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

Category: Terror War

  • Trial for Brit embassy staff in Iran

    Looking for someone to blame for unrest after their June 12th election riots, Iranians are putting some of the UK embassy staff on trial according to the BBC;

    Guardians Council chief Ahmad Jannati said: “Naturally they will be put on trial, they have made confessions.”

    Nine embassy staff were held in Tehran last weekend. Britain says all but two have now been freed.

    EU governments are considering temporarily withdrawing ambassadors to Iran in protest at the detentions.

    Ayatollah Jannati did not say how many employees would be tried or on what charges.

    The Scotsman reports that Jannati claimed the staff member(s) made confessions.

    In the Times Online, government a spokesman denied the legitimacy of the allegations;

    A Foreign Office spokesman denied that embassy staff took any part in demonstrations and demanded more information from Tehran.

    “We are very concerned by these reports and are investigating,” a spokesman said. “Allegations that our staff were involved in fomenting unrest are wholly without foundation. We will be seeking an urgent explanation from the Iranians.”

    Meanwhile, Iranians are still languishing in prisons for their parts in the protests. Popular former president Mohammad Khatami spoke out on their behalf, as quoted in the New York Times;

    Mr. Khatami called the election “a coup against the republicanism of the system,” and warned, “Do not think that suppressing the protests would put an end to them. They will emerge again but in different forms.”

    He also spoke caustically of the mass arrests: “If these people have committed crimes, why are their legal rights as citizens not preserved, why don’t they have access to a lawyer, why are they not tried in a court, why haven’t they been charged?”

    Meanwhile, President Obama remains concerned and hopes that things calm down soon so he continue the rape of our economy in relative peace.

  • McKinney languishes in Israeli jail

    cynthia_mckinney

    Removing American moonbats from society that Americans won’t, the Israelis have shown good sense by locking up our looniest loon according to Fox News;

    Former U.S. lawmaker and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and several other human rights activists remained in an Israeli prison Thursday after refusing to sign a deportation form that they claim is self-incriminating.

    In a press release from the Green Party, McKinney said the form states that the Spirit of Humanity, a Greek-flagged relief boat carrying 21 activists, medical supplies, cement, olive trees and children’s toys en route to Gaza, was violating the Israeli blockade and trespassing the country’s territorial waters.

    “We were in international waters on a boat delivering humanitarian aid to people in Gaza when the Israeli Navy ships surrounded us and illegally threatened us, dismantled our navigation equipment, boarded and confiscated the ship,” she said in a statement, adding that they were immediately taken into custody.

    “Immigration officials in Israel said they did not want to keep us, but we remain imprisoned,” she said.

    Cynthia McKinney has been complaining about the Jews and Israel for years. I hope she takes advantage of this wonderful opportunity to immerse herself in the traditions and culture and build bridges between the moonbat lifestyle and the Jewish world. I’ll bet cash money that they don’t want to keep her – but we don’t either. Sorry, Israel.

  • New US operations in Helmand region

    Thousands of Marines have poured into the Helmand region in Afghanistan. This from the Washington Post;

    The mission, which involves about 4,000 Marines, is the first large-scale test of the U.S. military’s new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. The Marines, along with an Army brigade that is scheduled to arrive later this summer, plan to push into pockets of the country where NATO forces have not been able to maintain order. The two districts that are the initial focus of the Marine operation — Nawa and Garmser — have long been Taliban strongholds. Although British troops serving under NATO’s Afghan command have waged several battles against the insurgents in both areas over the past three years, the British lacked sufficient forces to maintain a significant presence in the districts. As a consequence, the Taliban have been able to shut down schools, drive out government officials and intimidate the local population.

    The Associated Press reports that one US soldier has been missing and presumed captured since Tuesday. The Washington Times uncovers a story about the Taliban buying children to use as suicide bombers. I guess it’s their own version of the surge;

    Pakistan’s top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say. A Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said the going price for child bombers was $7,000 to $14,000 – huge sums in Pakistan, where per-capita income is about $2,600 a year. “[Mehsud] has turned suicide bombing into a production output, not unlike [the way] Toyota outputs cars,” a U.S. Defense Department official told reporters recently.

    After some shifting around, my son has arrived in Afghanistan, just this last weekend – so since everything is in place, the US forces there figured they can start. Let’s hope this works.

