The Government Accountability Office (GAO) filed a long awaited report today on President Obama's swap of five senior Taliban commanders for alleged deserter Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.
“[The Department of Defense] violated section 8111 because it did not notify the relevant congressional committees at least 30 days in advance of the transfer,” the GAO report said. “In addition, because DOD used appropriated funds to carry out the transfer when no money was available for that purpose, DOD violated the Antideficiency Act. The Antideficiency Act prohibits federal agencies from incurring obligations exceeding an amount available in an appropriation.”
In the report, the GAO rejected the Obama Administration's attempt to sluff this off as legal and their attempt to paint the law as 'unconstitutional'.
“It is not our role or our practice to determine the constitutionality of duly enacted statutes,” the report says. “In our view, where legislation has been passed by Congress and signed by the President, thereby satisfying the bicameralism and presentment requirements in the Constitution, that legislation is entitled to a heavy presumption in favor of constitutionality.”
President Lawless strikes again. Fore!
Isn't it time he started being held accountable for something?
President Obama staged a convenient photo-op in the Rose garden with the parents of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier captured by the Taliban under suspicious circumstances and released in exchange for five senior Taliban commanders held in Club Gitmo. The event was stilted and strange for a number of reasons.
It was absolutely astounding to hear this president say that 'we leave no man behind' in view of what happened in Benghazi...and of course, with the revelation of the VA 'death lists', I'd say those wounded vets were definitely left behind.
Then there was the lingering fallout from the fact that once again, this president blatantly broke the law, which called for the president to inform Congress 30 days before any pending transfer of jihadis from Gitmo. Even Obama loyalists like the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin and California Democrat Dianne Feinstein were shocked and critical over this. And members of the president's own team who voiced any opposition to the way this deal was being conducted were simply told to shut up and salute.
But the president's behavior aside, Robert Bergdahl, Bowe Bergdahl's father was absolutely bizarre.
After the usual remarks, Bergdahl said his son had supposedly lost the ability to speak English and recited"“Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim.” That phrase, from the Qu'ran translates as “In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate.”
Either Bergdahl has converted to Islam or is simply unknowing, but uttering that phrase is a profession of belief in the Muslim faith. Was that supposed to be a message to his son, who mentioned in Taliban propaganda films that he was 'exploring Islam?'
Since the words are Arabic, not Pashto, the language his son's Taliban captors would have been speaking, it somehow doesn't gel with the idea of a father trying to communicate with a son who has supposedly lost the ability to speak his native language in a mere 5 years.
Bergdahl senior apparently also has some interesting views on America, not that he isn't entitled. Here's a tweet he tried to delete:
Why would anyone be working to free the sort of murderers held at in Club Gitmo if they had, shall we say, a positive view of America? And since he obviously doesn't hold the Taliban or other jihadis responsible for 'the death of every Afghan child' because he wants them all freed, it's obvious he blames America for their deaths....and is calling for Allah to take revenge.
Bowe Bergdahl himself apparently has some interesting views on his service and his country.
Shortly before the Taliban got their hands on him, he said in an e-mail to his father:
“I am sorry for everything here,” he wrote. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.” Bergdahl also complained about fellow soldiers. The battalion commander was a “conceited old fool,” he said, and the only “decent” sergeants, planning to leave the platoon “as soon as they can,” told the privates — Bergdahl then among them — “to do the same.”
“I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools,” he concluded. “I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”
His father's reply? “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”
OK...it's a soldier's prerogative to gripe from time to time. But 'I'm ashamed to be an American' and 'The horror that is America is disgusting'? Obviously we have someone who was raised with certain views and given his father's outbursts, the apple didn't fall far from the tree.
Three days after that e-mail exchange, Bowe Bergdahl left camp on his own without authorization accompanied by two Afghans whom he had befriended, according to the original report. The Taliban said Bergdahl was intoxicated when they captured him,something the Army denied although since they weren't present at the scene, one wonders how they would know.
What Bergdahl did is commonly known as desertion, and a number of his fellow soldiers see it exactly that way.
My own take is that Bergdahl was likely a career flake who probably never intended to desert, but merely intended to go AWOL. He went off with some Afghans he trusted with the idea of scoring drugs and/or sex. Instead, they apparently sold him to the Taliban while he was 'relaxing', which would square with the Taliban's account that he was intoxicated when they picked him up (note the word I'm using, 'intoxicated' as opposed to 'drunk'. Booze is difficult to find in Muslim rural Afghanistan except in areas like military bases or Kabul where westerners hang out,while dope is easy to score).
