taliban :slashingtongue

AP sources: Suicide bomber invited on Afghan base – Yahoo! News

Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 1:14 am  
Leave your comment

WASHINGTON – The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and had not been searched, two former U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday
An experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose was to gain intelligence, the official said.
The former intelligence official and another former official with knowledge of the attack spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The bombing on Wednesday dealt a blow to the tight-knit spy agency. Among those killed was the chief of the CIA post, whom former officials identified as a mother of three. It also was the single deadliest attack for Americans in Afghanistan since eight soldiers were killed in an insurgent attack on a base in the east on Oct. 3.
President Barack Obama and CIA Director Leon Panetta were joined by several leading lawmakers on Thursday in praising agency employees for their work.
In a letter to CIA employees, Obama said their fallen colleagues came from a “long line of patriots” who had helped to keep the nation safe despite grave risks.
Reyes said the nation owes them “a great debt.”
According to one former agency employee, the death toll represents a significant portion of the CIA’s clandestine force in the region, but is unlikely to cripple the agency because so many of its employees have experience in Afghanistan.
The bigger question for CIA operations will probably be whether the agency moves to tighten safety rules for its employees, the former employee said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Forward Operating Base Chapman used to be a military facility base but was later turned into a CIA base, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Only four known CIA operatives have been killed in Afghanistan since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

CIA officer Micheal “Mike” Spann was killed in a prison uprising in November 2001. An agency officer died in a training exercise in 2003, and two contractors operating out of a CIA base in Shkin district of Paktika province were killed the same year.

___

Click here to read more

YAHOO!

RELATED VIDEOS

RELATED BLOGS

Alert 112: bbcbreaking: CIA Director Leon Panetta pays tribute to …
bbcbreaking: CIA Director Leon Panetta pays tribute to the seven agency employees who he says were killed in Afghanistan figh.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news. bbcbreaking: CIA Director Leon Panetta pays tribute to the seven agency employees …
#: bbcbreaking: CIA Director Leon Panetta pays tribute to the …
bbcbreaking: CIA Director Leon Panetta pays tribute to the seven agency employees who he says were killed in Afghanistan figh.. http://ping.fm/74Qe2 Reference: http://ping.fm/6Jwz2 …
Washington – Leon Panetta: Afghanistan's CIA Base Chief Killed in …
All the major, breaking news from around the world. See what’s happening now!
Infidel Bloggers Alliance: CIA Director: 7 CIA Workers Killed in …
In Washington, CIA director Leon Panetta said the seven killed in Wednesday’s attack “were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism.” …
Leon Panetta: Afghanistan's CIA Base Chief Killed in Attack …
Washington – The CIA said Thursday that seven of its employees were killed and six others wounded in a suicide bombing at a base in Afghanistan. The Associ…
Panetta Speaks on CIA Deaths in Afghanistan « The Washington …
CIA Director Leon E. Panetta informed the Agency workforce today that seven of their colleagues were killed and six others were injured on Wednesday at a Forward Operating Base in Khost Province, Afghanistan. …

Clarification needed about “deadline”

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 6:01 pm  
Leave your comment

President Obama is going to send 30 000 more troops to Afghanistan. This is something that I support and have long stated so. However, the part about the deadline is something that confuses me. Is it the goal of the President to exit in 18 months like we did in the surge, or are we going to have to close shop within 18 months?
This is something that is rather complicating as the two scenarios have such different outcomes despite appearing to be similar. If we are going to get the hell out in 18 month regardless of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, we are in trouble.

The President is going to allow, in his words, “ an unacceptable risk”, to be potentially around in 18 months. That would render all the blood and sacrifice of our troops in the next 18 months as fruitless.If he does that, he is failing America in a very fundamental way.

If this is the case, there is really no hope of extending the stay beyond 2012. If the troops are to draw down by July 2011; it would take 6-10 months for all of them to come home. The added incentive would be that President Obama would be viewed as the person who have brought back all the troops home, something that would go down well with his far left base.

On the other hand, if the President hopes to achieve all goals in 18 months, then that would be a good thing. We would only leave when our objectives in Afghanistan are met. That is a world away from leaving Afghanistan at a certain date by any means necessary.

As Iraq has shown us, it is very possible that we can meet our objectives in 18 months. If we could do it in Iraq, we can do it Afghanistan. This would be something very positive and something that I would support. I also like the idea of a very speedy troop surge. That is something that would be a logistical headache to the Officers and the NCOs, but I think it would boost the troop morale on the ground.

