Karzai says US has not wanted peace in Afghanistan during farewell speech

This comes after...

The United States spent more than $100 billion on aid in Afghanistan since 2001 to train and equip the country's security forces, to pave crumbling dirt roads, to upgrade hospitals and to build schools. More than 2,200 U.S. forces have died in Afghanistan operations since 2001. Nearly 20,000 have been wounded. 

Now we have to listen to this ungrateful piece of shit?

 

Mahmud

Ahmed

Karzai and his 2 brothers (Ahmed Wali Karzai, now deceased) were (are) nothing but worthless crooks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Karzai

(under controversies)

http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/is-the-us-supporting-a-family-of-karzai-crooks-in-afghanistan?news=842903

 Speaking of Ahmed... Hamid can't join him soon enough.

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September 23, 2014: Afghan President Hamid Karzai attends his farewell ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Outgoing Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai took one final swipe at the U.S. Tuesday, telling a gathering of Afghan government employees that the 13-year American-led military action had failed to bring peace to his country. 

"We don't have peace because the Americans didn't want peace," said Karzai, who will officially give way to President-elect Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai when the latter is sworn in Monday.

"If America and Pakistan really want it, peace will come to Afghanistan," Karzai added, referring to his country's eastern neighbor as well as the U.S. "The war in Afghanistan is to the benefit of foreigners. But Afghans on both sides are the sacrificial lambs and victims of this war." Karzai also thanked a number of countries for their efforts in Afghanistan — India, Japan, China, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Germany — without thanking the U.S.

Karzai's words were met with a furious response by the American ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham, who called the comments "ungracious and ungrateful."

"It makes me kind of sad. I think his remarks, which were uncalled for, do a disservice to the American people and dishonor the huge sacrifices Americans have made here and continue to make here," Cunningham told a gathering of journalists.

Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi told The Washington Post that while the president appreciates the efforts of U.S. troops and taxpayers to rebuilt the war-torn country, he also believes that the U.S. did not do enough to confront Pakistan-backed militants in the country and that Washington and Islamabad "sabotaged" efforts to reach a peace deal with the Taliban. 

Karzai is the only president Afghanistan has known since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion removed the Taliban from power. In the intervening years, The United States has spent more than $100 billion on aid in Afghanistan since 2001 to train and equip the country's security forces, to pave crumbling dirt roads, to upgrade hospitals and to build schools. More than 2,200 U.S. forces have died in Afghanistan operations since 2001. Nearly 20,000 have been wounded.

The United Nations says that some 8,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in the conflict over the last five years alone. Karzai for years has railed against U.S. military strikes for the civilian casualties that some of them cause — although the United Nations has said insurgents are to blame for the overwhelming majority of casualties.

In his final year in office Karzai refused to sign a security agreement with the U.S. that would set the legal framework to allow about 10,000 American military advisers and trainers to stay in the country next year. Ghani Ahmadzai has said he will sign it.

Samehullah Samem, a member of parliament from the western province of Farah, said as a decade-long ruler Karzai has earned respect among Afghans, but that he should be more careful with his words toward an ally. He noted that the Afghan economy is faltering.

"We are completely dependent on the international community. We need the support of the international community, especially the United States of America," Samem said.

U.S. military and intelligence operatives helped transport Karzai around the region in late 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. That U.S. connection helped pave the way to the presidency.

Ghani Ahmadzai's entrance is more conventional. A former finance minister, the new president has worked at the World Bank and earned a PhD. from New York's Colombia University. His path to the presidency follows a long election season that ended with negotiations for a national unity government and the election commission giving him 55 percent of the runoff vote.

Cunningham said the U.S. was asked to be involved in the unity negotiations and that the U.S. exerted itself to help Afghanistan succeed, an important achievement especially given the "psychic investment as well as blood and treasure" here since 2001.

The 13-year war against the Taliban has largely been turned over to Afghan security forces, a development that has seen casualties among Afghan soldiers rise significantly this year.

