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

Category: Terror War

  • The domestic media and Afghanistan news

    Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive writes that the British media isn’t afraid to report that Afghan border police are regularly intercepting heavy weapons shipments from Iran;

    Quantities regularly run into the hundreds and the weapons are usually brand new he added.

    Mr Obama has been working hard to enlist Iranian support in tackling rampant arms and opium traffic across the border.

    Sources said both sides were prepared for a “fresh look” at co-operation after years of hostility caused by Tehran’s nuclear programme, American support for Israel, and Iranian suspicion of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Of course, the American media is reluctant to report such news, lest they tip the Obama applecart a hair. So just like in the Clinton days we have to rely on foreign media.

    But the Associated Press is willing to encourage the specter of blame on American soldiers for an grenade attack on a crowd which had assembled around a disabled miltary vehicle. The grenade killed two and wounded fifty, according to the account;

    Some Afghan witnesses and officials, including Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education, accused a U.S. soldier on Tuesday of throwing the grenade. But U.S. military officials and the Ministry of Interior said fragments from a Russian-made grenade were found at the site, and blamed an insurgent in the crowd for throwing the weapon.

    None of the half dozen U.S. soldiers in the video can be seen throwing a grenade. However, the video does not make clear who may have thrown it.

    So why even mention the unlikely allegation that Americans tossed the grenade?

    Several witnesses and victims wounded in Tuesday’s blast told The Associated Press that they saw a U.S. soldier fire a grenade launching weapon. Others said they saw a soldier reach into his pocket and throw a grenade.

    Well, it’s easy to see why AP reported it – reaching in your pocket to pull out a grenade requires the exact same action as firing a weapon, doesn’t it? By the way, all of you military folks who carried grenades in your pockets raise your hands. Yeah, me neither.

    Here’s the video, by the way;
    (more…)

  • Bledsoe: We believe that we have to strike back

    Before a gag order was in place on Monday, Carlos Bledsoe or Abdulhakim Muhammad or whatever his name is today, the murderer of PVT William Long in Little Rock last week, made a statement to Associated Press;

    I do feel I’m not guilty. I don’t think it was murder, because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason.

    Mr. Muhammad, 23, said he wanted revenge for claims that American military personnel had desecrated copies of the Koran and killed or raped Muslims. “For this reason, no Muslim, male or female, sane or insane, little, big, small, old can accept or tolerate,” he said.

    He said the U.S. military would never treat Christians and their Scriptures in the same manner.

    “U.S. soldiers are killing innocent Muslim men and women. We believe that we have to strike back. We believe in eye for an eye. We don’t believe in turning the other cheek,” he said.

    Asked whether he considered the shootings at the recruiting center an act of war, Mr. Muhammad said, “I didn’t know the soldiers personally, but yes, it was an attack of retaliation. And I feel that other attacks, not by me or people I know, but definitely Muslims in this country and others elsewhere, are going to attack for doing those things they did,” especially desecrating the Koran.

    Especially desecrating the Koran? Like the story that Newsweek had to retract?

    “We believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence,” Whitaker wrote. “But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.”

    Feel any guilt, Newsweek?

    As far as his statement, I agree with DrewM;

    No wonder Obama and the left don’t want to talk about it. They can’t spin this as some wannabe big talker who has no connection to Islam.

    They want to keep this guy buried and quiet otherwise he might remind Americans that there’s still a war out there and our enemies are doing their best to bring it to our streets.

    Nothing from the White House yet, but there’s a resolution working it’s way through the House Judiciary Committee, I hear. The wording is fairly tame, but at least it’s something. Something we won’t get from this White House.

  • Politics threatens passage of war-funding bill

    Congress is back to the business of larding up the bill that’s supposed to be funding our troops in the field. Even the President is getting in on the act;

    President Barack Obama originally sought $83.4 billion for the two wars and more foreign aid for countries like Pakistan.

    But then he too sought more — $4 billion extra to combat H1N1 swine flu and $5 billion to back credit lines to the International Monetary Fund, which is trying to help developing countries weather the global economic downturn.

    Some Republicans were ready to go along with it until the IMF provision was added;

    Last month, 168 House Republicans supported the war-funding bill, but that was before the Senate inserted the IMF provision. The commitment reflects President Barack Obama’s promise at the April G-20 meeting of world leaders.

    To give the IMF this line of credit “to bail out the rest of the world, I mean, this is lunacy,” said House Republican leader John Boehner , R- Ohio .

    CNN reported a few hours ago that Congress decided to drop language that would release the so-called torture pictures from the bill;

    House Democratic leaders plan to drop a provision — backed by President Obama — from the $100 billion war funding bill that would bar the release of detainee photos, according to House Democratic congressional aides.

    But according to other sources, the BDS Left are revolting;

    President Barack Obama’s penchant for last-minute demands, and a rebellion by liberal allies over his efforts to block the release of detainee abuse photos, have combined to sidetrack his bill to pay for an expanded war in Afghanistan as well as continuing military operations in Iraq.

    Murtha gets his fingers in the pie to buy some more votes back home;

    Democratic Representative John Murtha, who heads the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, managed to get $3.1 billion for eight C-17 and 11 C-130 military transport planes included. However, that has been pared back by four C-130s.

    The Pentagon did not request the aircraft but lawmakers want them to preserve jobs in their home states and Murtha disputes the military’s contention that they are not needed.

    Despite the fact that Democrats stalled for more than a year passing funding for the troops, they are now adopting the language of their former critics to plow some pork through Congress;

    “This is a dangerous game Republicans are playing by jeopardizing the well-being of our soldiers to score political points,” the aide said. “The supplemental will be passed, but they will have to answer for their actions if they oppose it.”

    Imagine the gall it takes to say that after Democrats spent two years trying to end the war by holding up funding.

  • Five working days later

    Monday morning two US soldiers were senselessly shot, one was murdered, within our borders while they were on a break. They were shot by what now appears to be a lone whacko, although the circle may widen soon. That shooter was apparently trained, or at least influenced to commit this crime, in a foreign country. And here we are five working days later and not one word from our President on the incident. I’ve heard about some statement that his office released to Arkansas media about the shooting, but I haven’t seen it.

    In the circles I travel in, there’s only one place to look for a statement from the President – on the White House website. it’s where I found this statement on that website about a similar crime that happened the day before the shooting in Little Rock;

    That particular shooting happened on a Sunday and was released the same day – a non-working day for many of us. But five working days later, there’s nothing about PVT Long’s death in the five pages preceding that particular link. Nothing.

    I cut Obama some slack – maybe he didn’t want to anger the “Muslim world” before his Big Speech, but that speech is over…he’s in Germany today. The President and Commander-in-Chief plans on honoring the US military members who gave their lives for their country on Normandy beaches tomorrow – yet he can’t honor one lone soldier who was murdered solely because he happened to be a soldier taking a break last Monday in Little Rock, Arkansas under Obama’s command.

    Five working days later.

  • American Legion Commander urges strength, not apologies

    Well, it seems that President Obama can’t do much to please the American Legion national commander these days. David K. Rehbein’s office released this statement today in regards to the President’s speech to Muslims in Egypt this week;

    The head of The American Legion is stressing the need for strength as well as conciliation in President Obama’s current campaign to improve relations with Muslim countries.

    “Although The American Legion does not believe that the United States has anything to apologize for, we appreciate the spirit of President Obama’s call for what he termed a ‘new beginning’ in our relationship with the followers of Islam,” said David K. Rehbein, national commander of the nation’s largest veterans service organization.

    “We must demand reciprocity of both spirit and deed,” he said. “When the president pronounces, as he did in his conciliatory address in Egypt, that the events of September 11, 2001, in his words, ‘led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals’, he must, in our opinion, demand equally public admission from the Muslim world that elements within its community have been responsible for egregious acts of terrorism including mass killings, torture and public beheadings – acts that must be contrary to their traditions and ideals.

    “When the President announces that, to quote him, ‘we are taking concrete actions to change course,’ with reference to the exercise of certain interrogation techniques and the very controversial order to close detainee housing at Guantanamo Bay, then it is incumbent upon him to demand that the Muslim community take concrete and demonstrable action to suppress and eliminate those within their own ranks who are responsible for uncounted, unprovoked acts of terrorism.

    The national commander writes this in regards to the Guantanamo prisoners and the soldiers murdered in Arkansas this past week;

    “Even if these detainees were to be housed in the most secure premises possible,” said Rehbein, “they might still be free to communicate their radical beliefs to fellow prisoners, thus converting already known criminals to their murderous points of view – much as the Arkansas killer was persuaded to commit his act of terror.

    Read the whole thing, Rehbein echoes many of our own thoughts here.

