Western Education Is Sacrilege

Another, day, another country, more Dar al-Harb, the Religion of Murder and Mayhem rampages on.

At least 69 dead in north Nigeria sect attacks

Residents fearfully left their homes Saturday to bury their dead in northeast Nigeria following a series of coordinated attacks that killed at least 69 people and left a new police headquarters in ruins, government offices burned and symbols of state power destroyed.

A radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks in Borno and Yobe states, with the worst damage done in and around the city of Damaturu. The group also promised to continue its bloody sectarian fight against Nigeria’s weak central government, with residents nervously moving through empty streets, waiting for the next attack.

. . .

Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, an oil-rich nation of more than 160 million which has a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north. Its name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, but instead of schooling, it rejects Western ideals like Nigeria’s U.S.-styled democracy that followers believe have destroyed the country with corrupt politicians.

See also:
Nigerian insurgents unleash deadly attacks
Bloody weekend; 66 killed as Boko Haram wreaks havoc
11 policemen, 79 others killed in Yobe bombing
Attacks in Nigeria Leave at Least 65 Dead
At least 65 killed in attacks on Nigerian city: aid agency
More than 100 dead in Nigeria attacks: Red Cross
Nigeria group threatens more deadly attacks
Nigeria: Boko Haram’s deadly attacks show Islamists’ growing reach
US: Bomb attacks possible in Nigeria capital
Nigerian forces hunt killers, locals demand security
Pope urges ‘end to all violence’ in Nigeria
FACTBOX-What is Nigeria’s Boko Haram?
Boko Haram

Much like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Boko Haram kill and maim, in the name of Islam, to prevent the education of Muslim children.

/is there any other world religion where ignorance is a virtue?

Taking NATO To The Woodshed

On his way out the door, retiring U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates lets it fly.

Gates Says NATO Could Face ‘Irrelevance’ in the Future

American Defense Secretary Robert Gates has told NATO members that they need to do more — and spend more — to support the alliance.

ROBERT GATES: “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”

On Friday, Mr. Gates gave his last policy speech before he retires as defense secretary on June thirtieth. He spoke in Brussels, Belgium, at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO was created in nineteen forty-nine to defend western Europe against the Soviet Union.

See also:
Transcript of Defense Secretary Gates’s Speech on NATO’s Future
Gates rebukes European allies in farewell speech
‘Collective Military Irrelevance’
After Gates’ Blunt Warning, What’s Next for NATO?
US warns Europe over NATO future
Libya, Europe and the future of NATO
NATO’S future at risk, warns Pentagon chief
Gates offers grim account of NATO’s Libya efforts
Gates slams NATO allies over share of combat burden
Where Gates criticizes, Obama celebrates
How long will the U.S. find NATO relevant and affordable?

Just how worthless is NATO? They’ve been battling third rate military power Libya for three months now, NATO’s running out of ammunition, and Moammar Gadhafi is still there. What would NATO do if, say, Russia attacked western Europe? If NATO can’t defeat Libya, how can they possibly defend themselves? It’s more than obvious that NATO has outlived its usefulness and needs to be disbanded. Why should the United States continue to put up the vast majority of funding, troops, and equipment to support Europe’s defense, when Europe refuses to defend itself?

/and why the [expletive deleted] is Turkey a member of NATO, they not only don’t contribute much of anything, they actively work against the other alliance members, how insane is that?

The American Combat Mission In Iraq Is Over

Hey, Obama said it, so it must be true, right?

So, what’s the difference between an old fashioned combat brigade and a newfangled “advise and assist” brigade? Apparently, not much, besides the tortured semantics spewing from Obama’s enormous piehole.

U.S. soldiers help repel deadly attack on Iraq army headquarters

American soldiers helped Iraqi troops battle insurgents in downtown Baghdad on Sunday, repelling a major attack in the heart of the capital five days after President Obama declared an end to U.S. combat operations.

At least 18 people were killed and 39 injured in the midday attack in which a group of suicide bombers and gunmen attempted to storm the Iraqi army’s east Baghdad headquarters, located in a former Ministry of Defense building in a busy market district alongside the Tigris River.

2 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq

Two American soldiers were killed and nine were injured Tuesday when a man wearing an Iraqi army uniform opened fire on them in an Iraqi commando compound in the province of Salahuddin, an attack that highlighted the danger U.S. troops continue to face in Iraq despite the formal end of combat operations announced by President Obama last week.

The soldiers were members of a security detail guarding a U.S. company commander who was meeting with Iraqi security forces, according to a statement issued by the U.S. military. The military said it wasn’t clear whether the assailant was an Iraqi soldier, but Iraqi and Kurdish officials said the shooting occurred after an altercation between the American soldiers and a Kurdish Iraqi soldier.