Karzai says US has not wanted peace in Afghanistan during farewell speech

Staggering statistics

War on Poverty Is Destroying America

Even though this may have started out with the best intentions Congress allowing this to mushroom to 22 trillion is indefensible!

According to this article the poverty rate now is almost the same as 1967 proving it to be an abject failure.

 Couldn't we use 22 trillion right now?

Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam :

“I won’t be the first American president to lose a war". 

He was right... he lost two of them.

-------------------------------------------------------

The longest war in American history is not Afghanistan. It is an ongoing debacle that we have been losing from the very beginning: the war against property rights, independence, and self-respect that Democrats misnamed the War on Poverty.

Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson's War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that's three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution.

Although it is a staggering amount of money that could have achieved tremendous good had it not been flushed down the toilet, the $22,000,000,000,000 is not the full cost. Think of all the wealth that would have been created if the millions of people seduced into poverty by the government had not been paid not to work.

The welfare state is an end in itself. The objective is not to help the poor, but to grow it by creating more poor. Democrats have been highly successful in this regard.

This is why Obama was reelected despite his glaringly obvious unsuitability for the office. We have reached the point where whoever is less likely to cut off the flow of other people's money will win.

The political, economic, cultural, demographic, and moral consequences of having let liberals reduce us to this state will soon prove cataclysmic.

By now, no informed person could possibly believe that paying people to be poor will stop them from being poor.

Over 100 million people, about one third of the U.S. population, received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient in 2013. If converted into cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S.

And yet,

The present poverty rate is almost exactly the same as it was in 1967 a few years after the War on Poverty started.

This is because even people who live quite well are regarded as poor on the grounds that they do not earn their money, and because the welfare state has crippled the institution of marriage, creating an explosion of the out of wedlock births that drive poverty.

The success of Obama indicates that we may have passed the point of no return. Freed from "stigma" (formerly known as pride and morality), people will not stop voting themselves other people's money until the system collapses into dictatorship. Many of us will live to see this happen unless the situation is reversed quickly.

A civilization can die from a war. The Third Punic War killed Carthage. The War on Poverty is killing America.

It will kill us if we can't stop it.

Staggering statistics

Democrats turn on Debbie Wassermouth Schultz

Talk about a class act

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Video 84

The party has lost confidence in her as a unifying leader and a party spokesperson.

Close

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is in a behind-the-scenes struggle with the White House, congressional Democrats and Washington insiders who have lost confidence in her as both a unifying leader and reliable party spokesperson at a time when they need her most.

Long-simmering doubts about her have reached a peak after two recent public flubs: criticizing the White House's handling of the border crisis and comparing the tea party to wife beaters.

The perception of critics is that Wasserman Schultz spends more energy tending to her own political ambitions than helping Democrats win. This includes using meetings with DNC donors to solicit contributions for her own PAC and campaign committee, traveling to uncompetitive districts to court House colleagues for her potential leadership bid and having DNC-paid staff focus on her personal political agenda.

She's become a liability to the DNC, and even to her own prospects, critics say.

"I guess the best way to describe it is, it's not that she's losing a duel anywhere, it's that she seems to keep shooting herself in the foot before she even gets the gun out of the holster," said John Morgan, a major donor in Wasserman Schultz's home state of Florida.

The stakes are high. Wasserman Schultz is a high-profile national figure who helped raise millions of dollars and served as a Democratic messenger to female voters during a presidential election in which Obama needed to exploit the gender gap to win, but November's already difficult midterms are looming.

One example that sources point to as particularly troubling: Wasserman Schultz repeatedly trying to get the DNC to cover the costs of her wardrobe.

In 2012, Wasserman Schultz attempted to get the DNC to pay for her clothing at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, multiple sources say, but was blocked by staff in the committee's Capitol Hill headquarters and at President Barack Obama's reelection campaign headquarters in Chicago.