  • Was the Little Rock recruiter office the only target?

    Usually, I have Megyn Kelly on the TV with the volume turned down, but somehow I forgot the mute today so luckily I heard her mention that the Arkansas jihadist Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad Bledsoe might have had other targets besides the recruiter office (Fox News link);

    A senior U.S. official tells FOX News that more targets were found on the computer of a man charged in the fatal shooting at a military recruiting center in Arkansas — suggesting the accused gunman may have been part of a larger plot to attack military targets and may not have been acting alone.

    It wasn’t immediately clear how extensive the potential plot might have been or what evidence authorities have suggesting more suspects were involved.

    The source’s information contradicted a local police official’s denial earlier Tuesday that the shooting was part of a larger conspiracy.

    Now that’s kind of important, isn’t it? Shouldn’t someone besides Fox News tell us to keep an eye out for suspicious activities?

    According to the Fox reporter, targets like a Jewish center, a day care center and a Baptist church were on the list – so I guess no Obama supporters are in danger. Maybe he’ll get around to condemning this after another attack or after the D-Day remembrance – whichever comes first.

  • Just ignore terrorists, maybe they’ll go away

    In case you missed it yesterday, Carlos Bledsoe, or whatever he’s calling himself today, pleaded not guilty yesterday in a Little Rock courtroom. But CNN reports he made a video taped confession to the murder of PVT William Long;

    Before the not guilty plea, authorities said Bledsoe waived his Miranda rights after the shooting Monday and gave a video statement indicating that “political and religious” motives were involved.

    He “stated that he was a practicing Muslim … that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past,” homicide detective Tommy Hudson said in a police report.

    Bledsoe told police “he fired several rounds at the soldiers with the intent of killing them,” according to Hudson’s report.

    The New York Times reported that Bledsoe said he would have killed more soldiers if there had been more;

    “Mr. Muhammad stated that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past,” an arrest report filed by the Little Rock police said. “Mr. Muhammad further stated that he would have killed more soldiers if they had been on the parking lot.”

    But the strange part is that there has been nothing from the White House, from PVT Thomas’ boss – the President. As if the incident never happened.

    Well, on the day before, an Air France flight from Brazil went down. Drudge throws up a link to an article from last week that reported that an Air France flight was threatened by terrorists. Here’s a screen capture of that article in case it disappears;

    So I guess our new strategy against terrorism is to just ignore them and they’ll go away. Brilliant. I can’t foresee any problems that might cause, can you?

    Added: Blackfive has an interview with PVT William Long’s father and Marine Daris Long from Little Rock’s KATV. It’s pretty hard to watch.

  • The blogosphere crickets are deafening

    For the last twenty four hours, I’ve been monitoring Technorati for blog posts on the shooting in Little Rock yesterday. Unsurprisingly, I’ve found countless center-right blogs reporting and commenting on it, but the Left not so much. Most of them just toss up a news story and few comments. One blog I read last night cautioned his readers that the shooting yesterday and the other on Sunday were both terrible. I wonder why he thought he had to write five paragraphs explaining that?

    So this morning, I began my foraging again and I was relieved to see that the Huffington Post had something up – alas, it was just another reposted news story. However the HuffPo commenters can always be trusted to satisfy my evil wingnut lust for hyperbole;

    Yeah, the most important thing is that Obama not give political ammunition to his opponents – that’s more important than the lives of two young Americans.

    But, ya know, a guy trained in Yemen who guns down American soldiers in the streets of our cities should be reported by the actual media, ya know? Fox News usually shuts down broadcasting any real news for hours of video of police tape fluttering in the wind – not this time. The Washington Post puts the story in a column on page 16, and then just the AP blurb. But even that is better than the Washington Times which avoids the story. The New York Times ran one article yesterday and nothing today. As far as I can tell the article they wrote yesterday didn’t make it to print this morning.

    So why is the Left so scared of admitting that there is a real threat that has existed since 9-11 and that George Bush’s Administration kept us safe? I’m not saying Obama isn’t keeping us safe, I’m sure it’s his intention to do so. But isn’t it a bit disingenuous to ignore the problem and not give it the same measure of attention as the shooting of one single man who was killed because of his behavior? Do they truly think that the problem will go away if they bury their faces in their hands?

    And what does it say about the Left that they have to explain to each other why the senseless death of one man is the same as the senseless death of another. What does that say about their whole ideology?