A measure requiring the office of the Director of National Intelligence to report to Congress on the consequences of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities will not be included in the FY2013 Intelligence Authorization Act.

The House voted in May to include the amendment calling for a report on the consequences of an Iran attack in its version of the intelligence authorization bill. It reads:

SEC. 307. REPORT ON CONSEQUENCES OF MILITARY STRIKE AGAINST IRAN.

Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence shall submit to the congressional intelligence committees a report containing an assessment of the consequences of a military strike against Iran.

But the version the Senate passed on Friday does not contain any language calling for such a report. And instead of merging the House and Senate intelligence authorization bills, the House is scheduled to vote on the Senate version without the Iran war consequences measure.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who led the push in the House to include the Iran war consequences amendment back in May, expressed disappointment the measure has not been included.

“While I am disappointed that our amendment will not be included in the final version of 2013 Intelligence Authorization Act,” Conyers said in a statement this afternoon, “the unanimous support for the report language in the House of Representatives shows that there is substantial bipartisan demand in Congress for a clear-sighted, realistic analysis of the very serious consequences that could result from a preemptive military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.”

Various experts and current and former U.S. and Israeli security officials have publicly warned about the consequences of attacking Iran, including the possibility of an “all out regional war” or a situation that would, in the words of former Bush administration CIA Director Michael Hayden, “guarantee that which we are trying to prevent — an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon.”

The House was expected to pass the Senate’s version of the intelligence bill today, but Republican leaders have postponed the vote.

“Although a report on the consequences of an attack on Iran will not be mandated by this law,” Conyers added, “I strongly encourage the Director of National Intelligence to proceed with this analysis and share it with Congress. The expertise and collective wisdom of our intelligence community is critically needed in this debate.”

(Photo: Bushehr nuclear facility in Iran, AP)

A bipartisan Senate Homeland Security report to be released today has found that the State and Defense Departments share blame for the security failures that resulted in the death of 5 Americans after an attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya back in September.

An independent review earlier this month faulted the State Department for failing to adequately respond to security requests prior to the attacks and called for restoring diplomatic security funding Republicans previously cut. While State Department officials have previously accepted responsibility for inadequate security in Benghazi, the new Senate report expands blame to the Pentagon, the Hill reports:

The report also blames the Pentagon, finding that the Defense Department (DOD) had failed to place adequate resources in the region to respond “in the event of a crisis.”

“Although DOD attempted to quickly mobilize its resources, it did not have assets or personnel close enough to reach Benghazi in a timely fashion,” the report concludes.

The Senate report also criticizes the Obama administration’s mixed messages in the aftermath of the Benghazi assault, claiming the White House was “inconsistent” about whether it constituted a terror attack. The inconsistency “contributed to the confusion in the public discourse” about the attacks, wrote Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

“We’re going to solve this,” President Obama said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “We’re not going to pretend that this was not a problem. This was a huge problem. And we’re going to implement every single recommendation that’s been put forward.”

In retaliation for the United States placing sanctions on Russian human rights violators, the Russian parliament has passed a bill banning U.S. citizens from adopting Russian orphans. The action comes after President Obama signed the so-called “Magnitsky Act,” named for a Russian lawyer who died while in prison, into law on Dec. 14.

The Russians are responding with the Dima Yakovlev bill. The measure commemorates a young boy adopted from Russia who later died in the U.S and places travel sanctions on those Americans whom Russia has deemed violate the human rights of Russian citizens. The Russian Duma, or Parliament, voted unanimously in favor of the bill on Wednesday, and President Vladimir Putin is fully prepared to sign it into law. Putin attempted to head off criticism about the effect the ban will have on the already strained Russian system of care for its orphans:

In televised comments, Putin tried to appeal to people’s patriotism by suggesting that strong and responsible countries should take care of their own and lent his support to a bill that has further strained U.S.-Russia relations.

