Mar 24 2008
Updates On The War On Terror 03_24_08
A few updates from the war on terror. Seems allied forces have been busy over the weekend. In Iraq a large number of terrorists have been killed, and nearly twice that number have been killed in Afghanistan. Strangely (or maybe not), the liberal media is all upset that our systemic killing of Taliban commanders is creating an army of younger leaders:
The Taliban leadership in southern Afghanistan is passing into the hands of younger, more extreme insurgents as the relentless targeting of traditional commanders by British forces takes its toll.
In a week spent in Helmand province, The Daily Telegraph has found widespread evidence that special forces operations are degrading the Taliban’s leadership and its ability to co-ordinate operations.
But there are also indications of increasing radicalisation within the Taliban as more extreme fighters, many of them al-Qa’eda-linked foreign militants, fill the gaps left when experienced Taliban leaders are killed.
Western military officials say privately that approximately 200 medium and high-level Taliban commanders were killed countrywide in targeted bombings or assassinations by American and British special forces last year, and a further 100 captured.
Using local intermediaries, the Telegraph was able to meet two mid-level Taliban commanders in the provincial capital Lashkargar. Both claimed that the Taliban was increasingly recruited from outside Helmand and that its hierarchies were becoming far less clear cut.
Clearly we are decimating the terrorist leaders to the point locals no longer run the fighters, which is probably why more locals are being killed and there is a rising resentment with the Islamo Fascists in the region. This is how al-Qaeda lost Iraq, foreigners killing Iraqi Muslims.
Moreover, the fact we are taking out their senior and experienced leaders and they are being replaced by less-wise, more reckless younger folks not familiar with the region and locality is not a bad thing. Hitler did the same thing in the waning days of the 3rd Reich – it did not slow the destruction of the Nazi movement, just as this won’t slow the destruction of radical Islam.
And on a matter which I started picking up on last July and then again last fall (check here and here for examples) we find that there is, in fact, permission for US Special Forces to hunt down key targets in Pakistan:
The Musharraf regime has indirectly approved the US Drone (pilotless plane) attacks on Al Qaeda targets in tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.
Since January, missiles have been fired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated Predator drones and have hit at least three suspected hideouts of Islamic militants, including a strike on March 16 in Toog village in South Waziristan that left 20 dead.
Sources said that the recent wave of Predator attacks are the result of Musharrafs understanding with the US officials and other top Pakistanis which gave Washington virtually unrestricted authority to hit targets in the border areas.
Sorry Barack, we won’t have to actually invade Pakistan if you become President! There are our allies, and acting like it.
On a more positive note, more Afghan children are in school these days:
Afghanistan’s Education Minister, Khanif Atmar, has revealed that Afghani children are now attending school in record numbers.
Mr Atmar has given the figure of nearly seven million children enrolling for new school year classes.
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It is believed numbers in the coming year will show a third of the pupils are girls who were banned from attending the classroom under the Taliban regime, which was ousted in the US-led invasion in 2001.
Now that is clearly a brighter future for Afghanis, and clearly the families are participating in this new feature of Afghan life since they are sending their girls to school. No wonder the Taliban was recently ejected from Islam in a religious fatwa released from the Pak tribal areas.
It seems to me al-Qaeda is also on the ropes, given the recent pronouncements from Bin Laden and now Zawahiri:
A new statement attributed to al Qaeda’s No. 2 figure, Ayman al-Zawahiri, calls on Muslims to attack Western interests in defense of the Palestinians in Gaza.
“Let us strike their interests everywhere, just as they gathered against us from everywhere, and let them know that every dollar they spend on the killing of Muslims, there will be shed blood instead in return,” the speaker in the nearly five-minute statement says.
No more trying to save Iraq or Afghanistan. AQ is going back to the tried and true (and well worn) call to arms against Israel. One item that is telling about AQ is the line I highlighted. The image it conveys is one of a movement surrounded and being pummeled. This may be an accidental exposure of the feelings of AQ right now.
I think the biggest mistake AQ made was retreating its forces to the tribal areas of Pakistan to regroup. Because now there is a noose around the area with 80,000 Pakistani forces around the southern edge of the region and some 30,000 NATO fighting forces along the norther edge in Afghanistan. And there are a couple hundred US and UK Special Forces personnel hunting the bad guys inside the tribal region.