At the every least, he was obviously AWOL, and his tale about being captured while 'lagging behind on patrol' was exploded as sheer BS early on.
It seems pretty obvious Bowe Bergdahl did not 'serve with honor and distinction' nor was he 'captured on the battlefield' as President Obama's National Security Adviser Susan 'It Was The Video, The Video' Rice insisted to the talking heads at ABC. Although perhaps that's how the team in the White House considers it, given what appears to be their conception of 'honor and distinction'. Especially since Bergdahl's being cut loose got some Gitmo jihadis freed and knocked the VA scandal out of the headlines for awhile.
Six soldiers whom did not desert lost their lives searching for him. 'Honor and distinction?'
What he did not only led to American casualties but the freeing of five dangerous men, and it put a price on the head of every American in Afghanistan now that the Taliban has seen that kidnapping is such a successful tactic.
According to the USMJ, at the very least,Bowe Bergdahl ought to face charges by a military tribunal for deserting his post. Given our current commander-in-chief, the odds are he won't.
I'm glad Bowe Bergdahl made it home, even if he despises the country that paid such a high price to free him. The Taliban are some of the most brutal people on the planet,and no one deserves to be held by them.
But Bowe Bergdahl is no hero. And the attempts by the president and his people to paint him as one to suit their own political agenda are beneath contempt. There can be no clearer indication of the disdain this president and his team have for our military...and in view of their speech and actions in the last five and a half years, that is saying something.
UPDATE: The president's little diversion to put Benghazi and the VA scandal has exploded in his face aa more facts have come out about this and public opinion has rapidly shifted.
It turns out that the Pentagon had investigated Bergdahl's disappearance and as long ago as 2010 had investigated and concluded he had deserted.Among other things, he left a letter stating that he was deserting and that he was renouncing his citizenship.
And that leads to a number of questions for the Pentagon. Bergdahl was never officially classified as a POW for obvious reasons, yet he was automatically promoted to sergeant while in captivity, and the Army swooped in with investigators who forced many of the soldiers in Bergdahl's unit to sign unprecedented non-disclosure agreements.In fact, a number of those soldiers simply defied those agreements and spoke out when they were treated to the sickening spectacle of their commander-in-chief trying to make a hero out of Bergdahl in the Rose Garden.
Who ordered the Army to keep Bergdahl on the promotion list and to try make sure no one in his unit spoke out about what had happened? And why?
And what about reports that Bowe Bergdahl had converted to Islam and was giving the Taliban intel on U.S. tactics and training in bomb making?
Meanwhile, the top level Taliban commanders we gave up for a deserter were greeted like heroes in Qatar and will have full freedom of movement while they're there...which may actually include travel out of the country.
These men are responsible for literally thousands of deaths and will undoubtedly be responsible for many more in the future. None of that mattered next to President Obama's personal political requirements or his agenda to shove detainees out of Gitmo,no matter how dangerous.
Will the Army actually investigate this? Will 'Sergeant' Bergdahl actually be tried for desertion? Don't bet on it.
But no matter what happens, this question remains. There comes a point when cowardice, lawlessness, incompetence and arrogance get to the point where they can no longer be tolerated, because they've become dangerous. How much longer are the American people going to put up with this? How much are they prepared to take?
How much more contempt will you swallow, my countrymen, before too much becomes enough? How much?
Over the weekend, the Obama Administration freed five extremely dangerous Taliban commanders it had been holding at Club Gitmo in exchange for captured U.S. soldier Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
While it's good that Bergdahl is headed home, the price was fairly high.All five of the Taliban commanders were labeled 'high risk' by the Pentagon.
Khair Ulla Said Wali Khairkhwa was interior minister during the Taliban's rule and Taliban governor of Herat province. He was directly linked to both Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's now-deceased head in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, as well as being described as one of the "major opium drug lords in western Afghanistan"
Mullah Mohammad Fazl was a major military commander for the Taliban back when they were fighting the U.S. backed Northern Alliance, and was the military 'chief of staff' for the Taliban regime. He was also charged by the UN with the massacre of thousands of Afghan Shiites under Taliban rule And was also linked to several Islamist groups, including al Qaeda. Our military considered Fazl to have what's described as 'high intelligence value'.
Mullah Norullah Noori was another Taliban governor, likewise considered to have high intelligence value.
