Tag Archives: war on terror

International news

Yes, Dr. Dean, they're 'Muslim terrorists'

Howard Dean is a smart guy: a physician, former Vermont governor, former Democratic National Committee chairman and former presidential candidate.

I do not think, though, he’s entirely correct in declaring that the terrorists who commit heinous acts in the name of Islam are not Muslims. They are.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/01/07/howard_dean_on_paris_attack_i_stopped_calling_these_people_muslim_terrorists.html

He was talking this morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” talk show and said the monsters who killed those 12 people in Paris this week are “as Muslim as I am.”

I get his point, though. He’s trying to separate the madmen who commit these acts from the mainstream members of one of the world’s great religions. And yes, Islam is a great religion, with more than 1 billion adherents around the world.

Not for a single second do I equate terrorism with mainstream Muslims. The Muslims I have known over many years are as decent, kind, compassionate, caring and “normal” as anyone else I’ve ever known.

Are there Muslims who pervert the religion’s holy word as written in the Quran? Of course they do. The perverts flew those planes into the Twin Towers and into the Pentagon on 9/11. They’ve blown themselves up along with innocent civilians in the years since that terrible day. They’ve committed atrocities and they’ve beheaded journalists and aid workers.

They are Muslims.

Some have argued, as Dr. Dean has done, that the terrorist monsters have forsaken their religion. Thus, they do not deserve to be called Muslim. I’ll choose to differ — if only a little.

I’ll continue to refer to the Islamic State terrorists as belonging to a cult. Their roots, though, come from Islam. They’ve just gone far past what their holy book preaches to them.

I hope Dr. Dean’s words aren’t used to confuse the nature of this conflict in which we are engaged. I have no confusion at all. We’re fighting Muslims who now believe in some distorted view of their religion.

 

International news, military news

3 ISIL leaders killed; keep killing more of them

The news today that U.S. air strikes have killed three key Islamic State leaders cheered me a little.

Then reality set in almost immediately: There will be others to step in to replace these murderous monsters.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/18/politics/u-s-air-strikes-kill-3-high-level-isis-leaders/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

The White House and the Pentagon couldn’t confirm until recently that the three ISIL leaders had been killed by American pilots. The news is good, to be sure. Pentagon officials say the deaths of these three individuals has “degraded” ISIL’s command and control capability. “We believe that the loss of these key leaders degrades ISIL’s ability to command and control current operations against Iraqi Security Forces, including Kurdish and other local forces in Iraq,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said.

OK, so what now?

Well, we keep launching air strikes and we keep killing the leaders of this terrorist cabal.

As we’ve learned in the fight against al-Qaeda, killing key leaders doesn’t mean the end of a group’s ability to function. We killed Osama bin Laden, but al-Qaeda lives on.

ISIL won’t die a quick death. It will require continued vigilance and diligence on our part to ensure that the terrorists remain “degraded.” Then we must destroy them.

 

International news, military news

Massacre might have gained U.S. an ally

It is virtually impossible to find any glimmer of goodness in the massacre of school children by monstrous terrorists.

But the Taliban’s attack the other day in Peshawar, Pakistan on a military school that killed dozens of students might have produced a single — but critical — bit of positive news.

It might have delivered to the United States a critical ally in its war on terror. Welcome to the fight, Pakistan.

http://video.kacvtv.org/video/2365388149/

Sure, Pakistani leaders have said they’re on board with fighting terrorists. Their actions — or non-actions — though, tell a different story.

Terrorists have been given refuge in the remote regions of the country bordering Afghanistan. Military and law enforcement experts keep telling us about the difficulty of navigating through the region, that it’s impossible to track down and capture or kill the bad guys. However, as the PBS link attached here explains, the Peshawar attack has shocked and stunned Pakistanis at every level.

And how in he world does one explain that the late Osama bin Laden — the world’s most notorious terrorist — had been “hiding in plain sight” in the middle of a major Pakistani city? In May 2011, though, Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces pilots and CIA commandos took care of that by hunting down bin Laden and killing him in his compound.

The Pakistani response to that raid? They threw up their hands as if to say, “Who knew?”

The Taliban’s horrific act well might spur the Pakistanis now to do more than just say they’re in the game. They’ve lost many of their young people in a horrifying attack perpetrated by a despicable band of killers.

It’s time to actually join the fight.

 

International news

Monsters strike once again

Do you suppose the madmen who opened fire on a military school in Pakistan would say their attack was a “proportionate response” to the deaths of Taliban killers?