Now I do not know which one of those scenarios is right. The Republicans are claiming that the first scenario is right, while the Democrats are claiming that the second is. The President, in his speech yesterday, went both ways. Is he undecided? I wonder…

There is also the thing about the price of the war. The President has always promised that he would do everything in a deficit neutral manner. So how is he goi9ng to pay for the at least $30 billion that this war would cost? Is he going to go down the path of President Bush and leave the next generation with a $1 trillion dollar war burden? I hope he takes Governor Jesse Ventura idea seriously about a war tax.

I would also want to see do NATO her fair share of work. It is not only the United States that has suffered attacks that were being carried out by Al Qaeda which is supported by the Taliban in Afghanistan. I want to see that they contribute their very small share of 5000 men. I also hope that they go in with the desire to fight and not just be peace keepers, like they have done so many times.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

FOX News : Dangerous perception shown

Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at 4:09 pm  
Leave your comment

After our attack on Frank Gaffney a couple of months ago, a similar kind of rubbish has reappeared once again on FOX News. I think it is something that is meant to influence people’s mentality and I am shocked that there is muted rebuttal to the statements made by Reuel Marc Gerecht.

Before I start off, I would like to stress again my belief that there is problem within Islam. Muslims in the world are not taken aback by what is happening in the name of their religion and they think it is some kind of external, international conspiracy against their religion.

Pakistan today has a perfect example. Hundreds of Pakistanis die due to bomb blasts that the Taliban take responsibility for, but they still think that India and Israel are behind them. They are against the terror attacks, but blames RAW and Mossad (Indian and Israeli intelligence).

That paradigm, in my opinion is right, and I think that Muslim communities around the world must stop thinking that the world, or even the West, is against Islam. I think that until the Muslim world realize that, there is not going to be hope of thawing the frosty relationship that is shared between them today.

That being said, what was said by Gerecht is absolutely rubbish. His stand was not as terrible as the one Frank Gaffney had, but there are parts which does insinuate danger. First I would like to state that I agree with Gerecht that there is a threat internally. However, I do not think it is out of control and is that dangerous yet. It is not organized, basically some street punks that have been radicalized. To be fair, he said he didn’t know.

“(We are) taking a little bit too lightly the danger of Islamic militant propaganda in the United States; the extent to which mosques in the United States can reinforce those attitudes, so it is something that requires a lot more effort I think on the part of the bureau.”

We are not taking it lightly, Mr Gerecht. We know that there is a threat. We know that there are mosques in the US do reinforce those attitude. We would support you if you want to do intelligence work on mosques, which is something that is being done.

However, would you do the same for Churches? There are some crazy churches that believe in America being punished for tolerating homosexuality and abortion. There are also cases where Church pastors who encourage discrimination to gays and even, in extreme cases, incite violence. E.g. Pastor Anderson?

Do you think we would have an open door policy with all? I do not think so. I say, get them all! Flag before religion! I say if we penetrate into one, lets penetrate all communities that pose a harm to our citizens or our country.

“Its very difficult for the FBI which is an Intelligence Agency par excellence to actually pursue leads before crimes are committed. In Intelligence, you have to make certain assumptions, they are not nice assumptions that certain individuals may be guilty even though they haven’t committed the crime. You have to engage in surveillance before the crime is committed.”

Wow! Where in the world has this guy been living? Guantanamo Bay? The FBI always pursue leads before crimes are being committed. ALWAYS! They always are in search of things like new drug routes, potential child sex offenders and so on. It is one thing to assume, it is another to discriminate.

Secondly, what in the world is this guy thinking? Is he going to say that we do to the Muslims today what we did to the Japanese in World War 2? He asks for surveillance, I tell you we have surveillance. How do you think the FBI are catching these suspected terrorists? By guessing? Of course they have infiltrated the Muslim community.

A word has to be said about the terrible hosts at FOX. When people say something as controversial as this, you correct them. In this case, the host Paul Gigot himself can make the assertion that the barbarism of Fort Hood as an act of terrorism. Who said so Paul? Where did you get the facts from? Come on!

That being said, I have a certain amount of respect Paul Gigot. And to be fair, Reuel Marc Gerecht is no Frank Gaffmey.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Dangerous mentality in Pakistan

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 6:58 pm  
Leave your comment

No country in the past few weeks has been receiving the brunt of terrorism like Pakistan has. So you would think that the public would be very angry with the Taliban and Al Qaeda since their citizens are being killed, right? Get ready to be disappointed.

