The
latest attack threat from an al-Qaeda offshoot creates a political
challenge for President Barack Obama, as Republicans accuse him of
hyping claims to have terrorists on the run and privacy advocates say
the warning may be used to justify greater government surveillance.
While Obamas critics applauded the administrations decision to temporarily shut down 22 U.S. embassies and consulates in predominantly Muslim countries based on threats in intercepted communications, White House press secretary Jay Carney today was forced to defend the presidents past statements that al-Qaeda is on the ropes.
There is no question over the past several years, al-Qaeda core has been greatly diminished, not least because of the elimination of Osama bin Laden, Carney said in his daily press briefing. What is also true is that al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations represent a continued threat.
Carney also refused to address whether the revelation of the threat bolsters the justification for the National Security Agencys surveillance of domestic telephone records and overseas Internet communication.Im not going to blend those two stories or those two issues together, he said.The new threat to U.S. interests is prompting renewed criticism from Republicans, who accused Obama of playing politics with the battle against terrorism during the 2012 presidential campaign, including its response to the deadly attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
As his re-election drive was under way and afterward, Obama and his surrogates repeatedly cited the killing of bin Laden and the deaths of other leaders of al-Qaeda, the organization that launched the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In his February State of the Union address, Obama called the terrorist organization a shadow of its former self.
At the same time, he has warned that splinter groups, particularly al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula posed a new, more diffuse threat. Their growth has been fueled in part by large swaths of ungoverned territory in the region and the fall of authoritarian regimes in the wake of the Arab Spring civilian uprisings.
Congressman Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an opinion article in todays Washington Times that plotting by al-Qaeda affiliates in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia runs counter to President Obamas narrative that al-Qaeda has been decimated.
The decision to close the U.S. outposts through Aug. 10 and issue a worldwide travel alert was based in part on intercepted communications from the head of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, Ayman Zawahiri, to Nasir al-Wuhayshi, leader of al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, according to two U.S. officials who asked not to be identified discussing the sensitive intelligence. Zawahiri ordered the Yemen-based affiliate to carry out an attack, the officials said.
Amie Stepanovich, director of the Domestic Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research group in Washington, said while she doesnt doubt the veracity of the threats, shes concerned that the administration and its defenders in Congress will say this now justifies the NSA surveillance programs that are very much being debated now.
The fact they get useful intelligence information is not really the point, so much as whether there are more limited programs that can protect national security while better protecting privacy, she said. John McLaughlin, a former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency now at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said while surveillance programs are controversial with Americans, the latest threat serves as a reminder of the need for such intelligence gathering.
This is not pat-a-cake, he said. You need every trick in the book.You stop terrorist attacks by building a mosaic, a jigsaw puzzle, if you will of intercepts, open source information and other resources, McLaughlin said. So yes, I think they need this capability because its an important component of building a picture needed to disrupt a plot.
While the U.S. has done considerable damage to the core of al-Qaeda, he said it is myth that only al-Qaeda core can organize attacks on the United States. In truth weve made enormous progress against this threat. We really have. But they still have the capacity to surprise us.
The town of Idyllwild was right in the path of the fire. The mountain town is renowned for its artists community and is a major tourist attraction in the area. "We didn't do anything with Idyllwild on the first day, because the fire was burning to the northeast, towards the wilderness. We had the two major towns on both sides, if it had to go in one direction, I guess that's the best. We were also trying to hook the southern end, because it was running towards more houses. We used all the VLATs and the tankers on the northwest corner. Then the easterly flow showed up. At that point, the fire was burning at about 1,800 feet, totally influenced by the easterly flow, which took it straight up and over the top - of Idyllwild. We had chunks of 4,5 inches in diameter falling out of the column. You're only one drainage away and then it goes straight into Idyllwild. I was concerned about it spotting and burning in the Idyllwild itself. All we'd need was 2, 3, 4 of them and then we're toast,Weymouth is collecting gently used, dry cleaned customkeychain at their Weymouth store. because we'd have to spend the whole time getting people out of there. So we erred on the conservative side and got everybody out of there. That way, if we do get spot fires,Here's a complete list of granitecountertops for the beginning oil painter. we can just fight the fire and not have to get people out."
