Turns out al-Qaeda double-agent was not as double as the CIA originally thought
It turns out the suicide bomber that killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was a double-agent the CIA recruited to find al-Qaeda leaders. From the BBC:
The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was an al-Qaeda double agent, US media reports say.
He is said to have been a doctor from Jordan, arrested there a year ago.
He was then reportedly recruited by the Jordanians and CIA, who wrongly thought they had turned him, and given a mission to find al-Qaeda leaders.
Whatever the CIA is doing, they need to stop doing it. I don’t understand why this government agency is still in existence. One might think that after the intelligence debacle known as September 11, the CIA would have been deactivated and our nation’s intelligence needs would be performed by some other massive government agency, an agency not called the CIA.
The CIA is the same intelligence agency that didn’t know the Berlin Wall was coming down until they watched it happen on CNN like the rest of us.
Let this be a lesson to the CIA: you can’t “turn” a member of al-Qaeda like you could an East German. During the Cold War, you could simply throw a bunch of money at an eastern European communist and expect him to more or less do what you wanted. Members of al-Qaeda are radical religious extremists that cannot be trusted.
This is the best they can do?
It looks as though health care reform will pass, but that’s only if you choose to label the bill coming out of the Senate as health care reform. The key points:
- No public option.
- No Medicare buy in.
- Penalize those that do not have health insurance.
- No tax on cosmetic procedures.
- A 10% tax on tanning.
What a joke. This makes me feel embarrassment to be a Democrat. Seriously, this is what you get when the House, the Senate, and the White House are all under Democratic control? We get 30,000 more combat troops in Afghanistan and a piece of crap bill pretending to be health care reform.
Is this what Change looks like?
The fact that people will be penalized if they don’t buy health insurance, coupled with the fact that there is no public option, means that the health insurance cartel is getting a heck of a Christmas present this year. I wish I sold a product that the government forced people to buy.
Hillary Clinton: ‘We’re not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline’
If your only problem with President Obama’s military escalation of the Afghanistan war was that you thought it included a set date for troop withdrawal, think again. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates taped an interview with David Gregory of NBC’s Meet The Press that seemed to contradict what President Obama said in his speech at West Point. From the interview:
HILLARY CLINTON: We’re not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline. What we’re talking about is an assessment that in January 2011, we can begin a transition. A transition to hand off — responsibility to the Afghan forces.
ROBERT GATES: We’re not talking about an abrupt withdrawal. We’re talking about something that will take place over a period of time…. Our military thinks we have a real opportunity to do that. And it’s not just in the next 18 months. Because we will have a significant — we will have 100,000 forces — troops there. And they are not leaving– in July of 2011. Some handful or some small number or whatever the conditions permit, we’ll begin to withdraw at that time.
A handful? What a load of crap. And to think that I and every other American was told that a vote of John McCain was in fact a vote for George W. Bush. The idea being is that John McCain would simply continue with the Bush ideas and strategies. Well, the ironic thing is that Defense Secretary Robert Gates used to be George W. Bush’s defense secretary and he is on national TV talking about an open-ended, no deadline set war in Afghanistan.
So how is this any different?
When I voted for Barack Obama, I was looking for some Change. I thought it was time that we stopped spending so much of our money (and future money) on a massive military so that we could have the distinct privilege of waging unwindable wars in far off lands. I thought it was time to instead spend our money and resources closer to home. I thought it was time to start spending our money on things like universal health care and reusable energy.
If Barack Obama wanted to be the war president, he should have said so during the campaign.
I wish Barack Obama was an anti-war activist in the 60’s
I went out today to run a few errands and I forgot to grab my XM radio from the computer room. This meant I had to listen to old fashioned terrestrial radio. One of the shows I listened to today was the king of AM talk radio, Rush Limbaugh.
As luck would have it, Rush was railing again liberals, communists, socialists, progressives, and President Barack Obama. While talking to a caller, the subject turned to an organization called the SDS. I had never heard of the organization before. Rush said that it stood for the “Students for a Democrat Society”. He said it was an anti-war organization. He said that Abbie Hoffman, the Chicago Seven, Tom Hayden, and Barack Obama were all former members.
Barack Obama?
When I got home, I looked up SDS on Wikipedia. It stands for “Students for a Democratic Society”, not “Democrat” as Rush said. Also, I highly doubt Barack Obama was ever a member. Wikipedia states that the SDS broke up in 1969. In 1969, Barack Obama was 8-years old and lived in Indonesia with his mother and her husband.
