  Moe Davis says the author clearly knew he was violating the exit terms of agreement–regulations he signed.    Davis also states that the book is clearly political.

[Correction:  The book will be released 9/11/12.  It is a best seller on Amazon in pre-sales].

The book has been released and is already a best seller on Amazon.  It was not vetted.  It needed to be.   It is undetermined if Bissonnette will be prosecuted.  Should he be punished?  Is he a traitor or a hero?  Did he leak classified information?  This issue will probably be argued for a decade.

Meanwhile, Colonel Davis sees the book as a lose/lose situation for the Obama administration.

 

Colonel Morris Davis: War crimes and torture

MoonHowler

The following is the opinion of the poster and does not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration.

 

M-H

I was amused last week as I heard one of our bloggers accuse Moe Davis of being an ‘Obama Boy.’ I would say he fits in no one’s niche.   He is his own man.  I don’t agree totally with Moe but I respect his opinion and willingly accept that he was there and I wasn’t. He also knows the law a little better than I do. 

The final analysis must come from Mark Twain:

It is difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Will anyone ever be tried for war crimes?  Is the USA duplicitous or hypocritical?

The Killing of Gaddafi

MoonHowler

I really haven’t minded killing terrorists.  I think that is why we have spent about 10 years at war, ringing up billions of tax dollars belonging to the American people–to rid of  world of terrorists.  Gaddafi was  a terrorist.  He has been a terrorist my entire adult life.  Just because the United States eased up on him a little makes him no less a terrorist and I truly believe he had a paw print on the Lockabie terrorist attack.

Now, having said all that, no, I don’t mind that he was killed and no I don’t mind that he met the business end of one of our drones.  I don’t believe that  us being involved made droning him  a political assassination. 

 I do believe what I saw on TV was wrong.   I know when I first started watching the video clip, he was alive.  Words were coming out of his mouth.  I don’t know what they meant but they were his words.  Then I saw his assassination and his body desecrated.  I saw him kicked and spat on in death.  That is taking it too far.  Is that was all this war was about?  It appears to me that we have gone from bad to worse.  Those killers were animals.  Have we turned over an entire country to people who behave like this and defile others in death?  Might as well have kept Gaddafi.  At least he pretended to have a modicum of civility.   The Libyans we saw on TV finishing off their leader for decades represent an evil side of mankind.  If that is sharia law, let’s just stick with anarchy or dictators.