“There are probably many places in the world where living standards are higher than ours. So what, are we going to send all our children there? Maybe we should move there ourselves?” he said, with sarcasm.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs Olga Golodets says that putting the ban into effect would not only violate Russian federal law, but also international law and a 2011 agreement that the U.S. and Russia put into place regarding adoption. At present, Americans adopt more orphans from Russian than they do any other country.

Progressive veterans group VoteVets.org has received thousands of signatures from concerned citizens, veterans and military families rejecting “neocon smears” against former Republican senator Chuck Hagel.

Bill Kristol and his Weekly Standard magazine has led the campaign against Hagel’s potential nomination as the next Defense Secretary. They and other neocons claim the Nebraska Republican is anti-Semitic and anti-Israel and they have attacked Hagel for issuing caution about attacking Iran over its nuclear program.

But Hagel now has defenders coming from all across the ideological spectrum, from a bipartisan group of former national security advisers and former senior military brass to former U.S. ambassadors and a number of prominent journalists, including those from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Daily Beast and the New Republic.

And today, the VoteVets.org petition piles on in defense of Hagel:

We, the undersigned, strongly reject the neocon smears being launched against Vietnam Veteran and former Senator Chuck Hagel. We will strongly back his nomination for Secretary of Defense, should you choose to nominate him. In fact, we urge you to not be deterred from nominating him, simply because of the right-wing noise machine.

The reason they’re swiftboating Senator Hagel is clear. Chuck Hagel, as a Vietnam Veteran, would put troops first. He has a record of challenging neocon dreams of preemptive use of force – and winning that debate. He has a record of challenging wasteful Pentagon spending, taking on the military-industrial complex, to ensure our defense dollars are responsibly spent on equipment we actually need. As Defense Secretary, he would do the same, and thoroughly embarrass and expose Kristol and his neocon buddies.

It would be unfortunate for our Troops and our nation if we allowed neocons to rob us of a potentially great Secretary of Defense. We urge you to not give in to them.

In a statement released this afternoon, VoteVets.org says that more than 12,000 have signed the petition so far, including more than 8,000 veterans and military families. VoteVets says it and the petition’s signatories “are standing up for former Senator Chuck Hagel, and urging President Obama to stand up to right-wing swiftboating of him.”

The New York Times is reporting that Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal — the head of Syria’s military police — has defected from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

“I, General Abdel Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, commander of Syrian military police, announce that I am defecting from the regime army, to join the people’s revolution,” he said in a publicly broadcast video recording. Shallal attributed his defection to his view that the Syrian military had abdicated its duty to protect the Syrian people and devolved into “gangs of killing and destruction.” There are also reports that the former general has taken shelter in Turkey, joining other military defectors who have sided with opposition forces.

Shallal is the highest-ranking military official to defect from the regime, joining a long line of military and civilian leaders — including the country’s prime minister — to break ties with Assad. In his statement, Shallal also asserted that, “there are other high-ranking officers who want to defect, but the situation is not suitable for them to declare defection.”

To date, thousands have died in the Assad regime’s crackdown and more than 500,000 Syrians have fled to neighboring countries. U.S. and other Western officials have repeatedly called on Assad to step down, and warned the embattled president against using chemical weapons against his people.

Four former national security advisers in a letter to the editor in the Washington Post published on Tuesday denounced what New York TImes columnist Tom Friedman described as “disgusting” attacks on former Republican senator Chuck Hagel and praised Hagel’s prior service to the United States.

Responding to a Dec. 21 Post story on Hagel’s potential nomination to be Secretary of Defense, the former national security advisers, James L. Jones (Obama), Brent Scowcroft (Ford, H.W Bush) , Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter) and Frank Carlucci (Reagan), said they “strongly object…to the attacks on the character of former senator Chuck Hagel,” whom they called “a man of unshakable integrity and wisdom who has served his country in the most distinguished manner in peace and war”:

He is a rare example of a public servant willing to rise above partisan politics to advance the interests of the United States and its friends and allies. Moreover, it is damaging to the quality of our civic discourse for prospective Cabinet nominees to be subjected to such vicious attacks on their character before an official nomination.

This type of behavior will only discourage future prospective nominees from public service when our country badly needs quality leadership in government.

Scowcroft and 10 other retired senior U.S. military officials, including William Fallon and Anthony Zinni, signed a letter last week saying that Hagel would be “a strong leader at the Pentagon” and that he’s “eminently qualified for the job.” That letter came on the heals of one just days prior in which nine former U.S. Ambassadors, including Ryan Crocker, signed a letter praising Hagel’s qualifications for the top Pentagon job.

The high-level support for Hagel comes after the “neocon smear machine” recently began a campaign to tar Hagel as an anti-Semite and anti-Israel and not sufficiently militaristic toward Iran after news reports that he is President Obama’s top choice to succeed Leon Panetta.

Friedman defended Hagel against the backlash in his Times column today. “I think he would make a fine secretary of defense — precisely because some of his views are not ‘mainstream.’”

In its Dec. 21 article on Hagel, the Post quoted Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) calling the former Nebraska Republican an “excellent candidate” for Pentagon chief. “Most senators who served with Chuck would be favorable to his nomination,” Lugar said.

The Atlantic’s Robert Wright notes today that Hagel has now drawn wide ranging support from across the ideological spectrum. “[B]y and large this fight is between some neocons (plus a few reliable supporters) and everybody else,” he writes, adding: “So it’s in Obama’s hands. There’s a lot at stake here — not just whether McCarthyite smears will be allowed to succeed, but whether Obama, in the wake of the Susan Rice episode, will now get a reputation as someone who caves whenever he faces resistance.”

(Photo: Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski – Getty)

President Obama plans to nominate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State early Friday afternoon, according to a senior White House official. Kerry has been the de-facto nominee since U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name after Republicans attacked her comments about the September 11 attack on a U.S. consulate office in Benghazi, Libya. Kerry, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has significant foreign policy experience and believes climate change is the “biggest long term threat” to national security.

– Greg Noth

(Photo: White House)

Eleven retired senior military officials signed a letter in support of former Republican senator Chuck Hagel’s potential nomination as the next Secretary of Defense. The letter, signed by Brent Scowcroft, William Fallon and Anthony Zinni, said Hagel “would be a strong leader” as the next Pentagon chief and that he’s “eminently qualified for the job“:

He is a decorated Vietnam veteran, a successful businessman, a leader in Ronald Reagan’s Veterans Administration and, since his election to the Senate in 1996, one of the country’s leading voices on foreign policy. He would bring a long term strategic vision to the job and the President’s Cabinet. … Most importantly, we believe that the person who can best lead the Pentagon is one who understands the importance of the challenges that our warfighter faces.

The letter comes after nine former U.S. ambassadors, including five former U.S. ambassadors to Israel, signed a letter on Thursday backing Hagel’s potential nomination. The signatories, which included Ryan Crocker, Nicholas Burns, Thomas Pickering and Daniel Kurtzer, said Hagel’s “credentials for the job are impeccable.” “Time and again he chose to take the path of standing up for our nation over political expediency,” the letter said, adding, “We can think of few more qualified, more non-partisan, more courageous or better equipped to head the Department of Defense at this critical moment.”

Since news of Hagel’s potential nomination surfaced last week, the “neocon smear machine” kicked into high gear, labeling the former Republican senator an anti-Semite and anti-Israel and expressing dismay that Hagel has offered words of caution on military action against Iran over its nuclear program. But in fact, Hagel’s record is solidly pro-Israel. He has spoken out against anti-Semitism and has praised President Obama’s Iran policy.

Liberal pro-Israel group J Street is also defending Hagel against the neocon attacks as well a number of prominent journalists, including the Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan, Peter Beinart and Ali Gharib, the Atlantic’s Robert Wright, Steve Clemons and Jim Fallows, John Judis of the New Republic, the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof and the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank. “[T]hese smears have been hugely counterproductive from a truly pro-Zionist standpoint,” Wright wrote on Wednesday. “What you’re seeing now is one of the final desperate spasms of a group that has already helped destroy the thing it loves, and will probably destroy a few other things before finally, like Joseph McCarthy, destroying itself and receding mercifully into the pages of history.”