How does an 8-year old boy living on the other side of the world participate in an anti-war organization for college students? Remember, this was long before Al Gore ever invented the World Wide Internet Web.
I wish Rush Limbaugh was right. I wish Barack Obama was involved in the anti-war movement in the 1960’s. If he was, maybe he wouldn’t be going on national TV tonight announcing that he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. As if that is going to fix anything.
He could send six million more troops to Afghanistan and it wouldn’t fix anything. At the end of the day, it’s still going to be Afghanistan.
Obama to announce Afghanistan troop buildup in televised speech at West Point
President Obama will be announcing his Afghanistan policy at a prime time televised speech from West Point on Tuesday. He is expected to announce a buildup that will bring U.S. forces to around 100,000, from today’s 68,000.
As if that’s going to change things in Afghanistan.
The first thing you need to do when you realize you are in a hole is to stop digging. Afghanistan is a hole. A really big hole. It’s a hole the British Empire found themselves in. It’s a hole the Soviets found themselves in. It’s a hole we’ve been in now for eight years and adding more shovels isn’t going to fix things.
Not only is sending more troops to Afghanistan not going to fix things, it’s going to cost a lot of money and more importantly, it’s going to cost a lot of lives.
It’s a shame that our flavor of democracy requires such a large and expensive military to sustain it. Other democracies in the world spend a fraction of what we do on their military. It allows them to spend their treasure on more important things. Things such as universal health care and high-speed bullet trains.
Think of what we could do in this country if we didn’t spend so much on our military.
So President Obama is going to announce more troops to Afghanistan. Good for him. I wonder if he is going to wear his Nobel Peace Prize around his neck when he makes the announcement. Probably not.
Obama to send ‘about’ 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan
Look like President Obama is going to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Maybe.
From CBS News:
Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term.
The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.
McChrystal wanted 40,000 and the president has tentatively decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops. A senior officer says “that’s close to what [McChrystal] asked for.” All the president’s military advisers have recommended sending more troops.
So when does Obama become more of a “war president” than George W. Bush? Bush enjoyed refering to himself as the war president, but Obama already has more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than Bush did, even during the Iraq surge.
I’m not sure what the point in this is. More troops to Afghanistan isn’t going to fix anything. At the end of the day, Afghanistan will always be Afghanistan. It’s an awful place filled with awful people. Invading Afghanistan may have made sense ten years ago, back when al Qaeda used it as a training base and before the terror attacks on 9-11. Now, al Qaeda is in neighboring Pakistan.
I just don’t see the point. Military force should only be used when there is a clear, obtainable military objective to be archived. Is that possible when it comes to Afghanistan?
I think not.
What some men will do to get out of the war
The things some men will do to get out of serving their country during a time of war. Roscoe Bartlett, my elected representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, avoided military service during World War Two by claiming that he wanted to pursue a career in the ministry, though never actually did. Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger wore a dress and pretended to be a woman to get out of serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Now it appears someone has come up with a new way of getting out of going to war. U.S. Army Major Stefan Frederick Cook has filed a lawsuit to prevent his deployment to Afghanistan. The reason?
Because he believes that President Barrack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. It’s his contention that Obama was born not in Hawaii, but in Kenya.
From the Miami-Herald:
Cook further states he “would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command, and that Plaintiff would thus be simultaneously unable to perform his duties in good Rule 65(b) Application for Temporary Restraining Order 22 conscience and yet be simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties.”
What surprises me about this story is the fact that Cook is an officer. In fact, he’s a field-grade officer. This seems like a scumbag move to pull just because he doesn’t want to go to Afghanistan and kill the Taliban.
Why’s he in the Army?
Osama bin Laden’s driver sentenced to 66 months
Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver, was convicted of supporting terrorism, but he was acquitted of conspiracy to murder. He was sentenced to only 66 months. Since he has already been held down in Guantanamo Bay for 51 months, he technically could go free in five months.
A jury of six US military officers, and not a judge, imposed the sentence.
After Hamdan completes the rest of his sentence, he will still be considered to be an enemy combatant.
Hamdan admitted to working for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan from 1997 to 2001 as his driver. He made around $200 a month.
God save the Queen and Matt Drudge is a douche bag
Matt Drudge, founder of the Internet news site the Drudge Report ran a story on his rag of a website that told the world Prince Harry was fighting on the front lines in Afghanistan. Much of the British and American press knew he was over in Afghanistan, but they all agreed to keep the story secret until Harry and his regiment returned from Afghanistan. It was believed that if it was known that a member of the Royal family was in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, it would create an extra risk not only for the Prince, but the rest of his unit.
Everyone was able to keep it a secret. Everyone except that douche bag Matt Drudge. He just had to let everyone know about it.
Because of Matt Drudge’s reckless disregard for the safety of Prince Harry and the rest of his unit, they are being withdrawn from Afghanistan. Their risk is just too high for him and the rest of the men in his unit.
My respect for Prince Harry is only matched by my contempt for Matt Drudge. Prince Harry didn’t have to put himself at risk and go to Afghanistan. His grandmother is the Queen of England and he is is third in the line of succession to the throne. Shame on Matt Drudge for putting his own desire for attention over the safety of Prince Harry and the rest of his unit.
An example of good military camouflage
That is what I call a well camouflaged soldier. No matter where the fight takes our military, the men and women in our armed forces are ready for the challenge. Whether it’s the mountains of Afghanistan or the sofa in Grandma’s living room, our fighting men and women can blend into almost any environment.
(photo stolen borrowed from Imager.cc)
The al-Qaida in Iraq is not the real al-Qaida
Our illustrious president spoke last night on the television about his most favorite subject – the Iraq war. From his speech:
Anbar province is a good example of how our strategy is working. Last year, an intelligence report concluded that Anbar had been lost to al-Qaida. Some cited this report as evidence that we had failed in Iraq and should cut our losses and pull out. Instead, we kept the pressure on the terrorists. The local people were suffering under the Taliban-like rule of al-Qaida, and they were sick of it. So they asked us for help.
The al-Qaida he should be worried about is the al-Qaida in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is the real al-Qaida. That is the al-Qaida that attacked the United States on 9-11. The al-Qaida in Iraq? They just call themselves that to give themselves some cheap terrorist credibility. Everyone knows that al-Qaida attacked the United States six years ago and Bush has failed to bring them to justice. Bush has failed to make them pay. Bush and his inability to make al-Qaida pay turn them into the terrorist organization that every two bit terrorist wants to be apart of.
Just because they call themselves al-Qaida doesn’t make them al-Qaida. The al-Qaida in Iraq is as much al-Qaida as American skinheads are Nazis. Sure, they may have a photo of Hitler in their mom’s basement, but that doesn’t mean they are the same bunch that fought Patton’s Third Army in the Battle of the Bulge. Those were real Nazis. They weren’t pretending to be Nazis.
Just because someone identifies themselves as a Nazi on their MySpace page doesn’t mean they are a Nazi. Just because someone in Iraq says they are al-Qaida doesn’t make them al-Qaida.
U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan destroy reporter’s photos
A suicide bomber hit an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan with an explosives-packed minivan and militants then fired gunfire from several directions. American forces returned fire in defense of the attack. 16 Afghan civilians were killed and another 25 people were wounded.
Several wounded Afghans said they were shot by U.S. forces fleeing the scene. One U.S. soldier was injured in the attack.
The incident is supposedly under investigation. What’s not very clear is who exactly killed the Afghan civilians. Finding out what really happened may be next to impossible. This from the AP article:
U.S. soldiers at the scene deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News. Neither the photographer nor the cameraman witnessed the suicide attack or the subsequent gunfire. It wasn’t immediately known why the soldiers deleted the photos and videos. The U.S. military didn’t immediately comment on the matter.
The freelance photographer, Rahmat Gul, said he took photos of a four-wheel drive vehicle with four bodies that had been shot to death inside.
An American soldier then took Gul’s camera and deleted the photos. Gul said he later received permission to take photos from another soldier, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul but that he didn’t.
How are we the American people supposed to know what is happening if reporters are forcibly having their photos destroyed?
I personally have a hard time believing my personal freedoms depend on my government invading and occupying two different countries. Did any of those 16 dead or 25 wounded Afghan civilians had anything to do with the terror attacks on 9-11? Was there a chance that any of the 16 people killed would ever come to the United States to commit a terror attack? I would say that since they were not Saudis, the chances of that ever happening were absolutely nil.
What a complete and utter waste.
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