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British Special Forces in Syria Images published by BBC depict SAS soldiers securing the perimeter of a rebel army base following an attack by ISIS. Originally founded in 1941, the Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. The pictures were taken in June and were first published on Monday by the BBC. The images depict British special forces sitting atop Thalab long range patrol vehicles* as they move around the perimeter of a rebel base close to the Syria-Iraq border. The BBC reported the soldiers were working at the base in a defensive role and a spokesman for the New Syrian Army acknowledged that British special forces had provided training, weapons and other equipment. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has refused to comment on the pictures. On Monday, the MOD released information about British air strikes against Isis in Iraq and Syria. * The Al-Thalab is a 4x4, high-mobility long-range patrol vehicle (LRPV) based on the legendary Toyota LandCruiser 79-Series (http://www3.toyota.com.au/landcruiser-70). The Al-Thalab was developed by Jordan Light Vehicle Manufacturing, which was formed in 2003 as a collaborative joint venture between King Abdullah II Design & Development Bureau (KADDB) of Jordan and Jankel Armouring of the UK. The Al-Thalab LRPV was first produced in June 2005. The vehicle can accommodate four crew members and comes with an option for two stretchers in the rear for medical evacuation. It is designed for surveillance, reconnaissance, internal security and border patrol forces. The Al-Thalab is also available in medium range and commando variants. Al-Thalab Brochure - http://www.jankel.com/media/images/ThalabBrochureemail_177.pdf .

Trump's economic plan: no 'death tax', less business tax, and fewer regulations The Guardian / August 8, 2016 In an attempt to reset a campaign recently flogged by a series of controversies, Donald Trump outlined an economic vision for the US, including dramatically slashing taxes, and took sharp aim at Hillary Clinton. In a nearly hour-long speech, unusually reading from a teleprompter, the Republican presidential nominee suggested Detroit itself was an example of “the living, breathing example of my opponent’s failed economic agenda”. “The unemployment rate [in Detroit] is more than twice the national average,” Trump said. “Half of all Detroit residents do not work. Detroit tops the list of the most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. These are the silenced victims whose stories are never told by Hillary Clinton.” Trump said his economic plan would reverse a lagging recovery in jobs from the 2008 recession, in part by reducing income tax brackets from seven levels to three – of 12%, 25%, and 33% – and entirely eliminating income taxes for individuals who earn less than $25,000 annually, or $50,000 for a married couple. That’s a change from September 2015, when he initially proposed four brackets that would pay zero, 10%, 20% and 25%. He said it would mark the “biggest tax revolution since the Reagan tax reform”. “We will make America grow again,” Trump said. Trump said he would lower corporate tax rates from 40% to 15% – a rate he said punished “companies for making products in America”. “This, ladies and gentleman, is backwards – it’s backwards,” he said. “All of our policies should be geared towards keeping jobs and wealth inside the United States. “No American company will pay more than 15% of their business income in taxes,” he continued. Clinton’s economic vision entailed “onerous regulations”, which would put small companies “totally out of business, and you won’t be able to start – you could never, ever start – a small business under the tremendous regulatory burden that you have today in our country.” Trump said he would eliminate the estate (death) tax, which currently applies to estates larger than $5.45m for individuals, or $10.9m for married couples. “No family will have to pay the death tax,” he said. Trump spoke at Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit before 1,500 members and guests of the prestigious Detroit Economic Club, a business and professional organization that routinely serves as a stop for presidential candidates. Trump’s economic plan appeared to mimic proposals offered last fall by his campaign and later highlighted on his campaign’s website. In March, the group Citizens for Tax Justice said his plan would cost more than $12tn. Trump also reiterated his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his plan to ask TransCanada to renew the permit for the Keystone pipeline. The newest proposals included a temporary moratorium on regulations from federal agencies. Trump also pitched a plan to allow families to “fully deduct” all childcare expenses from their taxes, which he said would “reduce cost in childcare, offering much needed relief to American families”. .

Assiciated Press / August 8, 2016 When drivers are too slow or honk obnoxiously as they pass by, it's custom to look at their license plate to see what state they are from. Now, financial tech firm SmartAsset has compiled driving data to determine which states in the US have the worst driving habits. The study reveals that you should steer clear of those bearing a pair of oranges on their license plate, because Floridians top the list. SmartAssest gathered data in four areas in order to compile their list: DUI per thousand drivers, deaths per thousand drivers, Google trends on driving tickets and percentage of drivers in the state with insurance. Study author Derek Miller said: ‘We then indexed each factor for every state giving equal weighting and then finding the average score per state to create the final index. 'Maybe it’s the heat causing road rage, but four out of the top ten states in our study are located in the southeast.' And the firm deemed Florida the worst out of all 50 states, which they say is ‘often plagued with a reputation for bad drivers’. The Sunshine State was found to not only have the second lowest number of insured drivers in the nation, but ‘speeding tickets’ and ‘traffic tickets’ were Googled more than another other state. It seems that many of the bad drivers reside in southern states, as Mississippi (second), Alabama (sixth), Tennessee (eighth) and Texas (ninth) all made the top 10 list. Mississippi, which placed second, ranked fifth in the most deaths from automobile accidents and 12th for DUI arrests per thousand drivers. And third place went to Oklahoma, as only 74 percent of the drivers in the mid-west state are insured and they have one of the 15 worst scores for DUIs. Some may be wondering where New Jersey ranks on the list, as it’s believed to have some of the worst drivers in the country. But according to SmartAsset’s study the Garden State comes in fourth with its poor rankings fueled mostly by number of deaths with 0.62, which is a distant third-place from Mississippi’s 0.29. Another state with a reputation for bad drivers, has found redemption with this new study. Massachusetts was listed as 48 on the list, because motorists there lead the nation in insured rates. Delaware (fifth) and Vermont (seventh) joined New Jersey from the east coast. And even though Delaware as the lowest DUI rates per driver than the Garden State, it has the most deaths - 40% of deaths occurred when the driver was above the legal limit for drinking. Whereas Vermont was found the leader in the nation for DUIs per driver with 50 per thousand drivers. Only 20 percent of the drivers in Tennessee are insured, making it one of the leased insured states in the US, however they are in the better half of the country for DUI per thousand drivers at 5.7. The Lone Star state makes the top 10 list as well, coming in at ninth place, with the highest percentage of deaths coming from drunk drivers at 40% and yet it is in the better half of states for DUI arrests. And last on the list is Nevada, which was found to be the third worst state for traffic and speeding tickets and the 17th worst for DUIs – but 88 percent of Nevada drivers are insured. The 10 states with the worst drivers 1. Florida: The Sunshine State was found to not only have the second lowest number of insured drivers in the nation, but ‘speeding tickets’ and ‘traffic tickets’ were Googled more than another other state. 2. Mississippi: This southern state had the 5th highest deaths resulting from vehicular incidents and 12th highest rate of DUI arrests per driver in the country. They also ranked 3rd worst in that category with only 77% insured. 3. Oklahoma: Only 74% of drivers and they have one of the 15 worst scores in DUIs per thousand drivers (7.74), number of people killed per thousand drivers in vehicular incidents (.21) and rate of googling parking and traffic tickets (52.13). 4. New Jersey: The Garden State has the second most deaths per driver at .61, almost 90% of the drivers are insured. 5. Delaware: This state is unfortunately the only one with more deaths per driver than New Jersey. It has the lowest DUI rate per driver, only 40% of deaths occurred when the driver was above the legal limit for drinking, which is the 4th highest rate in the country. 6. Alabama: This southern state also has bad scores, with 33 percent of deaths resulting from a driver over the legal alcohol limit. 7. Vermont: Vermont leads the nation in DUIs per driver with 50 per thousand drivers, but they have the lowest percentage of deaths resulting from drunk driving - 20%. 8. Tennessee: The Volunteer State is one of the least insured states with just 20 percent and it has the 18th highest number of deaths per thousand drivers. 9. Texas: Tragically for Texas it has the highest percentage of deaths coming from drunk drivers at 40% and yet it is in the better half of states for DUI arrests. 10. Nevada: This is the 3rd worst state for traffic and speeding tickets as well as being the 17th worst state for DUIs. .

