Bloodthirsty Liberal

Barack Obama: US is at war with al-Qaeda

Who had January 7th in the pool? Carol? Aggie? I had December 29th, but I’m a wild-eyed optimist.

Of course, I have a hard time taking seriously the Community Organizer in Chief as a Commander in Chief.

When I hear him say we are at war, I hear vague echoes of other such declarations:

And if you haven’t yet had enough yet (and how could you?), imagine the entire Obama cabinet breaking into song and dance like this over a declaration of war

President Obama has had to eat so many of his words, I don’t see how he stays so trim (probably because they’re so empty and free of substance to begin with):

“We know that [Abdulmutallab] travelled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies,” Obama says. “It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and that this group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America.”

What does “crushing poverty” have to do with it? Abdulchocolatelab, or whatever his name is, wasn’t crushed by no stinkin’ poverty. He came from a family of means, and looked a little chubby to me.

But to repeat the question in the title, why did my president tell me the G-string Jihadist (not my invention, but perhaps better than Bomb Crotchit, which was) was an “isolated extremist” when that was the farthest thing from the truth?

Next thing, he’ll tell me the fellow passengers who subdued the Fruit-of-the-Boomer “acted stupidly”.

No, but he himself does speak stupidly:

The video also contains thinly-veiled criticism of the counter-terror strategy of George W. Bush. Obama says that the current administration has “refocused the fight” against al-Qaeda on Afghanistan and Pakistan, while “bringing to a responsible end to the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.”

I don’t know why he puts down the war in Iraq so often. If he weren’t so ideologically blinded, he could claim credit for this (even though it’s no thanks to him):

A very good and very welcome piece of news to start off the New Year: No American soldiers lost their lives in combat in Iraq last month.

Combat fatalities have been steadily decreasing since June of 2009, when troop drawdowns in Baghdad and other cities began in earnest. Since July, American forces have suffered five or fewer combat-related deaths each month. Casualties among Iraqis have also decreased to their lowest levels since the war began in 2003.

Said General Raymond Odierno, top commander in the Iraqi theater: “[This] is a very significant milestone for us as we continue to move forward. …”

Obama betrays himself as a man afraid to stand up for himself. He always needs the specter of Bush to stand beside him. Who ever said Iraq was behind 9/11? That comment, and the “isolated extremist” comment (and who can forget the “system worked” comment?), betray him as philosophically unprepared (or worse, opposed) to defending this country from enemies foreign and domestic.

Speaking of isolated extremists, do you think this fellow was one?

Danish police on Friday shot and wounded a man trying to enter the home of an artist who drew controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The man, a 27-year-old Somalian who was armed with an axe, was caught trying to break into the home of Kurt Westergaard at 10pm local time, police said.

Police shot the man, injuring him in his leg…

Extremist, sure. But isolated? My ass.

Mark Steyn’s comment:

[A] significant percentage of Muslims in the west do not understand concepts such as pluralism and freedom of expression. A further percentage understand them very well but reject them as loser fetishes incompatible with the requirements of Islamic supremacism - and have a shrewd sense that when, push comes to shove, a lot of these fine liberal concepts crumble to nothing.

Or, if I may observe: never bring a quill to an axe fight (or an axe to a gun fight, I suppose).

Among the many, many, many Bush policies in the war on terror continued by President Obama is the use of Predator drones to nail Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists from the sky (and perhaps a few innocent bystanders or wedding partyers—sorry).

Funny thing, they don’t seem to like it:

On June 29, 2009, jihadist websites posted a new 150-page book by senior Al-Qaeda commander Abu Yahya Al-Libi titled Guide to the Laws Regarding Muslim Spies. The book’s two introductions, one by Ayman Al-Zawahiri and one by Abu Yahya himself, make it clear that it was written in an attempt to find a means of dealing with the recent campaign of Predator strikes and other covert operations against Al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Waziristan. The two Al-Qaeda commanders, and Abu Yahya in particular, betray deep distress at the devastating effectiveness of the alliance’s [i.e. NATO’s] shadow war, as well as paranoia regarding the ubiquity of hidden enemies.

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

It’s divine justice!

No, that’s not some new form of torture dreamed up by Dick Cheney.

I don’t know why the Obama administration is suddenly mute on this extraordinary piece of good news from Iraq. Perhaps the president worries that he’ll be accused of grandstanding, or taking credit for something that he opposed repeatedly and adamantly (which he inherited!). I wouldn’t sweat it, Mr. President: the media have your back—and front, and sides, and top, and most definitely bottom.

Iraq says it has confirmed that a man it captured last week is Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, believed to be the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda-linked group.

…

Baghdadi is said to be the head of the ISI, close to al Qaeda’s main organisation in Iraq, which is led by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

…

If he is the ISI leader, his arrest is a blow to the organisation and al Qaeda, both of which are already on the run after losing strongholds in Baghdad and western Iraq in 2007.