Surrounded and begging for help – that is AQ. And with Islamic sects now going on record with fatwas claiming the Taliban are now out of Islam due to their atrocities (and possibly foreign leaders), it will not be much longer before Islam decides AQ should join them and is also expelled from Islam. These Islamo Fascists are not the future of Islam – they are its enemies. And the Muslim community is awakening to that fact quite rapidly.
My God this adminstration sucks
US To Help Egypt Build Border Fence
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7010409049
Cairo, Egypt (AHN) – The United States has announced that it is planning to help Egypt build a border fence along the Gaza-Egypt border. Washington transferred $23 million worth of special aid to the North African nation as part of its assistance in locating smuggling tunnels.
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The planned fence between Egypt and Gaza will employ technology directed at preventing the fence from being damaged
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The American Army Corps of Engineers plans to send teams to Egypt to help push forward the border fence plans.
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So let me get this right… we’re sending them millions of dollars AND The ACOE to get them a fence up and running quickly
WHAT ABOUT OUR BORDER
God damn it.
Vince – the Gaza-Eqypt border is only 7.5 miles long, with no detours or alternate routes available that are not heavily patrolled. (Ocean monitored by Isreali gunboats, etc)
That’s a realistic, practical length for a fence – don’t forget that an effective fence has to be continually manned at *all* points (guardhouses and troops available every 100 feet, for example) for it to be a realistic barrier that can’t be breached. Tech is great, but unless the men are there and stay there it can be beaten.
The US-Mexico border is nearly 200o miles, with dozens if not hundreds of easily available ways around it.
Fencing off Gaza from Egypt? A reasonable, achievable project. The US Mexican border? Another wall of Great China that will never work even if the entire US military budget for the next 20 years is poured into it.
Not to mention that the Gaza fence is meant to keep out *real* terrorists and *real* weapons, not just people with brown skin who don’t talk right.
Not to mention that the Gaza fence is meant to keep out *real* terrorists and *real* weapons, not just people with brown skin who don’t talk right.
Piss off. Don’t call me a racist. Who the hell do you think you are
Not to mention that the Gaza fence is meant to keep out *real* terrorists and *real* weapons, not just people with brown skin who don’t talk right.
Piss off. Don’t call me a racist. Who the hell do you think you are
The”Fence” has no other purpose than that. Or tell me how many terrorist attacks have been launched in this country by people who’ve come across the mexican border.
If it’s really about terrorism, then the money and effort is far better spent in other places, not in a bottomless cement lined ditch that will do nothing.
heh.. he calls me a racist and thinks I’m just going to have a conversation with him.
WWS: Here, why dont you these folks racists too. Why stop there. maybe you can call them Nazis as well
It’s a shame that in the dangerous world we live in… that peolpe with such backward thinking as you are preventing us from protecting ourselves. And for what?
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2008/03/danger_signs_on_the_border.php
Danger Signs on the Border
By Douglas Farah
A tip of the hat (actually, two tips) to Todd Bensman of the San Antonio Express-News for two articles (one in his paper and one one his website)
on the reality that Islamist terrorists have crossed the U.S. border, and are likely to do so again.
Bensman is one of the few investigative journalists left with a staff job who takes these investigations seriously. As much of newspaper world, in particular, slash their investigative capabilities, these gems will grow ever more rare.
Bensman looks at the recent case of three Afghanistan national with genuine Mexican passports seeking to enter the United States. The good news is that the Mexicans are willing and able partners in investigating these potential breaches. The bad news is that they nonetheless had real passports, which makes getting caught much harder.
In his other story Bensman looks at the 10 cases of terrorists who made it across the border, including al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas operatives. This is the first time I have seen the cases laid out in some detail and linked to terrorist groups.
What is of greater concern to me than Mexico, per se, as I have written earlier, is the number of Latin American countries where terrorists and their sympathizers, particularly but not limited to Hezbollah, can likely acquire legitimate travel documents that do not arouse much suspicion. My full blog is here.