Woman raped, murdered and set on fire while jogging in Massachusetts Associated Press / August 8, 2016 A Google employee from New York City who disappeared on an afternoon jog while visiting her mother in Massachusetts has been found murdered in the woods. Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said Monday that 27-year-old Vanessa Marcotte was reported missing after failing to return from a run between 1pm and 4pm in Princeton. Her body was discovered at around 8.20pm Sunday by a state police K9 unit near Brooks Station Road, about a half-mile from her mother's home. Investigators are examining the possibility that Marcotte was sexually assaulted and set on fire, with burns to her hands, head and feet. Authorities say her death is a homicide. 'We have a horrible set of facts, horrible circumstance,' said Early. He added that it was unclear whether Marcotte's killing was a random act of violence and urged local residents to remain vigilant and exercise caution. 'People should be concerned,' Early said. Five days before Marcotte's death, 30-year-old New York City resident Karina Vetrano was murdered while on an evening jog in the city’s borough of Queens. No arrests have been made in Vetrano's death. .

Terrorism has nothing to do with Islam .

'Clock boy' Ahmed Mohamed’s family to try milking his former Texas school Associated Press / August 8, 2016 The family of a Muslim boy who was arrested after bringing a homemade clock [that looked like a briefcase bomb] to school have sued Texas school officials, saying they violated the 14-year-old boy's civil rights. The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of Ahmed Mohamed. The teen was arrested at his suburban Dallas high school in September and charged with having a hoax bomb. He says he brought the homemade clock to school to show his teacher. The charge was later dropped, but he was still suspended. The lawsuit names Irving Independent School District, the city of Irving and the school's principal. A district spokeswoman says the district would release a statement later Monday. The family has since moved to Qatar, citing threats and a scholarship offered to Ahmed in the Persian Gulf country. Ahmed spent this summer back in Texas, after spending eight months studying in Qatar. During the school year, he says he visited the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia with his family. He will return to Qatar next month to start 10th grade at Qatar Academy, a private school in Doha. Ahmed showed off the clock on Monday during a news conference with his parents and attorneys. 'For the safety of my family, I have to go back to Qatar, because right now it's not very safe for my family or for anyone who's a minority,' Ahmed said during Monday's news conference. While in Texas, Ahmed said, he has to wear a hat, sunglasses and a hoodie. 'I can't walk out of the house without being covered up because I might get shot because that happens here,' he said. 'I really love the States. It's my home. But I couldn't stay. I get death threats.' He added: 'I have lost a lot of things. I lost my home, I lost my creativity because before I used to love building things but now I can't. I lost my security.' The teen's parents, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed and Muna Ibrahim, have not found work yet in Qatar, so the family of eight is living in government housing and on food vouchers, Mohamed said on Monday. Ahmed previously said he missed the diversity in America, and hoped his story could serve as a positive talking point about the challenges Muslims face. 'I want to help change Texas for a better state, and I hope that not just for Texas, but the entire world,' he said. 'People sometimes don't want to admit their mistakes, and sometimes the best thing to do is to help them change.' The teenager received an outpouring of support on social media following his arrest, and President Barack Obama even invited him to the White House. Ahmed said he built the clock in his bedroom in about 20 minutes using a circuit board, a digital display and several wires. Ahmed said he first showed his invention to his engineering teacher, who gave him some advice. 'He was like, "That's really nice. I would advise you not to show that to other teachers."' He kept the clock in his bag, but it started to beep later in the day during an English class. He showed his clock to the teacher who said it looked like a bomb. He said he made the clock using a circuit board, a digital display and put it into a metal 'pencil box' [pencil box ???]. The teenager said he did not lock the box as he 'did not want it to look suspicious'. Instead he secured it with a cable. Ahmed said the principal claimed his clock looked like a 'movie bomb' [uh......because it “did” look like a ‘movie bomb’]. . . .