She asked again around Obama's inauguration in 2013, pushing so hard that Obama senior adviser — and one-time Wasserman Schultz booster — Valerie Jarrett had to call her directly to get her to stop. (Jarrett said she does not recall that conversation.) One more time, according to independent sources with direct knowledge of the conversations, she tried again, asking for the DNC to buy clothing for the 2013 White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Wasserman Schultz denies that she ever tried to get the DNC to pick up her clothing tab. "I think that would be a totally inappropriate use of DNC funds," she said in a statement. "I never asked someone to do that for me, I would hope that no one would seek that on my behalf, and I'm not aware that anyone did."

Tracie Pough, Wasserman Schultz's chief of staff at the DNC and her congressional office, was also involved in making inquiries about buying the clothing, according to sources. Pough denies making, directing or being aware of any inquiries.

But sources with knowledge of the discussions say Wasserman Schultz's efforts couldn't have been clearer. "She felt firmly that it should happen," said a then-DNC staffer of the clothing request. "Even after it was explained that it couldn't, she remained indignant."

This story is based on interviews with three dozen current and former DNC staffers, committee officers, elected officials, state party leaders and top Democratic operatives in Washington and across the country.

Also on POLITICO: DNC chief walks back Walker 'words'

Many expect a nascent Clinton campaign will engineer her ouster. Hurt feelings go back to spring 2008, when while serving as a co-chair of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Wasserman Schultz secretly reached out to the Obama campaign to pledge her support once the primary was over, sources say.

Meanwhile, the Obama team was so serious about replacing her after 2012 that they found a replacement candidate to back before deciding against it, according to people familiar with those discussions.

Obama and Wasserman Schultz have rarely even talked since 2011. They don't meet about strategy or messaging. They don't talk much on the phone.

Instead, the DNC chairwoman stakes out the president of the United States at the end of photo lines at events and fundraisers.

"You need another picture, Debbie?" Obama tends to say, according to people who've been there for the encounters.

Also on POLITICO: DWS: Walker gives 'back of his hand'

Chairing the DNC should be a political steppingstone — Ed Rendell, Terry McAuliffe and Tim Kaine all went on to bigger things, and even Howard Dean used the post to rehabilitate himself from the man who yelped his way out of a presidential campaign.

And without a doubt, the Florida congresswoman has had plenty of successes. She has overseen the integration of key elements of the Obama campaigns, including its voter file and data programs. After being left with $25 million in bills from the Obama campaign, the DNC enters the fall with the debt cleared and over $7 million on hand. She's started new efforts to build relationships with labor and small business leaders and prioritized the DNC's outreach to female voters.

"My tenure here is not about me," Wasserman Schultz said in an interview with POLITICO at DNC headquarters. "I like to help build this party. That's what I love and that's what I focused on."

She rejects the idea she is over-extended.

"I have always taken on a lot. It's what I love to do. I don't do anything halfway," she said, dismissing any worries that she's overextended. "In some cases, it's sniping; in other cases people are worried about me. I have a lot of Jewish mothers out there that I think very kindly say, 'My god, she's doing so much.' It's OK."

SPLIT WITH OBAMA

The White House is staring at two years of life under a GOP-controlled House and Senate. The DNC chair, however, isn't involved in the strategy talks with the president.

They don't want her there.

For even the occasional Obama briefing by the heads of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, she is not invited. That includes a key session on July 31, the last day the House was in town before the August recess, when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), DCCC Chair Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and DCCC executive director Kelly Ward sat on the couches in the Oval Office running through the political landscape for the president.

Wasserman Schultz described her relationship with the president as speaking to him on an "as-needed basis, whenever I have a need to talk to them or give them a sense of what's going on, but also, as it happens, as we connect on the trail." She declined to provide details of how often, where or when.

