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

Category: Terror War

  • Video of captured troop in Afghanistan discovered

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    The Washington Times reports that a video has been discovered of the person they’re calling “the US soldier” who went missing on June 30;

    It was the first time the soldier has been seen since he went missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan on June 30. The Taliban announced July 6 that it had captured the soldier.

    The Associated Press, which first reported on the video, said two Pentagon officials have confirmed that the man in the video was the missing soldier.

    So here’s part of the video from ABC (thanks to Greyhawk).

    There’s also six minutes of the video on YouTube from CNN. watch it while it lasts;

    According to the Associated Press story on the subject, the soldier tells a different story than the Pentagon regarding the circumstances of his capture;

    He said the date was July 14 and that he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.

    But according to DoD;

    On July 2, the U.S. military said an American soldier had disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner.

    I lean towards the DoD’s version, because I find it hard to believe that an NCO would let a straggler in his unit lag so far behind that he could be captured.

    Asked how he was doing, the soldier said on the video:

    “Well I’m scared, scared I won’t be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner.”

    He begins to answer questions in a matter-of-fact and sober voice, occasionally facing the camera, looking down and sometimes looking to the questioner on his left.

    He later chokes up when discussing his family and his hope to marry his girlfriend.

    Whatever the circumstances of his capture, I hope he’s returned safely and uninjured and that many Taliban die horrible, excruciating deaths when he’s rescued.

  • Zelaya gives talks until midnight

    Things are heating up in central America over former President Zelaya’s ouster. The deposed politico, from the safety of Nicaragua, has declared that at midnight he’ll steal into Honduras to continue his fight against the Constitutional government in Honduras. This from Fausta’s Blog;

    Sounds to me he’s saying he’ll be leading a battle… mañana. We’ll see what the weekend brings. The negotiations are scheduled to resume today.

    From Alberto de la Cruz at Babalu Blog, it seems that the referendum Zelaya was booted for inciting had the fix in;
    (more…)

  • One year Anniversary of Wanat

    You’ve probably heard the story of the battle of Wanat in Afghanistan which happened a year ago this morning. A platoon of US paratroopers held off successfully over two hundred Taliban. Nine Americans lost their lives and Tankerbabe tells you their stories along with some photos of the time she spent with some of the survivors this past weekend.

    Uncle Jimbo provides links to some of the excellent posts at Blackfive on the subject.

    At the Castle ARGGHHH! the late CPL Jonathon Ayers is honored as the Soldier of the Week.

    Everyday I’m in awe of all of the folks who stand between us and them.

  • “Secret program” will disappoint BDS crowd

    The media and the Democrat Congress is having conniption fits because they think that the Evil Bush Administration (TM) had a secret program to kill terrorist leaders and they didn’t bother to tell Congress about it. The Wall Street Journal this morning will be disappointing the Bush Derangement Syndrome crowd with their article “CIA had secret Al Qaeda Plan“;

    Republicans on the panel say that the CIA effort didn’t advance to a point where Congress clearly should have been notified.

    So all it was is a plan – an idea. It was an attempt to comply with the president’s finding that we needed to take the war to the leaders of Al Qaeda.

    The official noted that Congress had long been briefed on the finding, and that the CIA effort wasn’t so much a program as “many ideas suggested over the course of years.” It hadn’t come close to fruition, he added.

    Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said little had been spent on the efforts — closer to $1 million than $50 million. “The idea for this kind of program was tossed around in fits and starts,” he said.

    Senior CIA leaders were briefed two or three times on the most recent iteration of the initiative, the last time in the spring of 2008. At that time, CIA brass said that the effort should be narrowed and that Congress should be briefed if the preparations reached a critical stage, a former senior intelligence official said.

    So part of the planning included briefing Congress when it came to the point that the plan was going to be implemented.

    Some officials who advocated the approach were seeking to build teams of CIA and military Special Forces commandos to emulate what the Israelis did after the Munich Olympics terrorist attacks, said another former intelligence official.

    “It was straight out of the movies,” one of the former intelligence officials said. “It was like: Let’s kill them all.”

    Movies? Isn’t life exactly like movies? What should be the message we send to terrorists who murder innocent people? “Let’s tickle them all?”

    The former official said he had been told that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney didn’t support such an operation. The effort appeared to die out after about six months, he said.

    Oh, no! Bush and Cheney didn’t support the operation? But that doesn’t fit the narrative! Look, fellas, if we’re going to have an evil plot against Congress, we’re going to need Bush and Cheney involved, otherwise, how will we ever be able to impeach them? Um, retroactively?

    If I was going to have an operation against the nation’s enemies and I needed to keep it secret, I wouldn’t tell the drama queen, leaky Democrats until the last possible moment either.