Why ISIS Fears Israel The National Interest / August 8, 2016 IN THE wake of the Orlando and Istanbul attacks, President Obama reiterated his determination to “destroy” ISIS by executing a strategy that combines air strikes, American special-operations units and support for local ground forces. Both of the candidates campaigning to succeed him insist that the United States must do more: Donald Trump advocates that Washington “bomb the hell out of” the group, while Hillary Clinton promises to “smash the would-be caliphate.” All three, however, are in violent agreement on one point: the overriding objective must be to destroy ISIS. The insistence on the “destruction” of ISIS has become such a reflexive linchpin of America’s counterterrorism project that few pause to consider its strategic merit. But the nation with arguably the most experience and success combatting terrorism has considered it—and found it wanting. Israelis live much closer to ISIS than do Americans. ISIS has pledged to conquer the Jewish state and incorporate it into its core caliphate. Yet surprisingly, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has rejected the option of taking the fight directly to ISIS. Instead, faced with an operational threat that could mean the death of hundreds of Israelis at any moment, it has embraced a strategy that has not even been on the U.S. policy menu. Adopting a page from the playbook the United States used to defeat revolutionary Soviet-led communism in the Cold War, Israel is preventing ISIS attacks through a strategy of patient, vigilant deterrence. Obviously, the United States cannot simply adopt the Israeli approach whole cloth. It operates in a different security environment than the Jewish state, which faces a multiplicity of terrorist threats on its borders. But there are important lessons that America can learn to enhance its national security. Israel’s approach to ISIS is straightforward. Israel seeks to persuade ISIS not to attack it by credibly threatening to retaliate. If you attack us, the thinking goes, we will respond in ways that will impose pain that exceeds any gain you can hope to achieve. As Cold War strategists learned, making this work in practice is demanding. To be effective, deterrence requires three Cs: clarity, capability and credibility. Specifically, this means clarity about the red line that cannot be crossed, communicated in language the adversary understands; capability to impose costs that greatly exceed the benefits; and credibility about the willingness to do so. Failures occur when the deterrer falls short on any one of the three Cs. So, if I draw a red line, you cross it, and I respond with words rather than the decisive punishment threatened, I fail the third C. Whatever excuse I give for not executing my threat, and however earnest my claim that next time will be different, the blunt fact is that adversaries will find my threats less credible. If that were not enough, as the great nuclear strategist Thomas Schelling taught us, successful deterrence requires more than just a threat. The flip side of the deterrence coin is an equivalent promise: if you refrain from the prohibited action, I will withhold the threatened punishment. If, for whatever reason, I decide to administer the specified punishment even though you have complied with my demands, I spend that coin—and can no longer use that threat to deter you. As the saying goes, if you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t—you might as well do. The suggestion that terrorists as vicious as ISIS could be deterred is routinely dismissed by most members of the U.S. policy community as silly or dangerously naïve. Some assert that terrorists just want to kill. Others argue that they are irrational and that, when facing adversaries who are prepared to die for their cause, threatening to kill them will have no effect. American strategists have also been traumatized by Al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Imagine a responsible government knew that it was facing hostile terrorists who had the capability to conduct an attack that could kill hundreds. If it chose to counter that threat by attempting to deter, rather than preemptively attack, the adversary, how would that government justify itself to its citizens in the aftermath of another Paris-scale assault? ISRAELI STRATEGISTS ask all of these questions—and struggle with uncomfortable solutions. They have concluded that, however imperfect, deterrence is the best option. Indeed, the IDF believes that it is successfully deterring adversaries along all azimuths: states (Iran, Lebanon and Syria), substates (Hezbollah and Hamas) and even terrorist organizations (ISIS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda–linked groups). Israeli strategists reject the consensus view in Washington that ISIS is an ominous threat to “the entire civilized world.” In contrast to President Obama’s argument that ISIS should be the “top priority” for the IDF, it is just one more terrorist group—one that does not even make the top half of Israel’s threat matrix. As former chief of military intelligence Amos Yadlin provocatively put it, “At the end of the day, we are talking about several thousand unrestrained terrorists riding pickup trucks and firing with Kalashnikovs and machine guns.” The American counterterrorism debate has largely ignored Israeli calculus. Washington is generally averse to learning from others, and Israel’s security establishment, until recently, was reticent about revealing its thinking. That changed last August when, for the first time in the IDF’s history, Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot published an unclassified version of the IDF defense doctrine. But because the document appeared only in Hebrew, it has remained largely unknown in the American strategic community. To make it accessible, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs recently posted an English translation of the document. The “IDF Strategy” document discusses in detail how to deter terrorist groups, specifically Hezbollah and Hamas. In the U.S. policy lexicon, Hezbollah and Hamas are labeled “terrorists.” The IDF calls them “substate organizations.” Substate actors have headquarters, hold territory and govern populations. Thus they present targets of value, making them vulnerable, like states, to a combination of “general deterrence” and “specific deterrence.” General deterrence is achieved by maintaining overwhelming military superiority and earning a reputation like that of the Godfather. The Godfather “takes everything personal.” As his consigliere observed, “If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. . . . Accidents don’t happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.” In Eizenkot’s words, Israel must be seen as “an unpredictable enemy that can react in a very severe way.” Specific deterrence is tailored to each enemy and focuses on particular actions. It requires “an ongoing analysis of the enemy’s characteristics, considerations, capabilities, identity, and decision making processes.” Israel seeks to influence the “calculations” of its enemies directly by persuading them of “the futility of continuing to fight” and reminding them of the “outcome of previous confrontations.” The IDF constantly worries about whether its deterrent is sufficiently strong. It works daily to ensure that it meets each and every condition required for success. Red lines are clearly, publicly and repeatedly announced by top Israeli officials not only in Hebrew, but also in Arabic. Israel’s capability to enforce these red lines is demonstrated by “building a force that is partially visible to the enemy.” Credibility is enhanced by taking “limited offensive actions to signal that the ‘rules of the game’ have been broken.” And it is careful to withhold punishment otherwise. (Indeed, Israeli policymakers have occasionally chosen not only to avoid punishment but to reward good behavior, for example, in supporting the reconstruction of Gaza even though Hamas uses some of the material Israel supplies to build tunnels and rockets.) Israel sees Hezbollah as the “most severe threat.” A proxy of Iran, it has assembled an arsenal of more than one hundred thousand missiles and rockets aimed at Israel—many of them precision-guided with the ability to hit strategic targets, including the equivalent of the Pentagon in Tel Aviv. Hamas, whose charter pledges to “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” occupied by “warmongering Jews,” stands second among substates whose attacks must be deterred. It has fought three wars against Israel in the past decade. During the Second Intifada, Hamas perfected the suicide bomb and used it to kill hundreds of Israeli civilians. Today, the group has thousands of rockets and is burrowing tunnels into Israeli territory for future attacks. (Israel has discovered a number of tunnels in recent months, each buried one hundred feet underground.) How does the IDF meet threats posed by these groups? Not by direct attacks to degrade them; not by all-out war to destroy them. Instead, it attempts to deter them. As Yadlin explained, “Vis-a-vis Hamas and Hezbollah, we haven’t destroyed their capabilities, but we were able to establish deterrence. And this is basically because we hit them hard, and because the terrorists became . . . half-state entities. . . . The terrorists have discovered that when they are responsible for their economy, for education, for the life of their people, suddenly they are not that daring to use terror all day.” Of course, deterrence is not the only strand in Israel’s strategy to counter its enemies. Full-spectrum prevention of terrorist attacks includes detection (deep penetration to identify threats), defense (such as the Iron Dome missile-defense system and secure walls or fences on all borders) and decisive defeat (when, despite best efforts, attackers succeed). While many states, including the United States, invest heavily in similar efforts, Israel is unique in its placing deterrence at the core of its counterterrorism strategy. The IDF accepts the fact that this strategy sometimes fails. When it does, Israeli citizens die. But Israel’s national-security community still considers deterrence better than any feasible alternative for meeting threats posed by its substate adversaries. And after each conflict, the IDF has redoubled efforts to establish a new level of deterrence. Israeli security professionals readily admit that they cannot successfully deter all terrorists. In particular, lone wolves who conduct terrorist attacks with little preparation remain a persistent, unsolved problem. Only days before the Orlando attack, Israel experienced its own lone-wolf attack in which two Palestinian cousins using homemade guns killed four civilians at an upscale shopping mall in Tel Aviv. Israel’s security establishment has tried to deter future lone-wolf terrorists by demolishing the attackers’ homes and taking other punitive actions against their families and communities. Nonetheless, Eizenkot noted recently, “I have to stress the fact that there is virtually no way to stop every terrorist planning a stabbing attack.” TO MEET the threat of ISIS today, the IDF is following essentially the same script. Officials have been reticent about discussing details of the strategy in public, but its outlines are clear in the IDF doctrine, and senior Israeli military officials confirmed this reading of the strategy in recent off-the-record meetings. In stark contrast with the United States, Israel sees ISIS as just one more armed group fighting in Syria alongside Al Qaeda and other terrorist affiliates. For each of these adversaries, as well as for state actors including Iran and Assad, Israel has conveyed three “red lines”: no attacks on Israel; no transfer of advanced conventional weapons (namely precision-guided missiles and rockets) to terrorist groups that threaten Israel; and no transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups. The “dozens” of Israeli airstrikes in Syria that Prime Minister Netanyahu recently acknowledged are calculated components of a strategy that reminds all adversaries of the cost of even minor violations of its rules. It was no accident that Israel reportedly killed a prominent Iranian general last year on the Syrian Golan Heights as he surveilled the Israeli border, planning strikes on Israel. Nor was it coincidental that Israel reportedly killed Hezbollah operations officer Samir Kuntar in December—after Israel discovered him plotting attacks on Israelis. On its immediate border, Israel faces two ISIS affiliates: Wilayat Sinai (Sinai Province) on the Egyptian peninsula, and the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. While both are small, their proximity and firepower concern Israeli military leaders. Despite their capability to attack at a moment’s notice, both have exercised restraint. Since declaring allegiance to ISIS in November 2014, Wilayat Sinai has focused primarily on fighting the Egyptian security forces, not Israel. Its most noteworthy success was the downing of a Russian airliner in the Sinai in October 2015, which did not kill or injure any Israelis. On the Golan, the Yarmouk Brigade controls a ten-square-kilometer area where some forty thousand civilians live. Despite the fact that the group stands, as one Israeli newspaper put it, “several hundred meters away from reaching Israeli school buses,” it has not conducted a single attack against Israel. Israeli strategists emphasize relevant similarities between ISIS, Hamas and Hezbollah: each controls territory, attempts to govern a population and, therefore, has something to lose. Even though ISIS propaganda recently declared in flawless Hebrew that “soon there will not be one Jew left in Jerusalem,” the groups have largely refrained from attacking Israel. The reason, according to Eizenkot’s predecessor, Benny Gantz, is that “they would lose,” and in doing so risk their population and assets. ISIS leaders appear to have heard this message. As a German journalist who was embedded with ISIS in 2014 explained, “The only country ISIS fears is Israel. They told me they know the Israeli army is too strong for them.” Could the United States deter ISIS? At least one of President Obama’s speechwriters thought so. At the National Counterterrorism Center in December, the president directed his remarks to ISIS leaders: “We’re sending a message: If you target Americans, you will have no safe haven.” If I were teaching Strategy 101 next semester, this statement would lead my weekly quiz. The assignment would simply reproduce the quote and say: “Assess.” Any student unable to explain why the president’s threat fails to satisfy the elementary requirements for successful deterrence would not receive a passing grade. Obama made this threat just days after ISIS’s attack in Paris, which killed 130 people. His objective was to dissuade ISIS leaders from ordering a similar attack on the United States. If you attack us, the president warned, America will respond by attacking you. Students of deterrence would remind Obama that he is already conducting a campaign of air strikes and special-operations raids that he says aims to kill ISIS’s leaders and destroy the organization—before they attack the homeland. Moreover, he has argued at length why, he believes, the current campaign includes everything the United States can productively do to destroy ISIS. Thus, his attempt to deter ISIS by threatening more rings hollow. A few months from now, a newly elected president will be thinking about how he—or she—will deal with ISIS. One can be sure that the president-elect will ask her/his national-security team to conduct a fundamental reassessment of the war against ISIS, Al Qaeda and the dozen related strains of Islamic jihadi terrorism. A serious review would begin with recognition of a brute fact: a decade and a half beyond the 9/11 attacks and President Bush’s declaration of a “War on Terrorism,” the United States undoubtedly faces more terrorists determined to do harm than when this effort began. In anticipation of that review, the analytic community should be studying Israel’s playbook now. The United States is not Israel. Deterrence is not the only strand in Israel’s defense strategy. Not every strategy that works for Israel is appropriate for America. At this point in the fight against ISIS, it is hard to imagine a path back to a posture of containment and deterrence. But as America confronts the next ISIS, or indeed, the next dozen strains or mutations of this cancer, the United States is unlikely to have the resources and will to send even American drones and special-operations forces to every ungoverned space or valley ruled by a hostile terrorist group. Standing as they do on the front line confronting deadly threats 24/7, Israel offers what Eizenkot has called a “laboratory” of security. It is not too late to begin a debate about how lessons learned by Israel’s security community can enrich America’s conceptual arsenal for countering terrorism in what promises to be a very long war.

