In 1960, during the height of the Cold War, the US Air Force introduced the Titan I, its first series of multi-stage Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Along with the Atlas missile program, they became an integral part of the US's nuclear deterrent against the Soviet Union. 

The Titan-I and the machinery and crew needed to launch them were housed in massive underground silos connected by thousands of feet of tunnels. Missile bases were built all over the United States, costing the US government millions. 

But by 1965, the Titan-I's and their bases were all but abandoned, phased out in favor of newer and more advanced missiles.

A few Titan-I bases still remain intact, buried reminders of some of the most dangerous years of the Cold War.

Urban explorer and photographer Amy Heiden gained access to one of them, once part of Beale Air Force Base, in Chico, California, and documented the sprawling 1960s nuclear base lurking just below the earth's surface.

More of Heiden's work can be seen on her website and blog. 

From the surface, the base look unassuming. But much lies below these launch doors.

Source

Over 600,000 cubic yards of earth were removed in the facility's construction, and "32,000 cubic yards of concrete, 300 tons of piping, 90 miles of cables and 1,800 separate supply items" were used for each complex, according to the US Air Force.

Once underground, there's an intricate system of tunnels which connect three missiles silos to each other, as well as to other areas of the base.

About a mile off the coast of Norway, in the Outer Oslofjord, is an island that's home to 115 criminals, including convicted murderers, rapists, and drug dealers.

Yet no barbed-wire-topped walls or electrified fences circle the island, nor do armed guards and attack dogs patrol the grounds. By all accounts, the island prison and its inhabitants live in peace, working together and sharing resources.

Bastøy Prison has been called one of the most liberal prisons in the world. Prisoners and guards work together, tending to farm animals and chopping wood for the winter months. They play cards, ski and play tennis, cook, and take classes. When 3 p.m. rolls around, most of the non-convicts head home, leaving only five guards to keep watch overnight.

The prison is so peaceful that filmmaker Michael Moore filmed on the island for his documentary, "Sicko," but didn't put it in the final cut, thinking no one would believe the place really existed.

Norwegian officials hope that Bastøy, an experiment now in its 32nd year, will rehabilitate prisoners, instilling values of responsibility, trust, leadership, and accountability. And it seems to be working, as recidivism rates for the prison are just 16%. (In the US, the five-year rearrest rate is more than 75%.)

Photographer Espen Eichhöfer visited the island during the winter for a story in Zeit Magazine and brought back these amazing images and stories, which he has shared with us here. 

Bastøy Prison sits on Bastøy Island, a mile off the coast of Norway in a fjord, about 46 miles from the capital city of Oslo. Unlike other island prisons, like Alcatraz or Rikers, which are known for their brutal isolation, Bastøy Prison is known as one of the most liberal prisons in the world.

Here, 115 prisoners mostly live in communal houses, along with 69 prison employees, almost all of whom return to the mainland at day's end. Only five guards remain on the island during the night. The houses include kitchens, living rooms, and private bedrooms.

The basic principles of Bastøy Prison are ones of mutual respect and trust. Prisoners work together in a farm setting, tending to animals and woodworking. Given these responsibilities, officials hope to promote rehabilitation and learning, and lower repeat offenders.

The Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) is one of the most efficient tools of internal control — and even internal oppression — in the Middle East.

It has foreign training, equipment that is constantly modernized, and is given a free hand to operate throughout the country.

It has as many soldiers as Saudi Arabia's army and navy combined, and makes sure that a geographically vast and potentially fractious country of over 29 million remains under the monarchy's full, despotic control. According to Chris Harmer of the Institute for the Study of War, the SANG is one of the Middle East's most capable armed forces.

The National Guard has roots dating back to before the founding of Saudi Arabia. The group originally started as the Ikhwan, a force of tribal Bedouins that supported the ruling House of Saud and its conservative religious ideology in the early 20th century. The Ikhwan held absolute loyalty to the first Saudi king Abdul Aziz. The tribal structure of the Ikhwan was later modernized and the force was turned into a more conventional national guard. 

The SANG's tribal connections and organization allows the force to serve as a counter-weight to the official Saudi military which operates under the Ministry of Defense. Instead, the SANG reports directly to an appointee of the king. This allows the king to effectively have his own military force to use against internal or external threats as he sees fit.

Although the SANG is based on tribal ties, the force is highly trained and effective. It has proven its capabilities by keeping a vast country under the full and unquestioned control of one of the world's most authoritarian governments, and by engaging in military operations outside of Saudi Arabia as well. 

The SANG, whose present-day forces are pictured below during a military demonstration, first began to effectively modernize and train in 1975 with significant help from the Vinnell Corporation, an American defense contractor. The training emphasized counterinsurgency operations and was carried out by a force of 1,000 US Vietnam veterans.

The modernization of the SANG is a continuously ongoing process, as the force routinely seeks to purchase airframes, armored vehicles, and weaponry from the US. 

The UK also sends an estimated 20 training teams to Saudi Arabia a year. These teams have instructed the National Guard in the enforcement of public order, the use of sniper rifles, and field-craft training. 

During the first Gulf War, the SANG participated in the Battle of Khafji in Saudi Arabia. The group helped drive the Iraqi Army out from Saudi Arabia, and then continued participating in the coalition offensive into Kuwait. This photo shows SANG troops deployed during the conflict.

More recently, Saudi Arabia deployed the SANG to Bahrain during the 2011 Arab Spring. Bahrain's beleaguered government invited a large convoy of troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to crush ongoing and almost entirely peaceful protests. 

The Saudis sent a column of National Guard vehicles into the island as part of a multi-national force sent by the Persian Gulf monarchies to preserve the Bahraini royal family's grip on power.

The Saudi National Guard is one of the best-equipped and most competent armed forces in the Middle East.

In total, there are an estimated 100,000 troops in the SANG, which is more than Saudi Arabia's army and navy combined. And they are apparently trained to do things like load rifles blindfolded, as during this military demonstration.