Among the recommendations of a highly anticipated State Department report on preventing future failures akin to the ones leading up to the Sept. 11 attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, many share a common thread: restoring GOP cuts to State’s budget.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, Deputy Secretaries of State Tom Nides and William Burns laid out the commitment of the Department to implement each of the twenty-four unclassified recommendations put forward by the Accountability Review Board (ARB). One of the most expensive recommendations from the ARB includes restoring full funding for mechanisms put into place after embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania in 1999:

Recalling the recommendations of the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam ARBs, the State Department must work with Congress to restore the Capital Security Cost Sharing Program at its full capacity, adjusted for inflation to approximately $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2015, including an up to ten-year program addressing that
need, prioritized for construction of new facilities in high risk, high threat areas. It should also work with Congress to expand utilization of Overseas Contingency Operations funding to respond to emerging security threats and vulnerabilities and operational requirements in high risk, high threat posts.

In order to carry out that and other recommendations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton intends to request an additional $1.3 billion dollars in funding from Congress, transferred from money allocated for Iraq. This increase would provide for the addition of Marine guards to many of the more dangerous posts around the world, along with increasing the number of State Department diplomatic security personnel and security improvements at overseas U.S. missions. The House and Senate are poised to increase funds available to the Marine Corps to deploy many more Marine Embassy Guards around the world, potentially shifting their mission from one of protecting classified to documents to protecting people.

In Thursday’s hearings, Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer (CA), Robert Menendez (NJ), and Bob Casey (PA) didn’t shy away from recalling the effect Republican gutting of the State Department budget in the past Congress has had on diplomatic security. Boxer pointed out that the Obama administration requested $2.6 billion for the State Department in 2012, which the House of Representatives slashed. While the Senate was able to restore the a large amount of funding requested, State still wound up $200 million short over the last two years.

Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) made clear in his opening and closing statements that an increase in the State Department’s budget was a real necessity in the coming years. Kerry, thought to be Obama’s choice to replace Clinton following her pending resignation, will likely utilize many of the same arguments before Congress in the next term.

Several Republicans have attempted to argue in the past that the funding cuts to the State Department’s budget had a negligible effect on the result in Benghazi. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration in the wake of Benghazi, once proudly declared that he “absolutely” voted for budget cuts to the State Department. The Republicans in the House for Fiscal Year 2013 have already stated that they were willing to put forward $1.934 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program, leaving a sizable gap between them and the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration.

(Photo credit: NY Times)

In his effort to preserve lower tax rates for the wealthy, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) is now trying to buy the votes of hawkish members of his party by moving to block any cuts to military spending in the next fiscal year.

The debate over the coming “fiscal cliff” has always included the threat of a a trillion dollars worth of automatic cuts known as “sequestration,” spread evenly between military and non-military spending over the next ten years. That balance is now threatened by Boehner’s ‘Plan B’ legislation, prepared in a bid to circumvent his talks with President Barack Obama on how to avoid the looming set of tax rate increases and spending cuts due to take effect on Jan. 1, 2013:

Posted late Dec. 19 by the House Rules Committee, Boehner’s “Plan B” addition would require $19 billion in new discretionary spending cuts. It also would allow the president and the White House Office of Management and Budget to conduct a sequestration round if fiscal 2013 discretionary spending levels exceed specific limits, known as caps.

But the Boehner measure would prohibit the president from tapping the defense budget in 2013 to get under spending caps.

“Any sequestration order issued by the president … to carry out reductions to direct spending for the defense function (050) for fiscal year 2013 … shall have no force or effect,” states the legislation.

Since the ‘Supercommittee’ failed to agree to deficit reduction terms in Nov. 2011, protecting military spending has been a top priority of members of the Republican Party. House Armed Services Committee Chair Howard ‘Buck’ McKeon (R-CA) has been at the forefront of the effort, clamoring for months that any further cuts in military spending “will force us to pull back further from the world.” Meanwhile, as Congressional Republicans continue claiming to favor a reduction in government spending, the House and Senate are prepared to pass a military spending bill over $1.7 billion dollars above President Obama’s request.

Conservatives seem to have learned from their campaign to block of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s Secretary of State bid that the goal is to go on the attack early, before a nomination is even in place. That’s one explanation for their concerted attack on former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) who is thought to be the top choice to replace Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta when he retires sometime early next year.

The opposition to Hagel is also centered around the premise that he is somehow “anti-Semitic” and anti-Israel and would be unwilling take action against Iran over its nuclear program. But delving into the Senator’s statements, however, it’s clear that Hagel has a long history of pro-Israel sentiment and concern about Iran. The following is a collection of some of Hagel’s public statements on Israel during his time in the Senate:

“We have always been a strong ally of Israel — since the formation of Israel in 1948. We’ll continue to be a strong ally of Israel.” [10/15/2000]

“A close friend and ally, Israel, remains threatened by some of its neighbors. Violent Islamic extremism finds refuge in Iraq, Iran, and Syria and seeks to make inroads elsewhere in the region. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction remains a threat. [...] Both Israelis and Palestinians have unmet obligations, neither side can justify further inaction. American leadership can push and prod but we cannot force Israelis or Palestinians to negotiate.” [11/15/2005]

U.S. Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) today sent a letter to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, calling for the United Nations to offer a strong resolution condemning recent statements by Iranian President Mohammed Ahmadinejad and by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ali Khameni threatening the existence of Israel and the United States. [12/21/2005]

“The United States will remain committed to defending Israel. Our relationship with Israel is a special and historic one. But, it need not and cannot be at the expense of our Arab and Muslim relationships. That is an irresponsible and dangerous false choice.” [07/30/2006]

Hagel also supported legislation opposing terror groups that reject the two-state solution, voted for a measure expressing solidarity with Israel during the Second Intifada, and cosponsored resolutions lauding the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.” And Hagel has supported numerous measures to strengthen sanctions on Iran over its nuclear and missile programs.

Just last year, Hagel expressed concern about what Egypt’s revolution would mean for Israel’s security. “Not since the 1967 and 1973 wars in the Middle East have we seen such a dangerous time,” he said on CNN in February, 2011. “But this is even maybe more dangerous because it’s more unpredictable, that the bilateral relationship, the first peace treaty with an Arab country that Israel had and still has and has been very important to Israel’s security has been with Egypt.”

Referring to the charges of anti-Semitism against Hagel, Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street, told the New York Times: “It is simply beyond disturbing to think that somebody of Chuck Hagel’s stature and significant record of national service is being slandered in this way.”

Indeed, numerous journalists have come out to defend Hagel against the neocon smears. Here’s the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank criticizing those who point to Hagel’s assertion that there’s a “Jewish lobby” trying to influence members of Congress as evidence that he’s anti-Semitic:

But Kristol, and then others, went further, publishing a passage from a 2008 book in which Hagel is quoted as saying: “The political reality is that . . . the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.”

That was a dumb phrase — many Christians are pro-Israel and many Jews aren’t — and Hagel said he misspoke (he used the phrase “Israel lobby” elsewhere in the interview). But, as an American Jew who has written about anti-Semitism in political dialogue, I don’t see this as anti-Semitic or anti­-Israel. The sentence preceding the quote said that “Hagel is a strong supporter of Israel and a believer in shared values.”

“Using charges of bigotry to, yes, ‘intimidate’ people with whom you disagree about public policy is exactly what drives conservatives batty when it comes to affirmative action, welfare and abortion,” the Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart wrote on Tuesday. “And if they want African Americans, feminists and other liberal groups to assume their good faith on those sensitive subjects, conservatives should extend that same good faith — absent overwhelming evidence — to gentiles who don’t share their enthusiasm for Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The much-awaited release of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board report on the attack in Benghazi, Libya has not quieted the chattering of conservatives about an administration cover-up. Instead, the new conspiracy theory surrounding the tragedy is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is faking recovery from a concussion to avoid testifying to Congress on the report’s contents.