How Bush's Bad Idea that Turkey Could Join the EU Bombed The National Interest / August 8, 2016 It was 2004, and the geopolitical chess pieces were positioned very differently from how they are today. Back then, Turkey wanted to join the European Union, Great Britain thought that that was a magnificent idea and France was skeptical. Oddest of all, the most vocal advocacy for Turkish accession and democratic reform came from an unlikely alliance of then-president George W. Bush and then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An Associated Press photo from 2002 shows the two of them sitting together, grinning for the camera, with the former’s hair and the latter’s mustache having yet to gray. Bush’s support for Turkey had precedent. American presidents have historically backed EU enlargements, viewing a stronger Europe as strategically preferable. Clinton-era diplomats had also been receptive to Ankara’s ambitions, helping Turkey secure status as a candidate for membership at the Helsinki Summit in 1999. But the forcefulness of Bush’s advocacy was surprising: “We join you side-by-side in your desire to become a member of the European Union,” he declared while sitting next to Erdogan in 2002. Two years later, he was even more explicit, asserting in Istanbul that “as a European power, Turkey belongs in the European Union,” and comparing the geopolitical line between the two entities to the division of Germany at Yalta. Bush’s tone ruffled French President Jacques Chirac’s feathers, whose stance on Turkish membership was lukewarm to begin with, who groused that “not only did [Bush] go too far, but he went into territory that isn’t his.” He fussed: “it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico.” But Bush was never one to be swayed by Chirac, and in 2006, a year after Turkey’s accession talks with the EU began, the former again encouraged admission. There were several reasons for America to prefer a Turkey inside the EU. Strategically, the White House wanted Turkey fully behind its Iraq policy, a request Ankara shrewdly tethered to its EU accession. Economically, membership would ensure stability for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports oil out of the Caspian Sea and terminates in Turkey. Politically, Turkey was home of Ataturk, burial ground of the last recognized caliphate, a rare secular democracy in a Middle East gripped by dictatorships. It’s that last one that likely intrigued Bush. When it came to geopolitics, the forty-third president was a big-picture thinker who disdained what he called “mini-ball” and preferred boldfaced words to fine print: a democracy in the Muslim world joining up with Europe would advance the cause of freedom. Smaller issues, and even somewhat larger ones like Turkey’s refusal to recognize EU member Cyprus, were squashed in his mind by enduring and abstract concepts. Bush also wanted to short-circuit the narrative that the war on terror was a religious crusade against Islam. Accordingly, he contended that Turkish accession would “expose the ‘clash of civilizations’ as a passing myth of history.” To Bush, the great ideological tug-of-war in the Middle East was between the democratic West and the dark theocracies favored by Islamists, and he was determined that the former win out so Muslims could be free. To usher Turkey into the EU, to claim it for the good guys, would have been a heady moral victory. Bush never accounted for a potential authoritarian reversion in Turkey; he certainly never imagined the EU could be seen as anything less than democratic. His perception was enhanced by Ankara, which did a lot during this period to allay Western suspicions over its history of coups. For example, passed a suite of reform packages that diminished the military’s power. Alas, a lot changed 2004: the Iraq war went south, Syria was immersed in chaos, refugees flooded into Europe, Germany throttled Greece with failed economic reforms, discontent with the EU spread, Britain voted for Brexit, Erdogan took a sudden dictatorial plunge and tens of thousands in Turkey were detained after a coup attempt. Bush’s idealistic hopes were crashed on the shoals of reality. Meanwhile, Turkish negotiations with the EU have been mired for over a decade. The impedimental Cyprus issue still remains unresolved, and the Cypriots have vetoed several of the requisite accession chapters. While Turkey once sought to meet EU standards, today the EU is scrambling to appease Turkey so an agreement on the migrant crisis doesn’t get scrapped. Ankara is threatening to pull out of talks unless it’s granted visa-free travel within the Schengen Area—which would play into the hands of European nationalists, which could weaken the EU even further. Turkish membership has also grown unpopular; in Britain, it was a potent issue for the successful Leave campaign. Surely this isn’t what George W. Bush had in mind. Today, the prospects for a European Turkey appear bleaker than ever. The chessboard is almost unrecognizable.