See our ranking of the Middle East's most powerful militaries here.

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At the beginning of 2014, about 38,000 Americans were still deployed in Afghanistan. That number is set to plunge in the next few months as US and British soldiers leave the site of America's long conflict.

But shipping the personnel, hardware, and vehicles necessary to wage war out of a landlocked country is a highly complex undertaking.

Thomson Reuters photographer Omar Sobhani was at the Bastion-Leatherneck-Shorabak complex — the massive base in Helmand province shared until now by the British, US and Afghan militaries — to see coalition soldiers wind down a 13-year-long military mission.

The last US combat personnel pulled out of Helmand this week, leaving responsibility for one of the country's most fractious regions in the hands of the Afghan government.

A ceremony on Sunday marked the transfer of Bastion-Leatherneck-Shorabak's control to the Afghan Armed Forces. The US, British, and NATO flags were lowered for the last time while Afghanistan's was left to fly.

Much of the US-led coalition's intervention to oust the Taliban in 2001 — and its ensuing attempt to build a functioning state — will be judged on how well Afghanistan's own forces can fare with only nominal support from western partners, once the vast majority of coalition troops have left.

US Marines rest in their combat fatigues as they prepare for departure.

Coalition troops have been scaling back their military role in recent years, leaving more and more responsibilities to the Afghans who will inherit the base. 

At its peak, the Bastion-Leatherneck-Shorabak complex accommodated 28,000 personnel, according to the British government.

"Getting equipment out of a landlocked country is difficult and expensive," Col. Doug Patterson, who heads logistics at Camp Leatherneck told CBS News. "We have to fly or drive everything out of here." Here, US Marines sit on board a helicopter at Kandahar air base, east of Helmand province.

Below, British soldiers arrive at Kandahar air base. The British government reports that 3,400 vehicles and 50 aircraft have been brought back to the UK over the course of the current drawdown.

The Helmand withdrawal has been an intense undertaking, with one Marine captain telling the Wall Street Journal that he managed only 4 hours of sleep over the last 4 days of preparation for a final pullout. Here, a US Marine takes advantage of some rare down time before departure.

Afghanistan's Helmand province is one of the country's most hotly contested areas. More than 940 coalition troops have been killed in the conflict in Helmand, including 360 Marines. 

US Marines file into a plane. The camp's runway is over two miles long and has been handed off to the Afghan Civil Aviation Authority. Bastion-Leatherneck-Shorabak once handled over 600 aircraft movements a day. Now, it will be a big part of the Afghan government's efforts to pacify the country after the coalition operation ends. Right now, there's no telling if they'll be successful or not.

SEE ALSO: Why the Saudi National Guard is one of the most capable military forces in the Middle East

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It all seemed to be going so well.

Turkey was, it appeared, in the driving seat to be one of five new non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. 

"We believe, God permitting, that we will get the result of the work we put in" asserted Turkey's new Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking from Turkey's pre-election gala at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

Although the delegation had loosely been assured of around 140 votes from the UN General Assembly, what transpired seemed to take everybody by surprise with Turkey departing the race in the third round with a mere 60, some distance short of the 129 required to triumph.

In its stead New Zealand and Spain took the two available places, and will from January 1st enjoy the prestige of being members of the Security Council for two years. Back in Turkey, for a government unacquainted with losing hard-fought elections, soul-searching is required.

The Security Council is the UN's most powerful body, focusing on worldwide peace and security. Five countries hold permanent seats, while ten seats are given to other countries on a rotational, elected basis. While the US, UK, France, China and Russia hold continual positions with full powers plus veto rights, ten other countries with temporary positions are able to make proposals, lobby other members, and vote.

This year five countries - Angola, Venezuela, Malaysia, and Turkey's victors New Zealand and Spain - will replace the previous incumbents in a little over two months. Some of these countries that ended up winning have similar or worse human rights records and anti-democratic records to Turkey, and before the vote it appeared that the Turkish delegation was going to get its way.

The delegation had been verbally stipulated of around 140 votes, but from a total of 191 available votes it certainly seemed surprising when Spain too had around 150 agreed upon. In an anonymous voting contest, promises are easy to make — but why were these ones so difficult to keep?

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's new Prime Minister, seemed bullish prior to the vote.  "If we are elected, and we believe it’s a great possibility, we will be the first country in the world to be elected for a second time, after a five-year break. This shows Turkey’s importance.” Turkey won 151 votes in the same contest in 2009, and Davutoglu had some strong reasons for believing in a similar success this time around.

Pivotal geo-politically, encompassing a number of new oil and gas pipelines, a founding member of the UN and a member of G20, Turkey has generally won plaudits for its recent building of relatively humane refugee camps that house an estimated 1.6 million Syrian refugees.

The world's 17th highest GDP has emerged from the past five years of global economic crisis quite unscathed, and has been trying to take a much more pro-active stance in the region since 2010.

Newly inaugurated President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as Prime Minister was consistently a vocal opponent of Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad, and until quite recently this mirrored prevalent world opinion. But as this opinion evolved, Turkey's unchanging stance was landing it in hot water.

As the situation in Syria has unearthed new power dynamics, Erdoğan's stubborn anti-Assad and anti-Kurdish position has started to irk those who recognize a differing political landscape painted by the newly empowered Islamic State (IS).

Although Turkey has finally started making some concessions to the US, and is now somewhat ostensibly assisting the Kurds in the fight against IS, its overall mixed response to the situation has drawn worldwide indignation.

Erdogan has at times seemed more interested in overseeing the destruction of the Kurds, and state border guards have been allowing IS fighters into Turkey for medical treatment while not allowing Kurds from Turkey across the border to assist their brethren in the battle against IS at Kobane. While the General Assembly vote was underway, Turkish fighter jets were bombing a Kurdish village.