Accusations began with former Bush Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton on Monday outright stating that Clinton is lying about her illness while appearing on Fox News, setting off a string of rumors. In his conversation with host Greta Van Sustren, Bolton said, “You know, every foreign service officer in every foreign ministry in the world knows the phrase I am about to use: When you don’t want to go to a meeting or conference, or an event, you have a ‘diplomatic illness.’ And this is a ‘diplomatic illness’ to beat the band.” Right-wing commentator Charles Krauthammer joined Bolton’s analysis on Tuesday evening.

Which lead to the hosts of Fox and Friends running with the theorizing on Wednesday morning. Dropping any pretense, hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade both outright stated in their exchange that Clinton was avoiding discussion of Benghazi to keep her credibility for a run for the White House in 2016:

DOOCY: If she runs for President in four years, this is not helpful to her, the fact that there were these systemic failure and management failures. Where the people in the field are asking for help and they’re saying ‘Sorry, we don’t have enough money.’ That’s not acceptable.

KILMEADE: You’re saying in four years she should recover from the concussion. That should be a long enough period –

DOOCY: That we didn’t know about until it was time to go to Capital Hill. [CROSSTALK]

KILMEADE: That’s a long enough period of time, after having a concussion, to remember everything.

The State Department announced on last Thursday afternoon that Clinton sustained a concussion during a fall, the result of extreme dehydration in the course of a debilitating stomach virus. Department spokeswoman Victora Nuland yesterday slammed insinuations that Clinton could be hiding from the Benghazi report, saying that it is “really unfortunate that in times like this people make wild speculation based on no information.” Deputy Secretaries Thomas Nides and William Burns will testify in Clinton’s place in open hearings of Congress on Thursday, and Clinton has also confirmed that she will be available to speak before various Congressional committees in January.

This morning’s tale of a dramatic escape from Syria by an NBC correspondent only serves to highlight the near record bad year for journalists around the world in 2012.

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, along with his production team, made their way across the border to Turkey after five days in captivity in Syria. In interviews on Tuesday, Engel said that he and his team were captured while traveling with Syrian rebels and theorized that he was being held by a Shiite militia group loyal to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Engel said the militia’s members used “psychological torture” on him and his crew and intended to exchange the NBC crew Engel and other journalists for the freedom of others being held by rebel groups. (Watch an interview with Engle and his associates here.)

Word of Engel’s capitivity began to spread on social media on Monday after reporting from Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, despite an official media blackout from NBC. Engel’s freedom came at the hands of a Syrian rebel group known as Ahrar al-Sham:

Hazem al-Shami, spokesperson and a fighter in Ahrar al-Sham battalions, said the rebels had been on the lookout for the missing journalists, and so they had set up checkpoints to search for them. One of the checkpoints was near the town in Idlib Province where the hostages were being kept.

“When they saw we’re searching cars, they started to shoot at us,” he said in an interview on Skype. “So we attacked them until the kidnappers ran away and the hostages stayed in the car.”

Engel’s escape is unquestionably a welcome development, but it also draws attention to the scores of journalists who find themselves either unable to flee prisons or who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their work over the course of this year. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 67 journalists have been killed in the line of work in 2012, a number only surpassed in 2009 in terms of lethality.

The spike in those lost this year comes primarily from Syria, where 28 have died in combat or have been targeted by the government, and another 18 in a mass of targeted deaths in Somalia. The vast majority of those lost this year have been local journalists, though four international members of the press, including American writer Marie Colvin and Japanese journalist Mika Yamamoto, were killed in Syria.

Meanwhile, as of Dec. 1, 232 journalists remain imprisoned worldwide for attempting to cover the news. According to the Committee to Protect Journalist, fifty journalists are behind bars in Turkey alone, the highest rate of incarceration for media members in the world, having just arrested another on charges of terrorism yesterday. The majority of those locked up in Turkey are Kurds on terrorism charges.