  • Political campaigns as foreign policy

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    Well, I feel better, don’t you? The guy who makes weekly pronouncements about how he “created or saved” hundreds of thousands of jobs while the unemployment rate increases by hundreds of thousands of jobs lost reassures the world. And then he impores the other leaders of the world to follow his plan (AP Link);

    Obama urged national leaders to unite behind a global recovery plan that includes stricter financial regulation and sustained stimulus spending.

    The short version; more regulation, more government spending, more taxes.

    The president rejected suggestions that the summit fell short of expectations by failing to call for tough new sanctions on Iran for its crackdown on democracy advocates after its disputed presidential election.

    “What we wanted is exactly what we got — a statement of unity and strong condemnation,” Obama said. He said the leaders’ declaration was even more significant because it included Russia, “which doesn’t make statements like that lightly.”

    How many statements of unity and strong condemnations have there been in the last few years? Did human history begin on January 20th, 2009? All history before that date doesn’t count? North Korea is launching missiles like bottle rockets, the Islamic Republic’s police are beating the snot out of everyone on the street (when they’re not shooting them or hanging them). And that “Russia doesn’t make statements like that lightly” line should have been made on his knees with his face buried in Putin’s shorts.

    Is he saying the whole rest of the world DOES make statements lightly? Thanks, allies, now get behind Russia – everyone who does things to the detriment of the US and our security seems to get a seat in front. Screw the rest of them.

    Just like Obama’s political campaigns. Blacks, Hispanics, unions, gays, the traditional Democrat voters – get tossed aside so he can woo the folks who don’t want to vote for him. When Obama goes overseas, American interests and those of our allies get tossed aside so he can woo the thugs. Remind you of anyone?

    Read my post at my Latin American politics blog, Tall & Rich, for another example of our current poor foreign policy.

  • Nuclear Russian roulette

    Earlier this week President Obama signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia proudly claiming it’s benefits. He stopped just short of waving the treaty and pronouncing “peace in our time”. This morning in the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer writes;

    Obama says that his START will be a great boon, setting an example to enable us to better pressure North Korea and Iran to give up their nuclear programs. That a man of Obama’s intelligence can believe such nonsense is beyond comprehension. There is not a shred of evidence that cuts by the great powers — the INF treaty, START I, the Treaty of Moscow (2002) — induced the curtailment of anyone’s programs. Moammar Gaddafi gave up his nukes the week we pulled Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole. No treaty involved. The very notion that Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will suddenly abjure nukes because of yet another U.S.-Russian treaty is comical.

    Wasting no time to prove that his treaty with Russia will do no such thing, today Obama set a final deadline for the Islamic Republic to provide a bit of transparency on it’s nuclear program according to the Washington Times;

    On Iran, Mr. Obama raised expectations for a September international summit in Pittsburgh, saying the invited nations will take stock of whether Iran has complied with international demands over its nuclear programs. He also denied reports that Washington tried but failed to achieve agreement on new sanctions here, saying the statement was what he wanted.

    “It provides a time frame,” Mr. Obama said. “If Iran chooses not to walk through that door, then you have on record the G-8 to begin with, but I think potentially a lot of other countries, that are going to say we need to take further steps.”

    Further steps? More deadlines that Iran will ignore? Actually, I think the Obama Administration and Old Europe are hoping Israel will strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities and bomb them into dust as Joe Biden hinted earlier in the week. That would free them up from making any tough decisions. The same tactic Old Europe used in regards to Iraq – sit on their hands until someone else does what needs to be done, and then condemn the one one who had the guts to act. That way they’re absolved of having to act in a politically unpopular manner.

    Obama’s random deadlines and imprecise brow beatings just make it more likely that Israel is going to get tired of the Old World’s procrastination.

    So now that there’s no George Bush to save the world from itself, Israel has to step up and be the man among children – and then take their lumps in the form of stern rebukes from the UN’s General Assembly.

  • The Return of Sporkmaster

    Some of you may have noticed that Sporkmaster has been pretty quiet lately. Mainly it’s because he’s been slowly moving towards the US from his deployment to Iraq.

    He emailed me today to let me know that he’s safely back in the loving arms of his family and he has all of his body parts attached as they were before he left.

    I thought y’all’d like to know.

  • Independence Day News

    An Independence Day message from the Republican National Committee;

    The Stars and Stripes reports on a celebration at FOB Echo in Iraq sponsored by the State Department;

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    Task Force 1-2 commander Lt. Col. Steve Miska told the Iraqis that American culture is very informal.

    “When we come together we don’t have a seating arrangement or people who come to wait on us,” he said. “We thought today we would teach you a little bit about that. When you get your food you serve yourself and you can sit anywhere and talk to whoever you want.”

    Joe Biden began his 4th of July in Iraq by welcoming 200 new citizens at a naturalization ceremony at Camp Victory in Iraq.

    The crown of the Statue of Liberty opens today for the first time since September 11, 2001.

    And North Korea celebrates the 4th by firing off seven (SCUD?) missiles.