It appears that Erdogan's obstinacy and pro-Sunni position has prevented him from realizing that Assad needn't be the main target for the moment - and worldwide opinion seems to suggest that the growth of the openly barbaric and power-hungry IS is of greater concern.

The Spanish daily newspaper El Pais said that "what is important in the UN is not so much about having friends as having fewer enemies" - and Turkey has been busy making enemies all over the region and beyond. While an anti-Turkey campaign can always be counted on from Armenia, Cyprus and Greece, due to historical wounds that were never healed, and while they haven't been able to count on the vote and lobbying influence of Israel since a falling-out in 2010, other countries in the region have started to pile on the pressure.

An Embarrassing Loss

Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia lobbied hard against Turkey for its pro-Muslim Brotherhood stance, while Shia-dominated countries are concerned with how Erdogan is rabble-rousing to focus minds on Sunni-Shia sectarian divides. Erdogan has professed support in the past for Sunni militants such as IS and Al-Nusra. 

Beyond Turkey's immediate neighborhood yet more influence is being lost. A bitter quarrel between Erdogan and his former ally, the popular preacher Fetullah Gulen put paid to much of the African vote. Gulen has a powerful following worldwide, particularly in Africa, with a lot of schools, charities and influence.

In 2009, Turkey's previous fruitful attempt to join the security council was partly thanks to Gulen's "Hizmet" Organisation campaigning in that part of the world.

For the past 18 months he and Erdogan have been at war, with Erdogan trying to shift his supporters out of the public domain and otherwise diminish his capabilities inside and outside of Turkey. By way of vengeance it seems that the Hizmet organization has triumphantly campaigned against Turkey this time around.

Losing clout in these regions might not have dealt the Turkish delegation a mortal blow, had other aspects of Erdogan's governance been popular worldwide. But the way the country is being managed is causing concern, with well-documented evidence of increased anti-democratic behaviour.

While this hasn't prevented Venezuela or Angola from entering the Security Council, it seems to have helped tip the balance for a lot of General Assembly members.

Turkey always had a difficult hand to play, as it is rather unusual to be voted onto the Security Council twice in four terms, and needed a watertight campaign. A change of tactics regarding Syria, a less bellicose voice in the region, and some sort of truce with Gulen, would have helped matters tremendously.

"We will not abandon this stance for the sake of votes. We will continue to be the voice and conscience of countries that expect this from us" said Cavusoglu, odd considering the money and efforts invested in victory.

But Turkey ought to relish the election in 2018 against Israel, Germany and Belgium, and perhaps now would be an opportune moment for rumination.

Erdogan was very keen on this victory, and needs to examine the reasons for defeat. The question is, are the characters involved capable of the kind of soul-searching needed to understand and deal with their mistakes?

Blaming meddling outsiders, protesters, Israel, journalists, or even the "Interest Rates Lobby", seems to suffice to his own supporters. But as we learned this week, the rest of the world isn't so easily duped.

SEE ALSO: The UN just dealt Turkey a hugely embarrassing blow

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People love to complain about how horrible everything is all the time.

And there are certainly plenty of horrible things to complain about. People are mean, for example. And people get sick. And there are horrible accidents and injustices and tragedies and unfairness everywhere. And there is Ebola.

People who love to complain about how horrible everything is also love to point out that the world is always changing — and change is of course always horrible, because it destroys the way things used to be.

It's easy to get depressed by all the "everything is horrible" talk.

So it's nice to sometimes remind ourselves that some things — many things, in fact — are getting better all the time.

Over at the Oxford Martin School, Max Roser has put together a provocative article and presentation titled "It's a cold hard fact: Our world is becoming a better place."

Roser includes lots of facts that will drive the haters crazy.

But he's right, of course.

Our world is becoming a better place. For humans, at least. (No one's saying it's getting better for plants and animals).

Take violent war deaths, for example.

Even one violent war death is too many.

But, happily, on average, the number of violent war deaths worldwide is declining:

And poverty. Poverty is improving. There are still billions of depressingly poor people, of course. But the percent of the world's population living in extreme poverty continues to decline:

And life expectancies are going through the roof!

There are thousands of examples like that.

So complain all you want about how horrible everything is. There's certainly a lot left to fix. But as you complain, remember:

The world is getting better all the time.

Read Max Roser's presentations here >

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This month marks 50 years since one of the most consequential events in the history of nuclear proliferation — a reminder of the very high stakes that led the international community to prevent additional countries from crossing the nuclear threshold.

On October 16, 1964, China tested its first nuclear weapon, a 16-kiloton bomb detonated at the Lop Nur facility in Inner Mongolia. Documents recently published by George Washington University's National Security Archive give a sense of some of the uncertainty that followed.

Prior to the test, some US officials doubted China had the capability to build a nuclear weapon. Afterwards, American officials and regional allied governments were left to speculate as to what a nuclear-armed Beijing would mean for the US and for the balance of power in Asia.

The picture that emerges should be a familiar one for anyone who's followed the North Korean nuclear saga, or even the ongoing Iran negotiations. Anxious allies considered rash and possibly ill-advised military action. Global actors were taken by surprise. Officials wondered how they could make the new landscape work to their advantage. Some believed little had actually changed and the global balance of power wouldn't be disrupted.

But everyone seemed to generally realize that a confusing new variable had been thrown into a then-fragile global security environment.

Here are some of the most notable reactions from the National Security Archive's release of 33 documents related to China's historic first nuclear test.

Taiwanese leaders wanted to launch a US-supported pre-emptive strike on China to prevent Beijing from further developing its nuclear capabilities. If there was one big loser in China's nuclear test, it was Taiwan. In 1964, the island was home to China's US-recognized government, and held a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The Taiwanese had to realize a nuclear-armed Beijing would leave the international community with little choice but to eventually shift its recognition to the mainland, something that eventually happened about a decade later.

