This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Terror War

  • Conway doubts timetable withdrawal in Afghanistan

    The retiring former commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway speaks his mind to USAToday about the timetable withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan days before his retirement ceremony;

    In an interview before his retirement Friday, Gen. James Conway said troops may be able to be pulled from elsewhere in Afghanistan by the deadline. The majority of U.S. forces engaged in a troop surge ordered by Obama are fighting in the south.

    “Counterinsurgencies just take time,” Conway said. “I hope the focus is not … time constraints as much as it is the will to win.”

    The media, as well as VetsVoice, like to point out the successes along the Pakistan border using improved intelligence and drone strikes, but Conway says the real battle is in the south of Afghanistan;

    Conway acknowledged that the centerpiece of the Helmand campaign, an offensive in Marjah, a former Taliban stronghold, has not gone as anticipated. Marines and Afghan forces drove out Taliban forces in a February assault but efforts to build an effective local government have faltered.

    “It was touted as government in a box,” Conway said. “It was going to be coming in to rapidly expand and start doing things for the population to gain their allegiance. And that just didn’t happen.”

    Apparently, it’s easier to mount a propaganda campaign along the Pakistan border than it is to mount combat operations and train foreign troops in the country you’re trying to secure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that numerous Taliban and al Qaeda leaders have been planted in the mountains of the mountainous border, but assets that could be used in Marjah are drawn from the actual battle to write a few happy headlines.

  • Yea great idea. Why didn’t we think of that, oh yeah it is stupid.

    I have friends who are active in the group Rethink Afghanistan. Sometimes the post stories and comments that seem more like satire. But lately I am having a hard time telling the difference anymore. This one is a perfect example.

    Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times column shares a shocking statistic that shows the U.S.’s warped priorities in Afghanistan: if we brought home just 243 troops, we’d save enough money to pay for all higher education everywhere in Afghanistan this year.

    Yep cause the fact that Afghanistan’s illiteracy in that most people in Afghanistan cannot read and write. So the money that would be freed up would be used for post secondary education would not be abused for other things.

    “Remember Afghanistan has been at war for 30 years, and neither the Soviets who were here before the Taliban nor the Taliban put people through school. So education was not prized. As a matter of fact, the Taliban shut down the schools.”

    But with the time proven statement of “Nothing is impossible to those that do not have to do it” have people over at Rethink Afghanistan is a great idea.

    Mr. [Greg] Mortenson says that $243 million is needed to fund all higher education in Afghanistan this year. He suggests that America hold a press conference here in Kabul and put just 243 of our 100,000 soldiers (each costing $1 million per year) on planes home. Then the U.S. could take the savings and hand over a check to pay for Afghanistan’s universities.

    The war in Afghanistan isn’t making us safer, and it’s not worth the cost. The fact that bringing home 243 troops could pay for all higher education in Afghanistan this year shows that there are much, much better ways of stabilizing Afghanistan and improving the lives of Afghans if we’re willing to let go of military force as the answer.

    Yea with so in review how does passing around this little gem that would not only not work but no one that thought of it will be willing to make it work. But it sounds nice, which is more important then anything else.

  • Marine/Simi Valley cop down

    Spockgirl sends us a link to the news that a Simi Valley cop who also became a Marine was laid low by a pair of insurgent bombs in Helmand Province this week;

    Joshua Cullins didn’t deliberate long on what job he’d tackle when he joined the Marine Corps.

    “He wanted to do what he could do to help save lives,” said his friend and fellow Marine Joseph Seymour. “The one thing at that time of the war that was the most imminent threat was IEDs,” short for improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs.

    So Cullins, of Simi Valley, learned the dangerous world of diffusing explosive devices. The staff sergeant dismantled countless bombs during his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, all with a big smile on his face.

    “You could put him in the desert in the worst conditions and he would find something to smile about,” Seymour remembers.

    The bombs were paired so that the second one would get the folks who showed up to investigate the first. Thank you, Joshua, you’re job is done now.

  • SEAL may be punished for aid worker death

    An unnamed SEAL may face disciplinary measures as US commanders armchair review the videos of the attempted rescue of Linda Norgrove, a captured aid worker who was being held by insurgents and was facing a public and gruesome death.(Military.com/AFP link)

    But the SEAL failed to see her and tossed a fragmentation grenade close to where she was hiding, and it exploded next to her, said the paper.

    The rescue was ordered because officials concluded Norgrove’s life was in grave danger, with her captors talking about murdering her, based on eavesdropping of radio conversations and other intelligence, the paper reported.

    I always loved being second-guessed by pogues in their starch and shined uniforms miles from the action.

    Apparently, the SEAL is being investigated for not being able to see through walls in the dark. Where was he during the “remote viewing” block of instruction? The only credible reason for punishing him is if during the operation order he was told in which building she was being held, or if they were told not to suppress fire from buildings with grenades.

    I read an article yesterday about the troops being disillusioned with the restrictions on them in regards to the ROE and the diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan. This investigation probably won’t help them much.

  • Soldier deletes video of Hasan shooting spree

    DefendUSA sends us a link to an article in the Associated Press that reports that one soldier testified that he was ordered by his NCO to delete the video on his cell phone of Nidal Hasan on his shooting spree.