Engel’s release also shines a light back onto journalists who also remain in captivity within Syria. Among them is Austin Tice, a freelance journalist who first went missing in August, whose whereabouts are still unknown.

Alaska’s House Subcommittee Of The Select Committee on Legislative Ethics announced on Friday its ruling that a legislative aide for a Republican state representative “violated the Legislative Ethics Act” in her promotion of the anti-Islam group known as Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). The group, founded by noted Islamophobes Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, reportedly had an “operative” work inside a state office for “months.” The legislative aide, a woman named Karen Sawyer, gave David Heckert, the SIOA “operative,” significant access to state resources. Here’s a rundown as described by the Anchorage Daily News:

Sawyer let Heckert use her personal laptop and Internet card, and provided him a cellphone number under her family plan. She herself used state equipment to plan events for the group. She even gave Heckert her key to the Wasilla LIO so he could get in while she was out of town, the report said.

In 2011, Sawyer’s boss at the time, Alaskan state Rep. Carl Gatto (R), sponsored an “anti-Sharia” bill. Apparently, Sawyer’s preoccupation with Sharia became so intense that she reportedly said “my co-workers wonder if I’m getting obsessed with Sharia.” Indeed, she was obsessed. Beyond setting up events for the group, she also created a SIOA checking account and joined the group’s Alaska board. What’s more, the SIOA “operative” held a meeting at a state office.

While it may seem shocking that an anti-Islam group could gain such prominence inside a state office, it shouldn’t be. In 2011, CAP documented the troubling rise of anti-Islam groups like Stop Islamization of America.

Sawyer resigned shortly after the ruling was released. (HT: Alex Kane)

In the wake of the tragic events in Newtown, CT, a renewed debate about gun laws is forthcoming in the United States. With that in mind, the following is a look at the top ten gun exporting countries around the world, to see how the United States compares to them in that and other areas related to guns and gun violence. All of these numbers come together to paint a picture of a country with high ownership and production of guns, with high rates of death related to that ownership, and yet some of the laxest laws on the planet when it comes to regulating them.

Top Arms Exporter

When ranked among the top ten arms exporters, the United States is far and away in the lead in terms of sheer output. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States shipped off a total of $6.6 billion worth of arms in 2009, beating the next closest competitor, Russia, by over a billion dollars. Rounding out the list are Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, Spain, Israel, the Netherlands and Italy.

The data combines both private sales from arms manufacturers and government authorized arms trades between states. For a better look at how the latter looks, and how the United States still outperforms all other countries, Google has an interactive look at where all these guns go.

Most Gun Owners Per Capita

Not only does the United States ship off the most guns in the world, its people own the most guns among the top ten exporters. The Small Arms Survey in 2007 pulled together a database of several countries’ gun ownership per 100 people, and found that an average of 88 guns per 100 people within the U.S. In comparison, the next highest country, France, had only 33 guns for every 100 citizens.

Most Gun Deaths Per 100K People

Rather than looking at the sheer number of deaths caused by firearms in the top ten exporters, a more accurate way to compare them is by gun deaths per 100,000 citizens. In that ranking, for those who break gun deaths out from their annual murder rate, the United States is again at the top of the list, this per the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.

The United States in 2009 had 3 gun deaths for every 100,000 people over the course of the year, completely eclipsing the next nearest country’s rate of .96, coming from Israel, by a wide margin. When you factor in the .243 rate of France, the second-highest gun owning country, the United States’ gun troubles seem even more problematic. Notable in this context, in the aftermath of mass shootings, other countries have tightened their laws accordingly and seen a drop in gun violence.

Second Highest Percentage Of Homicides With a Firearm

One of the few areas related to gun ownership and violence where the United States does not come in at the top among the biggest arms exporters is the percentage of homicides within the country carried out using a firearm. In that statistic, Italy holds the first position, with the United States in second. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and the Organization of American States, 60 percent of the murders in the U.S. in 2009 involved a firearm.