March 24, 2008 10:53 AM Print
Vince,
WWS makes the assumption that no terrorists have or ever will cross over the Mexico border simply because no attack has occurred here. Some would call that being extremely naive, others would call it stupidity…take your pick.
As usual the racism charge comes out when attempting to stop an argument. Very dishonest…
AJ,
Another great post at Gateway Pundit
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/03/gen-petraeus-iran-behind-yesterdays.html
If it’s not about race – then why is no one – NO ONE – screaming about fencing off the Canadian border? There are far more moslems in Canada than in Mexico, and it’s already much easier to get across the Canadian border than the Mexican border. The Canadian border is mostly accessible, while the Mexican border is mostly inaccessible desert. The Canadian border is a much greater security threat than the Mexican border has ever been.
So why doesn’t anyone care? Other than the fact that most Canadians are the “right” color and most mexicans aren’t?
Piss off. Like I have to prove i’m not a racist.
Vince:
You are such a dick sometimes. This administration sucks? My God Vince that damn border has never had a fence. Never…not in 140 years.
And this administration has put more people and more resources on that border than any administration in history. And it is building the fence, but this is not a fascist country and when people on the border from private property owners to mayors to sheriffs have dragged the government into court to slow down and/or stop that parts of that fence we can not just shoot them. Much as you might want to.
The other day I saw a story about Colorado, it said that the farmers were facing a crop failure from a lack of labor. Now I heard hardliners say that we did not need these people, that Americans could do all this work and besides that the borders were still wide open. Well, it seems like some people are not coming in, because they had to send convicts out to work the fields up there.
But your attitude sucks and no one is calling you a racist.
And you know what? There is no way to completely close our borders, if you look at the coastline we are talking about a lot more than 2,000 miles.
And besides all that what is wrong with the US trying to help with a fence at Gaza? That is how the last suicide bombers got into Israel. I keep hearing some people say that the US has betrayed the Israelis because Rice supports the peace process…well this might actually help save some Israelis’ lives.
I’m entitled to my opinion. This adminstration sucks. Every other country in this world gets their emergencies taken care of.. but we have one down there and nothing is going on.
And your big counter-argument is “we can’t completely close our borders”.
Duh.. No kidding. The sky is blue, did you know that?
WWS,
The Canadian border requires no fence because illegals are not flooding across it. Do you require a dam at every river regardless of how much water flows down it?
Vince,
While I don’t completely agree with everything you say I do admire your passion for your point of view. Unfortunately as usual many have to resort to name calling when challenged…
And Terrye,
I could care less about 140 years ago. The same threats to our country didn’t exist then… But of course, let’s all put our heads in the sand because we can’t change something that’s been one way for 140 years!
WWS,
Gee, when was the last time that Canadians were caught coming across the border in military vehicles and getting into firefights with our northern border agents. I guess there’s a flood of people attempting to enter from the north as there are from the southern borders but we’re just not hearing about it? The northern border is an issue just as the southern border and as all borders will be. But border security isn’t just about keeping terrorists out. That’s only one element in a very complex issue. The southern border creates different issues that the northern border does. To say that it’s only about the color of ones skin is insulting.
I am not talking about what happened 140 years ago, I am talking about a situation that has been going on for 140 years. No one raised hell back in 2000 when Bush was running, it was not a big deal. No one made an issue in 2004, and then all of sudden it is an emergency?
My ass.
And name one country in the world that could have or would have built a 2,000 mile fence in a year and a half.
And I have got a right to my opinion too. And my opinion is that because a bunch of pissy conservatives could not get everything they wanted when they wanted and the way they wanted it, they turned on this administration and made it that much more possible for a freaking socialist to win the next election..
And those conservatives did that knowing full well that they could never win an election themselves. Knowing full well, that unless those moderates and Independents they obviously have no respect for vote for their guy they can not POSSIBLY win on their own.
So, they vote for a guy and then when he does not say how high when they say jump…they stab him in the back.
And this crap about Bush sucking because he is helping to build a 7.5 mile fence in Gaza is just the kind of stupidity I am talking about.
Terrye, your government hasn’t been handing out freebies for 140 years. Taxpayer funded social welfare is a fairly recent trend so it’s not much of a stretch in logic to see why the illegal numbers are growing so exponentially.