Barack Obama is due to campaign in Boulder, Colorado on Thursday night to fire up this liberal bastion and try to snuff out a libertarian challenge which threatens to siphon crucial votes.

The president hopes to shore up support in the swing state and neutralise Gary Johnson, who is running for president on the Libertarian party ticket, just days ago after the former New Mexico governor electrified students at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The maverick Johnson remains barely known to most ordinary Americans but is expected to take votes from Obama – and Mitt Romney – in Colorado on the back of enthusiasm for a separate vote on November 6 over whether to legalise marijuana.

Hundreds packed a university auditorium to hear him speak on Monday night. Dozens who did not fit inside lined the corridors, ears straining to catch the words. All cheered and whooped Johnson's calls for social tolerance and a radically downsized government.

"There's a lot of support for my message here. You can feel it," he told the Guardian afterwards. "Young people who are disappointed with the president are listening to what I have to say."

Some Democrats, haunted by Ralph Nader's torpedoing of Al Gore in 2000, fear Johnson may damage Obama more than Romney and hand the state, and the White House, to the Republicans.

Polls have locked the president and Romney in a statistical tie, with one this week giving each candidate 47% each. A few thousand or even just a few hundred votes could swing the state.

"I want you to make sure you sign, seal and deliver this election to Barack Obama," Bill Clinton told a rally in Denver on Tuesday night. The outcome could pivot on a handful of votes in Colorado, he said.

No one doubts Obama will sweep Boulder and Colorado's other liberal strongholds but the question is: will the margin be enough to offset Romney's advantage in conservative parts of Colorado Springs and the Denver suburbs?

Johnson has declared a target of 5%, saying this would wake up Washington to the libertarian message, but in such a tight race analysts say even 0.5% could prove decisive.

The lack of detailed polling on Johnson has made Republicans and Democrats equally nervous because he could plausibly sink Romney or Obama.

"The few surveys that have captured his level of support show that he draws from both candidates – the young people from Obama and he draws the Libertarians from Romney and those who may have been for Ron Paul," Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based pollster, told DailyCamera.com. "But none of the samples have been big enough to show which candidate loses more votes."

Two Denver Post polls showed Johnson drawing less than 3% and not changing the margins between Obama and Romney. A poll from Public Policy Polling gave Johnson 2% and said he drew slightly more support from Obama than Romney, but not enough to make a difference.

For Obama to invest precious, dwindling time in Boulder – his third visit of the campaign – underlined concern about Johnson.

"I need your help to put out a spark before it grows into a fire," Dan Gould, chair of the Boulder county Democratic party, emailed activists before Johnson's visit on Monday.

"He is trying hard to peel student votes away from President Obama around the issue of deregulation of marijuana. With Colorado being so vital and so close at this point, we can't let that happen."

Democrats handed out flyers near the auditorium and, judging from the pro-Obama slant of several questioners, joined the audience, but there was no dampening Johnson's spark.

A youthful 60, wearing a black jacket over a CND T-shirt, Johnson bounded onto the platform and started with a brief resumé of his life: entrepreneur, elected governor of New Mexico as a Republican in 1994, re-elected in 1998, vetoed apparently more bills than the country's 49 other governors combined, competed in Iron Man triathlons, climbed Mount Everest. And now running for the White House with slogans such as "I'm free" and "The people's president."

Government, he said, should keep costs low and stay out of the bedroom. "You know you're a libertarian when you hate speed limits," he said, earning cheers.

He promised to end the drug war by legalising marijuana as a first step to legalising other drugs. Colorado's amendment 64, which would allow anyone over 21 to use marijuana, could set an example for America and the world, he said, louder cheers.

He advocated non-interventionism overseas. "I'm the only candidate that doesn't want to bomb Iran. And that wants to pull our troops out of Afghanistan tomorrow."

Johnson condemned the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization act as civil rights violations and called Obama a feeble advocate of gay rights and other liberal causes. "I agree with everything he says. He was the great hope. But none of it has transpired."

Johnson also said he would abolish the federal reserve, the department of education, the IRS, income tax and corporate tax. A smaller government and a federal consumption tax would tame the deficit.

"Some say a vote for me is wasting your vote. Wasting your vote is voting for someone you don't believe in. So I say waste your vote, vote for Gary Johnson. If everyone does that, I'll be the next president of the United States." A standing ovation followed.

Questioners who challenged his hostility to Medicare and student loans – supposedly a Democrat trump card here – gained little support from the audience.

Johnson, who is on the ballot in 48 states, told the Guardian he had smoked pot but gave it up, along with alcohol, when he became an athlete. He said he appeared to be drawing more support from Obama than Romney in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, and vice versa in Michigan and Virginia.

Jack Dille, 21, a humanities major, endorsed Johnson. "Romney and Obama are like milquetoast, just boring. And think of the drug war, it's ridiculous. People say I'm wasting my vote, but if I can't be idealistic now, when can I be?"

Dille is lost to Obama, but the president's return to Boulder may sway undecideds like Kevin Blair, 28, an international affairs student who disapproves of both Romney and Obama. "Our drone strikes are killing civilians, it's appalling. I'm leaning towards Obama but it sucks that we're stuck with these two schmucks."

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Blown away by Hurricane Sandy: News of the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

But the coverage is returning as Sandy's floodwaters recede and Republicans press the Obama Administration for more answers about the deadly attacks in the Middle East.

"I think there's classified information the public should know about eventually but there's no reason for it to be classified," said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, declining to discuss what classified information he has or has not seen.

Rubio said he hopes for more public information after his committee holds a closed-door hearing on the attacks Nov. 15.

"After the hearings," Rubio said, "there will be an enormous amount of pressure on them to disclose that."

Rubio, a Republican, said he was disappointed that the Democrat-controlled Senate scheduled the hearings after the election, and he suggested it gave President Barack Obama more time to spin "a political narrative."

Obama has received a boost of positive press from the latest disaster, Hurricane Sandy.

The monster storm dominated the news, largely because it affected so many people and destroyed so much in the backyard of the national media's broadcast nerve center in the New York area.

In contrast to how he handled Benghazi, Obama is winning plaudits for managing the crisis and striking up what some political observers jokingly called a 'bromance" with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a campaign-trail surrogate for Republican Mitt Romney.

The two incidents highlight the perils and profits inherent in the politics of disaster in the neck-and-neck presidential race.

Until Sandy struck this week, there was only one major disaster burning in the presidential race: Benghazi, the deaths of four foreign-service workers and the Obama Administration's differing explanations of what happened.

Now, Obama supporters are on offense, blasting Romney for suggesting in a June CNN debate that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be cut or take more of a back seat in responding to disasters.

"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney said, when asked specifically about whether to cut costly disaster relief.

Romney's campaign Wednesday supplied a statement to CBS that clarified his position about the "key role" FEMA plays.

"As president, I will ensure FEMA has the funding it needs to fulfill its mission," he said, "while directing maximum resources to the first responders who work tirelessly to help those in need, because states and localities are in the best position to get aid to the individuals and communities affected by natural disasters."

George Haddow, an Obama supporter and former FEMA deputy staff chief in the Clinton Administration, said Romney's comments show "he doesn't know what he's talking about" when it comes to FEMA.

"Disasters are the most-political events that happen in a democracy," Haddow said.

"They get all of your attention. The media's there. It's white hot. There's a ton of money involved. There are people in distress. This is a platform. You either jump on that platform and define what you're doing or, if you don't, other people will. And they'll define it for you."

Former President George W. Bush is a prime example.

Bush's approval ratings soared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But his administration was hobbled by Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans in 2005.

Romney was in danger of having his position on FEMA defined by the Obama campaign when the Republican repeatedly refused to answer questions from a reporter about his position earlier this week.

Similarly, Obama refused to answer questions last week from a local reporter in Colorado about whether his administration denied help to Americans under siege in Benghazi.

"We are finding out exactly what happened," Obama told KUSA-TV. "I guarantee you that everybody in the state department -- our military, CIA, you name it, had the number one priority making sure that people were safe. These are our folks and we're going to find out exactly what happened, but what we're also going to do is make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks."

The day after the Libya attack, Obama said it was one in a number of "acts of terror" against the United States.

But then he and administration officials repeatedly suggested or said that it probably wasn't a terrorist attack, and instead was the result of an uprising due to an inflammatory anti-Islamic YouTube video that led to protests in Cairo, Egypt.

Rubio, who visited Libya last year and also sits on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, said the administration's response made no sense because Libyans are among the least likely to rise up against the United States.

"I was shocked by that because it didn't mesh with anything I knew about Libya," Rubio said.