Firstly, I would like to commend the Pakistani troops who have recently made huge gains on their Western border in Afghanistan. They have made large gains against the Taliban and according to some reports, have driven them back to Afghanistan. Okay so good job guys.

I am also not faulting the work of their intelligence today, their police or other safety officers or any one of their safety organizations. I do understand that just like our guys, they want to keep their country safe. So along with my wishes to our troops, keep up the good work guys.

But the most important group of people seem to be thinking differently. The public! Yes, the public! CNN and other news agencies went around asking the question, who do you think is responsible. Very rarely are the words Al Qaeda or the Taliban mentioned.

So who do they think is bombing their buildings? It surprised me initially, but not many of my South Asian friends; India. Yes, the majority of Pakistanis think that India is being the spate of bombings in their country! As if that is what a country with nuclear power amongst their arsenal would do! Fund terrorism!

This could be the screwed up mentality of the South Asians. A year ago, in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, Indians did exactly the same thing. Rather than working together to solve the issue of terrorism, a majority of Indians blamed Pakistan and wanted them to be punished!

Also on that list of suspects on the list of Pakistanis are the Israelis. That shows how much hate there is in the Muslim world for Israel..It is absolutely ridiculous that Israel from so far away would want to bring down Pakistan, a country that has not done anything to Israel.

Some more sensible Pakistanis blame the foreign fighters. They cannot take the fact that a Pakistani would want to attack Pakistan. This is half true. There are many foreigners in Pakistan that engage in terror related activities. One of the suspects is a Saudi mass murderer named Osama bin Laden!

But the fact is that there are many terrorists out there that are from Pakistan. The scary thing is that if Pakistanis do not acknowledge that there are local terrorists those local terrorists would strike again and again. They can strike locally or globally.

Like Americans when it comes to our federal deficit, they just would not want to blame their administration in the 80s that started all this mess. Al Qaeda began with training from the much-feared Pakistanis intelligence agency, the ISI. This was funded by the President Reagan’s administration whose aim was to get rid of the communists in Afghanistan. Until and when they come to realize that aspect of truth, we can forget about dealing with terrorism within Pakistan.

I hope that the Pakistanis come to their senses and take the cancer out of their country. It is for the sake of Pakistan and the world.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Taliban payout scheme…

Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 6:27 pm  
Leave your comment

This is something that the far left media is trying to zone in There is some cash that goes down a chain that starts from the US taxpayer all the way to the Taliban. They are adding this to their own train of excuses to cut and run from Afghanistan.

So what are they saying exactly? Before we fight the enemy, aka the Taliban or Al Qaeda, we have got to get supplies to our troops. These supplies cone from mainland USA and all over the world and it goes to the Bagram. Airfield. From there it needs to go to our military bases.

Along the way it is risky and the Taliban would wait for planes to come for them to launch attacks. This endangers the supply route. There are many methods to solve these problems and the method used is to have an agency in Afghanistan that would be in-charge of safety. This agency would then pay off the Taliban to ensure that the route is safe. Hence the US taxpayers funding the Taliban.

Look, these people have never been in the military before. I may not have been an officer in the Army and my rank may be low, but I definitely have enough faith in the commanders of this entire operation. They usually have these things covered. We have done them in training. This must be the best operation.

If it is really costs that much, don’t you think that they would just fly them to the base? They can load them up to choppers and fly them to the base. They could also secure the road or more likely travel in the convoy. On top of that they can also have dud convoys to spend the Taliban’s ammunition and give their positions away.

There are many other alternatives. But more some reason the US Military commanders chose this method of paying off the Taliban. Why? In my humble opinion, I think it must be because it is much cheaper this way. We can send more resources to fight the Taliban than allow the Taliban to have them.

My theory is backed by the fact that tens of millions of dollars of equipment travels each time from Bagram Airfield to the bases while we pay the agency that is in charge of the security $6 million a year. That sounds like a good deal to me.

There would be some conspiracy head hunters out there that would want to place the decision for this on the military industrial complex. My answer to them is that those guys would get their hands in this any method we choose to take. They are everywhere. It is a fact.

This is also a classic example of how the wingnut media distorts news to get their message across. In this case, it is MSNBC that is doing this. They are the propagating all this bull crap to get the far left message of “Get out now” ingrained in people’s heads. And they are doing it under the fallacy of it being a news network!

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta