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

Category: Terror War

  • The value of peace talks

    So, our ally in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, launched his brilliant plan to have “peace talks” with members of the Taliban. Minutes after he began his speech to the assembled 1600 delegates, opponents launched an attack on the peace “jirga” according to Associated Press;

    But the attack underscored the weak grip of Karzai’s government in the face of the Taliban insurgency, which has grown in strength despite record numbers of U.S. forces in country.

    In his speech, Karzai said years of violence and infighting had caused widespread suffering that had driven many ordinary Afghans to join the Taliban and another major insurgent group, Hizb-i-Islami, out of fear. He appealed to them to renounce extremism.

    “There are thousands of Taliban and Hizb-i-Islami, they are not the enemies of this soil,” Karzai said.

    He said continuing fighting would only prevent the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan.

    “Make peace with me and there will be no need for foreigners here. As long as you are not talking to us, not making peace with us, we will not let the foreigners leave,” Karzai said.

    Brilliant. Tempt them away from violence today with the prospect of violence in the future. Negotiating with people who think that throwing acid in the faces of schoolgirls is an appropriate way to express their political opinion probably borders on insanity. Their disruption of this peace conference is proof of their unwillingness to negotiate.

    The AP article reports that the Obama Administration is skeptical of the peace talks, yet the White House still thinks it’s an appropriate way to deal with thie Iran government and the North Koreans. Yeah, I don’t see it.

  • Reporting on the War Against Terror

    I’m sure you’ve read that Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, a founding member of al Qaeda is reported to have been killed by a drone aircraft last month. Bill Roggio has confirmed it, so it must be true.

    Anyway, I was reading the Washington Times and the Washington Post‘s reporting of the incident and marveled at the subtle way they each support their presidents. You can tell much of the two newspapers’ information came from the Roggio posting.

    But guess which newspaper wrote which paragraph;

    The death of Yazid would represent one of the most significant blows against al-Qaeda since the CIA began a major escalation in the pace of drone strikes in 2008, which has been accelerated under President Obama.

    The United States, in cooperation with Pakistan, stepped up the pace of lethal drone strikes in August 2008 after President Bush signed an executive order giving the commander of Central Command more operational control to order the strikes in ungoverned spaces throughout southeast Asia and the Middle East.

    Both paragraphs are true, but it’s the information given or not presented that skews the readers’ opinions. I just thought it was an interesting study of Washington’s competing newspapers and the value of reading everything about a subject.

    I’ll stick with Bill Roggio, though.

  • Israel misunderstands the flotilla

    That flotilla which Israel disrupted as they tried to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, well, Israel just misunderstood the intentions of the activists. Islan Haklary Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi , the organization which sponsored the flotilla, has close ties to Hezbollah, those fun-loving folks firing rockets of love and peace into Israel.

    Further, the activists were welcoming the IDF on board the Mavi Marmara and playfully tossing them to the lower deck. The IDF soldiers simply overreacted.

    Here are some of the party favors the IDF took from the revelers on the Mavi Marmara;

    More at the IDF Spokesperson blogand the Weekly Standard.

  • Rethink Afghanistan really needs to get a clue.

    I mean ever since I found out about the group from Derrick Crowe I have disagreed with most everything that they have put out. But more and more the statements seem to be more about wanting money for their own projects rather then any concern for Afghanistan. (Also I do not know why DC still is a member the IVAW on Facebook with links to “notyourSolider” on his Word Press page”)

    But stories like these really show where the priorities are for these groups.

    A trillion dollars is a baffling amount of money. If you write it out, use twelve zeros. Even after serving in Congress for over a decade, I, like most Americans, still have a hard time wrapping my head around sums like this. (Yet the Stimulus Bill was passed this year and she does not seemed as phased by it)

    This month, we mark the seventh anniversary of President Bush’s declaration of “mission accomplished” in Iraq, yet five American soldiers have been killed there in May alone. Iraqis went to the polls nearly three months ago, but the political system remains so fractured that no party has been able to piece together a coalition. There are some indications that sectarian violence is again on the rise.

    Or another one with the same theme.

    What could we have purchased with this $1 trillion? Today, we might be enjoying the fruits of a green economy, spurred by New Deal-like investments in wind and solar. Perhaps we would have created a single-payer health care system and used this $1 trillion to provide health security to every man, woman, and child in the United States for an entire year. Or, we might have made the smart investments in our domestic law enforcement capabilities and homeland security apparatus to provide true protection from Al Qaeda and others who would wish us harm. Sadly, we’ll never know, because our political leadership never explored alternative means of achieving peace, such as emphasizing rigorous regional diplomacy, and instead overextended our military forces abroad.

    If sacrificing progress at home wasn’t bad enough, it is now clear that the injection of our troops into a 35 year civil war is actually fueling the insurgency in Afghanistan and further destabilizing the region.

    Because in all of it it comes down not on if our efforts are helping, not on what will happen to the population when we leave, but how “cost effective” it is. I mean it is really all about the money.

    I know that I will still have disagreements on what should be done with DC and Our Journey to Smile who is working over there right now. But at least they seem to care about the Afghanistan people there. But these are the people that are going to be left high and dry to the Taliban. That is one of the reasons that I stopped watching OJS videos of the people of Afghanistan because I have a bad feeling that these people are going the be killed or worse.

    In the end if we leave this issue unfinished we will be dealing with it again in twenty years from now. Oh and the reason we will have lost it because “We” did not care because they were brown people.

  • International Red Cross training Taliban

    Jake sent us a link to a Guardian story about the International Committee of the Red Cross giving medical training to Taliban warriors;

    The Red Cross in Afghanistan has been teaching the Taliban basic first aid and giving insurgents medical equipment so that fighters wounded during battles with Nato and Afghan government forces can be treated in the field, it was revealed today.