Crediting CNN and "open-source reporting," Rubio said it became quickly apparent that the Benghazi attacks were coordinated, occurred over a long period of time and involved heavy weapons. Yet the administration kept talking about the YouTube video.

"That leads you to conclude one of two things: Either they're incompetent because they couldn't analyze all that," Rubio said. "Or there's something they didn't want to know about because it's against their political narrative -- that al-Qaida's on the run and bin Laden died."

Rubio said there's a chance Obama's administration "underestimated the security risk in Libya because they didn't think terrorism was there and that it somehow didn't pose a threat."

Rubio said Democrats seem more invested in classifying information and delaying public hearings this election season.

Obama, in his Denver interview, suggested that wasn't the case.

"The election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened," he said. "Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do."

But that won't happen in the U.S. Senate until after Nov. 6. ___

(c)2012 The Miami Herald

Visit The Miami Herald at www.miamiherald.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services

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As the East Coast is battered by Hurricane Sandy and the Atlantic City boardwalk washes into the Atlantic Ocean, it’s hard not to think about the pilots and aircrews who actually fly into these hurricanes.

The Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron has flown through Hurricane Sandy all week helping forecasters predict this unprecedented turn toward the New Jersey shore and through Pennsylvania.

This summer, Air Force Lt. Col. Jeff Ragusa listed a couple facts unknown about these Reservists who are the ones called every time the National Hurricane Center identifies a potential tropical storm. One fact I didn’t know is that the Hurricane Hunter were actually the product of a bar room dare. The rest of the facts provided by Ragusa are below:

– Two Army Air Corps pilots challenged each other to fly through a hurricane. On July 27, 1943, Maj. Joe Duckworth flew a propeller-driven, single-engine North American AT-6 “Texan” trainer into the eye of a hurricane. Maj. Duckworth flew into the eye of that storm twice that day, once with a navigator and again with a weather officer. These were generally considered to be the first airborne attempts to obtain data for use in plotting the position of a tropical cyclone as it approached land. Duckworth’s pioneering efforts paved the way for further flights into tropical cyclones.

– While commercial airliners often fly at 40,000 feet, 53rd pilots never fly storms above 10,000 feet. Hurricanes can extend up to 60,000 feet.

– 53rd pilots only fly storms over water. When the storm hits land, our mission is complete.

– Hurricane Hunter missions can last as long as 14 hours and use as much as 60,000 lbs. of fuel.

– 53rd aircrews have a minimum crew of five: pilot, co-pilot, navigator, weather officer and loadmaster/dropsonde operator.

– There are only 12 planes in the world allowed to fly into hurricanes and we have 10 of them. The other two are flown by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

–  Hurricane Hunters can fly a storm 24 hours a day. It takes at least three planes and crews.

–  53rd pilots fly as low as 500 feet during the infancy of a storm.

– The unit has never missed a tasking from the National Hurricane Center.

– Data and observations gathered by the Hurricane Hunters helps make the forecasts by the NHC 30 percent more accurate allowing local officials to make critical decisions about safety and property.

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We were taking photos of a flooded out fire station in Hoboken when we heard an announcer on the radio declare, "The 3-person rule is being strictly enforced on any crossing into Manhattan."

Luckily, there were three of us. Not so luckily, I live in Jersey. After some deliberation, we decided that I'd just head in with them and then head right back out on public transit.

Understandably, I was dubious about heading into the city unnecessarily, but I didn't want to leave my coworkers hanging.

We passed up the Lincoln Tunnel headed north, as the AP posted a story about long lines to get into Manhattan and frustrated people.

But when we got to the George Washington Bridge, we found a breezy, easy entrance into the city, and a nice little lady at the toll booth who explained to us, "the 3-person rule is only for certain crossings. The George Washington Bridge is not one of them."

In fact the George Washington Bridge is the only place where the 3-person rule is not in effect, according to CBS. The rule will be in effect on other bridges and tunnels until midnight tonight. Next week is to be determined.

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Marine Maj. Steve Taylor, who had unknowingly suffered a concussion in Afghanistan after a roadside explosion, was at a takeout pizza dinner with his family at Camp Lejeune, N.C. There was some teasing over the toppings, which caused Taylor to fly into a rage.

“I realized -- what the hell am I doing, flipping out over toppings,” he said. “That’s when I realized I needed help.”

Taylor had trouble getting the help he needed at Lejeune and was eventually sent to the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. -- the military’s latest state of the art rehabilitation center dedicated to treating servicemembers afflicted with traumatic brain injury.

Following the success seen in TBI patients at the Intrepid Center, the Pentagon is working with a military charity, the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, to raise money and build nine satellite centers like it on military installations across the U.S.

TBI, one of the signature wounds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, can take on a low profile in its milder forms that victims can’t or won’t acknowledge.

“Sometimes, people don’t even realize they have an issue,” said Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff.  When they do come to the realization, it can be just as hard for them to admit it and seek help.

“We’ve got to get to an environment that when they need help, they go get it.” Odierno told military families at the Association of the U.S. Army convention last week.

Army Reserve Sgt. Daniel Burgess only began to know something was wrong mentally when doctors weaned him off narcotics for the pain from the amputation of his right leg below the knee, the result of an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. He also had suffered a concussion. 

“I couldn’t remember to do things, I didn’t know what was what,” he said.

His wife, Genette, “was kind of like my little drill sergeant” through the crisis. With her help, he went into therapy.

Both Taylor and Burgess are among the more than 43,000 troops who have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury since 2002, according to Defense Department statistics. They are also among the few hundred who have benefited from the specialized treatment for TBI that the military is now seeking to expand in cooperation with the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.

The Intrepid Fund, inspired by the late New York real estate developer Zachary Fisher, began after 9/11 with gratuities to the families of servicemembers killed in the line of duty. In 2007, the Center for the Intrepid amputee and burn rehabilitation clinic was built at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.

David Winters, president of the fund, said his group asked the Defense Department what they could do next after building the clinic. The result was the $70 million, state-of-the-art National Intrepid Center of Excellence that focuses on TBI at the Walter Reed.

“It was not built as a factory to keep pumping troops through,” Winters said. “From the ground up, it was specifically designed for research and treatment,” he said.

The fund now has a $100 million fund-raising campaign underway to build as many as nine Intrepid satellite centers at major military installations. Groundbreaking has already begun for TBI centers at Camp Lejeune and Fort Belvoir in Virginia, and planning is also underway for centers at Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Bragg, N.C.; and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

“Building the center here will enable us to provide localized advanced research and care for our Marines and sailors suffering from post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury and other related afflictions,” said Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, after the groundbreaking for the center at Camp Lejeune in September.

The particular difficulty in diagnosing and treating TBI is that “if the brain injury is bad enough, you’re the last to know it’s a problem,” said Dr. James Kelly, a neurologist specializing in concussions who is the director of the Intrepid Center in Bethesda.

Consequently, involvement of the families is crucial to treatment, Kelly said. At the Bethesda center, patients are encouraged to bring their families, including children, who stay at the Fisher Houses on the grounds. One Navy SEAL brought eight relatives with him.

Since opening in 2010, the center has treated a total of about 350 patients. Usually, about 20 patients, all referred by their home providers, are on the grounds for stays of up to four weeks of intensive Monday through Friday sessions from 8:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“You can’t just treat the soldier, you have to treat the entire family,” said Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho. The Bethesda center’s approach “manages the soldier as well as the family. It actually synchronizes behavioral health care with concussive care,” Horoho said at the AUSA convention last week.

The treatment starts when the patient walks through the door, is greeted by a nurse, and is ushered into a living-room setting for a session with a panel of specialists, including an internist, a family counselor, a neurologist, a psychologist and a social worker.

The focus is on “what do we need to know about you today, how can we start to help you. They get to say their story one time, not eight times” as often happens as patients are shuffled to new doctors and case workers at their home bases, Kelly said. “It elevates the level of interdisciplinary understanding.”

One of the first goals is dealing with sleep disorders common to TBI.

“Virtually everyone has it here. Virtually no one comes here sleeping normally,” Kelly said.

The patients also have access to alternative therapies such as art therapy, yoga and acupuncture.

“Mentally, it was exhausting but I noticed my memory started to click,” Taylor said about his stay at the Intrepid Center in Bethesda.

On Dec. 22, 2010, Taylor was serving with the 2nd Marine Regiment as an adviser to the Afghan National Security Forces. His MRAP hit an improvised explosive device on a mission in southwestern Afghanistan.

“Everybody in the vehicle was pretty much shook up” but otherwise uninjured and they continued with the mission, Taylor said. “I didn’t lose consciousness. I guess the shock waves affect people in different ways. I felt a little dazed.”