If they do, then they’ve just demonstrated for all the world to see the ruthlessness of this enemy.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/pakistani-forces-reclaim-school-after-%e2%80%98horrific%e2%80%99-taliban-attack-kills-at-least-132/ar-BBgRAT9

Gunmen opened fire in a Peshawar, Pakistan school, killing at least 132 people — most of whom were students.

The nine killers themselves were killed by Pakistani military and police after a nine-hour gun battle.

I guess there can be no limit to the hideousness of this cabal of killers. They once ran the government in Afghanistan and they’ve been mounting terrorist attacks there and throughout the region ever since their ouster in 2001 right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The list of ghastly incidents of violence is too numerous to recount here. The latest attack on the military school is just one more example of how we must fight this enemy.

We must keep fighting them with extreme vigor — and prejudice.

 

International news

We're fighting a 'third world war'

Jordanian King Abdullah II is an educated man. He speaks English like an American and as the monarch of a nation friendly to the United States, his words carry some weight around, oh, the White House.

The king told President Obama that we’re engaging in a “third world war” against the Islamic State.

http://news.yahoo.com/jordan-king-warns-fight-third-world-war-204843708.html

Is it the kind of world war fought in the 20th century twice? No. In King Abdullah’s mind, the world war is of a different — still to be defined — nature.

I agree with him to a point.

World wars may not be fought the way we’ve known them before. Nations won’t line up against other nations, as was the case from 1914 to 1918 and again from 1939 to 1945. Indeed, it well might be said that the latest world war commenced the day those jets flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — and when President Bush told the crowd at Ground Zero that “the people who knocked these building down will hear all of us soon.”

The world war cannot be defined as World War III. But it appears to be a world war, with civilized nation banding together to take on the ISIL monsters who’ve vowed to carry their fight against the West to our doorstep.

The king told CBS News:

“We really have to have a pan-regional approach to this issue. This is a Muslim problem. We need to take ownership of this. It’s clearly a fight between good and evil. I think this is a third world war by other means.”

Other means? Yes.

We’re hunting down terrorist leaders wherever they are hiding. It might be in the Middle East. It could be in South America. Or in Southeast Asia. On the Indian subcontinent.

It could be in the United States of America.

Wherever they hide and plot their next dastardly deed, they become targets.

Is that a world war, as stated by the Jordanian monarch? Looks like it to me.

 

International news, military news

'An act of pure evil'

Islamic State terrorists have beheaded another American. The victim this time is an aid worker, Peter Kessig.

President Obama’s response? He called it an “act of pure evil.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/video/obama-beheading-was-act-of-pure-evil/vi-BBe9xJq

What now?

Let’s wait for the critics of the U.S.-led aerial bombardment campaign to demand “troops on the ground” to fight ISIL face to face, hand to hand.

My own take is that the air strikes need to continue — only with more ferocity.

The president issued the correct statement aboard Air Force One en route from the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. ISIL must be destroyed. It must be bombed into oblivion.

The ironic aspect of this murder is that Kessig had converted to Islam after leaving the Army, where he served as a Ranger. Therefore, ISIL killed one of its own. How does one make sense of any of this, at any level?

Although I do not want to return to the battlefield in Iraq or join the fight — on the ground — in Syria, I clearly understand the odds against an all-airborne campaign accomplishing the mission of destroying a sophisticated, well-funded and well-armed terrorist organization.

I also know that the United States and our allies have immense firepower available to them.

They should use it … with extreme prejudice.

 

International news, national news, political news

Trying to figure out why they're called 'truthers'

Andrew Napolitano is a so-called “truther.”

He believes the 9/11 attacks were somehow concocted by the federal government.

According to Media Matters, a left-wing journalism watchdog organization, Napolitano — a Fox New contributor and former judge — said this: “Napolitano has made numerous appearances on (radio talk show host Alex) Jones’ show. During a 2010 interview, Napolitano told Jones, ‘It’s hard for me to believe that [World Trade Center building 7] came down by itself,’ adding, ‘I think twenty years from now, people will look at 9-11 the way we look at the assassination of JFK today. It couldn’t possibly have been done the way the government told us.’ After his appearance, families of 9-11 victims criticized Napolitano for being “willfully ignorant of the facts surrounding the collapse of WTC 7.”

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/11/10/rand-paul-writes-foreword-for-confederate-apolo/201516

Why bring this up?

A potential candidate for president in 2016 has written a foreword in Napolitano’s new book, “Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Assault on Civil Liberties.” The possible candidate is U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who now is associated with someone who has some truly nutty ideas.