Taiwan even viewed a nuclear-armed China as a potential existential crisis. A secret State Department telegram sent a week after the test described the ruling party's read on the event's significance. "Top leaders have expressed private view that [China] can cause 'crisis of confidence,' eroding people's will to resist [Beijing] on Taiwan and elsewhere." 

Some in Taiwan were looking to a military option: "Among military, already existing awareness of bleak prospects for successful action against mainland in absence of full US cooperation." Even so, some believed that the prospect of reduced US support, along with Beijing's gaining military edge, meant "action must therefore be taken now," with some "among the military in favor of a 'do or die' attack even if US should refuse cooperation."

No such attack was ever launched — Taiwan was outnumbered, possibly outgunned, and didn't get the US support for an attack that Taipai wanted. The US withdrew recognition of Taiwan in 1979, but the island remains a de-facto independent state, albeit one living under the constant threat of invasion from the mainland.

In the immediate aftermath of the test, US intelligence didn't know how China had gotten enough weapons-grade Uranium for a bomb. A November 2nd, 1964 "research memorandum" from the State Department's Office of the Director of Intelligence and Research has an ominous opening line: "Our pre-October 16th estimates did not anticipate that [China] had the capability of producing the U-235 isotope."

So either China had enrichment capabilities that were significantly more advanced than what the US was aware of, or it obtained its uranium from an unknown outside supplier, most likely the Soviet Union.

Neither possibility was especially comforting. And no explanation seemed sufficient on its own: the memo's author doubts the Soviets would provide enough U-235 for a bomb, and counters with the possibility of a hidden enrichment facility or advanced capabilities within China's single known enrichment site on technical grounds.

The paper offers no solution to one of the more important issues the test raised.

Some US officials thought the test was alarming enough to warrant non-proliferation work with the Soviets. The Chinese test came about two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, three years after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, and at a time when the US was deepening its commitments in South Vietnam — in other words, during a period of nearly unprecedented tension between the US and the Communist bloc.

Still, on October 30, two weeks after the Chinese test, top-level American officials openly discussed the possibility of working with the Soviets to prevent China's neighbors from going nuclear, perhaps by assuring India that China's capabilities wouldn't threaten it. State Department official Leonard Meeker raised the question of whether we should concert assurances with the Soviets;" deputy undersecretary of state Llewellyn Thompson cautioned that "at most, we should sound out the Soviets on their view of the non-proliferation question in light of the Chinese communists' nuclear explosion."

American officials believed it was worth trying to work with the country's enemies to make sure the Chinese nuclear test didn't set off a larger and even more unpredictable global arms race.

The US military believed its hands were still free in Asia. An assessment from the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 3rd, 1964, determined "the acquisition by Communist China of nuclear weapons will not, for the indefinite future, alter the real relations of power among the major states, or the balance of military power in Asia."

The Joint Chiefs believed the US military's hands were still free in Asia, even with a Chinese bomb. "A [Chinese] nuclear capability need not impose new military restrictions on the US response to aggression in Asia," the report concluded.

This would become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy — by the end of the 1960s, the US would have hundreds of thousands of combat troops in Vietnam.

SEE ALSO: Take a tour of an abandoned Cold War nuclear missile base in California

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The 28-year-old former US soldier who joined a Kurdish militia to fight against militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) is urging more military veterans to join the fight.

Through his own profile and with the launch of a new Facebook page called "The Lions of Rojava," Jordan Matson is helping to recruit others across Europe, Australia, and the US, according to The Daily Mail.

"We will pick you up on your arrival to the location they gave you to come," Matson wrote in a Facebook posting on Oct. 23. "It is a secured journey all through Kurdish held territory. Hope to see you soon brothers. Rock steady."

A native of Wisconsin, Matson served in the US Army for two years — though never in combat — and is one of at least three Americans who have joined Kurdish forces, according to Reuters. He was wounded by a mortar soon after he arrived in Syria.

Here's one of his updates (lightly edited for clarity):

"If you have a valid passport and can afford the ticket and have saved money for a return ticket when you wish to leave, contact them. You will only need a few pairs of clothes for your off days and boots. If you wish to purchase body armor it can be purchased in Iraq during your travel. Otherwise all personal gear is up to you, be sure to check if it has a export law attached to it and do not bring any firearms or you may cause trouble for yourself."

Although he has recovered from his wounds, he's been communicating with others who may wish to join him, according to The Mail. He's warned potential recruits however that the Kurdish YPG is "being swarmed with messages."

"I've had ex-military ask from Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, you name it," Matson told CNN. "They've been asking. ISIS has threatened all these countries that I've named to push their agenda in those nations, and the veterans of those nations who love their countries don't want to sit by while this is happening."

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Washington (AFP) - The White House's unclassified computer network was recently breached by intruders, a US official said Tuesday, with The Washington Post newspaper reporting that the Russian government was thought to be behind the act.

"In the course of assessing recent threats, we identified activity of concern on the unclassified EOP network," said the White House official, speaking on condition of not being named. 

"Any such activity is something we take very seriously. In this case, we took immediate measures to evaluate and mitigate the activity."

The Washington Post quoted sources as saying hackers believed to be working for the Russian government were believed to be responsible.

The hackers entered the US presidential mansion's unclassified computer network in recent weeks, the Post quotes the sources as saying.

In a statement, the White House official said the Executive Office of the President receives daily alerts concerning numerous possible cyber threats.

In the course of addressing the breach, some White House users were temporarily disconnected from the network. 

"Our computers and systems have not been damaged, though some elements of the unclassified network have been affected. The temporary outages and loss of connectivity for our users is solely the result of measures we have taken to defend our networks," the official said. 

No additional information was immediately available.

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A series of US airstrikes against ISIS-held targets in the beleaguered Syrian border town of Kobani destroyed a "command and control node," the US military said Wednesday.

The US-led coalition conducted eight strikes in and around Kobani, US Central Command said. The strikes near Kobani destroyed five ISIS fighting positions, a small ISIS unit, six ISIS vehicles, an ISIS-occupied building, and the commandandcontrolnode, Centcom said.

The coalition also conducted six airstrikes in Iraq. Three airstrikes near Fallujah destroyed three small ISIS units, and three strikes near the town of Sinjar destroyed one small ISIS unit and two ISIS vehicles.

Over the past few weeks, the US has stepped up its airstrike campaign in Kobani in an attempt to aid Syrian Kurds attempting to prevent the town from falling to ISIS, which is also known as the Islamic State or ISIL. The US has also boosted the Kurdish forces fighting ISIS militants in the key town on the Syria-Turkey border, resupplying them with weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies.

Last weekend, the US-led coalition also escalated its airstrike campaign in Iraq, conducting 22 airstrikes last Friday and Saturday alone. Since last Friday, the coalition has conducted 56 airstrikes at various ISIS-held targets in Iraq.

Kurdish fighters in Kobani also got reinforcements from the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga, which sent fighters to Kobani on Tuesday. A senior Kurdish official told The Wall Street Journal the 160-some fighters could help turn the tide in the town within a couple of weeks.

In other areas of Syria, however, ISIS made gains against regime forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to multiple reports. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS fighters attacked and gained control of parts of an oil and gas field in a regime-held area of Syria.

US Central Command also released a video of an airstrike conducted on a logistics base Monday:

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House Speaker John Boehner blasted President Barack Obama and his administration the day after a senior administration official was quoted describing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "chickenshit."

"When the president discusses Israel and Iran, it is sometimes hard to tell who he thinks is America’s friend and who he thinks is America’s enemy. The House of Representatives has no trouble drawing that distinction," Boehner said in a lengthy statement Wednesday afternoon.

Boehner also hinted Obama should dismiss the official who made the remark to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, as part of a piece that warned of a full-blown crisis in US-Israel relations.

"Over the last several months, I have watched the administration insult ally after ally," Boehner said. "I am tired of the administration’s apology tour. The president sets the tone for his administration. He either condones the profanity and disrespect used by the most senior members of his administration, or he does not. It is time for him to get his house in order and tell the people that can’t muster professionalism that it is time to move on."

Asked about Boehner's comments Wednesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, "It’s a little rich to have a lecture about profanity from the Speaker of the House."

Boehner's comments were among the most biting from a slew of Republicans who criticized the White House on Wednesday. The Obama administration moved quickly to denounce the official's comments, calling them "inappropriate" and "counterproductive." However, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday the administration was not attempting to discover which official made the comments.

Tensions between the US and Israel, who have long been allies, have increased dramatically under Obama and Netanyahu. For the last month, officials from both governments have privately and publicly criticized the other over the Palestinian peace process and settlement building in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem. Netanyahu's government also staunchly opposes any possible deal on Iran's nuclear program.

"The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit," the unidentified official told Goldberg of his attitude toward the peace process. The official also called Netanyahu a "coward" on the issue of the Iranian nuclear threat.

Boehner's full statement on the matter is below:

"The strength of America’s leadership in the world is predicated on the universality of our values, including freedom, democracy, and economic opportunity, and our unwavering support for our friends and allies.  This unwavering support is not mere sentiment, but the bedrock of security alliances and security guarantees that have ensured peace and suppressed the desire for international arms races.  For the last six years, this long-standing and bipartisan framework has been tested by an Obama administration that has repeatedly chased after adversaries at the expense of core U.S. national security interests and the security, confidence, and trust of our allies.   

“Nowhere is the fundamental failure more apparent than in the disrespectful rhetoric used time and again by this administration with respect to the special relationship the United States has with the state of Israel.  The administration has tried to convince Congress and the American people that we should trust the president’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with the government of Iran while refusing to address substantive concerns about the regime’s sponsorship of terrorism and abysmal human rights record.  The administration scoffs at the enduring willingness of members of both parties to maintain commitments to our friends and allies, contending that those commitments are mere sentiment, while all the while the administration and the president himself are taken aback that friends and allies won’t support him when he ignores them and, in some cases, belittles them. 

“When the president discusses Israel and Iran, it is sometimes hard to tell who he thinks is America’s friend and who he thinks is America’s enemy. The House of Representatives has no trouble drawing that distinction. Over the last several months, I have watched the administration insult ally after ally.  I am tired of the administration’s apology tour. The president sets the tone for his administration. He either condones the profanity and disrespect used by the most senior members of his administration, or he does not.  It is time for him to get his house in order and tell the people that can’t muster professionalism that it is time to move on.” 

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The most generous interpretation of a "senior US official's" now-infamous smear of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is that the speaker was caught in a fit of pique.

After all, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg lists many of the less-than-flattering things that high-ranking Obama staffers have called Netanyahu over the years: "recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse." None are complimentary, but none have the same bluntly insulting power of "chickens---."

If the quote itself is a gaffe, it's nevertheless consistent with what the US administration must recognize as a looming foreign policy challenge, perhaps one of the greatest of Obama's presidency.

The administration is trying to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran that it knows the Israeli government is not going to like. The quotes in Goldberg's article could be a part of an effort to portray the Israelis as recalcitrant, unappreciative, or needlessly belligerent, in full knowledge of the rupture in relations — and political controversy inside the United States — that will come with the Iran deal Obama's team currently envisions.

Interestingly, Goldberg's article came just a few days after one of the administration's top Iran negotiators laid out the goals and parameters of this eventual deal. On October 23, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman addressed a forum on the Iran nuclear negotiations at the Center for International and Strategic Studies in Washington. The administration must have known that the Israelis could not have liked what they heard.