Within a week of the blast, he was experiencing fits of vomiting, which he attributed to the Afghan food and living conditions. But when he returned home, he had trouble sleeping, morning headaches and bouts of forgetfulness.

“I kind of thought it was old age creeping up,” said Taylor, 40, of Philadelphia. “I felt constantly in a haze, like I’d been drinking the night before, and I’m not a drinker.”

Then there were the fits of anger, which finally led him to seek help, but at Camp Lejeune “they couldn’t handle the problem.” There were waiting periods to see constantly changing therapists, and Taylor also had to handle his feelings of guilt.

“It’s kind of a stigma” for an officer to ask for help, Taylor said. “I was thinking ‘what about these junior Marines” who are also in line for appointments. “It’s a little harder for an officer to ask for treatment,” he said.

Lejeune eventually referred him to the Intrepid Center, where he immediately told the specialists that “I want to get my memory back; I want to get my speech back. I feel sore and tired every morning,” Taylor said.

After a battery of tests, “they found out I had sleep apnea.” With more treatment and counseling, “I’m a different person. My symptoms are not as severe,” and he has also learned coping mechanisms to deal with them, Taylor said.

Taylor’s injury was not obvious, even to him, but that was not the case with Sgt. Daniel  Burgess. He was an Army psychological operations specialist attached to the 2nd Battalion, Fourth Marines, when he stopped on an improvised explosive device on Nov. 20, 2011, while on patrol near the flashpoint town of Sangin, Afghanistan.

In addition to losing his right leg below the knee, Burgess also suffered two compound fractures of the right hand in the blast in which the Afghan interpreter with the patrol lost an eye.

Burgess was sent to the Center for the Intrepid at Fort Sam Houston. While his physical wounds were being addressed, he also had to deal with the effects of the concussion.

“There were days I didn’t even want to get out of bed,” Burgess said.

At the Intrepid Center’s TBI clinic, he began to get help with short-term memory loss. “I started using my cellphone as an external memory,” Burgess said, and then there was the support of other troops in the clinic.

“All the other guys were going through the same thing,” he said. “That was some of the best therapy. Just listening to other people -- this guy is doing this, that guy is doing that. You just start noticing little things. I guess you could say it’s like group therapy.”

“But a lot of it is family” on the way to rehabilitation, Burgess said. “We have a saying in my family -- you cannot say I cannot do it. That’s the motto in our house.”

Burgess is now in the Warrior Transition Battalion at Fort Sam Houston, waiting to be discharged, “and I just got my running leg. I’m using it now all the time,” he said.

Burgess, 34, originally from Charleston, S.C., said he’s been in contact with the sheriff’s office of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where he was on the special response team of the Corrections Department before being called up for duty in Afghanistan. They’ve promised to have a job waiting for him, Burgess said.

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Medal of Honor: Warfighter is EA's second attempt to carve out its own slice of Activision's mighty Call of Duty franchise. In this it is not alone. 2007's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has been one of the most influential games of recent times, to the extent that "contemporary military FPS" is now gaming's most bloated subgenre. Warfighter is an underwhelming addition.

That is not to say it's abysmally terrible, though the critical reception thus far could be politely described as a shoeing. Warfighter is a decent enough game in the COD mould, as these things go, and reproduces its atmosphere and knack for explosive theatrics almost to the beat. The differences, such as they are, come down to minor gunplay tweaks – you can lean out of cover, for example, and slide into it.

But in terms of corridor-shooting a bunch of foreigners, you've played Warfighter many times before. The game hops between two special forces operatives who are piecing together an awful plot by shooting loads of terrorists and occasionally driving vehicles very fast.

It's a short campaign, clocking in at under five hours, and tries to make up for this by having something explode in slow-motion every 15 minutes. It's also incredibly keen on Call of Duty's "Breach" mechanic, where you smash through a door in slow-motion and headshot multiple balaclava-wearing goons, to the extent that you're continually unlocking different (though functionally identical) breach tools.

The problem with Warfighter is that it doesn't have many fresh ideas, and the ones it does are bad. One level, unbelievably, consists of watching a cutscene, then headshotting one dude and watching another cutscene. You don't move an inch. Mounted gun sections, remote-controlled drones, sniping missions, night-vision shootouts, you've done this all before. A Bourne-channeling escape sequence in a beat-up car shows that Warfighter can also ape other media, but as with everything else, the execution is strictly B-list.

The multiplayer, at least, shows Medal of Honor getting serious. The online structure here, heavily inspired by Criterion's superb Autolog system, effortlessly outpaces that of Call of Duty and its anaemic Elite. The homepage quickly tracks the types of game you like playing, putting them front-and-centre, while a separate social hub (urgh) tracks friends and clans.

The biggest problem with Warfighter online is the bland game itself. The obvious competition is COD and EA's own Battlefield, both of which have a more distinctive identity: the former an arcade-style environment for lone gunners, the latter a much weightier and more team-focussed shooter.

Warfighter treads an unhappy line between the two. Its shooting is responsive, and there are all the game modes you'd expect, but there's nothing here that hasn't been done better elsewhere. On top, some parts are just plain odd – in certain multiplayer modes, bizarre interstitials play as the teams 'change ends'. So your grizzled army dudes, who are shooting each other to death, walk all manly-like across the stage, eyeballing each other.

It's absolutely nuts, and also sums up a bit of the identity crisis under Warfighter's skin – the reason, in my opinion, why the game's slightly offensive rather than merely another military FPS. There's a great deal of technical talent behind Warfighter, but not much in the way of ambition or imagination. This is why the game is so similar to Call of Duty.

Yet, it is marketed as an alternative to Call of Duty, specifically as the 'authentic' alternative. This can be seen from the ex-Tier 1 operatives used as consultants and wheeled out at press events, to the line "inspired by actual events" that appears at the start of most missions, and even to the ridiculous (and withdrawn) pre-order bonus of a Tomahawk. An actual Tomahawk.

The game's developer, Danger Close, believes its game is a tribute to the military, specifically America's military. What is offensive about Medal of Honor's posturing in this direction, and it is posturing, is that despite the constant killing, this game is not about war and it is not even about the military. Quite apart from its in-game trivialisation of death, like the red and white headshot icons that pop up after especially juicy shots, Medal of Honor now inhabits a fictional universe where you play a character called Preacher hunting down a terrorist called the Cleric. This is a comic book world.

That's the problem. Medal of Honor, let us remember, has heritage. This is a series created way back in the late 90s under the direction of no less than Steven Spielberg himself, with the explicit aim of humanising conflict. 2012's Medal of Honor now has the subtitle Warfighter, and is set in a literally black-and-white world with a B-list script. If that's what you want to make, fine and dandy. But dressing this up in the way that Warfighter's developer and publisher do, as a tribute to the armed forces and the sacrifices of war, seems a kind of huckster's valorisation.

When I look at Medal of Honor now, and its commercial partners that produce things like the Tac-300 McMillen Tactical Rifle, I see a game created under the belief that being authentic is the best way to siphon off Activision's sales. And yet with that belief, the one thing its creators never thought to change was the game itself, how it works and what that communicates to players. It can't even manage a tonal shift from COD. That's the repugnant thing about Warfighter. It's a rebranding exercise, veiled by the sanctity of America's brave forces.

War games can do dumb, and I'm OK with that. But dressing dumb up in the cloak of authenticity seems a dangerous line to cross. When you pretend to be saying something about ongoing real-world wars, but present a conflict of extremes with all the substance of air, the thought that anyone might take Warfighter seriously becomes a very queasy one. What it comes down to is an assumption that its audience is there to be fooled, and doesn't care anyway. That's what Warfighter feels like – a piece of propaganda.

• Game reviewed on Xbox 360

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The Obama administration accelerated its response to the fuel problem in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy Friday, and has authorized the Pentagon to deliver 24 million gallons of extra fuel to replenish supply, according to the New York Times.

Via The Times:

[The Obama administration] authorized the Defense Department to hire hundreds of trucks that will be used to deliver 12 million gallons each of gasoline and diesel fuel to staging areas in New Jersey. The fuel, mostly from commercial suppliers, will then be distributed throughout the region in coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help resupply stations. That would translate into 800,000 vehicles with 15-gallon tanks.

The Defense Logistics Agency is handling the fuel purchases and deliveries. It has contracting capacity that it is using to carry out the mission quickly.

In conjunction with that move, the Pentagon was authorized by the Department of Energy and the White House to tap the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve. The federal authorities will draw down as much as 2 million gallons of diesel fuel to provide extra supplies to government emergency responders, helping them to keep electricity generators, water pumps, federal buildings, trucks and other vehicles running. The oil reserve, created by the federal government in 2000, holds 42 million gallons of ultra-low sulfur diesel at terminals in Groton, Conn., and Revere, Mass. It is the first time fuel has been released from the reserve.