His new book also chastises President Lincoln for provoking the Civil War when, according to Napolitano, slavery was dying a natural death anyway.

Let’s not forget as well that he believes President Obama is usurping our liberties and freedom.

But this post is about truthers and the idiocy surrounding the notion that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were an inside job.

Andrew Napolitano is one of them. And for the life of me I cannot understand a sitting member of the Senate contributing to this guy’s literary career. To think we call these people “truthers.”

Be sure to keep this bit of intelligence in mind the moment Sen. Paul declares his presidential candidacy.

 

International news, military news

Americans may be targets, too

Word out of Iraq is that an air strike likely has wounded a key Islamic State leader.

To whatever extent Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is injured remains unclear. I hope he dies a painful death.

http://time.com/3574879/isis-leader-airstrike-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi/

Indeed, the question now ought to surface about whether Americans or other foreign nationals who’ve joined ISIL are being targeted by the air strikes led by the United States of America.

My answer? Big bleeping deal. Anyone from another country who joins this monstrous terrorist outfit and then takes some kind of secret oath to kill “infidels” from the land of their birth forfeits immediately — in my mind — their rights of citizenship.

That surely includes Americans.

The air strikes are having their desired effect on slowing ISIL. U.S. air power has accounted for most of the damage — and the casualties.

If Americans who’ve joined the fight against their own country get caught in the barrage, well, that’s the price they will pay for going to war.

International news, military news

Why the masks, bad guys?

Growing up watching TV and movie westerns, I came to understand why the bad guys — bank robbers, train robbers, cattle rustlers and the like — wore masks.

They wanted to protect their identity from the sheriff’s, marshals, posses and the assorted white-hat good guys looking to apprehend them or to, well, shoot ’em dead.

I am struck in the present day, therefore, about why these international terrorists keep parading around wearing masks.

The hideous pictures of the Islamic State monster we’ve all seen as he’s preparing to execute those journalists come to mind. FBI and Interpol apparently know the identity of the individual, but haven’t released his name for law-enforcement reasons.

We see other images of terrorists parading around in pickups armed with machine guns. The terrorists are wearing hooded masks.

Al-Qaeda “soldiers” have been recorded participating in training exercises. They’re firing those automatic weapons and acting like soldiers. Again, they’re masked. We can’t see who they are.

I won’t assume for an instant that these individuals are hiding their identities because their so-called “conscience” tells them that terrorizing the world is a bad thing and that they should be ashamed.

However, I will assume they’re hiding behind those masks because of cowardice.

Cowards, sad to say, are a more dangerous enemy than those who are unafraid to reveal their identities. They do their filthy deeds under cloaks of secrecy, then peel the masks off and go about their business right along with the rest of civilized society.

This is a treacherous foe we’re fighting. The masks only affirm their treachery.

 

national news

Idiocy runs rampant

The idiocy that some cable “news” networks try to pass off as punditry continues to amaze me.

Allen West is a retired Army officer, a former member of Congress and a current “contributor” to the Fox News Channel.

He said the best way to combat the activities such as the shooter who invaded the Canadian Parliament building this week in Ottawa is to close down certain mosques and “Islamic Centers” and deport imams who are “feeding Islamic terrorists.”

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/24/allen-west-on-ottawa-attack-shut-down-mosques-o/201303

Here’s part of what West said on a radio interview:

“We’re not saying, you know, we start shutting down mosques and Islamic Centers. But the ones who are feeding us these violent jihadists, they need to be the ones that are shut down. Like I said, the imams, the mullahs that are there running these mosques and centers, they need to be deported. Because we have to say, this is, you know, a zero-sum game. We’re not tolerating it.”

Let’s bring this issue home, to Amarillo.

A prominent Amarillo physician, who happens to be Muslim, erected such a center on the far western edge of the city some years back in honor of his mother.

I actually heard someone express fear that the center would become a “school” for terrorists, that the center would breed bad guys who then would spread their hatred in the form of violence perpetrated against “infidels.” I told this individual with whom I am acquainted that terror cells do not operate in the open like that; they operate under cover of darkness that no terrorist organization — no matter their so-called religious affiliation. They’re not going to advertise their association with a clearly marked and identified structure, such as an Islamic center.

This individual didn’t get my point.

How about we just maintain keen vigilance, stay alert at all times and hunt down the terrorists we can identify?

Civilized nations all around the globe — and that surely includes the United States of America — are doing that already.