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.

63 responses so far

63 Responses to “Updates On The War On Terror 03_24_08”

  1. ivehadit says:

    Hi Vince,
    The problem with the wall is that many of the terrorists know how to get visas, etc. *legally*. A wall would not stop them. They are being aided by traitors who show them how to beat our system, imho. Nothing can stop a traitor except all of us being on alert at all times to anything fishy….It’s what makes this enemy so insipid, imho. Technology and the hate-America crowd are gunning to take us down…not because it would improve their lives, just bring America down. Sick, sick people in this world. And I include many liberal Leftist democrats in that group. They have a mental disorder, imho.

  2. VinceP1974 says:

    IVE: It’s already been established that many Arab terrorists have in fact entered teh country by illegally crossing the southern border.

    What they do is fly to one of the Central American countries and work their way North.

  3. VinceP1974 says:

    So much for the idea of hiring a bunch more Border Guards and get some camerass.. The govt is too incompetent.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,341532,00.html

    U.S. Border Patrol Cracking Under Pressure to Find New Recruits

    A mandate to hire 6,000 new border agents by the end of 2008 has lowered qualification tests, concentrated four months of training into 10 weeks and is raising concerns that recruits won’t get the proper training they need to protect the borders.

    Richard Pierce, executive vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union that represents 11,000 rank-and-file agents, said the guidelines don’t allow time for proper training of new agents.

    “The field training program is largely computer-based … it’s not the hands-on approach this job requires,” Pierce said. “When they get in field, they don’t have the basic information required.”

    In May 2006, President Bush outlined a plan to increase the border protection force by 50 percent, from 12,000 agents to 18,000. In an effort to speed up the training process, the Border Patrol academy has condensed 88 days of basic training into 55, which would get boots on the ground at a much greater pace.

    By October 1, half of all Border Patrol agents will have less than two years of experience, says Pierce. “So essentially, what we have is trainee agents teaching trainees out in the field.”

    Pierce said that along with the youth factor, the agency could be taking on an aging force as well. “The Border Patrol has raised its entry-level age from 37 to 40,” he says, which would make for a retirement age of close to 60 for agents in the field. “This is not a job for a 60-year old, I can assure you,” he says.

    According to the Border Patrol’s website, the academy no longer requires a high school diploma or GED for entrance, and passing test grades have been lowered from 85 percent to 70.

    Background checks are another concern. Pierce said the Border Patrol is farming the work out to private contractors and no longer using the FBI, which is more thorough but also more time-consuming.

    “The Border Patrol is using contract employees right now to do background investigations, where it used to use FBI agents,” Pierce said. “The contract program isn’t even finished before the employee is hired. We have employees in the academy who have not completed background checks.”

    Deputy Chief of Border Patrol Ronald Colburn disagrees. “We’re doing a great job of both quality training of the personnel that we deploy and of checking on their backgrounds,” he argues. “That said, does one or can one slip through the cracks, as they say? Yes.”

    Colburn concedes the plan presents some problems, such as an increased youth force. “When I surveyed the field … and talked to the top leadership, what concerned them most, it really was the youthfulness and the inexperience that we were deploying into the field.”

    But he said that the increased number of agents will ultimately mean safer and better protected borders.

    Not so, said Pierce. As pressure on the border continues and as worries mount that some new recruits aren’t suited for the job, Pierce is clear in his appraisal: “The Border Patrol is going to pay a price for this in the long run.”