    Under cross examination, Pfc. Lance Aviles told an Article 32 hearing that his noncommissioned officer ordered him to destroy the two videos on Nov. 5, the same day that a gunman unleashed a volley of bullets inside a processing center at the Texas Army post.

    The footage could have been vital evidence at the military hearing to decide if Maj. Nidal Hasan should stand trial in the shootings.

    No, I don’t blame the NCO for doing what he probably thought was right at the time. We already know that the Army began this whole thing by telling us Hasan was dead. I don’t know why they did it, and I won’t speculate, but the young NCO’s thoughts were probably running along the same track. I’m sure that if the Army really wanted the video to convict Hasan, they could get it from Aviles’ phone. We all know that nothing is really deleted if the authorities really want it.

    I’ve noticed that a couple of the victims from that are deployed despite this act of terrorism;

    A defense lawyer asked [Spc. Megan] Martin if the tragedy could have prevented her from deploying to a combat zone.

    “I did not want to be removed from deployment. I wanted to carry on with the mission, sir, as my fallen soldiers would want me to.”

    Hoo-ah! Terrorism doesn’t work on those closest to the fight.

  • Media Matters won’t admit that terrorists are Muslims

    In a weak attempt to pile on Bill O’Reilly along with Whoopie Goldberg and Joy Behar, who walked off the set of The View yesterday, Media Matters puts up a video from this morning’s Fox and Friends in which Brian Kilmead says “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims”.

    Of course the gutless Media Matters posts the video without comment and leaves it to their fans;

    by rikntx (3 hours and 2 minutes ago)

    Timothy McVeigh was a Muslim???

    by shelby73 (3 hours and 2 minutes ago)

    I didn’t know Timothy McVeigh was a Muslim!

    by Grimdogg (2 hours and 41 minutes ago)

    So abortion clinic bombers, Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, Andrew Kehoe, the McNamara Brothers, Ted Kacynski, Terry Nichols, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, James W. VonBrunn, Andrew Stack III, and Seung-Hui Cho were all really Muslims in disguise. Faux News’ hypocrisy knows no bounds.

    This is so tiring – the Left has such a intellectually vacant knee-jerk reaction to anyone who happens to mention that some Muslims are terrorists that they drag out all manner of criminals who would have been just that ten years ago so they can make themselves feel better about defending Muslims from any hint that we’re fighting some Muslims because of what some other Muslims did.

    We all know what Kilmeade was saying – all of the organized terrorist organizations with whom we’re at war are Muslim. With the exception of McVeigh and Terry Nichols, all of the criminals on “Grimdogg’s” list were acting alone without an organization…but al Qaeda is an organization with the stated purpose of terrorizing Americans to change our political system.

    I won’t admit that we’re at war with all of Islam, but if the Left can’t admit that the terrorists who we’re fighting are Muslims, they can’t qualify to join in this discussion.

  • More on those Social Justice “activists” in MN

    Old Trooper sent us a link from Pajama Media about those hippie shits in Minnesota who were raided by the FBI last month. As I wrote at the time, it seemed to me from their own website, that the pretend revolutionary living in an apartment over a coffee shop, Mick Kelly wrote some pretty damning stuff in his Fight Back publication.

    Rick Stanton writes at PJM;

    Commanded to appear before a Chicago grand jury on October 19, Kelly faces a subpoena probing any travel to Colombia, Jordan, Syria, the Palestinian Territories, and Israel — and any correspondence, communications, or connections with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), or Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the Arab American Action Network.

    I speculated that this was probably related to the FARC connections that Kelly and his pretend club of Marxists and Leninists, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, were so proud of. I guess their antics and playing at international intrigue finally caught up with them. Keep in mind that these raids were days after FARC leader was killed and his laptop seized.

    We have FBI agents stationed in Colombia and I’m sure at least one was able to accompany Colombians when they scoured the scene of the attack and provide information to colleagues in the US.

    Stanton thinks this may have far-reaching consequences;

    But what of an alliance that includes not only the world’s most dangerous rogues, but American socialists and communists themselves? After all, as Farah observed: “the primary area of mutual interest is a hatred of the United States.”

    I’d like to see it shameful to be a communist again, so my fingers are crossed that a very public trial is held and ties between US leftists and international terrorism are traced so that the American public is made aware.

  • The tenth anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole


    Jerry920 writes to remind us that today marks the tenth anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole which cost us 17 good sailors’ lives and dozens injured while the destroyer was taking on fuel in the Yemeni port of Aden.. (MSNBC link)

    At 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2000, the Cole — a billion dollar destroyer armed with the most advanced weapons in the U.S. naval arsenal — was docked off the coast of Yemen for refueling when it was approached by a small skiff packed with explosives and manned by two suicide bombers. The resulting explosion was a chilling precursor to the attacks on Sept. 11. It ripped a 60-by-40-foot hole in the ship’s hull, trapping the bodies of many of the dead crew members in the wreckage.

    In the days after the attack, President Clinton vowed retribution against the terrorists. “You will not find a safe harbor,” he proclaimed. “We will find you and justice will prevail.”

    Of course there’s been no retribution through the terms of three presidents.

    “The attacks on the USS Cole galvanized al-Qaida’s recruitment efforts,” concluded the 9/11 commission. The propaganda video that bin Laden instructed be made about the bombing was widely distributed in the Arab world and struck a nerve, causing “many extremists to travel to Afghanistan for training and jihad.”