Pincha-Tulley gives high marks to the preparedness of the area.Cheap offerscellphonecases dolls from your photos. "They have a Mountain Area Task Force, they've been working on it since 2002. It's a plan for doing their fuels work and their evacuations. The plan said 12 hours to evacuate everybody, it took them only 6, 7 hours. What's really cool, the County Sheriff had somebody tweet 'We're thinking about doing this,' somebody went on Facebook and got the order out there. When we got to actually evacuating, more than half the population was already gone."
"Southern California can pull a lot of people in, we had 50-some odd different agencies with over 4,000 people on the ground at one point. Not bad for goat country, because its just wicked country up there. At some point, we had enough hotshot crews to surround it and drown it - if we could. But it wasn't safe to put them in there. You gotta have solid black, as we call it." Solid black means bare ground with no fuel left to ignite. It's the number 1 safety mechanism for the firefighters. They have to be able to retreat into these safe zones should the fire make a run for it.
"We had some solid black, but it was on a vertical slope, so you really couldn't use it. You can't get there, so it doesn't help.This technology allows high volume gemstonebeads production at low cost. What the rain did help us with,Full color howotipper printing and manufacturing services. we were able to put in 4 hotshot crews to capture that top piece [above Idyllwild]. Two came up the tramway [closed to the public], the other ones had to hike up from Idyllwild which was a long haul and not so easy." Pincha-Tulley continued.
"We were only able to put 4 crews in, two on each side, because that's all the black we had. When the rain came, we put 10 up there and hooked it," She said with a broad smile. "We got inches of rain and it still didn't put that thing out. But it slowed things down. But it was such a mucky mess. Slips, trips and falls had a whole new meaning. The hotshots were wading through knee-deep mud. They were looking at 'Do I wade through the mud or walk on the slippery rocks?' Some did well on the rocks, some not so much."
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While Obamas critics applauded the administrations decision to temporarily shut down 22 U.S. embassies and consulates in predominantly Muslim countries based on threats in intercepted communications, White House press secretary Jay Carney today was forced to defend the presidents past statements that al-Qaeda is on the ropes.
There is no question over the past several years, al-Qaeda core has been greatly diminished, not least because of the elimination of Osama bin Laden, Carney said in his daily press briefing. What is also true is that al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations represent a continued threat.
Carney also refused to address whether the revelation of the threat bolsters the justification for the National Security Agencys surveillance of domestic telephone records and overseas Internet communication.Im not going to blend those two stories or those two issues together, he said.The new threat to U.S. interests is prompting renewed criticism from Republicans, who accused Obama of playing politics with the battle against terrorism during the 2012 presidential campaign, including its response to the deadly attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
As his re-election drive was under way and afterward, Obama and his surrogates repeatedly cited the killing of bin Laden and the deaths of other leaders of al-Qaeda, the organization that launched the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In his February State of the Union address, Obama called the terrorist organization a shadow of its former self.
At the same time, he has warned that splinter groups, particularly al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula posed a new, more diffuse threat. Their growth has been fueled in part by large swaths of ungoverned territory in the region and the fall of authoritarian regimes in the wake of the Arab Spring civilian uprisings.
Congressman Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an opinion article in todays Washington Times that plotting by al-Qaeda affiliates in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia runs counter to President Obamas narrative that al-Qaeda has been decimated.
The decision to close the U.S. outposts through Aug. 10 and issue a worldwide travel alert was based in part on intercepted communications from the head of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, Ayman Zawahiri, to Nasir al-Wuhayshi, leader of al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, according to two U.S. officials who asked not to be identified discussing the sensitive intelligence. Zawahiri ordered the Yemen-based affiliate to carry out an attack, the officials said.