Donald J. Trump? Never. The National Interest / August 8, 2016 There was a brief moment when I thought I might hold my nose yet vote for Donald Trump in the presidential election. I found myself in agreement with several elements of the late April 2016 foreign-policy speech that he delivered hosted by the National Interest. He appeared to extend an olive branch to Israel and the Arabs, and even to the NATO allies, although he insisted that they fulfill their commitments to increase their level of defense spending to 2 percent of GDP. He also outlined in more detail than previously his vision of what America’s defense posture should look like. He supported strategic nuclear modernization, a robust missile-defense posture, and an increase in Army end-strength, in the size of the fleet and in that of the Air Force. Even Trump’s posture toward Russia seemed a bit more balanced than was previously the case. He made it clear that he would only engage that country from a position of strength. Trump did not convince me, though I am a lifelong Republican who intends to vote for all the other of my party’s candidates whose names will appear on the ballot in November. His staunchly negative attitude toward free trade worried me; I felt that his stance was the canary in the neoisolationist coal mine. I was concerned that he seemed cavalier about the possibility that his insouciance toward both trade and alliances would lead Japan and South Korea down the road of developing an independent nuclear capability. I did not see how his self-vaunted negotiating skills would bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians; to the contrary, his meddling was likely to drive them further apart. I could not abide by his proposals to deport eleven million illegal immigrants, many of them Hispanic, and to build a wall on the Mexican border. He mistakenly characterized those illegal immigrants as Mexican rapists and criminals when the majority of these people actually hailed from elsewhere in Latin America and were less likely to commit violent crimes than were American citizens. Finally, I remained deeply troubled by his attitude toward Muslims, which not only threatened America’s relationships with Sunni states already uneasy about American reliability, but smacked of racism that hearkened back to the 1930s, when the Klan hounded Blacks, Jews and Catholics, and “America First” was the watchword of bigots. For all that, I felt Trump had turned a corner with his National Interest speech, that perhaps he had begun to listen to those advisors who were encouraging him to moderate his tone. I was wrong. His subsequent behavior has demonstrated time and again that the only voice he really seems to hear is his own, and that without a teleprompter, he remains the quintessential rabble rouser, who pays little if any attention to the consequences of what he offers to cheering crowds. Trump has doubled down on his critique of NATO, to the point where he has created the impression among the members of that alliance that it is of no value to him, and, by extension, neither are they. He has not modified his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is meant to be a major symbol of America’s role as a Pacific power. Nor has he altered the impression that he has few if any qualms about Japan and South Korea going nuclear, or, for that matter, going it alone. While his hostility to China remains undiminished, his mildness toward Russia has persisted as well. Moreover, his astounding ignorance of, and seeming indifference to, current events—notably that Russia invaded Ukraine—calls into question whether he has any real ideas about international security other than those he reads from his teleprompter. Yet none of the foregoing has led me to conclude that I could under no circumstances vote for Donald Trump. Rather, it is his behavior, his thin-skinned narcissism and particularly his acting out of the many incendiary statements he seems to enjoy tossing out, that have rendered him completely unfit for the highest office in the land. His attack on the Hispanic heritage of an American-born federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University smacked of a degree of racism that could not even be termed “thinly veiled.” His clashes with the Khan family, American Muslims who lost their son in Iraq, were completely out of the bounds of common decency. And his mimicking of a disabled reporter, now widely televised in a Clinton campaign ad, was nothing short of a disgrace. I am fortunate to have been blessed with many grandchildren. Five of them are either teens, or are preteens. Their parents have brought them up to be upstanding young citizens, respectful of both the men and women who wear our country’s uniform as well as of persons who may not look or pray as they do. I cannot abide by the prospect that Donald Trump would be their president, and thereby offer them a role model that runs totally counter to the values that have been instilled in them. Every candidate has faults—Hillary Clinton certainly has no shortage—but Donald Trump is beyond the pale. He is a disgrace to the Republican party, and, far more important, to the United States and all it stands for.

Hillary Clinton? Never. The National Interest / August 8, 2016 When Bill and Hillary Clinton arrived in Washington as president and first lady in 1993, the Wall Street Journal editorial page went on the attack, suggesting they brought with them from Arkansas a brand of politics that was inherently corrupt, with personal gain routinely and consistently factored into official decision making. The paper took a lot of heat for this line of editorial criticism in the absence of definitive proof of mendacity on the part of the new president and his wife. Then came the cattle-futures scandal, in which Hillary hauled down a $98,540 profit in cattle futures in less than a year of trading on a $1,000 investment, without maintaining the normally required fund reserve to diminish the risk of leverage. Further, she was advised on the matter by an outside lawyer for Tyson Foods, a giant Arkansas company with big interests before the state government, where Bill Clinton served as attorney general and then governor. Thus began a pattern that has led us to Hillary Clinton now as the Democratic presidential nominee even as multiple polls indicate that fully two thirds of Americans consider her dishonest and untrustworthy. During the Clinton White House years, following the cattle-futures scandal, came "travelgate," "filegate," and the Whitewater land investment scandal, in which a box of missing papers, under subpoena for two years, miraculously appeared in the White House living quarters—but only in copy form; the originals were never recovered. It seemed that the Clintons were constantly mired in scandal or hints of scandal, always struggling to stay ahead of nettlesome little revelations that raised persistent questions about their ethical rectitude. There can be no doubt that these episodes from the distant past, combined with Hillary Clinton’s more recent ethical lapses related to her doing public business on a private email server, have contributed to her reputation as a person who can’t be trusted to tell the truth or conduct herself strictly on the up and up. Does it matter? That’s for the voters to decide. But every voting booth decision requires a multidimensional analysis that includes an assessment of the favorable and unfavorable attributes of each candidate. Herewith an assessment of Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable attributes, constituting a case against her. This isn’t designed to be definitive for any voting decision but rather a warning that all candidates have downsides, and Clinton’s are significant. One could argue, in fact, that the Democratic Party was reckless in granting her the nomination, given her past embroilment in scandal and prospects that new revelations could catch up with her during the campaign or through her presidency. Although FBI Director James Comey didn’t recommend an indictment against her related to her email server, he said she was "extremely careless" in her handling of "very sensitive, highly classified information." Thus, he declined to take actions to destroy her candidacy and left it to voters to assess the magnitude of her lapses. But the recklessness of her behavior is reflected in questions now being raised about whether damaging new revelations about her could be forthcoming from hackers, foreign or domestic, who gained knowledge of her activity via her unprotected server. Security experts have suggested there is a strong likelihood that China, Russia and other hackers gained access to all 63,000 emails on Clinton’s private, unprotected server—including the 33,000 she destroyed under the contention that they were merely personal and had nothing to do with her official actions and decisions. But if those emails contain evidence of questionable actions, as the Wall Street Journal’s L. Gordon Crovitz has argued, Russian President Vladimir Putin "will have the capacity to blackmail her at will" should she become president. What kind of evidence of questionable actions could be found there? We don’t know, but it would be imprudent to dismiss the possibility that it could be related to the Clinton Foundation, that international good-works institution created by Bill Clinton that doubles as a repository of political/financial power for the Clintons. It has served as a lucrative way station for Clinton cronies waiting for Hillary Clinton’s next campaign. It has positioned Bill Clinton to collect huge speaking fees from major overseas and American corporations and from foreign governments—some $105 million for 542 speeches between the time he left the White House and the time Hillary left her job as secretary of state, according to the Washington Post. It has rewarded Clinton friends and political allies within a Clinton network that constitutes a potent political force. The foundation, we learn (though not from the Clintons), continued to receive money from foreign governments even during Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state, although she had promised that no such money would be accepted during her public service. The money flowed in from such countries as Algeria, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Swiss bank UBS contributed some $500,000 after Secretary Clinton helped settle an IRS problem dogging the bank. The Associated Press reported that Hillary Clinton excised from her official State Department calendar some seventy-five meetings she held with "longtime political donors, Clinton Foundation contributors, and corporate and other outside interests." Was there actual corruption going on here in the form of quid pro quos, or merely the appearance of corruption? We don’t know, though those 33,000 emails may hold the key to that question. But, in any event, we see a pattern that first came to light with the cattle futures scandal—big sums of money flowing to the Clintons as they conducted official business to the benefit of the individuals and organizations providing the money. Leaving aside the corruption question, the Clinton Foundation represents a giant stride toward American oligarchy—the flow of power from the people at large to clever and connected elites who know how to game the system to their political and financial advantage. It is noteworthy that, in this year of seething political anger directed against the country’s elites, Hillary Clinton is emerging as the likely next president even as she projects herself as the embodiment of what is stirring all that national anger. Which brings us to another major element in the case against Hillary Clinton. She will give us, as many have suggested, Barack Obama’s third term. The country is deeply divided on the Obama presidency, and it’s appropriate that Americans should debate his legacy as his departure nears after White House eight years. But, whatever one may say about him, it can’t be denied that he failed to solve the country’s crisis of deadlock. When the country needed a new paradigm of governmental thinking to break the deadlock and move the country in a new direction, he doubled down on the stale old politics perpetuating the political stalemate of our time. There is no reason to believe Hillary Clinton would break the deadlock. She represents the politics of old when the country desperately seeks something fresh, capable of scrambling up the old political fault lines and forging new political coalitions that can give propulsion to a struggling America. Hence, under her leadership, we likely will see the continuation of the current deadlock crisis for another four years. That’s a long time for that kind of crisis to fester, generating ever greater anger, frustration and civic tension.