    More than 70 members of the “armed opposition” received training in April, the Red Cross said – a move likely to anger the government of Hamid Karzai, which is losing large numbers of police and soldiers in insurgent attacks.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had introduced the classes because pitched battles, landmines and roadblocks stopped people in the most volatile areas from getting to hospital.

    Of course, I’m not so callous that I don’t think our enemies don’t deserve decent medical treatment, but, the Taliban should have considered their logistal shortcomings before declaring war on everyone around them. The IRC says that “people” are prevented from getting medical attention, as if the “people” they’re talking about aren’t involved in a war against…well….everyone. The Taliban throw acid on schoolgirls. They behead fathers in front of their families. Does anyone really think they’ll use their medical training on people not involved in the war?

    In a Washington Times article, the ICRC is quoted;

    Christian Cardon, a Geneva-based spokesman for ICRC, said in a phone interview that a wide range of Taliban fighters, including some senior-level militants, received such training.

    Combatants of varying ranks attend these camps, but it is important to have “high-rank people also so they can at least transmit this knowledge to other combatants,” he said.

    I think the Red Cross’ time would be better spent reaching out to the people isolated by the war than to hope that they can get trickle down medical attention to noncombatants from the Taliban.

  • Norks threaten retaliation

    So yesterday the South Koreans presented the world with evidence that a North Korean submarine sank the South’s ship – including fragments of a North Korean torpedo. (Stars & Stripes)

    Investigators said a 130-ton “midget” North Korean submarine equipped with night vision capabilities entered the Yellow Sea undetected during the night of March 26 and fired a torpedo, causing a shock wave that ripped the ship in half.

    North Korea, however, denied involvement on Thursday and accused the South of fabricating the evidence. It warned that any punishment against the North could trigger war.

    CNN reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton states that North Korea must face consequences for it’s lawless actions;

    “I think it’s important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences,” Clinton said Friday as she began a week-long Asian tour in Tokyo, Japan. “We cannot allow the attack on South Korea to go unanswered by the international community.”

    We can all reasonably assume that an answer by the international community will go not much further than stern glances towards the failed kingdom and some empty gestures.

    Our buddy, GI Korea at ROKDrop asks why we can’t place the 19th century fiefdom on the State-sponsors of terrorism list. Well, that would be a little too stern for this administration which has been doing it’s level best to do everything exactly the opposite of the previous administration…until that strategy ultimately fails.

    North Korea has been complicit in furthering Syria’s nuclear aspirations and helped the Iranians develop missile technology. But, the international community has done nothing but posture in response.

    Is it any wonder that the world’s rogues continue to ratchet up their antics when they can depend on toothless rhetoric as their only punishment?

  • “Brazen” attack on Bagram

    The Associated Press is reporting that a slew of Taliban fighters attacked Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan this morning;

    Insurgents launched a brazen pre-dawn assault Wednesday against the giant U.S.-run Bagram Air Field, killing an American contractor and wounding nine service members in the second Taliban strike at NATO forces in and around the capital in as many days.

    At least 10 insurgents were killed as Taliban suicide bombers attempted to breach the defenses of the base north of Kabul, while others fired rockets and grenades inside, according to a statement issued by U.S. forces.

    Several US troops were wounded and a contractor killed. I figure it wasn’t as much “brazen” as it was foolhardy, desparate and almost comical if it wasn’t for the loss of one US life.

    An Afghan provincial police commander, Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayedkhail, said the attack began when U.S. guards spotted would-be attackers in a car just outside the Bagram base. The Americans opened fire, triggering a gunbattle in which at least one militant triggered his suicide vest. Running gunbattles broke out as U.S. troops hunted down the other attackers.

    So it wasn’t as much an assault as it was a goat roping exercise. Of course, the new York Times is too busy following this story to give much thought to anything else;

  • FBI raids related to Times Square bombing attempt nab 2

    Fox News is reporting that the FBI have arrested two people in Boston. The arrests are somehow related to the Times Square bombing;

    FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Thursday morning executed search warrants in “several locations in the Northeast,” a statement from ICE said.

    At least one of the federal raids was in Watertown, Mass., a Boston suburb. Two search warrants related to the case were also executed on Long Island in New York.

    Authorities are looking into whether the Boston-area men or others may have had any role in the Times Square plot or any prior knowledge of it.

    The Wall Street Journal reports that the raids were attempts to follow Shahzad’s financing;

    The raids are part of the FBI effort to track down the sources of cash suspect Faisal Shahzad used to finance the bombing attempt, U.S. officials said. Investigators have focused on money couriers, commonly used in immigrant communities, as a possible way Mr. Shahzad got the cash, though there’s no indication anyone handling the money knew Mr. Shahzad’s intention to use it to build a bomb, officials said.

    So apparently Shahzad is talking which has prompted the Obama Administration to consider tweaking the Miranda warning for terrorist according to the Washington Post;

    The announcement marked a potentially significant change by the administration as it tries to manage the politics of national security after repeatedly coming under fire, mainly from conservatives, for being too willing to read Miranda rights to terrorism suspects. The administration is trying to thread a difficult needle: of taking a harder line on terrorism while staying within the confines of the criminal justice system.

    Yeah, the problem isn’t conservatives – the problem is terrorists who are too willing to use our system and sense of justice against us. It looks like they may be lucking out with this particular drama queen (like they have with the whole Shahzad incident from the beginning since it appears that he’s a chickenshit, incompetent boob – the Mr. Bean of our homegrown terrorists, if you will). I think we’ve about used up all of our luck. The next guy probably won’t leave the keys to his get away car inside his bomb.

    UODATE: It’s up to three arrests now.