With four days to go until the election, the decision was likely made in large part to avoid the political pitfalls of being blamed for a fuel shortage. But it is unlikely to do much to change the underlying factors causing the perceived crisis. As the Times points out, New York port has been reopened to tankers and the Northeast fuel pipeline is back at full capacity, so the real problems now are lack of power at gas stations and panic buying.

To solve those problems in the hardest hit areas, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced Friday that the state will start rationing gas in 12 counties Saturday.

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At this point it's clear that the U.S. had something to hide at Benghazi, and that's why reports coming out of the Libyan city have been so confusing.

Two key details about the the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans cannot be underestimated.

"The U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation," officials briefed on intelligence told the Wall Street Journal, and there's evidence that U.S. agents—particularly murdered U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens—were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to Syrian rebels.

WSJ reports that the State Department presence in Benghazi "provided diplomatic cover" for the previously hidden CIA mission, which involved finding and repurchasing heavy weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals. These weapons are presumably from Muammar Gaddafi's stock of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles, the bulk of which were SA-7 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles. 

What's odd is that a Libyan ship—which reportedly weighed 400 tons and included SA-7s—docked in southern Turkey on Sept. 6 and its cargo ended up in the hands of Syrian rebels. The man who organized that shipment, Tripoli Military Council head Abdelhakim Belhadj, worked directly with Stevens during the Libyan revolution.

Stevens' last meeting on Sept. 11 was with Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and a source told Fox News that Stevens was in Benghazi "to negotiate a weapons transfer in an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists."

Since Stevens and his staff served as "diplomatic cover" for the CIA—only seven of more than 30 Americans evacuated from Benghazi worked for the State Department—the spy agency would certainly know about heavy weapons and Libyan jihadists flooding into Syria if Stevens did.

Given that most of the weapons going to hard-line jihadists in Syria are U.S.-made and are being handed out by the CIA, it's not a stretch to wonder if the CIA is indirectly arming Syrian rebels with heavy weapons as well.

If President Obama's position is to refrain from arming rebels with heavy weapons, but regime change in Syria is advantageous, then a covert CIA operation with plausible deniability seems to be the only answer. It's a dicey dance, especially if it's exposed.

In an article titled "Petraeus’s Quieter Style at C.I.A. Leaves Void on Libya Furor," Scott Shane of the The New York Times notes that CIA Director David Petraeus has "managed the delicate task of supporting rebels in Syria’s civil war while trying to prevent the arming of anti-American extremists."

In regards to Benghazi, Petraeus has "stayed away in an effort to conceal the agency's role in collecting intelligence and providing security," the WSJ reported, noting that during the attack "some officials at State and the Pentagon were largely in the dark about the CIA's role."

SEE ALSO: How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria >

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Iran's parliament on Sunday summoned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a grilling over his handling of last month's currency crisis which saw the rial plunge 40 percent against the dollar, state media said.

A total of 77 deputies in the 290-seat conservative-dominated parliament submitted a petition requiring Ahmadinejad to explain the "government's procrastination in managing the forex market," official IRNA news agency said.

According to the constitution, a petition demanding that the president come to the majlis, or parliament, to answer questions must be signed by a minimum of 74 deputies.

The president now has one month to appear before the deputies with his replies.

The petition submitted on Sunday says that rial fell from 22,000 to 40,000 against the dollar in the space of 20 days last month, "due to Central Bank inaction ... which caused inflation along with economic slowdown, disrupting the activities of the economic players."

The collapse of rial is being seen by economists as one of the consequences of banking and oil sanctions slapped on Iran by the United States and the European Union for its refusal to give up its uranium enrichment programme.

Tehran is also under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its disputed nuclear drive, which world powers believe has a military dimension despite repeated denials by the Islamic republic.

The sanctions have seen Iran's oil exports tumble and at the same time have made it more difficult for Tehran to receive petrodollars, leading to a shortage of foreign currency in the market.

The embargoes have also made it more difficult and expensive to import goods, while causing a rise in inflation and a slowdown in industry and commerce.

After long denying the impact of these measures, Iranian leaders are now beginning to acknowledge the extent of the damage and denouncing what they say is an "economic war" against the Islamic republic.

The parliament, critical of Ahmdinejad's policies and his handling of the economy, had also summoned him in March, the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution that it had resorted to such action.

The summoning for questioning has no political consequences for the president.

NOW SEE: Why Investigators Exhumed Yasser Arafat's Body >

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“TROOP IN TROUBLE” was the beginning of the status update posted last week by the military Facebook page Awesome Shit My Drill Sergeant Said. The humor-based page that originally started as a place for Drill Sergeants and soldiers to share stories had just become the last lifeline of a suicidal soldier.

Just before going to sleep around 11:30pm, Dan, a Staff Sergeant in the Army National Guard who is one of the page administrators and goes by the pseudonym “HMFIC”, decided he’d check the page activity one last time. There was a message in his inbox.

“I don’t know where else to turn,” the message read. “I’m 100% certain that my friend is planning on killing himself tonight and I cannot get a hold of him or anyone that can get to him. Can you help me?”

Dan sprung out of bed and into action, messaging the soldier and probing further. He provided screenshots of his friend’s recent Facebook posts and texts. The troubled soldier had lost his job, his girlfriend, and had financial troubles. It was serious.

For Dan, it wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with soldiers and suicide.

“A good friend of mine and my former squad leader was close,” Dan told me. “He was talked down after sending a last minute text of goodbye to his girlfriend.”

With only the knowledge of the soldier’s name, approximate location, and phone number -- which he would not respond to -- Dan wrote a frantic plea to his fans:

“TROOP IN TROUBLE; We just received a request for help from a troop that turned to us in desperation because it is the middle of the night and no one in the chain of command is picking up the phone and he sincerely believes his battle [buddy] is planning to take his own life tonight.”

The update, which had the soldier’s approximate location in Kingsport, TN -- was shared over 200 times across the social network. And then, the comments of support and offers of help came in.

“Sent to a friend in Kingsport,” said one fan at 2:44am. “Damn wish I was there,” commented another.

Prayers were offered, along with others who said they were willing to talk to him on the phone if necessary. Some who were nearby got in their cars and headed to the area to await further information.

“We had people, some from 100 miles away jump in their cars and head to Kingsport without even knowing who the guy was,” Dan recounted. “They wanted to ensure they were in the area in the case we got a location.”

Emails began to pour into Dan’s inbox. “I had a flood of emails from a slice of America.” he said. “I had hackers, phone company reps, a retired hostage negotiator, psychologists, behavioral health specialists. Anybody and everybody emailing, saying here’s what I do, let me know if I can do anything.”

“Got a phone number,” Dan posted to his fans, “but straight to voicemail with no voicemail box set up yet.” Along with others who had the soldier’s number, Dan began sending text messages to him, but he wouldn’t respond.

Many fans of the page stayed awake to continue following the saga and offer assistance. For Dan, who could see the larger picture, desperation started to creep in at 3:07am:

“10 minutes max and I’m calling civilian EMS dispatch,” he wrote in another comment. “F-- this. Lost too many goddamned people to the enemy to lose a single f--king one to the enemy within.”

“After not hearing back from him, I called Kingsport emergency dispatch,” said Dan. Speaking with emergency operators, he explained the situation. Law enforcement officers looked up his last known address -- his grandmother’s home -- and tried to check on him. He wasn’t there.

As police officers rushed to find the soldier, Dan started receiving texts from the man he was trying to save.

“I appreciate what you and everybody with your page are trying to do, but I’ve made my decision.”

With a mixture of Dan’s own technical knowledge, help from fans, and with the soldier’s phone signal broadcasting, Dan was able to track a latitude and longitude for the soldier.

“His texts were getting progressively worse and then he stopped responding,” Dan said. He looked up information on the soldier’s unit online and found the phone number for his Executive Officer (XO). It was almost 4am.

Waking up the officer, Dan explained what had transpired. “Sir, I know this is going to sound a little weird,” he told him, “but I’m from the internet and I’m here to help.” More soldiers were woken up -- including the commander and other leaders.

Using Dan’s approximate GPS whereabouts with knowledge gleaned from fellow soldiers, he was located, alone, drinking in a small apartment. His fellow soldiers spoke to him through the door, saying “Let’s talk about what’s going on and figure out what we can do to get you on the right track.”

At roughly 5am, after over 1400 comments on the original post, hundreds of calls and texts, the XO commented to the page, “We picked him up. The soldier is safe.”

