Tag Archives: al-Qaeda

International news

Drone kills another al-Qaeda leader

Before we get too excited about news regarding the death of an al-Qaeda terrorist leader, let’s ponder the obvious.

Someone else is going to emerge to take this guy’s place.

And someone will emerge once we eliminate the new terrorist leader.

It’ll go on and on and on.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/06/16/us-targets-leader-al-qaeda-in-yemen-with-cia-drone-strike/

A drone strike killed Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi. It’s been called the most significant death of a terrorist leader since the May 2011 commando raid killed Osama bin Laden.

That’s good news. The more leaders we kill, the fewer of them are left to take up arms against us.

Does it mean we’ve wiped out the recruiting pool? Hardly.

What we’re seeing, though, is the consequence of President George W. Bush’s declaration of war against international terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. It’s a war that will go on long after those who are reading these words are gone. It’s a war we must fight, given that the terrorists started it with their heinous attack on us in 2001.

The question remaining though is: How will we know when we’ve finished the fight?

The answer remains as elusive today as it was when this fight began.

 

national news, political news

‘Protecting the homeland’?

Forgive me, please, for expressing this, but Jeb Bush might be suffering from brotherly-love blindness.

He was questioned by Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” news talk show.

Schieffer asked the former Florida governor and likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate what he learned from his brother, former President George W. Bush.

“Well, the successes clearly are protecting the homeland,” the former Florida governor opined. “We were under attack, and he unified the country, and he showed dogged determination, and he kept us safe.”

And he kept us safe. He said that.

OK, let’s reel this back a bit. The 9/11 attacks occurred on President Bush’s watch, which Jeb has acknowledged. It’s been reported from various sources that the president likely ignored warnings from his national security team that a major attack was imminent. He was briefed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, about the threat that al-Qaeda posed.

And yet …

The attack occurred on that bright Tuesday morning in New York and Washington.

President Bush “kept us safe”?

Yes, but only after all hell broke loose.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Sen. Graham ‘ready’ … to take U.S. back into war

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham says he’s “ready” to run for president, and to be president.

He’s also ready, it sounds to me, as if he’s ready to send Americans back to the Middle East, to fight radical Islamic terrorists face to face.

Haven’t we been there, already? Haven’t we lost sufficient numbers of American lives in the fight against Islamic terrorists?

Apparently not, says Graham.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/im-ready-lindsey-graham-officially-enters-2016-race/ar-BBktaAk

The South Carolina Republican jumped into the GOP nomination fight today, vowing to ratchet up our military posture abroad. Interesting, yes? We did that during the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks. We went after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, as we should have done. Then we decided — wrongly, it turned out — to take the fight into Iraq. We flexed our military might quite nicely in that country, then kept fighting and fighting and fighting as resistance rose up and the Islamic State became a serious force with which we’re still trying to reckon.

Graham’s campaign speech makes it sound as if we’ve rolled over. We have done nothing of the sort.

Someone needs to slip him a note with these words: “We killed bin Laden.”

Other terrorist leaders have been killed. ISIL remains a serious threat, but the United States is striking hard at that outfit as well.

Do we really want to re-enter the ground war in Iraq, or in Yemen, or in Syria? Do we really want to re-engage an enemy face to face? Graham seems to think it’s all right. I disagree with him. The Associated Press reported: “Graham is a prominent Senate voice in seeking a more muscular foreign policy and one who casts the threats facing the United States in particularly dark terms.”

Our foreign policy is muscular enough.

International news

Bin Laden's death foiled huge plot against U.S.

What’s this? You mean Osama bin Laden was planning another spectacular terror attack on the United States before those SEALs blew him away in May 2011?

That might be the least surprising news to come out of the declassification and release of information from documents seized from the scene of bin Laden’s death.

It’s welcome news to know the order to kill bin Laden saved potentially more American lives.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bin-laden-bent-on-spectacular-us-attack-until-the-end-files/ar-BBk06oq

According to AFP: “Documents that were declassified on Wednesday shed new light on the mindset of Al-Qaeda’s founder, his debates over tactics, his anxiety over Western spying and his fixation with the group’s media image. ‘The focus should be on killing and fighting the American people and their representatives,’ the late Al-Qaeda figurehead wrote.”

So, he wanted to keep taking the fight to the United States.

What his followers should understand — but likely won’t ever get — is that attacks such as what occurred on 9/11 only steel Americans’ resolve. Yes, our nation was wounded seriously by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But it took a mere nanosecond in time for us to collect our emotions and set about the task of taking the fight straight to the terrorists who fired the first shots.

This might be a war without end. Most folks now understand that as well. Will we ever be able to kill or capture every terrorist in the world who seeks to do us harm? It’s highly unlikely.

Bin Laden and his minions only awakened us.

 

 

International news

Did the president really lie about bin Laden raid?

Are we now going to believe more than four years after the fact that President Obama lied to us about the details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden?