When Kaine was DNC chairman during the president's first year in office, he had a monthly lunch with Obama on the calendar (although not all of the lunches actually occurred as planned). Wasserman Schultz demurred when asked if it would be fair to characterize her as speaking "regularly" with the president.

"The best way to describe it is: as often as we need," she said.

According to multiple people familiar with the president, Obama's opinion of Wasserman Schultz was sealed back in 2011. Shortly after becoming chairwoman, she pushed hard for a meeting with the president that she kicked off by complaining that she had been blocked from hiring the daughter of a donor — who'd been on staff in her congressional office — as a junior staffer to be the DNC's Jewish community liaison.

Obama summed up his reaction to staff afterward: "Really?"

Asked about the relationship between the president and Wasserman Schultz, the White House issued a statement praising the chairwoman and DNC staff.

"The president's foremost political goal is helping Democrats do well in the midterms — and Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is doing a great job in that effort," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. "The president is grateful for all of the hard work being done by the entire team at the DNC. He fully recognizes the value of their work, and that's why he has worked so hard to support them."

Wasserman Schultz resisted Obama circle favorites Marlon Marshall and Buffy Wicks replacing Patrick Gaspard as executive director. When Jarrett found out that Wasserman Schultz had had her daughter sit in on the interview with Wicks at the end of July 2013, she called to register her dismay, describing Wasserman Schultz's behavior, according to people familiar with the conversation, as "completely unprofessional and rude."

Shortly thereafter, the DNC chairwoman spoke at length to POLITICO about how she planned to leverage the donors she'd met as DNC chairwoman into fundraising to build chits for her own political future. Jarrett was infuriated and called Wasserman Schultz.

Jarrett had always been a defender, she reminded Wasserman Schultz, according to people familiar with the call, but now she delivered a clear message: She was disappointed by the narrative in the story the chairwoman herself had fed, and cautioned her to remember that Obama is head of the party.

Obama's team came very close to replacing Wasserman Schultz after the 2012 race.

At the Charlotte convention, Wasserman Schultz's DNC staffers assembled a collection of perks — entry to her skybox, access to the chairwoman's lounge — for House members and candidates she was hoping to attract for her leadership run and DNC voting members she would need to retain her DNC post should Obama replace her. She also had her DNC staff explore and plot how she could remain chairwoman if Obama lost the race.

A DNC official said Wasserman Schultz denies she ever made or directed staff to make such inquiries in the event the president was going to lose, but sources say White House and Obama campaign staff were furious.

"She was trying to figure out what the protocol was," said a DNC staffer at the time. "What was the exact length of her term, what would it take to run."

Democrats turn on Debbie Wassermouth Schultz

Ex-official claims Clinton allies scrubbed Benghazi documents in secret session

Before reading understanding Clintonesque is inessential.

Clintonesque:

(Noun) (slang) Using language as a tool of deceit, Clever obfuscation, using language to avoid candor and truthfulness, intending to confuse by clouding an issue. 

Usage: His answer was so Clintonesque that it was laughable. 

e.g.

(Bosnian Snipers)

(Depends on what is is)

This is so Clinton. Two piles of documents... one for the Accountability Review Board a "scrubbed" version ( I wonder if she scrubbed them with Whitewater) and another for what actually took place.

The MSM response:

What difference does it make?

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video 83

Published September 15, 2014

FoxNews.com

A former State Department official has told lawmakers that Hillary Clinton allies privately removed politically damaging documents before turning over files to the supposedly independent board investigating the Benghazi terror attack. 

The account from Raymond Maxwell, former head of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), was first published in The Daily Signal. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, confirmed to FoxNews.com on Monday that Maxwell told him and other lawmakers the same story when they privately interviewed him last year about the attacks and their aftermath. 

Chaffetz said that Maxwell claimed Clinton's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were overseeing the document operation, which allegedly took place on a weekend in a basement office of the State Department. 

"What they were looking for is anything that made them look bad. That's the way it was described to us," Chaffetz said. 