    Greyhawk makes a great point – the missing soldier’s family has been notified according to CNN. So if you haven’t been notified it isn’t your relative.

  • Soltz: Surge is a failure

    John Soltz, who sheepishly admits that he didn’t fight any Chinese in Iraq, is still clinging to the old MoveOn line that the surge is a failure. He’s written it twice in as many days this week and does it again on MSNBC, where he’s apparently living in a broom closet these days. Soltz comes in at about 4:30 in to this video;

    The first time he wrote it was at HuffPo;

    Now we see that, indeed, the surge meant nothing without political progress.

    Then he wrote it again yesterday to throw water on the Iraqi’s Sovereignty Day celebration;

    And so, if the U.S. pulls back, there’s a powder keg ready to explode, with an ill-equipped Iraqi military left to try to hold things together. In fact, we’ve already seen violence ramp up in Iraq, as surge troops have left and others began their pull back from cities.

    So, Soltz’ solution is a Vietnam-style withdrawal from Iraq – as violence increases, the pace of withdrawal should increase as well.

    So President Obama needs to make it clear—if they won’t settle their differences, we won’t be around to save them, because we’ll speed up our departure. Most importantly, he must make good on the promise if it comes to that.

    Failure at any price. We promised the South Vietnamese that we’d defend them if the North invaded, then we stood by with our hands in our pockets and watched T55 tanks roll into Saigon. Soltz would love nothing more than to hang a picture of the last chopper leaving the Green Zone behind his desk in his MSNBC broom closet.

    Although, it would seem on the surface that the surge may be proven a failure if violence increases, I submit that it’s the Democrat policy of the last five years that’s failed. President Bush warned that setting an arbitrary withdrawal date would result in increased violence – that seems more likely the cause than the surge, doesn’t it?

    In fact, the reason the surge worked to bring peace to Iraq is because when the insurgents expected Democrats to force a withdrawal from Iraq in 2006/7, President Bush instead increased the US presence there, proving that he was dedicated to seeing the war through during his term.

    Threatening to increase the pace of withdrawal isn’t the way to quell violence. Showing resolve is what wins in the Middle East, not showing our collective ass. But Soltz and MoveOn and the Democrats are more enamored with the idea of calling Iraq a failure than making the world a better place.

    As long as Democrats are frightened of dealing with the real enemy in the region, and instead prefer to pick on pockets of democracy, we won’t have any progress in the terror war or in the advancement of liberty and freedom.

    One question I’d ask Soltz; Why are you so sure the Iraqis will fail? Because they’re brown people?

  • 100% wrong

    The current administration seems to be making their decisions by asking themselves what George Bush would do and then doing the complete opposite. They coddle dictators and thugs from the Middle East to Central America despite the fact that it can do nothing to further the cause of peace or democracy. Gateway Pundit has a video of Charles Krauthammer saying the same thing.

    While Obama is stroking Ahmadinejad over the election dispute in Iran, Secretary of Defense Gates reminds us that Iran has ratcheted up their support of Shi’ite militias in Iraq. From the Wall Street Journal;

    Some of the Iraqi Shiite extremist groups that the U.S. claims are backed by Iran say they are ratcheting up attacks in Iraq in tandem with Tehran’s post-election crackdown on protesters.

    Shiite militia leaders say a toughening resolve among hard-liners in Iran is translating into direct orders from Iran-based leaders to increase attacks, as well as inspiring militants next door in Iraq to demonstrate their influence.

    So, what is probably the worst thing that Obama could do to disrupt the successes in Iraq? How about putting the one man in charge of resolving political and tribal differences in Iraq who is universally despised by all of the groups in Iraq – Joe Biden;

    As the U.S. military met its deadline to withdraw from Iraqi cities, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama asked his No. 2 to work with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Christopher Hill on mending fences in Iraq.

    Biden would be “working with the Iraqis toward overcoming their political differences and achieving the type of reconciliation that we all understand has yet to fully take place, but needs to take place,” Gibbs said.

    So why is Joe Biden a bad choice? Remember how his plan for Iraq was to partition the place along ethnic divisions? Why would anyone consider him the guy to “mend fences” when his plan was to build walls? A flashback from the archives of the Wall Street Journal;

    Despite deep resistance from the Iraqi government, Mr. Biden tried to turn his plan into U.S. policy, introducing a nonbinding Senate resolution that called for its implementation. But his effort completely backfired in Baghdad. The proposal ended up unifying all the disparate Iraqi factions in opposition.

    Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who called on the Iraqi parliament to meet and formally reject the Biden plan, immediately went on Iraqi television with a blistering statement: “[Biden] should stand by Iraq to solidify its unity and its sovereignty . . . [He] shouldn’t be proposing its division. That could be a disaster not just for Iraq but for the region.”

    So you tell me…is the Obama Administration trying to sabotage peace in Iraq? It sure looks that way to me.

    And then, they side with Chavez, Castro, Ortega, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa against the legal government of Honduras. The Obama Administration continues to call it a coup (just like his new communist friends in the region), even though, it reality wasn’t. Again, lets read the Wall Street Journal;

    As military “coups” go, the one this weekend in Honduras was strangely, well, democratic. The military didn’t oust President Manuel Zelaya on its own but instead followed an order of the Supreme Court. It also quickly turned power over to the president of the Honduran Congress, a man from the same party as Mr. Zelaya. The legislature and legal authorities all remain intact.

    We mention these not so small details because they are being overlooked as the world, including the U.S. President, denounces tiny Honduras in a way that it never has, say, Iran. President Obama is joining the U.N., Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and other model democrats in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be allowed to return from exile and restored to power. Maybe it’s time to sort the real from the phony Latin American democrats.

    I wonder how quickly all of those clowns would have rode to the defense of Colombia’s Uribe if he’d been shipped out in the early morning hours. And honestly, as coups go, Zelaya got off easy this time. The OAS is calling for his reinstatement to his office in two days – I’m pretty sure the next time Zelaya leaves Honduras, it’ll be feet first to preclude meddling by the thug huggers.

    But all of this contrary behavior by our own presidential administration is not in the interests of our own security, not a bit. It seems to me that Obama is now trying to deliberately destroy our economy while destroying our standing in the world making us insecure and poor just to not be Bush.

  • Kokesh, the voice of America

    TSO wrote yesterday about Adam Kokesh‘s campaign. But the bigger story is his attempt to drag TAH into his campaign. Apparently, he thinks that any publicity is good publicity. He’s even sent his flyers to Chris Hill from GOE who sent me a link yesterday to Kokesh’s blog entry about Hill pointing out the addition of the parenthetical comment under the original title. Apparently, Kokesh is trying to soften his image in preparation for his run at a congressional seat in Santa Fe.
    chris-hill

    It may have backfired on Kokesh, though. Just last week, a Phoenix newspaper linked to This Ain’t Hell in regards to Kokesh’s candidacy. They used all of our posts about Kokesh over the last two years to warn voters away from him.

    Poor Adam is still mired in his past thinking it will win him an election. His latest rants are about Donald Rumsfeld owning stock in the company that makes Tamaflu. I’m sure that’s why Democrats spent that money on flu prevention – to fill Rummy’s pockets.

    But the most disturbing part of Kokesh’s new personae is that he’s doing interviews with Russia Today in which they describe him as an “expert”. Here’s a sample entitled “Obama’s foreign policy is more aggressive than Bush’s” – expert;


    Adam Kokesh, the Expert. The Voice of America to Russia. Sweet.

  • Army ending retirees’ volunteer program

    The Washington Times reports that the Army is ending a program that allowed retirees to return to service to help fill critical slots;

    Lt. Col. George Wright, 55, an Army spokesman — himself a program participant who signed up to return to service in 2007 after nine years of retirement — said the program is being terminated because the Army had to reduce personnel to reach a congressionally mandated limit on the total number of soldiers.

    “The end of the program is driven by end-strength concerns,” he said, adding that the Army was engaged in a constant process of managing its size by “fine-tuning” its enlistment and retention figures.

    According to the Times, participation in the program has been broader than most of Americans probably realize;

    Since the program began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 2,851 veterans with 20 years or more experience – mostly between the ages of 45 and 55 – have passed through the program, according to Army figures. Nearly 750 have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

    Army figures show three participants have been wounded and one — Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, of Scottsdale, Ariz. — has been killed.