Sherman conceded that the negotiating process has been difficult, and promised that Tehran would never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. But she explained that the current negotiations have a more technical and more limited objective than that: "Our goal now is to develop a durable and comprehensive arrangement that will effectively block all of Iran’s potential paths to fissile material for a nuclear weapon," she said. "Such an arrangement would bar Iran from producing fuel for a weapon with either uranium or plutonium."

So even under a final agreement, Iran would retain enrichment capabilities — note the "for a nuclear weapon" modifier. It might even be able to continue research on advanced centrifuges or keep the infrastructure needed to enrich uranium to weapons-grade. It might even be allowed to enrich to weapons-grade, so long as its stockpiled remain below the 1000 or so kilograms of uranium needed for a warhead. 

This vision of success is exactly what Netanyahu means when he warns of a deal that leaves Iran as a "threshold nuclear power," as he did during his speech before the UN General Assembly in September.

But this isn't the only potential source of Israeli anxiety from Sherman's CSIS address. She said the US and the Iranians "have made impressive progress on issues that originally seemed intractable," and suggested that remaining points of contention were of the trivial and even slightly generic variety, at least in light of the overall trend towards an agreement: "Like any complicated and technically complex diplomatic initiative, this is a puzzle with many interlocking pieces," said Sherman.

And perhaps most alarmingly from an Israeli perspective, Sherman described this drift towards closer US-Iranian relations as an unvarnished good for the Middle East and the planet at large

"The world is clearly better off now than it would have been if the leaders on both sides had ignored this opening," she said of the negotiating process. "With all that is going on in the Middle East today, an Iranian nuclear program that was not frozen but instead rushing full speed ahead toward larger stockpiles, more uranium enrichment capacity, the production of weapons-grade plutonium, and less transparency would hardly have been a stabilizing factor."

The Israelis do not see it that way. They view the current Iran negotiating process, and the rebalancing of regional power that it represents, as one aspect of a larger and deeply worrying whole.

The Israelis do not want to see a deal that they think will empower Iran, which is a leading patron for Hamas and Hezbollah, two regional terrorist groups committed to Israel's destruction. The Israelis are already juggling terrorism in the Sinai, the political and diplomatic aftermath of this summer's Gaza flare-up, the civil war in Syria, the creation of a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, ominous incidents on the border with Lebanon, and ongoing unrest in Jerusalem.

The re-orientation of American policy towards Tehran is be a troubling added variable, highlighted by statements made by officials to the Wall Street Journal.

Officials "said the intensive negotiations the U.S. has pursued with Iran since last year on the nuclear issue could help stabilize the Mideast and have improved understanding," WSJ reports.

Furthermore, Sherman's speech shows that US officials believe they're close to a deal that the Israelis will find deeply unpalatable.

The whisper campaign in Goldberg's article could be part of an effort to soften US public opinion for an upcoming and far more public crisis in relations between the two allies. Or it could be a reflection of behind-the-scenes dynamics — evidence that the Obama administration's attempts to reassure the Israelis in private haven't bore fruit.

It could also be the residue of a growing spat between the US and Israel over the parameters of a final deal — the full ugliness of which only became public yesterday.

Speculation aside, there was one very clear message in Goldberg's article that Netanyahu probably heard loud and clear.

"It’s too late for him to do anything," one of Goldberg's anonymous official said of the possibility of Netanyahu launching an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”

Inevitably, Israel is going to have to live with whatever deal Washington signs with Tehran — regardless of what it looks like. And Obama will have to deal with the political fallout of Israeli's disappointments and even anger over a final deal — regardless of what form that damage control will have to take.

SEE ALSO: Here's how the US reacted to China's first nuclear test 50 years ago this month

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The White House reacted with disdain on Wednesday after Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) blasted the administration for an anonymous "chickenshit" insult used to describe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called Boehner's reaction "pretty rich" because the speaker has also been known to curse.

"It's an interesting observation by the speaker of the House, whom you all know, has a penchant for using some pretty salty language himself. So it's pretty rich to have a lecture about profanity from the speaker of the House," Earnest said.

Pressed on whether Boehner has ever used profanity to describe a world leader, Earnest noted a Politico report quoting Boehner telling Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) to "Go f— yourself."

"He's reportedly said that about the majority leader of the United States Senate. As long as we're talking about respect, I think that's notable," Earnest said.

Earlier in the day, Boehner released a statement declaring that he was frustrated after watching the White House "insult ally after ally." The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg published the anonymous "chickenshit" quote, attributed to a senior administration official, on Tuesday.

For his part, Earnest strongly condemned the reported insult against Netanyahu and said the US and Israel have a "close relationship."

"As a general matter not related to that story, I'll tell you that my job often involves taking the product that you just described and turning it into chicken salad," he said. "Comments like that do not reflect the administration's view and we do believe that they are counterproductive. The prime minister and the president have forged an effective partnership. They consult closely and frequently and did so as recently as this month here at the White House, in the Oval Office. There is a very close relationship between the United States and Israel."

However, Earnest cautioned that the White House will be unafraid to criticize Israel when it believes the country is in the wrong.

"But that close relationship does not mean that we paper over our differences. The fact is the United States has repeatedly made clear our view that settlement activity is illegitimate and only serves to complicate efforts to achieve a two-state solution in the region," he said.

Update (2:42 p.m.): Reached for comment, Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith told Business Insider the speaker's criticism was not based on the anonymous official's profanity, but rather "the effect of it."

“The concern is not the profanity per se, but the effect of it. These rhetorical attacks were directed toward a vital U.S. ally by the administration at a critical time for both nations, and do real harm. The president has a responsibility to personally condemn them, and he should," Smith said in a statement.

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Fox News will broadcast an exclusive interview with the Navy SEAL who shot dead Osama Bin Laden during the raid on Bin Laden's Pakistan compound on May 1, 2011.

The SEAL, commonly referred to as  "The Shooter," will reveal himself for the first time almost two and a half years after the stealth Abbottabad mission that killed the man behind the 9/11 attacks and leader of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. 