Dan still can’t believe the level of support that came, all to help a single soldier.

“The response was humbling to say the least, and at the time moved me to tears,” Dan told me. “I still get choked up when I think about it.”

With the news that the soldier was out of harm’s way, Dan caught a few hours of sleep. When he woke up, he had an email from the soldier’s commanding officer, who was amazed at the response from his page and his fans. He closed by telling Dan, “Thank you for saving my soldier’s life.”

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I came across an article in al-Jazeera that discusses a case of traditional justice where over a dozen girls were handed from one tribal group to its rival to help settle a blood feud. It sounded like any number of traditional dispute resolution cases I’d heard about in Afghanistan, but this article was about Pakistan. Aside from just being a human rights concern and an illegal practice in Pakistan, this case came under some scrutiny because reportedly one of the tribal leaders who lead the Jirga or council of elders convened to settle the problem was actually a local politician.

A local politician breaking the state law to uphold a traditional system of justice. The article suggests that the problem is no small one, but is symptomatic of a region where there is no state governance—in other words, if the state is not present to uphold its own laws, people will rely on the systems of justice and self-rule that have served them for centuries. If the Pakistani state fails to behave like a government in little civil systems, it is hardly surprising that they cannot provide security or border control in these areas. What you ultimately get are the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), home to violence and human rights abuse and a safe haven for a number of terrorist and insurgent groups.

The politician’s people denied his involvement, but whether he was or no, I have to wonder at the kind of pressure put on him. He has a formal position, but knows there is little or no way to enforce any state-friendly rulings. The feud needs to end or there will be continued violence, leaving few if any options. Will not the best solution to strengthen the state apparatus, it would be reasonable for a person to choose the practical option over no option.

This article caught my eye because I recently put out one of my own where I described a very similar situation in Afghanistan. I came to similar conclusions, namely that there are significant implications for this kind of tension between formal and informal justice systems, beyond the immediate victims it creates. A local politician was dealing with a similar issue there, but did not want to back the traditional system because he saw it as an ideological issue that could set dangerous precedents. I argue there that for Afghanistan to be a state, it needs to act like one at all levels, and foreign parties invested in the future of Afghanistan need to support the growth of official institutions rather than hybrid solutions.

The article on Pakistan reaches a similar sort of conclusion, though there is more hope because the deputy speaker of the National Assembly has taken an interest in this particular case, bringing more attention to it and what it implies. It ends with a quote from a rural leader who calls solutions like this a “crime.” So for those of us interested in finding practical paths in how to create a stronger state in Afghanistan from the ground up, how the neighboring Pakistani government handles cases like this one may provide some concrete example of steps we can take. Or, should it fail, of what to avoid. Because to continue to allow traditional justice to fly in the face of official justice in parts of Afghanistan could well be the initial steps down the road of creating another low-security, high-threat, FATA-like region right across the border from the one next door.

For more thoughts on justice and governance in Afghanistan, see Ty Mayfield’s article here. 

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Through heavily accented Spanglish the first thing he ever said to me was, “I am your Corporal and I do not like the d*** sucking.” I would come to find later that he had a robot black heart tattooed over his real heart. I was eighteen years old and standing at the position of attention. I replied, “I do like the d*** sucking, but to each his own Corporal.”  My roommate was also new to the unit and had Mexican heritage, he bit his lip in fear but I was confident that the Corporal would not comprehend my translation. The Corporal was a light skinned Mexican, he was built of lean muscle, he ran Iron Man competitions for fun and he was my first real squad leader. I was at home. Somewhere in the not-too-distant future both of the men standing with me in that room would be shot full of bullets in their legs; the squad leader’s leg almost blown in half and my roommate’s calf’s would look like a shark took a snack as he stumbled into our overpowered house with his finger laying down full automatic survival.
  
Later the squad leader was moved to point-man, after the rest of the unit returned from advanced training. He loved the job and was good at it because he moved like a panther and was born lethal. I asked our point man “Bandito” how he came to America and he told me about walking through the border after several attempts as a teenager. His brother had taught him how to knife fight and he would teach me. He spoke of bandits in the streets of Mexico as a youth and how these bandits knew not to f*ck with his knife-fighting brother. During a training operation our unit participated in in Okinawa, the Bandito’s team was wiped out as he fought through the bottom story of a mock hotel with paint bullets. He called over the radio to inform us that he was carrying on. By himself the Bandito killed every member of the opposing force in the hotel working from the bottom floor to the rooftop. I was glad his service was in the US Marines.

I was his student. In Kuwait he introduced me to a Sergeant Rafael Peralta in 1st platoon. The Bandito explained to me and the Sergeant his outlook on the impending Battle of Fallujah in late 2004. He said, “I am here for the glory, nothing else. A million bullets can rain down and if Mary wants to take me it will be my time, if not it won’t.” I objected to this non-scientific approach and Sergeant Peralta laughed at my interpretation. Sergeant Peralta would later be nominated for a still pending medal of honor when after being terribly wounded he pulled an enemy hand grenade under his life-filled body, absorbing the lethal impact thus saving the lives of the Marines in the room with him. Regular guys who come from Mexico, the Mexican Marine Corps and an untold story of sacrifice by Mexican immigrants lives to this day in our military — which has always been filled with immigrants who in yesteryear were white, Irish, Italians — the immigrants of today are giving generations of Americans a good excuse to avoid service.
  
This machinery is necessary to the American framework, it is not cruel, and tomorrow the Latino immigrants who served become politicians and can serve their non-serving white counterparts with a record that can’t be challenged. This is the real America and a new wave of demographic will be our integrated future, like it or not. The truth is domesticated suburbanite teenagers like I was can’t be killing effectively without the hard hand of the immigrant Corporal, who is hard through experience and a representative of every immigrant Corporal from every country to come to America, pick up a gun and fight in another foreign land.
  
After the wounded had been extracted, I picked up the Bandito’s helmet, left behind as they loaded him onto the helicopter. I looked to a full moon and wondered if there was any significance in this?  My teacher was off to the hospital and one of my heroes, Cpl. Michael Cohen, had been killed. I reached in the Bandito's helmet and picked out a Spanish prayer card he had tucked into the webbing. I stuck it into the webbing of my helmet and left the war an untouched atheist. I will visit the Bandito in Mexico next month for the first time since we were Marines, where he is fighting for his country in the drug war.

He is my last interview for my film about Fallujah, "And Then They Came Home."

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While everyone in the States was busy thinking about/ignoring the debates, a Russian Anti-Terrorism force launched an operation that resulted in 49 militants killed and 219 people taken into custody.

As Central Eurasia Standard has previously reported, the Northern Caucasus are seething. Militants have attacked police stations, checkpoints, hospitals, and energy infrastructure. Suicide bombs are frequently detonated, and the conflict is spilling over into previously stable regions. A  prominent Sunni scholar recently declared that due to Russian involvement in Syria, notably the shipment of arms to the Syrian government, Russia has become the number one enemy to Islam.

However, to reduce the conflict in the Caucasus to militant Islamism and religiously inspired terrorism is very reductionist – in addition to Islamist militancy, there are separatists groups present in the Northern Caucasus as well, conflicts between Christian and Muslim populations. Many of these conflicts intersect and overlap.

So why did the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee carry out this operation now, as violence is a daily occurrence in the region, and what exactly is the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee?

This looks like it was a huge operation, with RFE/RL quoting the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee as picking up 30 IEDs, over 100 weapons and 530 mines, rockets and grenades. The operation took place in at least three locations, two in Dagestan and one in Kabardino-Balkaria.

The second question might be easier to answer than the first. The Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee is the name given in the RFE/RL article, and states it is made up of “forces from the Federal Security Service and Interior Ministry.” The Kremlin website states the National Anti-Terror Committee  “develops measures to counter terrorism and eliminate its underlying causes,” and that there are regional committees to manage counter-terror operations. No surprises there – this operation could be seen simply as a state security apparatus addressing, though through means that many Western countries would find abhorrent, a violent, protracted insurgency within its borders.

So why was now considered the optimal time to attack, when sadly there is daily violence in the region? Putin has publicly urged Anti-Terrorism forces to use more  ‘daring’ measures when dealing with insurgencies, and operations in the Northern Caucasus are increasingly aggressive. As to why there is increasing aggression, it would be easy to point to the near-daily violence in the region as rationale enough to warrant a large-scale operation, but with such a long history of violence, what more reason is there? Perhaps it’s the international questioning of Putin’s crackdown on internal Russian dissent making Russian leadership jumpy, or perhaps there’s more going on in the Northern Caucasus (a region not accessed easily right now, especially by Western news outlets) than we are aware of – likely a combination of both.

It would be a huge blow to Putin’s ego if the international community began to question his ability to ‘manage’ his ‘managed democracy’ – and a spiraling, increasingly visible insurgency is likely to cast a pall over Putin’s leadership both at home and abroad. After all, Putin is the President who directs birds home and has a pet tiger – much of his leadership strategy is tied up in very visible projections of strength. His recent statements about the need to be daring took place in the context of assuaging concern that Russia will be an unsafe location for the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Cup. He has even stated that it is a matter of honor to ensure that nothing goes wrong during these massive international events.  However, as we’ve been made very, very aware of thanks to Pussy Riot, this security seems to be coming at an increasingly greater cost to human rights for Russian citizens, a particularly bloody cost for the citizens of the autonomous enclaves of the Northern Caucasus.

The US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute also published a report, Russia’s Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, that is some heavy, but worthwhile background reading on the issue. The SSI report is actually three papers that look at insurgency and resulting counterinsurgency campaigns in the Northern Caucasus. It deals with three main issues: the Islamist nature of the conflict, the Russian response, and the implications of the conflict, which is rarely reported on in the West (which the report and Foreign Policy have pointed out).

This operation was not the first and will not the last we will hear of large, violent operations by Russian forces in the Northern Caucasus. Efforts to control the insurgency in this restive region have failed for over 20 years.

NOW SEE: What Happened To Marines When 'Red Air' Stranded Them In Taliban Territory >

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Lingerie to the rescue!

Noah Shachtman at Wired has a fantastic story about what happened to the New York Army National Guard's 69th Infantry Regiment during Hurricane Sandy on Monday night.

They were left without power, hot water and most means of communication when the storm hit.

And then they were saved — by Victoria's Secret.

“We were dead in the water until Victoria’s Secret showed up,” Capt. Brendan Gendron, the Regiment’s operations officer, tells Wired.

You see, they asked for help from the producers of the Victoria's Secret fashion show, which is held annually at the Regiment's armory on 25th St. and Lexington Ave. in Manhattan.

Fortunately, Victoria's Secret had brought in eight huge generators for the show. By 7 PM Tuesday night, the armory was fully powered.

It's not just the power Victoria's Secret helped out with. The crew had previously set up an internet line on a microwave dish on the roof, and put routers in the Regiment's command center to help with communications. Plus they offered up a forklift — which the Regiment didn't have — to help out with the food distribution effort.

NOW SEE: 11 Surprising Facts About The Victoria's Secret Angels >

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Yesterday I had a look at one of the first articles I wrote about this year’s presidential election, a response to my good friend Tim Stanley, which ended “Bin Laden’s dead, General Motors is alive. That’s about as existential as this election’s going to get”.

So it’s proved. This has been a campaign surprising for its lack of surprises, for the dogs that haven’t barked.

We left the conventions with Barack Obama ahead in the polls and favourite to win, while Team Romney battled perceptions their candidate was a man who was aloof and out of touch, and a campaign schedule that had faced severed disruption because of a hurricane. As it was in the beginning, so it is at the end.

As I’ve beenpointingoutwithmonotonousregularityoverthecourseofthepasttwomonths, elections are decided by the fundamentals. And the reason why Barack Obama is going to be re-elected president of the United States tomorrow is because none of the big structural political shifts predicted by Mitt Romney and his supporters have materialised.

We were told Romney was going to outspend the president by a margin of 2:1. That would in turn enable him to unleash a ferocious barrage of negative advertising, and destroy Obama in the eyes of the swing-state electors who would determine the contest’s outcome.

It didn’t happen. Obama matched Romney dollar for dollar, and launched his own ad blitz in the spring that burned an image of Romney as affluent, arrogant and callous into the public consciousness.

We were told the enthusiasm and organisation that had swept Obama to power in 2008 would evaporate, replaced by a wave of excitement for his challenger. Again, it simply hasn’t occurred. The early voting returns have shown an energised and well-marshalled Democratic base, and already given Obama such significant leads in the key swing states that Romney is facing margins too wide to bridge.

Time and again we were informed that the ailing economy would to be the issue that would deliver Republicans the keys to the White House. But throughout the autumn the key economic indicators – most notably jobs – have remained on a stubbornly positive trajectory, with broad economic confidence rising in their wake. This in turn has seen a rise in the presidential approval ratings.

The campaign itself had a whole host of supposedly game-changing moments. But none of them had a lasting impact. Benghazi was supposed to be the new Watergate; it wasn’t. The final set of unemployment figures were supposed to trip Obama as he ducked for the finishing line; they didn’t.

And of course there was the Denver debate. A reset button had been pressed; the “real Mitt Romney” had finally arrived on the scene. Except he hadn’t. Or if he had, people took a look, thought “OK, maybe he hasn’t got horns and a tail. But that doesn’t mean I want him to be my president,” and the status quo was restored.

For two or three weeks the narrative surrounding the contest was turned on its head. But the fundamentals – sorry, we’re back to those annoying fundamentals again – remained unchanged. And as the robustness of Barack Obama’s swing state ‘firewall’ became apparent, the narrative finally began to realign itself with reality.

To the extent we did have surprises, they worked almost exclusively to Obama’s advantage. The "47 per cent" tape, which cemented the negative perception of Romney created in Obama’s spring advertising offensive. The Ohio own-goal, where Romney’s ads claiming Jeep production was to be transferred to China created a furious reaction from the motor manufacturers, and reinforced the impression amongst Midwestern blue-collar voters that Barack Obama was the friend of the motor industry, while Mitt Romney was its mortal enemy. The Richard Mourdock rape comments, after which Romney inexplicably refused to cut Mourdock loose, pulling the rug from his efforts to reach out to women voters.

And of course, the one genuine October surprise, hurricane Sandy. While Mitt Romney scurried around holding “relief events” with Nascar drivers and country and western signers, Barack Obama toured the devastation with the Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, looking presidential and in command.

But even these events merely served to confirm preconceptions, rather than alter them. Barack Obama finishes the 2012 race ahead for the same reasons he started it ahead: because he is presiding over a slow but sustained economic recovery; because he is bringing America’s sons and daughters home from two wars, and has delivered America’s most reviled enemy to ultimate justice; because he is an effective and innovative political campaigner; and because whatever weaknesses he has, and whatever mistakes he has made during the first term of his presidency, Mitt Romney has proved he is simply not a strong enough candidate to exploit them.

Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. That’s why Barack Obama is returning to the White House.

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Israel's prime minister and defence minister ordered the country's military to prepare for a strike against Iran's nuclear installations two years ago, according to a television documentary to be aired on Monday.

But the order was not enacted after it met with strong opposition from key security chiefs, the military chief of staff and head of the Mossad, the programme in the TV series Uvda [Fact] claims.

It says that, following a meeting of selected key ministers and officials, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak decided to order the army to raise its level of preparedness to "P Plus", a code signifying imminent military action.

But the army chief Gabi Ashkenazi and Mossad head Meir Dagan, who were both present at the meeting, opposed the move. According to the hour-long Channel 2 programme, Dagan told Netanyahu and Barak: "You are likely to make an illegal decision to go to war. Only the cabinet is authorised to decide this."

The programme reported Dagan saying after the meeting that the prime minister and defence minister were "simply trying to steal a war".

Ashkenazi voiced fears that raising the alert level would "create facts on the ground", making a military strike inevitable. He was quoted as saying: "This is not something you do unless you are certain you want to execute at the end."

Both security chiefs have since left their posts.

Barak, who was interviewed for the programme, said the order was not enacted because the military did not have the necessary operational capability. He rejected the notion that security chiefs vetoed the order.

"The things you are describing are the responsibility of the government," he said. "The idea that if the chief of staff does not recommend something that is possible to do, then we cannot decide to carry it out – this has no basis in fact. The chief of staff must build the operational capacity, he must tell us from a professional point of view whether it is possible to carry out an order, or if it is not possible, and he also can – and must – give his recommendation. [But] it can be carried out against his recommendation."

Barak also said that raising the alert level "did not necessarily mean war".

The Channel 2 reporter for the programme, Ilana Dayan, said Israeli military censors prevented her from disclosing the date in 2010 for the order.

Since leaving office, both security chiefs have made clear their opposition to premature military action against Iran's nuclear programme. In August, Ashkenazi said "we're still not there", urging more time for sanctions and diplomacy.

Dagan said bombing Iran was "the stupidest idea I've ever heard". He told CBS's 60 Minutes: "An attack on Iran now before exploring all other approaches is not the right way … to do it."

The military and intelligence establishment in Israel is also believed to have serious reservations about launching unilateral military action. The US has urged restraint, arguing that sanctions need time to take effect.

In his speech to the United Nations in September, Netanyahu pulled back from the likelihood of an imminent Israeli strike when he declared that a "red line"– the point at which Iran is close to nuclear capability – would not be crossed until next spring or summer.

The Iranians say their nuclear programme is for domestic use, not to create weapons.

Channel 2's disclosures came as a respected Israeli thinktank, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), published the outcome of a war game simulating the 48-hour period after an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear installations. In the scenario, Israel does not inform the US of its operation until after its launch. Iran reacts by launching around 200 missiles at Israel, and urging its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas to do likewise. However, it is careful to avoid attacking US targets in the immediate aftermath of a strike.

According to the INSS, there are two opposing outcomes of an Israeli attack: "One anticipates the outbreak of world war three, while the other envisions containment and restraint, and presumes that in practice Iran's capabilities to ignite the Middle East are limited." Its war game "developed in the direction of containment and restraint".

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Israeli military leaders have conducted a war game simulating a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, three days after the US Presidential elections. They concluded such an operation could be pulled off without plunging the whole region into war. Iranian experts disagree. David Patrikarakos reports.

On the 24 September at Israel’s National Institute of Security Studies, an obdurately dull building off a main road in Tel Aviv, three dozen men and women drawn from the top echelons of Israel’s political and military elite met to play a war-game, the outcome of which could help decide whether Israel goes to war with Iran.

I was in Israel with film director, Kevin Sim, who was making a documentary on the war game for ‘Dispatches’ on Channel 4.

The notional starting point of the game was 9 November 2012, just after the American presidential elections. Participants were divided into ten groups each representing likely key players in the conflict – Israel, Iran, the US, Russia, Hezbollah, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Russia and the UN. All the teams were made up of Israelis.

The war game is what it says it is – a game. Despite its seriousness, inside the Institute there was an air of make-believe.

The “Netanyahu” who led the Israeli team was an imposter – a former Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel. Two former government ministers took turns to play Obama. Putin was a former Israeli ambassador to Moscow.

The war game was designed to explore the likely outcome of an Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran; it didn't examine the legal or moral arguments for or against any such strike but rather focused on how the Iranians might retaliate and what the wider fallout would be.

The game began when the players were told that just after midnight, in a surprise air raid, Israeli bombers had attacked nuclear installations deep inside Iran. First reports indicated that Israel had acted alone without consent or help from the Americans.

The Iranians responded quickly to the Israeli strike, launching a barrage of Shahab-3 ballistic missiles (based on the North Korean Nodong-1 missile) at Israeli targets, including the country’s largest city, Tel Aviv. Then they discussed their political goals.

The most immediate of these was the desire to rebuild the nuclear programme, preferably to a level “beyond what it was on the eve of the strike.” Given their newfound status as victims of an attack, another priority was to have the sanctions on Iran lifted; and to have sanctions placed on Israel for its “unprovoked act.”

They also decided to offer Jordan and Egypt extensive aid packages to cancel their peace treaties with Israel, before debating a key dilemma: whether or not to attack US targets. With Iran’s considerable influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention its huge presence in the Gulf, the Iranians could cause huge problems for Washington.

In the end, though, the decision was taken to refrain; Washington was one more complication they didn't need. Russia (which has been building the Bushehr nuclear power plant) was also approached for immediate help to rebuild the devastated facilities, as well as delivery of S-300 surface-to-air missiles and a consignment of Sukhoi 24 aircraft.

Militarily, Iran tried to get its allies – namely, its proxy militia groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza – to enter the conflict on its behalf.

"All our help to you over the years," the Israeli playing Ahmadinejad (a former colonel in military intelligence) declared in a meeting with Hezbollah, "has been for the purpose of this moment."

"There’s no such thing as a free lunch," his assistant added. The Lebanese declared they were only too happy to help - in any way that would not bring massive Israeli retaliation down on Lebanon. There was tension in the room.

The Israelis, meanwhile, had met with the “US President” (the Israelis deliberately made no comment on who had won the 7 November US Presidential election), who, despite being unhappy at the lack of a “timely announcement” about the “premature” strike, reiterated his support for Israel. Washington’s primary concern, it seemed, was to avoid an escalation of hostilities in what it considered to be the world’s most volatile region. It raised the status of alert for its forces across the Middle East.

The Israelis were clear on what they wanted from their US ally. Most important was for Washington to use its ‘good offices’ in Lebanon and Gaza to prevent Hezbollah and Hamas inflaming the situation. The Israelis also wanted US ships in the area, armed with Aegis anti-missile systems, to help intercept the Iranian missiles raining down on them.

Finally, they requested that the US maintain pressure on Iran in the UN Security Council, and to help ensure that Israel was not the victim of ‘one sided resolutions in the United Nations."

On the ground, things were tense. As Iran continued shelling Israel, people began to leave Tel Aviv heading to the South. Fearing Israeli retaliation, Hezbollah limited themselves to firing only a few, sporadic Katyusha rockets into northern Israel in an attempt to placate their Iranian patron, and succeeded in pushing the inhabitants of the city of Kiryat Shmona into heading south as well. Israel, in turn, instructed its army not to respond to the firing from Lebanon without the Minister of Defense’s authorization; army reserves were called up.

But the Israelis were also planning – for a second wave of strikes against Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities, which they undertook about 24 hours (in game time) after the first. This second strike seemed to encapsulate the war game for Israel. Its boldness rewarded and Iran simply unable to respond in kind: limited to firing missiles at Israel, many of which were intercepted - largely by itself.

By the game’s end, Iran’s nuclear facilities had been almost totally destroyed. Hezbollah and Hamas had done nothing more than launch a few token rocket salvos at Israel, while Iranian missiles had been of only limited effect. Iran had also failed in its attempts to have the sanctions on it removed and, thanks to US cover in the UN Security Council, it had also failed to have sanctions placed on Israel. It was the game’s clear loser.

Yehuda Ben-Meir, the former deputy foreign minister of Israel, who had played Netanyahu, summed the situation up. “The principal insight we gained was that following an Israeli attack the entire world was interested in calming the region down.

"Before the attack everyone had something to say on a possible attack but once it became a fait accompli the world wanted to know what would happen next, and everyone’s goal was to contain the situation and to prevent escalation.”

I had seen Israel’s perspective on a possible attack and now wanted an Iranian view, so I caught a flight to Istanbul to put the game’s results to Hossein Mousavian, a former member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team. He believed the game was deeply flawed.

Dismissing the limited nature of Iran’s response, Mousavian argued that in reality Iran would respond ‘by all means’, employing the total power of its armed forces to draw Israel into a long-term war. Perhaps, more importantly, Mousavian argued that Iran would see the US as complicit.

Iranians, he said, are convinced that Israel is too small to attack Iran unilaterally Iran. "They see Israeli as just a baby,” he said. “One that would never act without US assistance.”

The attack would also have huge regional consequences, he continued. Most obviously, Iran would use its status as the symbol of resistance against Israel in the Middle East to stoke the high levels of anti-Americanism that already exist there. Even groups like Al Qaeda, he argued, who are Iran’s enemies, would use “inflamed Muslim sentiment to launch attacks at American citizens across the world and on US soldiers on the many American bases in the region.”

At the end of our interview, he leaned forward, took my arm and looked me right in the eyes. He recalled the Israeli strikes on an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and a Syrian reactor in 2007.

“This is the big mistake that people make,” he told me. “To think if Israel attacks Iran, like it attacked Iraq and Syria, the Iranians would not retaliate.

"The nation is one hundred percent different. The whole region would be engulfed.”

David Patrikarakos is the author of Nuclear Iran: the Birth of an Atomic State.

Dispatches: Nuclear War Games, will be broadcast on Monday 5th November, 8pm, Channel 4

SEE ALSO: Ex-CIA Analyst Explains Why Israel Wants To Strike Iran Before The US Election >

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One of the most fearsome rebel killers in Aleppo takes his nick-name from the star of the film Enemy at the Gates that featured Jude Law, the British actor.

Jude Law probably doesn't know it, but Aleppo's best-known rebel sniper is called after him. He claims to have notched up 76 kills – up to when he stopped counting - and says he has no name other than "Sniper Moscow".

Sniper Moscow? His colleagues laugh when asked why. "It is after that film, with the Russians in the war," one says.

The vague description clicks. "Oh, you mean 'Enemy at the Gates'?""Yes," they shout in unison. "Jude Law, Jude Law."

In the 2001 film 'Enemy at the Gates', Law plays the Soviet Union's top sniper in the Battle of Stalingrad, snaking his way through the fox-holes and smashed buildings of the city, forever hunted by his would-be nemesis, a German opposite number played by Ed Harris.

In Syria's war, Sniper Moscow's role is not so different. He crawls through gaps hammered between apartments to find vantage points from which to fire on his regime counterparts. The Hollywood reference is natural: melodrama looms large in the Syrian conflict, and Sniper Moscow and his pals are not the only ones to think of themselves as figures from the silver screen.

Fighters in black bandannas love posing dramatically with their AK47s for journalists, while anyone not holding a weapon seems to be holding a video camera. The cameras have recorded every move in the last 20 months, shakily telling the world extreme tales of courage, tragedy and brutality.

Sniper Moscow certainly played up to the role. Unlike many of his colleagues, he was a professional soldier, trained in the Assad army before he defected six months ago. Now he divides his time between the closest of front lines and stints at the rear training the raw recruits with whom he is forced to work.

It was an incident involving those recruits - and the raw and bloody reality that their inexperience adds to their Hollywood scripts - that led us to Sniper Moscow. On Wednesday, there had been a battle in Karem Jabal in the east of Aleppo that had led to a catastrophic, if minor, defeat for the rebels, and its circumstances were unclear.

Sniper Moscow was there.

When we found him, he was sitting astride a motorbike. Smart in a regular uniform and with neatly trimmed hair - unlike the shaggy mops and beards, jeans and second-hand tunics of the irregulars - he narrowed his eyes as he told us about himself.

First thing was that all forms of identification were out - no photographs, and no mention of his real name. He said he was originally from Al-Bab, a town east of Aleppo, but had been based with the army in Deraa, in the south of the country, before he managed to get away. Since then, he had fought in "a large number" of Aleppo's battles. "And I was on the winning side in each one too," he added.

He said he had stopped counting his kills last month after reaching 76, when it seemed pointless to go on. His rifle had brought him a measure of notoriety, but it was not much use against the regime's tanks and heavy artillery, except for his three best hits, when he managed to hit tank navigators through their vision-flaps.

"I have the bullet casings of each one of those 76," he added. Was there an Ed Harris, a possible regime adversary? He said there were certainly snipers on the other side, but that the opposition had decided on a more direct way to deal with him.

"The regime sent two men to assassinate me," he said. It knew about him from the graffiti: he used to leave his signature, "Sniper Moscow was here", on the walls. On one occasion, in the bitter fighting over the suburb of Suleiman Halabi, from which the rebels ultimately withdrew, regime soldiers had found it and discovered who their adversary was.

"There were these two guys asking after me," he said. "It was about ten days ago. They were paying money for information about me.

"They were dressed as civilians but people got suspicious and they were arrested by revolutionary security. They both had pistols with silencers attached. They are in prison now." Three and a half months after the rebels swept into Aleppo and Damascus in their biggest gains to date, their momentum has slowed.

The battles for both cities have becoming grinding. In Damascus, they make gains in the suburbs before being cleared by the Assad army's firepower.

Across the country, small rebel advances are punished by aerial attacks, often striking behind the lines as a form of punishment on the communities who support the Free Syrian Army. This last week, attention turned to Idlib province, south-west of Aleppo, where rebels seized a key road used to resupply regime forces.

The Sunday Telegraph watched from hiding outside the town of Taftanaz as a helicopter from a nearby air base, surrounded by rebel forces, sought to distract attention by dropping missiles on to local villages. On this occasion there were no casualties – most of the women and children have already fled to Turkey – but Abu Abdo, a local rebel commander, said 15 civilians had died in Taftanaz alone in the previous month.

Sometimes, though, it does not take air power to bring a rebel advance to a halt. In Aleppo, we eventually discovered what had happened in the battle for Karem Jabal, where rebels had tried to seize a regime outpost protecting a major military base that has been fought over for weeks.

A doctor at the rebel hospital serving the area, Dr Ahmed Radwan, told us that the rebels had advanced at dawn on Wednesday but that something had gone wrong. About ten had died, he said.

Mustafa Abduljaber, a local commander, confirmed that two squads of men at the foot of Karem Jabal had tried to encircle and attack the outpost, but one had been pinned down and decimated by grenades.

It was Sniper Moscow, who had been with the squad on the left flank, who filled in the details. The squads had been supposed to creep round the post using the backstreets and rubble for a shield – there is no shortage of rubble here, a spot that has been fought over, shelled and bombed for weeks. "We were going to squeeze it like the neck of a snake," he said.

They were making good progress when it all went wrong. He and his men heard the familiar shouts of "Allahu Akbar" from the far side of the post. The other squad had broken cover and were charging full frontal.

That was a mistake, he said. The outpost was a defensive position, and its defences were in order. The regime's own sniper took aim from the roof, and suddenly the squad was pinned down, unable to move forward or back.

The regime troops were merciless. Some men were taken down by the sniper, some by grenades lobbed into their hiding place. Sniper Moscow could only lie in his hiding place in despair.

"They lost control, discipline," he said. "They thought they had a victory." They didn't. They had just taken out three officers – a captain and two lieutenants – and got carried away.

This is the problem of conducting a Hollywood war with men who are mostly country boys – amateurs from the farms and villages of the Aleppo countryside. They get a maximum of 25 days' training – more like 15 in most circumstances. Fighting takes precedence. They are inspired by leaders who were local businessmen and shop-keepers until last year – Abu Tawfiq, who currently heads the biggest brigade in Aleppo, the Liwa al-Tawhid, sold shoes in a town north of here.

The farm-boys were eventually brought back to a hospital not far away.

Dr Radwan saw them come in. Several he treated himself: two died on his operating table, he said, one from shrapnel wounds to the heart, the other to the liver. A third critically injured man he managed to save.

Back on the hill the next morning, the battle resumed – men in bandannas firing round corners at an enemy well hidden and unhittable; the return fire peppered the walls in front of us. But there were fewer men now to call upon. Of the 25-man squad that got pinned down the day before, just 15 made it back alive. Ten men dead; in their towns and villages that night, they let off gunfire into the night sky to celebrate their martyrs. There were no cameras.

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Victoria's Secret won't allow their goodwill to get in the way of a good show.

On Nov. 2, the Friday after hurricane sandy hit, Wired's Noah Shactman published an article about Victoria's Secret in New York swooping to the rescue of the Army — they donated power from generators meant for a runway show to give electricity to more than 300 of the city's national guardsmen.

But there's a limit to how much the fashion giant is willing to help.

Early this morning The New York Postpublished an article saying that Victoria's Secret is giving the national guardsmen the boot, out of their own armory.

Now, anyone can rent the armory, which Victoria's Secret has done for the past few years for their annual New York City runway show — but even though the lights are back on in the city, the fact remains that wreckage from Sandy is far from mitigated.

The Army units plan to relocate to the Jacob Javits Center, where they will continue to aid in the clean up of New York City.

NOW SEE: The Navy SEALs Advised On This Video Game And It's A Giant Flop >

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Voters in Colorado, Oregon and Washington could pass measures tomorrow that would potentially cripple Mexico's drug cartels.

Sari Horwitz of Washington Post reports that the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's oldest and most powerful, is selling a record amount of heroin and methamphetamine in Chicago as it takes its burgeoning marijuana trade to the next level.

But Amendment 64 in Colorado and I-502 in Washington—both of which currently have a majority of support among likely voters—could change all of that by making marijuana legal for persons 21-years-old and older while taxing it under a tightly regulated system similar to that for controlling hard alcohol.

The Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), a Mexico City think-tank, published a report detailing how legalization at the state level could sink cartel revenues from drug trafficking because "one or more states could meet most of its domestic demand with domestic production."

Since the quality of U.S.-grown marijuana is much better than Mexico-grown, the IMCO figures that domestic bud from Colorado, Oregon or Washington would be cheaper everywhere in the country besides near the border.

Consequently, the IMCO estimates that cartels would lose about $1.4 billion of their $2 billion revenues from marijuana, which would mean the Sinaloa cartel would lose up to half of its total income.

Furthermore, other drug exports would become less competitive as fixed costs such as bribes, and fighting rivals would remain the same.

The study notes that there is "considerable uncertainty about the effect a substantial loss of income might have on the behavior of Mexican criminal organizations and, therefore, on the security environment in Mexico."

Nevertheless, it's a potential gamechanger. The Economist puts it best: "Legalization could, in short, deal a blow to Mexico’s traffickers of a magnitude that no current policy has got close to achieving. The stoned and sober alike should bear that in mind when they cast their votes on Tuesday."

SEE ALSO: Mexican Diplomat Says America Pretty Much Invited The Sinaloa Drug Cartel Across The Border >

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