    One volunteer was inspired by the troops she cared for at Walter Reed;

    [Master Sgt. Donna Thomas, 51] who is currently serving with the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq, told The Washington Times that 11 months after retiring in 2006 following 22 years of active service, she decided to re-enlist while working as a civilian at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

    Her inspiration came from wounded soldiers she met.

    “They had such great attitudes. They all wanted to come back,” she said. “It made me feel that I needed to renew my own commitment.”

    Actually, that’s what inspired me to volunteer for the program. The son of one of my friends from my high school days was in Walter Reed and lost half of one leg in a helicopter crash in the early days of the Iraq war. When I visited him, he was adamant about staying in the Army and returning to Iraq. How can you not be tempted to serve with a generation of soldiers like him.

    But, unfortunately, it was not to be. My medical record since retirement sounds much worse than it actually is, so the Army rejected me (so much for the Left’s line that they’ll take anyone and send them to war).

    Not every retiree will be forced out when the program ends, though;

    Col. Wright said the Army began phasing out the program in March and would end it by October, sending home the 1,163 retirees now enrolled.

    A few exceptions with special skills — 41 to date — could be approved to remain in service.

  • Spineless foreign policy

    So what happened this weekend? While the US was immersed in the useless-ass Michael Jackson news and doing their best to ignore the fact that we’ll all  be broke by the end of the year paying our new backdoor taxes on our energy needs, the rest of the world continued to turn.

    Did you hear that Iran had seized several British Embassy employees? No, of course not. I think it was nine that were detained by Iranian police for inciting the rallies against the government. Five were released yesterday and four more remain in custody according to CNN;

    British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Sunday protested the arrests, calling them “harassment and intimidation of a kind which is quite unacceptable.”

    Iran’s intelligence minister has blamed Western powers for stirring up protests over its disputed presidential election, singling out Britain and saying the British Embassy in Tehran “played a heavy role in the recent disturbances.”

    North Korea seems to be upset that we’ve moved missile defense assets to Hawaii. They, somehow, think that we’re moving defense systems to attack North Korea – kinda like the Murtha plan to defend the Iraqi government from Guam, I suppose. This from Australian Associated Press;

    “Through the US forces’ clamorous movements, it has been brought to light that the US attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike on our republic has become a brutal fact,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on Monday.

    The paper also accused the US of deploying nuclear-powered aircraft and atomic-armed submarines in waters near the Korean peninsula, saying the moves prove “the US pre-emptive nuclear war” on the North is imminent.

    The commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the North will bolster its nuclear arsenal in self-defence.

    I also wrote yesterday a few times about the removal of Leftist president Manuel Zelaya from his position in Honduras. He awoken early yesterday morning and sent to Costa Rica by the Honduran Army, apparently under the orders of the Honduran Congress and the Supreme Court. The Obama Administration called the act a “coup” while the Honduran Supreme Court claims it was completely legal since the Army was only defending their constitution from a domestic threat.

    Apparently the Obama administration had their fingers in several attempts to remove Zelaya in preceding weeks according to the Washington Times;

    The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named, said the U.S. Embassy in Honduras was “consistently and almost constantly engaged in the last several weeks working with partners” and that U.S. officials were “in contact with all Honduran institutions, including the military.” However, the military stopped taking the embassy’s calls since the coup attempt, the official said.

    Hmmm, they stopped taking the Obama administration’s calls, huh? Probably because they weren’t being helpful. The OAS, the UN, Chavez’ ALBA members have all condemned the removal of Zelaya from office, but actually, two branches of the Honduran government, the Judicial and Legislative, both arrived at the conclusion that Zelaya was trying to change the government of Honduras, like Chavez changed the Venezuelan government to suit his own selfish purposes. It’s an internal issue.

    The rest of the world has decided that they’re going to let Iran kill it’s own citizens, let North Korea fire off missiles anywhere they want while imprisoning US citizens, but they’re not going to let the Honduran government come to conclusions about the way it’s governed?

    Oh, and Chavez said yesterday that he’s ready to return Zelaya to office with the use of the Venezuelan Army. And the world is hoping he will, apparently.

    I thought Obama was going to change the way the world looked at us. Apparently he did – the world thinks the West are a bunch of pussies now that American foreign policy doesn’t have room to defend the innocent now. This administration is too intent on grinding our economy into the dust to pay attention to the rest of the world.