According to the network's press release, Fox’s Peter Doocy will interview the SEAL over the course of a two-part documentary called “The Man Who Killed Osama Bin Laden.” 

Although some information is known about "The Shooter," he is expected to share his first-hand account of the training, mishaps, and secretive details that went into Operation Neptune Spear, the mission to hunt and kill Bin Laden. 

The documentary will air Nov. 11-12 at 10 p.m. ET.

Here is the full press release courtesy of Fox News:

FOX News Channel (FNC) will present a new documentary entitled The Man Who Killed Usama Bin Laden hosted by Washington correspondent Peter Doocy, on Tuesday, November 11th and Wednesday, November 12th from 10-11PM/ET.  The two-night presentation will feature an exclusive interview with the Navy SEAL who says he fired the shots that killed terrorist leader Usama Bin Laden.  In the special, he describes the events leading up to and during the historical raid that took place on May 1st, 2011.

Revealing his identity and speaking out publicly for the first time, the Navy SEAL, also known as “The Shooter,” will share his story of training to be a member of America’s elite fighting force and explain his involvement in Operation Neptune Spear, the mission that killed Bin Laden.

The documentary will provide an extensive, first-hand account of the mission, including the unexpected crash of one of the helicopters that night and why SEAL Team 6 feared for their lives.  It will also touch upon what was taking place inside the terrorist compound while President Obama and his cabinet watched from the White House.

Offering never before shared details, the presentation will include “The Shooter’s” experience in confronting Bin Laden, his description of the terrorist leader’s final moments as well as what happened when he took his last breath. 

Additionally, viewers will be offered a behind-the-scenes look at the secret ceremony where he donated the shirt he was wearing during the mission to the NationalSeptember 11 Memorial Museum in New York City.

FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news.  A top five cable network, FNC has been the most-watched news channel in the country for more than 12 years and according to Public Policy Polling, is the most trusted television news source in the country. Owned by 21st Century Fox, FNC is available in more than 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre.

[Via The Blaze]

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SEE ALSO: 16 Fascinating New Details From The Man Who Killed Bin Laden

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NYPD Deputy Chief Salvatore DiPace appeared on "CBS This Morning" Wednesday and discussed why the police are increasingly concerned drones could pose a terrorist threat.

"Can a drone be weaponized? Definitely," DiPace said.

He went on to outline the various scenarios where a drone could cause a "catastrophe."

Drone Bombs

DiPace said the NYPD is worried a terrorist could attack the city by arming a drone with explosives.

"You can get a fixed wing drone, it's a model plane but it could be 10 feet tall, can travel up to 200 miles an hour. So if you flew it into a building, could it cause damage? If you packed it with explosives? Definitely," explained DiPace.

Mid-Air Collisions

NYPD officials told "CBS This Morning" there have been incidents where drones flew dangerously close to police aircraft. DiPace said they are very concerned about potential collisions between drones and helicopters or planes in the skies above the city. 

"Worst case scenario, when it comes to drones, is that a drone collides with an aircraft over the city of New York, and we have a catastrophe," DiPace said.

Chemical Attacks

DiPace also discussed the possibility a drone could be used to deliver "a chemical agent into an area," particularly over a large crowd.

"Special events take place, open venues, open stadiums. We've seen the drone modeled as a crop duster, so that's not to say a drone couldn't go over a crowd and spray a chemical over a crowd or a biological agent over a crowd. Very, very big concern," said DiPace.

Watch the full "CBS This Morning" segment below.

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Nearly all of the technology in many of the world's most ubiquitous electronic devices can be traced to a single, taxpayer-funded source: the US Department of Defense.

In an article promoted by the European Commission today, Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato wrote that sparking the world's economies after a long recession will require greater and riskier investment from government. She used Apple's wildly popular handheld devices as a present-day example.

The world's biggest company may have more cash on hand than many actual governments. But the technological breakthroughs behind its iconic iPods, iPhones, and iPads were funded almost exclusively by government agencies — and by one particular segment of one particular country's government.

As the chart below demonstrates, there's little in these devices that doesn't owe its existence to the US Department of Defense in some form or another. 

Later devices saw investments from the Navy for their GPS capabilities, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded Siri. In fact, the parent company of Siri's creator, which was acquired by Apple in 2010, still gets over half of its revenue from the Department of Defense, according to a report they published earlier this year.

Highlighting an idea from her recent book on the relationship between the private and public sectors, Mazzucato explains that achieving missions like putting a man on the moon required "a confident ‘entrepreneurial state’ willing and able to take on the early, capital-intensive high risk areas which the private sector tends to fear."

The US military was often the one taking "capital-intensive risks" that resulted in Apple's line of products. And the result is a family of devices so widely used that it's difficult to imagine the world without them.

SEE ALSO: 15 astounding technologies DARPA is creating right now

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NATO has scrambled fighter jets to intercept an unusually high number of Russian military aircraft on Oct. 28 and 29. The incidents have taken place throughout Europe, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea, according to NATO Allied Command Operations. 

Over this two-day period, NATO jets responded to at least 26 Russian jets that were flying in international airspace adjacent to NATO territory. 

"These sizable Russian flights represent an unusual level of air activity over European airspace," NATO said in an official statement.

On Oct 28, seven Russian combat aircraft flew over international airspace in the Baltic Sea. The aircraft were intercepted by German Typhoon fighters over the Gulf of Finland, but the jets did not change course. The Russian fighters were also intercepted by Danish, Swedish, and Finnish forces before landing in the Russian province of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. 

On Oct 29, NATO intercepted three separate groups of Russian fighters. Portuguese fighters that were part of the Baltic Air Policing Mission were scrambled to intercept at least seven Russian jets over the Baltic Sea. Simultaneously, Turkish fighters intercepted two Russian bombers and two fighters over the Black Sea. 