See also:
US Forces engage in response to Iraq attack
Al-Qaida group claims attack killing 12 in Baghdad
Gunmen attack Iraq army base, kill 12
Attack Shows Lasting Threat to U.S. in Iraq
First U.S. troops killed in Iraq after Obama declared U.S. combat mission over
Iraqi soldier kills 2 U.S. soldiers
Iraqi Kills 2 U.S. Soldiers, Wounds 9
US soldiers killed in Iraq
U.S. troops in Iraq go from shock and awe to ‘advise and assist’
First U.S. Advise and Assist Brigade Arrives In Iraq Under New Dawn
Five myths about the Iraq troop withdrawal
Journalists face challenge: Is it really ‘end of combat’ in Iraq?
A Rose by Any Other Name (Make that A Combat Brigade by any Other Name…)

Now, does all this sound like U.S. combat operations ii Iraq are over? Simply renaming combat brigades as “advise and assist” brigades so that Obama can claim that the American combat mission in Iraq is over is nothing more than a cheap political stunt that does nothing to change the literal ground truth. For the 50,000 U.S. troops left in Iraq, combat is certainly not over, no matter what lies Obama tells.

/then again, it’s hardly surprising, this is the same Clown Car Club of an Obama administration that insists on pretending there is no war on terror and no terrorism by euphemistically relabeling these concrete, real world concepts as “overseas contingency operations” and “man caused disasters”

Calling All Cryptographers

******************************UPDATE******************************

It’s over, so you can relax now.

Researcher cracks ‘secret’ code in U.S. Cyber Command logo

A security researcher said on Thursday he was the first to crack the code embedded in the seal of the U.S. Cyber Command (Cybercom), the group responsible for protecting the country’s military networks from attack.

Sean-Paul Correll, a threat researcher with antivirus vendor Panda Security, said that the characters visible in a gold ring on Cybercom’s official seal represent the MD5 hash of the group’s mission statement. MD5 is a 128-bit cryptographic hash most often used to verify file integrity.

A representative of Cybercom confirmed that Correll had it right. ” Mr. Correll is correct…it’s a MD5 hash,” said Lt. Commander Steve Curry of the U.S. Navy, in an e-mail.

“It wasn’t very difficult,” said Correll, adding that it took him only two minutes to figure out that the characters — 9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a — were the hash value for Cybercom’s mission statement.

Correll had a leg up on the solution, since Wired.com’s “Danger Room” blog — which first noticed the characters — had published the 32-character code.

“I knew right away it was an MD5 hash, and I knew it wasn’t anything to do with a specific file,” ” said Correll, adding that security professionals will often use an MD5 hash as reminders, or to verify that a file’s contents after downloading match the original edition.

Correll said he figured out the mystery shortly after 10 a.m. PT Wednesday, within an hour of Wired.com publishing its story.

. . .

The MD5 value is a hash of Cybercom’s 58-word mission statement, Correll noted on his blog: “USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes, and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.”

See also:
Cyber Command Secret Cracked
Crack the Code in Cyber Command’s Logo (Updated)
CYBERCOM’s Secret Code Demystified
Confusion over ‘secret code’ in US military Cyberforce crest
Get out your decoder ring; but don’t get excited

Sorry, no prize for you!

/better luck next time

******************************END UPDATE******************************

Are you smarter than U.S. Cyber Command?

Crack the Code in Cyber Command’s Logo

The U.S. military’s new Cyber Command is headquartered at Ft. Meade, Maryland, one of the military’s most secretive and secure facilities. Its mission is largely opaque, even inside the armed forces. But the there’s another mystery surrounding the emerging unit. It’s embedded in the Cyber Command logo.

On the logo’s inner gold ring is a code: 9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a

“It is not just random numbers and does ‘decode’ to something specific,” a Cyber Command source tells Danger Room. “I believe it is specifically detailed in the official heraldry for the unit symbol.”

“While there a few different proposals during the design phase, in the end the choice was obvious and something necessary for every military unit,” the source adds. “The mission.”

With that hint in hand, go crack this code open. E-mail us your best guess, or leave it in the comments below. Our Cyber Command source will confirm the right answer. And the first person to get it gets his/her choice of a Danger Room T-shirt or a ticket to the International Spy Museum.

See also:
The secret code in U.S. Cyber Command’s logo
The race is on to crack the code in the U.S. Cyber Command’s logo
Cyber Command encrypts logo
The Secret Code Hidden In the United States Cyber Command’s Seal (Updated)
United States Cyber Command Logo Contains Secret Code
U.S. Cyber Command
United States Cyber Command
MD5

Good luck!

/and you’d better hurry before some Chinese hacker beats you to the solution