Your truck was available with several rear (drive) axle options, and hence could have one of several seals. What did your Mack dealer tell you when you supplied them with your truck's model and serial number off the vehicle identification plate located on the driver's door ? What did your heavy truck parts house say when you supplied them with the number off of the old seal ?

There are some beautiful women in Turkey, no doubt about it. Many of the attractive women in Germany today are from Turkey. Come to IAA.

Fed’s Powell warns US at risk of being trapped in low growth The Financial Times / August 7, 2016 There is an increasing risk that the US economy has become trapped in a prolonged period of subdued growth that requires lower official rates than was previously expected, a leading Federal Reserve policymaker has warned. Jerome Powell, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, said he was not in a hurry to lift rates, arguing for a “very gradual” path for any rises, while warning that the US outlook was still dogged by global risks. “With inflation below target, I think we can be patient,” he told the Financial Times. In his four years at the Federal Reserve, Mr Powell has demarcated himself for his willingness to get stuck into the nitty-gritty of financial markets, earning himself a reputation as the Fed’s markets governor. But meeting the FT in a wood-panelled room at the Fed’s headquarters on Constitution Avenue, he appeared as much preoccupied by the longer-term US growth outlook as by the potential for market logjams and mishaps. Economists led by Larry Summers, former Treasury secretary, have been propounding the sobering theory that the US may be mired in so-called secular stagnation — a trap of lethargic economic growth and depressed interest rates. For a while the Fed resisted that dismal prognosis. But Mr Powell, a level-headed centrist on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, appears increasingly alive to the possibility, even if he says secular stagnation is not his “baseline” expectation. “I am more worried about it than I was,” he said. “The probability of an era of weaker growth, lower potential growth, for a longer period of time — that worries me more than it used to.” To achieve economic growth forecasts, Fed rates will “just have to be lower than I thought,” he added. One reflection of the quagmire is the gradual decline in Fed policymakers’ estimates for the long-term federal funds rate. “I don’t think that process is over,” Mr Powell said. “The median estimate on the committee is 3 per cent for the long-term federal funds rate. It could be lower than that, in my view.” Having lifted rates in December by a quarter point to a range of 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent and sat still since then, the Fed is weighing conflicting signals at home and overseas as it looks towards its September meeting. The US economy, Mr Powell said, is “not full of risk right now”. But he added: “The issue is that if you look around the world there are just a lot of risks that could affect us. So it is a US economy that is probably pretty close to its pattern of the last seven years, but the risks to us from the global economy are to the downside.” He said it was hard to raise rates “in a world where everyone else is cutting and demand is weak around the world”. “The expectation of rate increases has produced a big move up in the dollar since 2014, which has restrained growth.” Mr Powell was speaking the day before the release of jobs data on Friday that beat expectations. To support a rate increase, Mr Powell said that he would want to see strong growth in employment and demand; inflation heading back to 2 per cent and an absence of obvious “global risk events.” Fed policymakers are still scanning for potential fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the EU, while questions hang over China’s growth outlook. Asked if his preconditions could be satisfied as soon as the Fed’s September meeting, Mr Powell said: “In particular, I need to see two really good employment reports. And then it is a conversation. I wouldn’t be pounding the table saying we really need to raise rates.” The former Carlyle Group partner — a keen athlete who cycles to work every day — has spent significant parts of his career at the sharp end of Treasury market structure. He served in the Treasury under former President George H.W. Bush, helping to formulate the government’s responses to the Salomon Brothers scandal in 1991. The firm used fake bids to purchase more Treasury securities at auction than was permitted by one institution. Mr Powell has recently been vocal on the intricate plumbing of markets, advocating the central clearing of so-called repo transactions in a bid to alleviate some of the capital concerns that big banks blame for their pullback from the market. Repo markets are integral to the functioning of the broader Treasury market, allowing financial institutions to borrow and lend securities short term in order to cover obligations to other counterparties. But higher capital charges have made the transfer of Treasuries more expensive. It is part of the industry’s explanation for why liquidity, the ease of buying and selling an asset, has declined in Treasury markets. Mr Powell has spoken in chorus with the Fed and Treasury in rejecting the industry’s concerns that market liquidity has become markedly worse. But he remains attuned to the potential for problems to arise. “Most of the time in most markets liquidity is okay. But it may be more fragile, and more prone to disappearing in stress situations,” he says. “There hasn’t been a liquidity-related incident that has had a significant effect on the real economy. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