NATO also intercepted eight Russian aircraft over the North Sea on Oct 29. After interception, the formation split, with the fighters and a tanker returning to Russia while two bombers continued towards the Atlantic where they were intercepted by the Portuguese. 

“We see Russian aircraft near our airspace on a regular basis but what was unusual is that it was a large number of aircraft and pushed further south than we normally see,” an unnamed Norwegian military spokesman told Reuters.

Worryingly, the bomber and tanker aircraft from Russia did not file flight plans, maintain radio contact with civilian air traffic control, or make use of transponders. This poses a serious risk to civil aviation as they would be undetectable and could lead to a mid-air collision. 

Russia has been particularly aggressive in sending their aircraft abroad over the course of the year. NATO has sent more than 100 intercepts against Russian aircraft to date in 2014. This is about three times more interceptions than occurred in all of 2013, and it comes in the wake of increased tension over Russia's actions in Crimea.

Aside from an increase in air traffic, Russia may also have sent a submarine into Swedish waters. This would seem to be a revival of Cold War tactics in which Russia attempted to assert its influence in the Baltic Sea through continual submarine excursions. 

Meanwhile, Russia has also ramped up its espionage attempts in Europe. The Czech secret service has warned that there is an "extremely high" number of Russian agents operating out of the embassy in Prague. Likewise, Poland has recently arrested Russian spies in October that were highly placed within the country. 

In August, Russian President Vladimir Putin said"it's best not [for foreign states] to mess with us." The stepped up flights may be part of an effort to underline that message. 

SEE ALSO: Here's how the Ukraine crisis is deepening military ties between China and Russia

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A rabbi who is leading the effort to open up Jerusalem's Temple Mount — known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sancutary — to Jewish worshippers has reportedly been shot in Jerusalem. Ha'aretz is reporting that Yehuda Glick was shot in the chest after an event at Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Heritage Center.

When reached for comment, Micky Rosenfeld, a detective and spokesperson for Israel's police forces, confirmed "an attempted shooting outside the Begin Center," but would not confirm the victim's identity. He said that the victim, a man in his 50s, is in "serious condition." He added that roadblocks were being set up "all over Jerusalem" to find the shooter or shooters, who escaped by motorbike.

Though Rosenfeld could not confirm the victim's identity, a Twitter user tweeted out a flier for a talk that Glick was to deliver at the Begin Center tonight:

ככה"נ גליק נורה בסיומה של ההרצאה שמסר בנוגע להר הבית. pic.twitter.com/NJqP9rBR62

— דוס מחמד ® (@bneibraki) October 29, 2014

Ever since Israel took the Temple Mount from the Jordanian military during the 1967 Middle East War, the country's government has exerted close to an outright ban on organized Jewish prayer there. The area is the former site of the ancient Jewish Temple and is considered the holiest location in the faith; however, many Jews believe that they are actually prohibited from praying or even setting foot there until the Temple's restoration and the coming of a messianic era.

To Muslims, the Mount is the Haram al-Sharif — the "Noble Sanctuary," site of Mohammad's ascent to heaven and the third-holiest site in their faith. It is currently home to large Islamic complex that dates to the 7th century, and includes such icons as the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.

In recent years, right-wing religious nationalist Jews have attempted to assert a Jewish right to worship at the site — and have been met with opposition from their own government, which realizes the issue could inflame the region's sizable Muslim population. The Israelis have reportedly banned Glick from the Temple Mount.

The attack comes after an unusually tense week in Jerusalem. On October 22, two people were killed when a Hamas-linked individual rammed a car into a light rail station in the city, and there have been ongoing clashes in and around the Temple Mount over alleged Israeli limits on Muslim access to the site.

SEE ALSO: "Chickens---gate" is all about Iran

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The White House and the State Department might need to get together for some high-level talks.

Just one day after a "senior administration official"sparked controversy after being quoted by The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg as calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "chickenshit," anonymous White House officials have a new target: Secretary of State John Kerry.

An article in The New York Times about a wide variety of international crises that have hit the Obama administration in recent months — from the rise of the Islamic State to its handling of Ebola in West Africa — contained an interesting nugget that demonstrates a deep disconnect between The White House and the State Department:

Mr. Kerry is vocal and forceful in internal debates, officials said, but he frequently gets out of sync with the White House in his public statements. White House officials joke that he is like the astronaut played by Sandra Bullock in the movie 'Gravity,' somersaulting through space, untethered to the White House.

Aides for Kerry told The Times they rejected that portrait, and they said the secretary frequently dialed into White House meetings. Kerry's team also said he put together a long memo for battling the Islamic State that the administration had followed. 

"Something is very wrong when White House officials openly ridicule the Secretary of State," tweeted Mike Doran, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution Center for Middle East Policy.

However, there have been some recent signs of tension. Kerry unleashed a litany of criticism toward the Obama administration in April after he said that Israel could become an "apartheid state" if peace talks with the Palestinians failed.

While the White House defended Kerry in the ensuing controversy, the recent comments from the administration echo those of others in Israel, who mocked Kerry's attempt to broker a truce in Gaza. 

"It's as if he isn't the foreign minister of the world's most powerful nation," wrote Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid in July, "but an alien, who just disembarked his spaceship in the Mideast."

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It's not often you hear ride-sharing compared to a terrorist group.

But that's exactly what happened at a Philadelphia Parking Authority board meeting on Tuesday when President of the Pennsylvania Taxi Association Alex Friedman had some choice words about their competitor.

"I try to equate this illegal operation of UberX as a terroristic act like ISIS invading the Middle East," said Friedman. "It is exactly the same menace."

It's worth noting that the Philadelphia Parking Authority considers UberX to be illegally operating there.

UberX claims to be cheaper (and faster) than a taxi.

You can listen to Friedman make the comparison below:

(h/t The Huffington Post)

We've reached out to Uber for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

SEE ALSO: Uber Says It Mistakenly Banned A Driver For Tweeting A Story About The Company

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