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.
…
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.
Vince,
Is your “Total alienation†from Bush all about Mexican immigration?
Left by The Macker on March 24th, 2008
No. It was about his insistance that the Senate reconsider the Immigration bill in June after it had been rejected in May.
The People were clear.. we didn’t want that law, and yet he didn’t care and had us go through a whole other round of fighting with teh Senate to kill it again.
That was the last straw.
If you want to know all the other reasons, check otu my comments here
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/5159
Coral thinks we should have ignored the fact that AQ was moving into Iraq after we destroyed their nest in Afghanistan.
Vince,
Just what I was thinking!
So Vince has been whining about the immigration “emergency” since 2001. Golly, 7 whole years have passed and the President of the United States still has not done Vince’s bidding. The truth is Vince ignores the fact that Bush has still done more than anyone else.
And Bush’s attitudes toward immigration today are the same ones he had back in 2000 when he took office. And like Vince, the President has a right to his opinion too.
But go ahead, root for Tancredo, be one of his 1%, see where that gets you.
I’ve ignored nothing. It’s not enough Terrye.
Who knows how many islamists have poured into the country from down there.
When thousands of people are dead are you going to console them with “well George did more than Nixon did”
And Bush’s attitudes toward immigration today are the same ones he had back in 2000 when he took office.
Not good enough. 9/11 changed everything … and nothing.
When are we going to take our enemy seriously? We didn’t until 9/11 and we still haven’t.
There is massive corruption on the Southern border. And in some towns it’s a war zone. The Federal Government is a complete failure down there.
But go ahead, root for Tancredo, be one of his 1%, see where that gets you.
Oh Little Miss Spiteful: he’s not running for office, didn’t you hear?
Kathie,
I wrote a comment but it never showed up so I’ll try again…sorry if it comes up twice!
The Dems don’t care about your home they only care about theirs. If yours has to go in order for theirs to survive, then so be it.
They believe that if you just “care” enough about the plight of the terrorist then they won’t harm you. Of course this thinking goes against all sane thought since innocents seem to be the terrorists favorite target…people doing nothing other than trying to survive.
Their biggest concern is the money that could be better spent on all of those programs that buy off huge segments of the population to insure future votes for their party. They need people dependent on them for their party’s survival. And they will make you and I pay for it.
Ultimately it’s all about power. They want it and they will do anything to get it and even more to keep it. Nothing is out of bounds to them. The ends justifies the means…..
“And name one country in the world that could have… built a 2,000 mile fence in a year and a half. “
The United States of America.
Who knows how many terrorists have walked here from British Columbia either?
I know you think I am an ass kisser,you made a point of telling me that. But I am not paranoid and I do know that there have not been any terrorist attacks in this country since September 11. Now if invading two countries is not a signal that we take our enemy seriously I do not know what is.
Meanwhile you just go ahead hating Bush for not doing the politically and physically impossible. See where it gets you.
And there is a reason Tancredo is not running. Most people think the man is a Loon.
Browngreengold:
Says who? Really? Should we shoot the landowners? Bulldoze the towns in the way? Bring back the draft to get the man power? Bring about a coup to overthrow the Congress to get the money?
It is like Katrina and the aftermath when people just could not understand why a little thing like a Category 5 Hurricane should shut down a city. So what if the roads were under water? Just go in, get the people, clean up the mess and rebuild the city.
Voila!
Now on the border it is go in build the fence, shoot the drug dealers, round up the illegals..
Voila~!
AQ was never moving into Iraq. That’s just a story people who supported Bush’s war like to tell themselves. Just like the moving motive for going in in the first place. Saddam hated Bin Laden. No connection between AQ and 9/11, and Iraq. Wolforitz quotes Bush’s desire to fight in Iraq well before 9/11.
Finishing AQ and the Taliban off in Afghanistan would weakened AQ influence in the rest of the world. We could have bought ourselves time to improve our intelligence. For 5yrs Bin Laden gets to laugh in the US’s face. Talk about letting the enemy cry victory.
Coral,
“AQ was never moving into Iraq. That’s just a story people who supported Bush’s war like to tell themselves. Just like the moving motive for going in in the first place. Saddam hated Bin Laden. No connection between AQ and 9/11, and Iraq. Wolforitz quotes Bush’s desire to fight in Iraq well before 9/11. ”
Sounds like you’re reading from a Moveon press release…
Bush’s war? You really need to educate yourself more. And so what if Saddam hated Bin Laden? Like enemies have never banded together for a common goal. Maybe no connection to AQ and 9/11 but there is a well documented connection between AQ and Iraq.
News flash…AQ is in other places in the world other than Afganistan, Pakistan and Iraq and their sources of income are spread throughout the world, including the United States. If you think that this war will be over when AQ is gone from those three countries you are woefully naive. Will they be broken and battered? Yes. But as long as there are sympathizers out there they will exist and will be attempting to regroup and the killing will continue.
I love how Terrye makes it like our country is incapable of doing anything.
It’s a freakin fense.
Tell every bordering county to get it done in 6 months and it would be done
Or terrye do you think they’re going to use the same crew from California to Texas? LOL
Who knows how many terrorists have walked here from British Columbia either?
God damn it ,, you’re right.
Lets just charter planes for Al Qaeda.. Welcome them here.
Don’t do a damn thing. Because terrye says it’s not 100%.
Right? If it aint 100%, then leave the freakin door open.
Coral: If you actually go beyond the lies of the MSM, you would know the truth..
Spare me your propaganda.
I have a news story from ABC News from 1999 about links between Al Qaeda and Iraq
http://home.comcast.net/~vincep312
It’s teh bottom-most video
Vince,
To some here it’s a lot more than a freakin fence…
Coral said:
Please do us all a favor, Coral, and read the Pentagon Report IV in full before more comments like above. It will save everyone a lot of time bringing you up to speed. If you don’t want to make it thru the full 94 pages, concentrate on Volume II and the Conclusion. That will give you a brief overview of facts. Please strive to be more than media headline educated.
Now, off topic to the fence thread and pertinent to AJ’s posting…. These are Pakistan tribal leaders, and they may well be referring to Mehsud Baitullah’s Taliban of Pakistan, and not the original Mulla Omar’s Taliban.
The rifts between old and neo-Taliban (infiltrated with AQ fighters who left Iraq, among other places) have been going on since last fall, and deepening. Mehsud’s not winning any hearts and minds in Pakistan either. So no matter which Taliban they refer to, the increasing amount of Muslims that are no longer viewing the jihad movement as heroes is certainly a quiet triumph – a success that the media chooses to overlook.
It is a sign of success in the “hearts and minds” category.
The fence is a false sense of security. And frankly, I don’t like the idea of the United States of America have a big wall around it.
Fix the Immigration department. Make it efficient. I have a Canadian friend who married an Alabama boy. Took her 10 years to get her citizenship. She is an outstanding person. Ridiculous to take that long.
Have surveillance from satellites 24/7. Have a virtual fence. Have more border security. But a fence? Not the answer, imho.
Clarification… the comments about the Taliban, Pakistani version, relates to which Taliban AJ refers to INRE his “ejection” from Islam news.
The rift between old and neo Taliban is ongoing, and has been for awhile, in the Afghanistan Taliban.
IVEHADIT: So how are you going to stop Islamic Terrorists without a barrier wall?
Macker, sorry for the delayed response but the Canadian border is far less of a threat than the Mexican border simply because Canadians are more in tune to the dangers of terrorism than the Mexican government is. Not to mention the vast numbers coming from Mexico as opposed to Canada makes it far more likely that terrorists could slip through the south. Using equal resources for different threat levels would be very unsound.