Clinton's private server held emails about just executed Iranian nuclear spy The Washington Examiner / August 7, 2016 Hillary Clinton recklessly discussed, in emails hosted on her private server, an Iranian nuclear scientist who was executed by Iran for treason, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Sunday. "I'm not going to comment on what he may or may not have done for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary Clinton's private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about this gentleman," he said, speaking about Shahram Amiri, who gave information to the U.S. about Iran's nuclear program. The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of keeping the country safe. "That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server. And I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe," he said. The revelation could cause further political damage to Clinton, who was already on the defensive Sunday after commenting oddly last week that she had "short-circuited" in a statement related to her honesty about the email scandal. Republican nominee Donald Trump seized on the statement to question her mental stability. Iran confirmed on Sunday that Amiri had been hanged for treason. He was convicted of spying charges in a death sentence case that was upheld on appeal, according to the Associated Press. "This person who had access to the country's secret and classified information had been linked to our hostile and No. 1 enemy, America, the Great Satan" a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said. "He provided the enemy with vital and secret information of the country." His body was returned to his mother with rope marks around the neck. It would appear possible that discussion on an unclassified — and quite possibly hacked — email system about a person who was hanged as a spy will have a chilling effect on others who might want to engage in espionage for the United States. Amiri disappeared while on a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2009, but he then resurfaced a year later in the U.S., where he visited the Iranian interest section of the Pakistani embassy and demanded to be sent home to Iran. While Amiri told reporters that he was held against his will by both the Saudis and the Americans, U.S. officials said he was receiving millions of dollars for information he provided about Iran's nuclear program. The scientist shows up in Clinton's emails back in 2010, just nine days before he returned to Iran. "We have a diplomatic, 'psychological' issue, not a legal one. Our friend has to be given a way out," the email by Richard Morningstar, a former State Department special envoy for Eurasian energy, read, according to the Associated Press. "Our person won't be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave so be it." Cotton Sunday also accused the Obama administration of "working like a gun cartel" by sending $400 million to Iran in what many regard as ransom for hostages. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Associated Press / August 7, 2016 Shahram Amiri, who was hanged on Sunday for 'revealing secrets to the enemy', was in the US and informing on Tehran's extensive nuclear program during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. At the time, Clinton stressed the researcher had been in the US of his 'own free will' and was described as 'our friend' in correspondences. But Amiri maintained he had been kidnapped by intelligence agents. Emails sent by Clinton's advisers point to the scandal involving Amiri - suggesting it was a 'diplomatic, psychological issue', but not a 'legal one'. One aide also warned he would lead to 'problematic news stories'. Richard Morningstar, a former State Department special envoy for Eurasian energy wrote to Clinton: 'We should recognize his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence. 'Our friend has to be given a way out. Our person won't be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave so be it.' Senior adviser Jake Sullivan sent another email about Amiri on July 12, 2010. It appears he is referring to the scientist just hours before he showed up at the Iranian interests section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington D.C., demanding he be sent home. He said: 'The gentleman... has apparently gone to his country's interests section because he is unhappy with how much time it has taken to facilitate his departure. 'This could lead to problematic news stories in the next 24 hours.' Amiri went missing in 2009 after leaving for a pilgrimage to Mecca, but appeared in a video - apparently recorded in the U.S. - in which he claimed to have been put under pressure to 'reveal sensitive information' to the intelligence agency. In interviews, he has claimed he was drugged, put on a plane, and then kept under 'psychological pressure' at an undisclosed location in the U.S. There he was asked to hand over classified documents, but he claims he never did as he didn't want to betray his country. He then walked into the Iranian interests section at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington and demanded to be sent home. He came back to a hero's welcome and insisted he was a 'simple researcher'. Amiri worked for a university affiliated with Tehran's extensive nuclear program. He is said to have had an in-depth knowledge of Iran's nuclear program and was kept at a secret location after returning to the country. According to CBS, he told officials in interviews that he was being held against his will by Saudi and U.S. spies. American officials said he was set to receive millions for informing. Amiri's mother told the BBC that his body had been sent to her with rope marks around his neck. On Sunday, an Iranian judicial spokesman confirmed the execution had taken place. He told the Mizan Online news site: 'Shahram Amiri was hanged for revealing the country's top secrets to the enemy (US).' In another recording filmed when he was missing, the scientist suggested he had fled from the USA, where he had been held against his will. But US officials said they paid Amiri some $5 million to defect and provide 'significant' information about Iran's atomic program. Amiri later fled the U.S. without the money. Iranian officials previously touted Amiri's claim he had been abducted by U.S. agents while on a pilgrimage to holy sites in Saudi Arabia. They welcomed him home in 2010 as a hero. But his family confirmed to the BBC he had been given a lengthy jail sentence after returning to the Middle East. The State Department declined to comment on Amiri's execution. Amiri's disappearance will raise concerns about the future of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian aid worker being held by Tehran. The 37-year-old, who was arrested as she tried to leave Iran after a visit with her two-year-old daughter, appeared in the Revolutionary Court on Monday. 'We continue to raise our strong concerns about British prisoners in Iran, including Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, at the highest levels in both London and Tehran,' a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office said. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a London-based charity that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News. The Foreign Office spokeswoman said former Prime Minister David Cameron had repeatedly raised the case with his Iranian counterpart. 'We are deeply concerned by recent reports that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been charged but has not been allowed to see a lawyer,' the spokeswoman said. 'We remain ready to facilitate Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's daughter's return to the UK if requested.' .

Charlie Hebdo suspect caught trying to join ISIS Associated Press / August 7, 2016 A student who was cleared of being the ‘third man’ in the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in France has now been arrested for allegedly trying to join Islamic State. Hamyd Mourad, 20, was originally thought to have been the getaway driver when two Al-Qaeda operatives massacred 12 people around the Paris offices of the satirical magazine in January 2015. There was a huge campaign aimed at releasing Hamyd, who was then a teenager, with classmates eventually providing an alibi then led to him being released without charge. But now, in what appears to be another huge failure by France’s security agencies, Mourad was intercepted in Turkey’ on July 28th as he tried to join the ISIS caliphate in Syria. Mourad, who remained on a terrorist watch list in France, was deported to Bulgaria, where he remains in a detention centre awaiting his return to France. Paris intelligence sources say material found in Mourad’s backpack, including a phone and laptop computer, made him a clear 'candidate for jihad’. Anti-terrorism prosecutors in Paris have opened a judicial investigation in order to issue a European arrest warrant for Mourad. Mourad was the brother-in-law of Cherif Kouachi, who carried out the murders at Charlie Hebdo with his brother Said Kouachi. The pair used AK47s to assassinate writers and cartoonists whom they accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammed, before they themselves were later gunned down by police commandos. In the hours after the attack, Hamyd’s name was released as a prime suspect and a manhunt was launched. Hamyd handed himself into a police station in his home town of Charleville-Mezieres, some 160 miles from Paris, and was interrogated for several days. The Charleville-Mezieres prosecutor said Mourad had been ‘reported missing’ by his family on July 25th. Many of the terrorists involved in lethal attacks in France and Belgium since the Charlie Hebdo atrocity were on watch lists. The two Isis affiliated teenagers who murdered a Roman Catholic priest in Normandy last month had both tried to join the ISIS caliphate via Turkey before being deported. Back in France, one was electronically tagged for a few hours a day, but they were otherwise free to move about.

Parent murders 3 children, wife, commits suicide CBS News / August 7, 2016 A family of five, including three small children, was found dead in their Berks County, Pennsylvania, home on Saturday along with what authorities described as a murder-suicide note. Police in Sinking Spring, just outside Reading, responded to the family's home on the unit block of Winding Brook Drive about 2 p.m. Saturday after a concerned relative asked them to check on the family. Inside the home, police found 40-year-old Mark Jason Short Sr., his wife, Megan L. Short, 33, and the couple's three children, 8-year-old Lianna, 5-year-old Mark Jr. and 2-year-old Willow, along with the family's dog, all dead of gunshot wounds. Mark Jason Short Sr. shot his wife, three children and dog to death after learning that his spouse planned to leave him after 16 years of abuse. Responding officers discovered a murder-suicide note in the home, as well as a handgun near one of the deceased adults. An investigation revealed there had been "domestic issues" between Mark and Megan Short. Articles in The Reading Eagle in 2014 and The New York Times in 2015 profiled the family after Willow, the youngest of their three children, underwent a heart transplant as an infant. The news stories detailed the family's difficulties obtaining anti-rejection medication for Willow. A blog post Megan Short wrote in April about her family's ordeal treating Willow's heart condition, "Learning to Heal: My Experience with PTSD" on the Philly at Heart blog,, sheds some light on the struggles they faced. .