According to Chaffetz' account of his interview with Maxwell, as well as the Daily Signal report by Sharyl Attkisson, Maxwell said those scrubbing the documents were looking for information that would cast Clinton and senior leaders in a "bad light." 

Chaffetz said such documents were said to be removed, so that Congress and the Accountability Review Board -- the board probing security lapses as well as the attack's aftermath -- would not see them. 

Chaffetz described Maxwell's account as "consistent" all this time. The congressman said he is speaking publicly about Maxwell's allegations because Maxwell himself has gone public with them. 

State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach denied the allegations in a statement to FoxNews.com. 

"That allegation is totally without merit. It doesn't remotely reflect the way the ARB actually obtained information," he said in an email. He explained that an "all-points bulletin"-type request went out department-wide instructing "full and prompt cooperation" for anyone contacted by the ARB, and urging anyone with "relevant information" to contact the board. 

"So individuals with information were reaching out proactively to the Board. And, the ARB was also directly engaged with individuals and the Department's bureaus and offices to request information and pull on whichever threads it chose to. The range of sources that the ARB's investigation drew on would have made it impossible for anyone outside of the ARB to control its access to information," Gerlach said. He further noted that the leaders of the ARB have claimed they had unfettered access to information and people. 

Maxwell was one of four State Department officials disciplined in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack, in which four Americans were killed. He was put on administrative leave, and has spoken out before about how he felt he was scapegoated. 

Maxwell was eventually cleared, but retired last year. 

According to The Daily Signal report, Maxwell walked in on the weekend session on a Sunday afternoon after hearing about it. He reportedly claims he saw stacks of documents when he arrived as well as an office director who worked for him -- but who hadn't told him about the assignment. 

Maxwell reportedly claimed she told him they were instructed to go through the stacks and pull out items that could put anybody in the NEA "front office" or seventh floor -- where the secretary's office is -- in a "bad light." 

Maxwell said he "didn't feel good about it" and left a short time later. 

Chaffetz said that he was told then-Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan were there and overseeing the operation. 

"For Hillary Clinton's personal chief of staff and deputy chief of staff to be making a concerted effort to hide documents, make sure that the Accountability Review Board and Congress did not see those documents is unbelievable and absolutely wrong," Chaffetz said. 

Requests for comment to representatives for Clinton, Sullivan and Mills have not yet been returned. 

The new allegations have surfaced as the House select committee on Benghazi prepares to hold its first open hearing on Wednesday. 

Scheduled to testify are Greg Starr, the department's assistant secretary for Diplomatic Security, and Mark Sullivan and Todd Keil, members of the Independent Panel on Best Practices, created to review the accountability board's efforts. 

The board was led by former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Adm. Michael Mullen, who have already testified before Congress and are expected to be called before the select committee. 

Maxwell told Attkisson that the ARB probe was "at best, a shoddily executed attempt at damage control." 

FoxNews.com's Judson Berger contributed to this report. 

Ex-official claims Clinton allies scrubbed Benghazi documents in secret session

If you thought Barry was out of touch with reality... this will confirm your suspicion

http://twitchy.com/2014/09/10/umm-huh-president-says-isil-is-not-islamic/

It gets even better.

By Robert Gehl

September 15, 2014

I'm starting to think we're all in serious trouble.

Because when the President of the United States starts speculating what he would do if he was an ISIS terrorist, it shows a desperate disconnect with reality.

In a lengthy article in the New York Times, Barack Obama decided to discuss what he would do if he was an advisor to ISIS.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/world/middleeast/paths-to-war-then-and-now-haunt-obama.html?_r=0

Before you read on, consider this: Would FDR offer unsolicited advice to Nazi Germany? Would Lincoln opine on what the Confederacy should do? Hell, would LBJ provide suggestions to the North Vietnamese? I would think not.

But here's our president, offering his take on what ISIS should do. What goes on in the liberal mind? Better be sitting down for this one.

