Tag Archives: al-Qaeda

International news

Why the masks, terrorists?

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The thought keeps occurring to me: Why do terrorists keep covering their faces when they make these videos intended for international distribution?

Have you ever wondered?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-isis-threatens-europe/ar-BBhZurk

The picture on the link here shows an Islamic State goon waving a knife at the camera. All you see are this fellow’s eyes. Why don’t they show themselves to the public? Why don’t they reveal their identity?

Is it because:

* They believe what they’re doing is wrong?

* They don’t want international cops, spooks, commandos, anti-terror analysts to identify them?

* They’re cowards?

Maybe it’s all of the above. I’m going with the coward angle, kind of like the way the Ku Klux Klan goons cover their faces under hoods.

Terrorists don’t comprehend that they commit criminal acts when they behead innocent victims. They don’t seem to have any understanding of “right” and “wrong” the way you and I do. They’ve perverted every single principle, concept and tenet under which civilized human beings live.

They’re surely hiding from the good guys, which might imply they know what they’re doing is wrong. I believe it’s more akin to the last part. They don’t want to get caught because they’re afraid of the consequence they’ll face.

Fear. Cowardice. Get it?

Some of them have deserted from military organizations in their home country, usually somewhere in the Middle East, to join forces with ISIL, Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda … whatever. They’re hiding their faces from their former military commanders.

In the end, though, it all seems to smack of cowardly acts. Just as lynchings were the acts of cowards in the United States a century ago, these terrorists have zero sense of honor and courage.

 

International news, national news

Vigilance required … even right here

If the 9/11 attacks more than a dozen years ago taught Americans anything it all, they should teach us to be on high alert no matter where we live and what we’re doing.

Thus, warnings to mall shoppers have gone out across the country in the wake of a threat made against The Mall of America by an al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Shabaab.

Yes, that means Westgate Mall in little ol’ Amarillo, Texas.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/21/us/al-shabaab-calls-for-mall-attacks/index.html

Al-Shabaab has threatened to strike malls in three western countries. Department of Homeland Security officials take the threat seriously. The Mall of America is in Minneapolis, which is home to a large Somali immigrant population. The Twin Cities region also reportedly has produced many recruits who’ve signed up to fight with Islamic State and other terrorist organizations.

Make no mistake, these threats go right to the heart of where we need to be alert. Malls represent — to many people around the world — some elements of American excess. Americans, of course, do not see it that way, nor should we. Do we stop doing business at these places just because a terrorist group has leveled a threat? Of course not.

But these monstrous organizations have shown how seriously the world must take their threats.

The 9/11 assault should stand as proof that these organizations mean business.

 

International news, religious news

'Islamic terrorism' off the table at summit

The White House is going to play host to a summit discussion on international terrorism.

You won’t hear the words “Islamic terrorism,” though, used in that context.

How come?

http://nypost.com/2015/02/17/islamic-extremism-off-limits-at-white-house-terrorism-summit/

Conservatives have been critical of President Obama for declining to refer to Islamist terrorism. He’s been parsing his language carefully to call them simply “terrorists,” even though we’re bombing Islamic State targets, seeking out al-Qaeda terrorist cells and killing its leaders, and enlisting the aid of other allies to find terrorists linked to other Islamic groups, such as Hezbollah, Boko Haram and Hamas.

Don’t mention the words “Islamic terrorist,” though at this summit.

It’s an interesting and at times troubling quibble over the use of language.

I get where the critics are coming from, but at the risk of doing something that annoys me at times — such as trying to read the minds of political leaders — I think I’m going to offer one simple hypothesis for the linguistic omission: Barack Obama doesn’t want the Islamic extremists to use any additional pretext for suggesting that the West is waging a religious war against Islam.

Obama’s immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, made the point time and again that the United States is not doing battle against Islam. Obama has carried that message forward as he has continued taking the fight to the terrorists.

Yet, the Islamic terrorists — I’ll call them such here — keep trying to recruit fighters by suggesting that our side is fighting a religious war. President Obama says “no!,” just as President Bush said “no!” before him.

To use such language at the White House summit, I’m guessing, would enflame the passions further among those who continue to believe the lie that we’re waging war against one of the world’s great religions.

 

International news, military news, political news

Let's stick to the singular 'war'

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A Huffington Post headline contains a word that requires a correction.

It says, “Jeb Bush won’t talk about wars his brother started.”

The operative word here is “wars.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/14/jeb-bush-iraq-afghanistan_n_6683970.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

The Huffington Post is no friend of Jeb Bush or of his brother, former President George W. Bush. Having stipulated the obvious, I now shall make a crucial point.

The “wars” referenced in the article are the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I hereby submit that George W. Bush didn’t start the Afghan War. The first shot — if you want to call it that — was fired on 9/11 when two jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, another one plowed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field as passengers fought to retake the aircraft that had been hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists.

Nearly 3,000 innocent victims died on that terrible day.

President Bush responded to an act of war against the United States. The war began because terrorists headquartered in the Afghan wilderness plotted the dastardly deed and were plotting to do even more damage to this country and to others around the world.