Amie Stepanovich, director of the Domestic Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research group in Washington, said while she doesnt doubt the veracity of the threats, shes concerned that the administration and its defenders in Congress will say this now justifies the NSA surveillance programs that are very much being debated now.
The fact they get useful intelligence information is not really the point, so much as whether there are more limited programs that can protect national security while better protecting privacy, she said. John McLaughlin, a former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency now at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said while surveillance programs are controversial with Americans, the latest threat serves as a reminder of the need for such intelligence gathering.
This is not pat-a-cake, he said. You need every trick in the book.You stop terrorist attacks by building a mosaic, a jigsaw puzzle, if you will of intercepts, open source information and other resources, McLaughlin said. So yes, I think they need this capability because its an important component of building a picture needed to disrupt a plot.
While the U.S. has done considerable damage to the core of al-Qaeda, he said it is myth that only al-Qaeda core can organize attacks on the United States. In truth weve made enormous progress against this threat. We really have. But they still have the capacity to surprise us.
The town of Idyllwild was right in the path of the fire. The mountain town is renowned for its artists community and is a major tourist attraction in the area. "We didn't do anything with Idyllwild on the first day, because the fire was burning to the northeast, towards the wilderness. We had the two major towns on both sides, if it had to go in one direction, I guess that's the best. We were also trying to hook the southern end, because it was running towards more houses. We used all the VLATs and the tankers on the northwest corner. Then the easterly flow showed up. At that point, the fire was burning at about 1,800 feet, totally influenced by the easterly flow, which took it straight up and over the top - of Idyllwild. We had chunks of 4,5 inches in diameter falling out of the column. You're only one drainage away and then it goes straight into Idyllwild. I was concerned about it spotting and burning in the Idyllwild itself. All we'd need was 2, 3, 4 of them and then we're toast,Weymouth is collecting gently used, dry cleaned customkeychain at their Weymouth store. because we'd have to spend the whole time getting people out of there. So we erred on the conservative side and got everybody out of there. That way, if we do get spot fires,Here's a complete list of granitecountertops for the beginning oil painter. we can just fight the fire and not have to get people out."
Pincha-Tulley gives high marks to the preparedness of the area.Cheap offerscellphonecases dolls from your photos. "They have a Mountain Area Task Force, they've been working on it since 2002. It's a plan for doing their fuels work and their evacuations. The plan said 12 hours to evacuate everybody, it took them only 6, 7 hours. What's really cool, the County Sheriff had somebody tweet 'We're thinking about doing this,' somebody went on Facebook and got the order out there. When we got to actually evacuating, more than half the population was already gone."
"Southern California can pull a lot of people in, we had 50-some odd different agencies with over 4,000 people on the ground at one point. Not bad for goat country, because its just wicked country up there. At some point, we had enough hotshot crews to surround it and drown it - if we could. But it wasn't safe to put them in there. You gotta have solid black, as we call it." Solid black means bare ground with no fuel left to ignite. It's the number 1 safety mechanism for the firefighters. They have to be able to retreat into these safe zones should the fire make a run for it.
"We had some solid black, but it was on a vertical slope, so you really couldn't use it. You can't get there, so it doesn't help.This technology allows high volume gemstonebeads production at low cost. What the rain did help us with,Full color howotipper printing and manufacturing services. we were able to put in 4 hotshot crews to capture that top piece [above Idyllwild]. Two came up the tramway [closed to the public], the other ones had to hike up from Idyllwild which was a long haul and not so easy." Pincha-Tulley continued.
"We were only able to put 4 crews in, two on each side, because that's all the black we had. When the rain came, we put 10 up there and hooked it," She said with a broad smile. "We got inches of rain and it still didn't put that thing out. But it slowed things down. But it was such a mucky mess. Slips, trips and falls had a whole new meaning. The hotshots were wading through knee-deep mud. They were looking at 'Do I wade through the mud or walk on the slippery rocks?' Some did well on the rocks, some not so much."
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