If he had been "an adviser to ISIS," Mr. Obama added, he would not have killed the hostages but released them and pinned notes on their chests saying, "Stay out of here; this is none of your business." Such a move, he speculated, might have undercut support for military intervention.

Pin notes on their chests with a sternly written note? Does he have any clue who we're dealing with?

This is something your kid's teacher does when they misbehave in school.

I'm seriously concerned that our president simply isn't remotely aware of the enemy we face. And that's terrifying.

If you thought Barry was out of touch with reality... this will confirm your suspicion

Democrats and the MSM...like peanut butter and jelly

(Click to make larger)

Democrats and the MSM...like peanut butter and jelly

Anybody interested now?

Hell no!



Remember how this administration, Hollywood, and many in the MSM came down hard on Israel for "excessive force"?

http://hemingwayreport.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-to-treat-our-one-and-only-friend-in.html

 Twitter was abuzz with it. Israel tried to make the case Hamas was using civilians as human shields and they were scoffed at. 

Recently Hamas also admitted they abducted and killed the 3 Jewish teens that started the whole thing. 

But this is so yesterday. Today they moved on to more important matters like... a Kardashian putting an extra 3 inches on her ass.

Hamas admits it DID use schools and hospitals in Gaza Strip as 'human shields' to launch rocket attacks on Israel - but claims it was 'mistake'

• Official says group had no choice but to launch rockets from civilian areas

• Ghazi Hamad: safeguards taken to protect civilians but 'we made mistakes'

• He refuses to accept responsibility for deaths in retaliatory airstrikes 

By Matthew Blake for MailOnline and Associated Press

Published: 03:07 EST, 12 September 2014 | Updated: 11:51 EST, 12 September 2014

Hamas appeared to admit using human shields to fire rockets into Israel for the first time today, but refused to accept responsibility for the slaughter of hundreds of innocent Palestinians killed in retaliatory airstrikes.

In a veiled confession that comes two weeks after the end of the Gaza war, a senior Hamas official said the group's fighters had no choice but to use residential areas from which to launch missiles into their neighbour's territory.

But while Ghazi Hamad claimed they took safeguards to keep people away from the violence, he admitted 'mistakes were made', blaming Israel's heavy-handed response for the deaths of civilians.

Increasingly, the discussion is not about whether the Hamas rockets were fired from civilian areas, but exactly how close they were to the actual buildings.

'The Israelis kept saying rockets were fired from schools or hospitals when in fact they were fired 200 or 300 meters (yards) away. Still, there were some mistakes made and they were quickly dealt with,' Hamad told The Associated Press, offering the first acknowledgment by a Hamas official that, in some cases, militants fired rockets from or near residential areas or civilian facilities.

The questions lie at the heart of a brewing international legal confrontation: Did Hamas deliberately and systematically fire rockets at Israel from homes, hospitals and schools in the hope that Israel would be deterred from retaliating, as Israel claims? Or did Israel use force excessively, resulting in deaths among people not involved in combat operations?

The answers could help determine whether Israel - or Hamas - or both are ultimately accused of violating the international laws of war in a conflict that caused tremendous damage.

According to Palestinian figures, nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed - roughly three quarters of them civilians and including more than 500 children - and 11,000 were wounded. The war also left some 100,000 homeless. Seventy-two people were killed on the Israeli side, including six civilians.

Ahead of a U.N. investigation, the Israeli military has released reams of evidence, including satellite photos and aerial footage, to support its claims that it acted responsibly and attempted to minimize Palestinian casualties. It asserts that Hamas made no effort to disguise its attempt to maximize Israeli civilian casualties.

Throughout the war, the Israeli air force compiled dozens of video clips showing alleged wrongdoing by Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel's destruction.

These videos, many of them posted on YouTube, appear to show rockets flying out of residential neighborhoods, cemeteries, schoolyards and mosque courtyards. There are also images of weapons caches purportedly uncovered inside mosques, and tunnels allegedly used by militants to scurry between homes, mosques and buildings.