Our military response was in retaliation for what the monstrous murderers did on 9/11.

As for the Iraq War, yes, Bush started that war. The Bush administration relied on bad intelligence — or perhaps fabricated a weapons of mass destruction scenario to justify a military invasion of a sovereign country. Whatever the cause, the Iraq War was ill-conceived and then sold to the public dishonestly as a relatively simple mission.

The world would then learn that Iraq didn’t possess WMD, which only worsened the public perception that President Bush was out to settle a score with the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

That is the war the former president’s brother, Jeb — who’s considering a presidential campaign in 2016 — should keep hidden in the closet for as long as he can.

The Afghan War? That one was justified.

It’s an open question about whether the effort in Afghanistan was worth it. The U.S. combat mission there is over and the Afghans will be left to defend their country against the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists who are seeking to retake the country.

Jeb Bush, though, will have his hands full trying to justify the Iraq War and whether the cost of that bloody conflict — more than 4,400 American lives — was worth the fight.

Intgernational news, national news

'Terrorist' requires a nuanced definition? No

The Taliban is a terrorist organization.

That’s my view and I’m sticking to it — no matter how finely the White House press flack tries to parse the definition of the term “terrorist.”

Press secretary Josh Earnest sought Thursday to say that the Taliban carries out “acts that are akin to terrorism,” but stopped short of calling the brutal killers and kidnappers “terrorists.” He said the Taliban falls into a “different category.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/taliban-terrorists-white-house/story?id=28588120

I guess Earnest, speaking on behalf of the president, is saying the Obama administration believes it’s OK to negotiate with the Taliban, whereas the White House refuses to negotiate with, say, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Hezbollah or Hamas.

I’m beginning to sense that the famed nuanced foreign policy apparatus that the Obama White House is conducting might be getting a little too cute.

The Taliban are taking credit almost weekly for attacks against civilians in Afghanistan. They’ve brought considerable havoc as well to innocent victims in neighboring Pakistan. Good grief! The Taliban send in suicide bombers, they set off explosive on roadways traveled by villagers going to market, they kidnap and disfigure girls and young women who have the gall to stand up for their rights.

You’re more than welcome to correct me on any of this, but doesn’t any of that fit the classic description of a terrorist organization?

Yep. That’s the Taliban.

 

International news

Boko Haram is as dangerous as ever

While most of the world focuses on the Middle East brand of international terrorism — al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian mullahs — another group of goons needs our attention as well.

The Boston Globe points out in an editorial that Boko Haram, the kidnappers of those young girls and the murderers recently of as many as 2,000 innocent victims, needs as much of the world’s attention as we can muster.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/01/15/boko-haram-atrocities-must-not-forgotten/a9W6xuRQqQZz54sbVPjAhI/story.html

The murder of journalists and others in Paris in recent days has sucked much of the attention away from Boko Haram is doing in Nigeria, the Globe writes. The Paris shootings are “leaving little media attention for equally detestable atrocities by Boko Haram in Nigeria this month. The world ignores the Islamic extremist group at great risk both to Nigeria and the broader region. Boko Haram must be stopped in its tracks before it engages in mass murder again.”

When those girls and young women were kidnapped this past year, first lady Michelle Obama sought to lead an international outcry against atrocities against women. It had resonance for, what, perhaps a month or two? Then the world’s attention was pulled away to another international crisis. I cannot even remember which one it was, but we’ve stopped talking collectively about the fate of those girls.

The Boston Globe editorialized: “In a horrific new low, the militants have reportedly been using little girls as human bombs to inflict terror.”

And the world isn’t rising up in massive outrage over this?

President Obama once declared mistakenly — perhaps even foolishly — that the “war on terror is over.”

It is not, Mr. President. Even if we set aside the murderers running rampant in the Middle East — and we cannot do that — the Islamist monsters rampaging through Nigeria are causing untold grief and misery on thousands of innocent victims.

Once again, it is fair to ask: What about those girls?

 

 

International news

War on terror is not 'over'

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Politicians hate taking back things they say. They aren’t disposed — given the nature of the work they do — to admit when they’re wrong, at least not openly.

President Obama has declared in recent years that “The war on terror is over.”

I cannot read his mind, but my throbbing bunion and my trick knee are telling me the same thing: He well might wish he could take it back.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/01/09/Krauthammer/

He pronounced the end of the war on terror as the United States was pulling its troops out of Iraq. Our ground war there had concluded. All that was left was to fight the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other splinter terror groups in Afghanistan.

The terrorists have taken a terrible beating at the hands of the greatest military apparatus in world history. They keep coming back. Their resilience is astonishing.

Al-Qaeda is now taking credit for the Paris shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. France is on high alert. French intelligence operatives are looking for a fourth terrorist who reportedly might have fled to Syria; three other terrorists were killed.

The columnist Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist by training who isn’t known as a counterterrorism “expert,” says we’re entering the “third stage of the jihad.” His link is attached to this blog post. I don’t quite understand how he knows what stage this we’re, or how the terrorists measure these things. He’s a smart fellow, though, so perhaps he knows something many of the rest of us don’t know.