Famed journalist Seymour Hersh says “yes.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/report-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/ar-BBjyIEa

Pardon me, sir. I think I’ll stick with what was reported at the time of the raid.

Hersh asserts — citing a single unnamed source — that Obama didn’t tell the truth about what happened the night of May 2, 2011 when Navy SEALs killed bin Laden, hauled his body out of Pakistan, deposited it aboard the USS Carl Vinson, where sailors then “buried” bin Laden’s remains at sea.

The Pakistanis had a much greater role in the raid than the president said at the time, according to Hersh; the White House wanted to announce a drone strike took out bin Laden, Hersh writes; Obama had no way to explain to Americans what happened had the raid failed, Hersh asserts.

Of all the purported inconsistencies, the one I find least believable is the one about what the Pakistanis knew and how much they assisted in killing bin Laden.

If you’re a Pakistani intelligence official, or a leader of the Pakistani government, you would want the world to know you had a hand in taking out the world’s No. 1 terrorist. The White House said at the time that the SEALs killed bin Laden without Pakistan knowing about it. I continue to believe the SEAL team performed the act as it was announced by the president that evening.

And it takes four years to dig out the so-called “truth” about this raid?

I remain skeptical of these latest revelations.

Here’s the link to the report: Take a look.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

 

International news

Another 'czar' might emerge in Washington

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It’s been some time since we’ve heard the term “czar” kicked around Washington, D.C.

But here it comes again, this time in the form of legislation that creates a “hostage czar” who would coordinate efforts to gain the release of Americans held hostage abroad.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bill-would-create-%e2%80%98hostage-czar%e2%80%99-to-coordinate-efforts-to-rescue-americans/ar-BBj1S6C

U.S. Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., has proposed the Warren Weinstein Hostage Rescue Act, named in honor of the man killed early this year in a drone strike on a suspected al-Qaeda compound.

Allow me this one request for the legislation: no negotiating with terrorists, please.

Delaney said this: “Hostage rescue is incredibly complex and multiple agencies have a role in the process, which at times has complicated our ability to act efficiently.”

So, he wants to create a hostage czar to coordinate those efforts.

It’s at best a symbolic gesture. It could prove fruitful, but only if it maintains a policy of refusing to negotiate with terror organizations to gain the release of these captive Americans.

I know what you’re thinking: Hey, we “negotiated” with the Taliban to obtain the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl; we released five Taliban officers in exchange for Bergdahl. Isn’t that “negotiating with terrorists”? Well, I believe the Taliban is a terrorist organization, but the White House doesn’t call it such — so, technically, the U.S. government didn’t negotiate with a terrorist outfit to gain Bergdahl’s release.

In hindsight, it looks like a mistake because (a) the Taliban comprises terrorists and (b) Bergdahl now is facing desertion charges.

Still, the Weinstein Hostage Rescue Act should be free of language that allows us to negotiate with any recognized terrorist outfit.

International news

War is far from a perfect endeavor

Two aid workers — an American and an Italian — are dead because a drone strike hit a suspected terrorist compound.

U.S. intelligence did not know the men were inside the target area. Does this mean the air campaign using unmanned drones is a failure? No. It means that intelligence at times is incorrect.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/obama-expresses-confidence-in-us-intelligence-despite-mistake-that-killed-two-aid-workers-117325.html?hp=b1_r1

President Obama expressed his support for the U.S. intelligence network during a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the melding of intelligence agencies into a single national intelligence department.

Walter Weinstein and Giovanni LoBianco were killed when a drone-launched missile hit the compound where al-Qaeda terrorists were holding them. President Obama has expressed regret and sorrow at the men’s deaths. But he stands behind the intelligence network.

Do they get everything right every single time? No. We’ve suffered through many intelligence failures over many years. Do you remember the intelligence that became the basis for launching the Iraq War in 2003? Do you remember the assurance that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was preparing to use them? It didn’t pan out that way.

Obama said: “Our first job is to make sure that we protect the American people. But there’s not a person that I talk to that’s involved in the intelligence community that also doesn’t understand that we have to do so while upholding our values and our ideals, and our laws and our constitutions, and our commitment to democracy.”

No matter the scope of the failures involved in intelligence gathering, it’s always critical to remember that human beings analyze this data and that those analysts do make mistakes. Thankfully, it’s not often.

Does that lessen the tragedy that resulted in the deaths of the aid workers? No. It does require, as the president said, that the nation “review what happened. We’re going to identify the lessons that can be learned and any improvements and changes that can be made.”

 

International news, national news

Drone takes out ex-American

Adam Pearlman was born to Jewish parents and raised on a California goat farm.

Then he changed his religion. He became a Muslim. Then he changed his name, to Adam Gadahn.

After all that, he joined a terrorist cult.

And in January, he was killed by an American drone strike. It apparently wasn’t planned, but he’s dead nonetheless. Americans — other than his family — shouldn’t be shedding a tear over this man’s death.

Count me as one American who scores his death as a victory in our war against international terrorism.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/al-qaeda-adam-gadahn-isis-rebirth-americans-recruited-to-isil-117285.html?hp=t1_r#.VTmsfFJ0yt8

Gadahn was killed in a drone strike that reportedly also killed two hostages, and American and an Italian. For those two men’s deaths, President Obama rightly apologized “on behalf of the U.S. government.”

Gadahn, though, is a different matter. As some Texans might say, “He needed killin’.”

And yet, civil libertarians — and I count myself as one of them — keep arguing that the United States shouldn’t kill Americans without giving them due process.

I am prepared to argue that these terrorists no longer qualify as deserving equal protection under the laws of the land. They forgo those protections the moment they take up arms with an enemy forces hell bent on killing Americans or any other innocent victims.

Gadahn had forsaken his rights as a citizen when he decided to join al-Qaeda. He had turned his back on his country by becoming a spokesman for the late Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization, the monsters who plotted the 9/11 attacks and, thus, fired the first shot in what’s become known as the “global war on terrorism.”

Yes, we should mourn the deaths of innocent victims. I join those in grieving for the loss of the American and Italian hostages who were held captive by al-Qaeda.

But for the man formerly known as Adam Pearlman? I won’t grieve for a single moment.

 

International news

No 'mistakes were made' apology

President Obama has taken full responsibility for the deaths of two hostages that had been held by al-Qaeda terrorists.

For that he deserves credit.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/american-italian-hostages-killed-in-us-drone-strike/ar-AAbzkZA

A drone strike in January targeted some terrorist leaders. Two men, one American and one Italian, also died in the strike.

The American was Warren Weinstein, an aid worker; the Italian was Giovanni Lo Porto. They had been captured by terrorists and, sadly, became the unintended victims of a strike aimed at killing enemies of the United States. The strike did kill some al-Qaeda leaders, but the president today had to own up to the deaths of the hostages.

“I realize there are no words that can ever equal their loss,” said Obama, who spoke with Weinstein’s wife and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The deaths of the two men perhaps say more about the nature of their captives than about the intelligence capabilities that preceded the drone strike. Obama said the best intelligence gathered indicated the hostages weren’t present in the target area.

One of the al-Qaeda leaders killed in the strike were two Americans, Ahmed Farouq and Adam Gadahn, who were described as leaders for the terror network.

And that brings to mind another matter for which the United States should not apologize: the killing of Americans who align themselves with enemies of their country. Farouq and Gadahn reportedly were not specific targets of the drone strike — to which I would ask: So what if they were?

We’ve killed other Americans who’ve defected to terror organizations and the U.S. government need not apologize for those deaths, either. Those former Americans have all but renounced their citizenship by the mere act of joining these ghastly terrorist cults.

It’s been maddeningly common over the years to hear government officials hide behind that passive-voice “mistakes were made” admission of responsibility. The problem with that kind of delivery is that it absolves individuals or specific organizations of any blame — if it is warranted — for the act that occurred.

We did not hear that today, which is to the credit of a president who isn’t hiding behind rhetorical trickery.

 

International news

End of Cold War brought disarray

Joe Scarborough asks a compelling question about the state of U.S. foreign policy.

How did it get so messed up?

The one-time Republican congressman from Florida wonders how the world’s pre-eminent military and economic power can get in such a muddled mess.

I think I have a partial answer. Or perhaps just some food for thought: The end of the Cold War.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/history-scarborough-obama-bush-isil-israel-116495.html?hp=l3_3

Geopolitical relationships have gotten incredibly complex since the days when the Soviet Union sought to control the world and the United States kept pushing back the Big Ol’ Bear.

Our adversary was a clearly defined nuclear power. It covered 8 million or so square miles of territory across two continents. They were fearsome. Then again, so were we.

Then the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989. Two years later, the Evil Empire imploded.

Just like that, our Enemy No. 1 was gone.

In its place a lot of other enemies have arisen to rivet our attention. Scarborough thinks two American presidents — George W. Bush and Barack Obama — have presided over this turmoil. Granted, the Soviet Union disappeared on George H.W. Bush’s watch and his successor, Bill Clinton, managed to keep the assortment of new enemies at bay.

Here’s part of what Scarborough writes: “Bush’s ideological foreign policy was tragically followed by Obama’s delusional belief that America could erase the sins of the Bush-Cheney era by simply abdicating the U.S.’s role as indispensable nation.”

I am not certain anyone quite yet is capable of juggling so many balls at the same time. President Bush took dead aim at al-Qaeda immediately after 9/11, but then expanded that effort into a war against Iraq. Then came Barack Obama — and the world has just kept on getting more unstable.

But we still haven’t yet figured out how to manage crises that keep cropping up throughout the Middle East and northern Africa. The result has been, as Scarborough notes, a vast explosion of crises involving ISIL, Syria, Turkey, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria … and even Venezuela in our own hemisphere. Let’s not forget North Korea and the immigration crisis emanating from Latin America.

We’ve got to keep our eyes on many balls all at once.