'Hamas' excuses are outrageous, misleading and contrary to the evidence supplied by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) and the reality documented by international journalists on the ground in Gaza,' said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman.

Confession: In a veiled confession that comes two weeks after the end of the Gaza war, a senior Hamas official today said the group's fighters had no choice but to use residential areas from which to launch missiles into their neighbour's territory 

But a black-and-white satellite image released by the Israeli military illustrates the difficulties in proving the point. The army says the image, taken of the Gaza City neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan, shows four rocket launch sites sitting next to a cluster of schools and a nearby residential neighborhood.

Such images, it says, are evidence that Hamas used built-up areas for cover - and carelessly exposed civilians to danger in Israeli retaliatory strikes. However, the image itself is grainy and shows no clear signs of rocket activity, though rocket launchers are often hidden underground. The army refused to say how it had made its conclusions.

A visit to the area this week found three separate military sites - possibly training grounds - slightly larger than football fields located close to the state schools. 

Hamas tightly restricts access to such facilities, and it was impossible for photographers to enter the sites. Israel confirmed the area was targeted in airstrikes.

Another location identified by the Israeli military as a rocket-launching site is in northern Gaza around the newly built Indonesian hospital. Immediately to the north of the two-story hospital and across the road to the west are two Hamas military facilities. Both stand in close proximity to residential homes. The hospital stands intact, while nothing is visible from inside the bases.

Hamad, the Hamas official, argued that many of the buildings shown in Israeli videos were either a safe distance from the rocket launchers or that the buildings had been kept vacant during the fighting.

The ground in Sheikh Radwan, for instance, lies some 150 meters (yards) away from the neighborhood, and the schools were empty for summer vacation.

During 50 days of fighting, many observers witnessed rocket launches from what appeared to be urban areas. One piece of video footage distributed by the AP, for instance, captured a launch in downtown Gaza City that took place in a lot next to a mosque and an office of the Hamas prime minister. Both buildings were badly damaged in subsequent Israeli airstrikes.

There was other evidence of Hamas having used civilian facilities: Early in the conflict, the U.N. agency that cares for Palestinian refugees announced that it discovered weapons stored in its schools as they stood empty during the summer.

'I don't think there's any doubt urban areas were used to launch rockets from in the Gaza Strip,' said Bill Van Esveld, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. 'What needs to be determined is how close to a populated building or a civilian area were those rocket launches.'

The issue may never be conclusively settled as both sides voice competing narratives over their conduct in the deadliest and most ruinous of the three wars since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

'Yes, Hamas and others may have used civilians as human shields, but was that consistent and widespread?' said Sami Abdel-Shafi, a Palestinian-American who represents the Carter Center in Gaza. 'The question is whether Israel's response was proportionate."

(In other words Israel should apologize to Hamas for incurring less casualties)

The war erupted on July 8 when Israel launched a massive aerial bombardment of Gaza in response to weeks of heavy rocket fire by Hamas and other Gaza-based militant groups - part of an escalation that began with the killing by a Hamas cell of three Israeli teens in the West Bank.

The Israeli army says Hamas fired almost 4,000 rockets at Israel, including 600 from close to schools, mosques and other civilian facilities, and scores of mortar shells. Israel carried out some 5,000 airstrikes, in addition to using powerful artillery and gunship fire.

Frequently, Israeli arms struck hospitals, schools, homes, mosques, factories and office towers. Israel said the buildings had been used for cover by militant fighters, and that whenever possible, it provided warning to civilians that strikes on their buildings were coming.

Israel disputes the makeup of the Palestinian casualty figures, saying that nearly half the dead were militants.

Nevertheless, the death toll and number of civilian deaths have led to harsh condemnations of Israel and raised questions on the proportionality of Israel's response. In an apparent attempt to head off international investigations, the Israeli military said Wednesday it has opened criminal investigations into two high-profile cases involving Palestinian civilian casualties.

Hamas also has been sharply criticized for launching rockets aimed at Israeli cities and towns. Israel says its own civilian death toll would have been much higher had it not been for its rocket defenses.

The U.N. Human Rights Council has appointed a commission to look into the latest fighting. Its report is expected no sooner than March.

Anybody interested now?

This is a public lynching of Ray Rice

In the same fashion as Darren Wilson?

Who's telling the truth?

Report: Ray Rice told Roger Goodell that he hit fiancee

This guy?

Roger Goodell is at a crossroads in his tenure as commissioner. (USATSI)

Or this one?

Don't really know and not crazy about "unnamed 4 sources". 

But I do know this. The last paragraph...Mueller..he was the one who was supposed to be investigating the IRS targeting of the Teaparty. Not one Teapartier was ever interviewed by the FBI.

This is how it went down:

The country’s top investigator seemed to be in the dark when pressed to provide details of the IRS investigation into the tax agency’s targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, seemed to rattle FBI Director Robert Mueller for not knowing the specifics surrounding the IRS probe.

“You’ve had a month now to investigate,” Jordan said. “This has been the biggest story in the country and you can’t even tell me who the lead investigator is. You can’t tell me the actions the inspector general took which are not typically how investigations are done. You can’t tell me if that’s appropriate or not. This is not speculation. This is what happened.”

Mueller repeatedly declined to answer Jordan’s questions, saying he couldn’t because the investigation was ongoing or that he’d have to get back to the lawmakers with answers.

When Jordan asked again,” Can you tell me who the lead investigator is?” Mueller responded, “Off the top of my head, no.” 

Why? Because there was no investigation going on. A crime onto itself. 

Just thought I'd throw this in. I heard he's great at investigating the NFL though because he doesn't have to answer to Barry.

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In an interview Tuesday with CBS Morning News, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league requested the surveillance video from the Atlantic City hotel where Ray Rice punched then-fiancée Janay Palmer in the face, "Because when we make a decision we want to have all the information that's available. When we met with Ray Rice and his representatives it was ambiguous about what actually happened."

Thursday night, four sources told ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr. that when Rice met with Goodell, he told the commissioner that he did in fact punch his fiancee.

"Ray didn't lie to the commissioner," one source with knowledge of the meeting told Van Natta Jr. "He told the full truth to Goodell -- he made it clear he had hit her, and he told Goodell he was sorry and that it wouldn't happen again."

"He told the truth," a second source said. "This is a public lynching of Ray."

A third source, who also had knowledge of Rice's discussions with Goodell, added: "There was no ambiguity about what happened [in the elevator]." A fourth source also confirmed this to Van Natta Jr., although a fifth source said Rice told Goodell he had "slapped" Palmer.

On Wednesday, Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome said: "Ray had given a story to John [Harbaugh] and I. And what we saw on the video was what Ray said. Ray didn't lie to me. He didn't lie to me."

This latest development comes hours after a Wall Street Journal report that Goodell backed off his investigation of what happened between Rice and Palmer after hearing Palmer's side of the story. Reportedly, she told the commissioner that she had hit Rice and felt partially responsible for what happened on the night in question.

According to the WSJ, Goodell "felt it would have been insensitive to question Janay Rice's story because it would have come across as an indictment of her character."

Meanwhile, if Goodell had viewed the video there would be no room for ambiguity or concerns about being insensitive to the victim. Goodell told CBS This Morning that neither he nor anyone in his office saw the video, a claim that was refuted in an Associated Press report that said a law enforcement official sent the video to the league in April.

The NFL announced Wednesday night that former FBI Director Robert Mueller will head an independent investigation into what Goodell and the league did and didn't know regarding the Ray Rice case. Whatever comes of that, this much is a near certainty: Goodell will keep his job.

This is a public lynching of Ray Rice