“Leadership is important and al Qaeda in Iraq is not in the strongest position,” said David Claridge, managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management.

“It’s finding it more difficult to attract foreign fighters and more difficult to operate. Losing a leader at this time is probably not ideal,” he said.

Maybe Obama isn’t claiming credit because the Iraqis captured this dirtbag all by themselves. You’d think he would embrace such a development, seeing that it follows his plans for that country to a T, but you can’t underestimate the value of publicity to this administration. He announced his intention to remove all US troops from Iraq by the end of 2011—to much fanfare—when those were the terms of an agreement signed by Presidents Bush and Maliki well before His Oneness took office.

Iraqis defending Iraq from foreign terrorists is big news—to Iraqis. To an American president obsessed with his image and his first temporal landmark, not so much.

When was it—yesterday?—that I remarked that once you chisel in granite your limits on interrogation, the terrorists start preparing.

I know you’re reading us out there, Osama! I’m waving at you!

Article in Al-Qaeda E-journal: “How to Withstand Interrogation”

The last issues of Sada Al-Malahim, the e-journal of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, featured a three-part article titled “Gaining Victory over the Interrogators,” aimed at teaching the mujahideen how to cope with the psychological techniques employed by interrogators to extract information and confessions from detainees.

The full report is for subscribers only, but you get the idea. Once we go from clenched fist to limp wrist, the terrorists will have nothing to fear. Nothing. You may not like waterboarding—I’m certainly not anxious to give it a try—but it worked on the hardest of hard-asses, and left not a mark. And it saved untold numbers of lives.

Remind me again why it’s so wrong? I keep forgetting.

The president is fond of games—basketball and bowling most notably—and you won’t hear us carping about that here. Can’t you see him with a joystick maneuvering the little airborne Drone into position before pressing the button with his thumb?

If gaming be the food of war, play on!

An intense, six-month campaign of Predator strikes in Pakistan has taken such a toll on Al Qaeda that militants have begun turning violently on one another out of confusion and distrust, U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials say.

The pace of the Predator attacks has accelerated dramatically since August, when the Bush administration made a previously undisclosed decision to abandon the practice of obtaining permission from the Pakistani government before launching missiles from the unmanned aircraft.

Since Aug. 31, the CIA has carried out at least 38 Predator strikes in northwest Pakistan, compared with 10 reported attacks in 2006 and 2007 combined, in what has become the CIA’s most expansive targeted killing program since the Vietnam War.

Because of its success [in spite of its success?], the Obama administration is set to continue the accelerated campaign despite civilian casualties that have fueled anti-U.S. sentiment and prompted protests from the Pakistani government.

“This last year has been a very hard year for them,” a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said of Al Qaeda militants, whose operations he tracks in northwest Pakistan. “They’re losing a bunch of their better leaders. But more importantly, at this point they’re wondering who’s next.”

U.S. intelligence officials said they see clear signs that the Predator strikes are sowing distrust within Al Qaeda. “They have started hunting down people who they think are responsible” for security breaches, the senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said, discussing intelligence assessments on condition of anonymity. “People are showing up dead or disappearing.”

…

“You can imagine a horizon in which Al Qaeda proper no longer exists,” said Juan Zarate, former counter-terrorism advisor to Bush. “If you were to continue on this pace, and get No. 1 and No. 2, Al Qaeda is dead. You can’t resuscitate that organization as we know it without its senior leadership.”

How to achieve that without undermining the government in Pakistan is a key issue the Obama administration faces as it searches for a new strategy in the region. In a tour of the region, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta arrived in Islamabad Saturday for talks with Pakistani intelligence officials.

…

Panetta, asked about the Predator attacks in a meeting with reporters last month, refused to discuss the program directly, but said, “Nothing has changed our efforts to go after terrorists, and nothing will change those efforts.”

Let’s hope this is one administration promise without an expiration date. Now is no time to get metrosexual on us, Mr. President!

Of course, that’s like asking Harry Reid not to be dislikable. Some things are just meant to be.

First, we’ll close Gitmo, while holding all the enemy combatants there indefinitely. Then—oops, did I say “enemy combatants”?

The 1984-ization of our politics continues apace:

In a dramatic break with the Bush administration, the Justice Department on Friday announced it is doing away with the designation of “enemy combatant,” which allowed the United States to hold suspected terrorists at length without criminal charges.

In a court filing in Washington, the department said it is developing a new standard for the government’s authority to hold detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.

The announcement says the Justice Department will no longer rely on the the president’s authority as commander in chief, but on authority specifically granted by Congress.

And the government document says that individuals who support al Qaeda or the Taliban are detainable only if the support was “substantial.”

I’m way confused. How can the government be developing a new standard for holding enemy com—sorry, force of habit—”compulsary guests” at a place they’ve already declared their intention to close? And if the commander in chief is abdicating this authority, are there any others he’s tossing aside like a used Kleenex? And may we treat his authority similarly?

What qualifies as “substantial” support for the Taliban? Would returning to the battlefield after release count, as more than a few “involuntary visitors” have done?

I was going to quibble also with CNN’s term “dramatic break” from Bush administration policy—but I think I see their point. The terms “enemy combatant” and “unlawful combatant” have long-standing usage, and are addressed in the Geneva Conventions. For President Obama to summarily dismiss them is more than merely dramatic—it is hair-raising.

What other accepted tenets [corrected from “tents] of international law does he intend to throw under the bus?

I wouldn’t worry. Whatever we call them, and wherever we call them it, this is just window-dressing to fool his addled and distracted supporters.

At least I sure hope so.

But it’s so September 10th:

Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera aired the message Saturday but could not verify whether it was from bin Laden. The network did not say how it obtained the recording.

…

“The Gaza holocaust is an historic event and a tragic turning point. The road of returning Al-Aqsa needs righteous leadership,” the message said, referring to the Jerusalem mosque regarded as the third-holiest place in Islam. Al Qaeda says it wants to liberate the mosque from Israeli control.

The message says it’s “clear” some Arab leaders have “conspired” with what it calls the “Zionist-crusader alliance” against the Palestinians in Gaza. (Jihadists refer to Christians as crusaders.)

“They (the Arab leaders) are the ones that America describes as the moderate leaders in our world,” the message says.

The speaker urges Muslims to help insurgents “liberate” Iraq “so they can defeat the greatest ally to the Zionists,” a reference to the United States.

Then, the fighters should move on to Jordan to “liberate all of Palestine from the sea to the river” from Israel.

If you’re going to try to get the band back together, Osama, you really need to freshen this up, write some new material. For crissakes, Sha-Na-Na sounds more contemporary.

Hey, Joe Biden, weren’t you and your boss supposed to do something about this guy? Don’t I recall a promise to that effect? Stop dropping bombs on Pashtu family reunions, and take this putz out already!

How could anyone oppose waterboarding him?

The five detainees at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp charged with plotting the September 11 attacks have filed a document expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting responsibility for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The document, which the newspaper said may be released publicly on Tuesday, describes the five men as the “9/11 Shura Council,” and says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document read to a reporter by an unidentified government official, the report said.

“‘To us,’ the official read, ‘they are not accusations. To us they are a badge of honor, which we carry with honor,’” the paper said.

The document is titled “The Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations,” the military judge at the U.S. Naval base said in a separate filing, obtained by the Times, that described the detainees’ document.

The document was filed on behalf of the five men, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who has called himself the mastermind of the attacks.

Hell, I want to waterboard him all over again—for no particular reason other than the motherfu**er is begging for it.

Let’s revisit what happened last time:

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was strapped down to the water-board, he felt humiliated — not by the treatment but by the fact that a woman, a red-headed CIA supervisor, was allowed to witness the spectacle, a former intelligence officer told ABC News.

The al Qaeda mastermind, known as KSM, stubbornly held out for about two minutes — far longer than any of the other “high-value” terror targets who were subjected to the technique, the harshest from a list of six techniques approved for use by the CIA and Bush administration lawyers, sources said.

Then KSM started talking, in idiomatic English he learned as a high school foreign exchange student and polished at a North Carolina college in the 1980s, sources said.

“It was an extraordinary amount of time for him to hold out,” one former CIA officer told ABCNews.com. “A red-headed female supervisor was in the room when he was being water-boarded. It was humiliating to him. So he held out.”

“Then he started talking, and he never stopped,” this former officer said. KSM was never water-boarded again, and in hours and hours of conversation with his interrogators, often over a cup of tea, he poured out his soul and the murderous deeds he committed.

“He was sitting across the table from his interrogator, and he just blurted out, ‘I killed Daniel Pearl. I killed him Hahal (slit his throat in a ritual fashion).’ There was no water-boarding, no belly slapping; just two guys sitting across the table having a cup of tea.”

…

A current CIA official says that KSM actually told interrogators the only reason he confessed was because of the water-boarding.

So now he’s all proud of 9/11, and doesn’t care who knows it. Back then, however, he was scared of the little red-haired girl. Charlie Brown meets John Belushi.

Well, looky what NPR done learned about Al Qaeda:

The officials say the terrorist network’s leadership cadre has been “decimated,” with up to a dozen senior and midlevel operatives killed as a result of the strikes and the remaining leaders reeling from the repeated attacks.

“The enemy is really, really struggling,” says one senior U.S. counterterrorism official. “These attacks have produced the broadest, deepest and most rapid reduction in al-Qaida senior leadership that we’ve seen in several years.”…

“In the past, you could take out the No. 3 al-Qaida leader, and No. 4 just moved up to take his place,” says one official. “Well, if you take out No. 3, No. 4 and then 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, it suddenly becomes a lot more difficult to revive the leadership cadre.”

Wow, in two weeks! That’s some fine shootin’ there, President Obama.

Or do you think someone else deserves the credit?