Land Line (OOIDA) / August 5, 2016 Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Kim Montes has been in law enforcement for two decades. In that time, she has witnessed many people go out of their way to help a crash victim. However, Montes said the efforts made by a truck driver to save another trucker’s life on Thursday morning in Apopka, Fla., were truly heroic. Jason Williams, a 31 year-old truck driver for Clowney Truck-N-Tractor in Sanford, Fla., rescued Michael Bridges from a burning dump truck after an accident on State Road 429. As of Friday morning, Bridges was at a hospital in critical but stable condition. “Every day, I see accidents out there on the highway,” Williams said. “I was thinking that if it were me, I’d want someone to come over and help me out. I wouldn’t want to burn alive in my truck.” Bridges, a 61-year-old truck driver from Orlando, Fla., was traveling northbound on 429 when his dump truck blew a tire. According to the report from the Florida Highway Patrol, Bridges then lost control of the vehicle and the dump truck swerved through the center grass median and into the southbound lanes before clipping a 2014 Honda. The dump truck continued off onto the west shoulder, overturned and then caught fire. Williams, who had been traveling southbound, saw the whole thing. “Mr. Williams jumped out of his truck, crossed all the lanes of traffic by himself and went down to try and help the victim,” Montes said. “He didn’t know if the victim was alive or not.” When Williams arrived at the vehicle, he eventually heard Bridges scream for help. Williams climbed up to the driver’s seat and attempted to pull Bridges out by his arms. The fire was already so hot, however, that Williams lost his grip as the skin began to slide down to Bridges’ wrists. Williams regrouped and then gave Bridges a bear hug to pull him out. They both landed in the grass. Williams suffered slight burns to his face and wrist. The dump truck eventually burned to the ground. “He gave me a big hug and thanked me,” Williams said. “Then another citizen came, and we helped him as we waited for the ambulance to come.” Williams said he received a call from Bridges’ wife and daughter on Thursday night, thanking him for his actions. Bridges is set to have several surgeries for his burns, Williams said the family members told him. While Williams has downplayed his actions, Montes said the truck driver is definitely worthy of appreciation. The Florida Highway Patrol plans to nominate Williams for a Carnegie Medal and is requesting that he be recognized by the governor. “Had Mr. Williams not gone inside that truck, Mr. Bridges couldn’t have gotten out and he would have burned alive,” Montes said. “He received some serious burns. He’s still in critical but stable condition at the hospital, but he’s alive today because of Mr. Williams. “This guy is truly a hero.” .

Ford Trucks Press Release / August 5, 2016 Ford Truck continues to expand its presence in North Africa’s heavy truck segment with the opening of a new 50,000 square meter flagship location in Casablanca. Also this year, Ford Trucks has opened an additional full-service location in Morocco, in the city of Marrakesh. We opened our latest facility in North Africa in support of our goal to become one of the top 3 heavy truck brands in the region Auto Hall, operator of the new Casablancan facility, has been Ford’s distributor in Morocco for over one hundred years. Its founder, Gabriel Veyre, was tasked by the Sultan in the early 1900’s to bring the automobile to Morocco. After extensive research, in 1911 he chose Ford. Auto Hall began selling Ford cars and trucks to the newly mobile Moroccans soon after, and due to growing demand, it incorporated Auto Hall in 1920. Morocco is the best-selling market for Ford in North Africa. "Morocco is Ford Trucks’ strategic starting point for investing in the North African market,” said Ford Trucks International Markets Director Emrah Duman. “We continue to invest with the goal of becoming one of the top 3 heavy truckmakers in North Africa. Opening modern heavy truck facilities in major Moroccan cities including Casablanca and Marrakesh is all a part of the framework of the global vision of Ford Trucks.” .

MAN Trucks & Bus Press Release / August 7, 2016 .

Yes Bob, it was built at the Blue Diamond plant in Escobedo. My thought is, both Navistar and Ford had applicable engines in their portfolios in 2006.........and they chose the wrong one. When Navistar announced on January 13, 2009 that the two companies would end their diesel engine supply agreement effective Dec. 31, 2009, that was the death knell for the slow selling LCF/CityStar. Again, there has always been a US market demand for low cab forwards. Ford and Navistar really botched a great opportunity from A to Z.

Kenworth Truck Company Press Release / August 5, 2016 When petroleum hauler Dixon Bros. in Newcastle, Wyoming, wanted to save weight, haul more payload, and enhance productivity, the new Kenworth 40-inch sleeper became the company’s choice for its Kenworth T880s. “We haul primarily gas and diesel to convenience stores, coal mines, and airports, and also transport propane to wholesalers. Most of our runs are 250 or fewer miles one-way, but we do go as out as far as 500 miles – and we do run into Canada,” said Jim Dixon, who founded Dixon Brothers 56 years ago. Dixon Bros. operates 120 power units, nearly all Kenworth models. They’re purchased through Motor Power Kenworth – Billings in Montana. Dixon said the Kenworth T880 with the 40-inch sleeper is now the configuration of choice for Dixon Bros. The trucks feature 525-hp engines and 13-speed automated transmissions. The higher horsepower engines are needed since combination weights can reach as high as 129,000 pounds in Montana and Idaho. When Kenworth launched the 40-inch sleeper last fall, Dixon was quick to recognize the potential benefits. “We run some Kenworth T880s with 52-inch sleepers. Before the 40-inch sleeper, we had to obtain special permitting to run in Canada because of our overall length. With the smaller sleeper we saved 12 inches to reach a 244-inch wheelbase, which allows us to run legal in Canada,” Dixon said. “We can also now mount the lift axle closer to the steer axle to optimize weight distribution. And with the complex bridge laws in the United States, we wanted the 40-inch sleeper so our spec would work in all areas and regions. Kenworth’s 40-inch sleeper is the right size for us, and also offers additional payload opportunities with a 260-pound weight savings compared to the 52-inch sleeper,” he said. Dixon said his drivers might use the sleeper once a week, “or it could be once a month – overall pretty minimal,” he said. “But, we need the 40-inch sleeper just for that, the occasional night’s sleep. It’s also a safeguard for bunk time in bad weather.” Kenworth provides a very versatile product lineup with three sleeper configurations for the T880 and four for the T680, according to Kurt Swihart, Kenworth marketing director. “Some customers need sleepers for everyday living – and we offer what we feel is the premier sleeper in the industry – our 76-inch high and mid-roof models,” said Swihart. “Other truck operators prefer a more compact sleeper for occasional or emergency bunk time. And some want a sleeper compartment that allows the shortest wheelbase possible to conform to overall length laws, while still offering sleeping space.” According to Swihart, each sleeper has its own niche – especially Kenworth’s newest sleeper, the 40-inch model. “This sleeper works great in several vocational industries – especially in certain tank and bulk hauling operations, flatbed, and for those running wreckers. For those who can configure a truck around a smaller 40-inch sleeper, the benefits can be significant, as Dixon Bros. has learned.” The 40-inch sleeper has a compact, yet comfortable sleeping environment and optimal storage. A 24-inch wide by 75-inch long, liftable bunk with 90-degree tilt offers easy access to under bunk storage. The sleeper provides more than 22 cubic feet of storage space to handle gear for occasional stays in the sleeper, and has storage shelves and a cell phone cubby. .

Volvo Trucks USA / August 4, 2016 .