I do know, this, though: The president spoke far too prematurely in declaring the “war on terror is over.”

Indeed, some of us have noted since the dark days immediately after 9/11 that the war against international terror may never end. I questioned at the time of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan how we could declare victory, other than by simply declaring it and going home. The late U.S. Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt., once proposed such a thing — only partly in jest — when he suggested we declare victory in Vietnam and then just leave.

That well might be what President Obama has done. He declared a victory that he couldn’t define.

The Paris attack and all the attacks that have come in the years since 9/11 persuade me, at least, that the war on terror will be ongoing well past the foreseeable future.

I am not expecting an admission of error from the president of the United States. I believe, though, that we ought to stop talking like victors while continuing to act like combatants.

This war isn’t over.

 

International news, military news

Another war is now over … more or less

The Afghan War has come to a close.

The United States has ended its combat role in one of the world’s most distressing places. However, our troop presence — unlike what occurred in Iraq — will remain, although at a much-reduced level.

Is this a good thing? I’m beginning, as of today, to hold my breath.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-ends-its-war-in-afghanistan/ar-BBhiyou

U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan topped out at 100,000 men and women. The United States began bombing Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists less than a month after the 9/11 attacks. We threw out the Taliban in November 2001, but have been fighting them ever since, rooting out terrorist leaders, killing and/or capturing them.

All the while, the aim has been to build an Afghan army worthy and capable of taking the fight to the terrorists. That’s what the 10,800 U.S. troops will continue to assist them in doing after the first of the new year.

It is my sincere hope that this mission will succeed. The Iraq pullout hasn’t gone as planned. We sought to build an Iraqi army capable of defending the country. Islamic State fighters have seized much land from Iraqi forces, but in recent weeks the Iraq army and air force have managed — with U.S. air power assistance — to retake some key cities and regions from ISIL.

Our country is war-weary. It’s time to bring our combat role to an end.

The harder task will be to ensure the Afghans will be able to do what the Iraqis — to date — have been unable to do. That is to defend the hard-won victory over the Taliban.

This strategy has to work.

 

International news, national news

You mean the CIA might have fibbed?

The Senate report is out: The CIA reportedly lied to President Bush about how it was using “enhanced interrogation techniques” against suspected terrorists.

And to no one’s surprise — certainly not mine — former CIA director Michael Hayden has fired back. He’s defending his agency’s handling of the interrogation techniques.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/cia-torture-report-113420.html?hp=c1_3

My tendency is to believe the Senate, that the CIA was less than truthful. After all, the CIA is a spy agency and its agents are, shall we say, trained to mislead.

The threshold question that will need to answered and then examined for its veracity is whether these techniques — which some call “torture” — produced actionable intelligence that helped the good guys fight the bad guys.

It’s becoming something of a liar’s contest. The CIA and the Bush administration say they did; others say the techniques didn’t provide any information that more normal techniques could have obtained.

The key element is whether torturing the al-Qaeda suspects helped our spooks find Osama bin Laden and whether that information led to the May 2011 SEAL team raid that killed the world’s most wanted terrorist.

The debate has been joined.

Meanwhile, U.S. embassies around the world have been put on heightened alert in case terrorists become so angry at the report that they strike at Americans abroad.

I am one American who does not want to see our forces torture captive combatants. We keep saying we’re above that kind of thing, that we don’t want to reduce our standards to the level of the terrorists we are trying to destroy.

I’m fine with that.

Our intelligence agencies are packed with well-trained professional interrogators who are fully capable of obtaining information through serious questioning and, yes, perhaps some threatening techniques. To inflict actual pain and suffering on those suspects, though, is no better than what they do to captives under their control.

Exceptional nations are able to employ exceptional tactics — even in wartime.

 

International news

U.S. must not rely on torture

An upcoming release of a CIA report on whether American officials tortured al-Qaeda suspects to gain “actionable intelligence” to use in the war on terror is bound to reignite a long-standing debate.

Are we better than that? Does the United States of America need to rely on barbaric procedures to gain the upper hand against the enemy?

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/torture-report-dick-cheney-110306.html?ml=po#.VIbXKVJ0yt9

My own mind is made up on that matter.

I do not believe the United State should torture enemy captives.

We’ll hear from those who say, “Big deal. They do it to us. An eye for an eye. Give them a taste of what they deliver to our own captives.” I can hear it from some of my very own friends on the subject and they’ll respond that way when they read these words.

I’ll stand by my assertion that this country is supposed to stand for grander ideals than the enemy we are fighting. We proclaim it all the time, don’t we?

Whether the tactics employed right after the 9/11 attacks — as lined out in the report — produced the kind of information that enabled us to find and kill Osama bin Laden also will be open to debate. Some say it did. Other say it didn’t.

Then we’ll hear the debate over how to define “torture.” Does the term “enhanced interrogation techniques” actually become a euphemism for the “t” word?

It’ll be a complicated debate. For the sake of our country’s stated belief in a higher ideal, though, I do hope we can declare once again, with emphasis, that torture is wrong and will not be tolerated.