Abdul Haq Wasiq was the second in command of the Taliban's intelligence service. His cousin was head of the service. There's some evidence that Wasiq also shared intel with al Qaeda and other Islamist groups, which is fairly likely considering that al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan then.
Mohammad Nabi Omari was a Taliban official in Khost province who has been linked with al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups.He was also the Taliban's chief of communications and helped al Qaeda members escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
“Trading five senior Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl’s release may have consequences for the rest of our forces and all Americans. Our terrorist adversaries now have a strong incentive to capture Americans. That incentive will put our forces in Afghanistan and around the world at even greater risk,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. McKeon (R-Calif.) and the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, James M. Inhofe (Okla.), said in a joint statement.
They're certainly correct about that.
There's also the little matter of the Obama Administration once again breaking the law, which requires that the Secretary of Defense notify the relevant congressional committees at least 30 days before making any transfers of prisoners, to explain the reason for the transfer and to provide assurances that the prisoners released are not going to return to terrorist activities against the United States. At this point, the majority of them have, and these five certainly will.
The Obama Administration is claiming they acted quickly to save Bergdahl's life and there simply was no time to notify Congress. I'd like accept that there was some kind of sudden urgency, but the fact he had already been in captivity for almost five years makes that unlikely...and so does the Obama Administration's constant activity to close down Club Gitmo by any means necessary and dump the 'guests' wherever possible. After all it certainly wouldn't be the first time the Regime has lied to Congress!
Bergdahl's case was always a fairly strange one anyway. Apparently he went AWOL, left his post (his story about 'lagging behind on patrol' is a pretty obvious fabrication) and was captured without either weapons or body armor:
The actual story might be hinted by the report of him walking off the base with some Afghans.No telling who they were, but if this is true they were likely interpreters or base workers who spoke some English, and they may have promised Bergdahl something - sex or drugs or both seem to be the most likely lures.
If he went with them willingly, they were people he knew and trusted. They likely sold him to the Taliban en route or more likely, after they had given him what they promised him and he was relaxing - which could also account for the Taliban account of him being intoxicated when they got their hands on him.
At any rate, the deal is done and so is the damage, and Bergdahl is headed back home.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul was fired on today just before dawn, with two rounds of what was referred to as 'indirect fire' hitting the compound. 'Indirect fire' usually means rocket attacks, RPG's or mortar rounds.
No Americans were reported as casualties, but the fact that our enemies were able to get close enough to target and fire heavy weapons at our heavily fortified embassy in what is supposedly a safe zone says quite a bit.
The Taliban claimed responsibility, but given the attacks on Americans by our supposed 'allies' among the Afghan forces, that's a pretty wide range.
Afghan police were targeted in two bombing incidents, one on a roadside restaurant in Puli Alam, the capital of Logar province some 35 odd miles east of Kabul that killed six and wounded 13 and a second attack in east Kabul that wounded three Afghan policemen.
As we retreat and draw down, they're getting a lot bolder. Winter used to be something of a lull for the most part in Afghanistan because of the weather and topography. Not anymore.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is still refusing to sign a security agreement with the U.S. that would leave some American troops in his country. He is still insisting on a ban of airstrikes,raid and the entry of U.S. forces into Afghan homes, is demanding the U.S. broker a peace with the Taliban and is still insisting that any new treaty should be signed by his successor after the next Afghan elections in the spring. Translation - Karzai, his brother and their families want to make sure they have a secure way out of the country before the Americans leave, and they won't sign on to anything until they get that guarantee.
Karzai reiterated this, interestingly enough, at a three day conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with whom Karzai has signed a security agreement. Afghanistan does share a small border with India, and the Indians have a vested interest in making sure that their border is secure and that a potential flashpoint with either the Taliban or more likely Pakistan is checkmated.
And finally, today is the day the Diggers left.
The Australian forces represented the largest non-NATO contingent in AfPak, and as usual, they came in because they're one of the best allies we have and to them, that's what allies do. Every report I've heard of their performance in AfPak marks them, along with the Canadians, as some of the most useful and resourceful non-U.S. troops in the theater, miles ahead of most of the motley crew supplied by our European allies. They were always willing to mix it up with the jihadis, never shirked the hard jobs, and lost 40 of their mates in AfPak as their share of the sacrifice involved.
They left for Oz today from Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province, Australia's main base in the country and I don't blame them one bit. With President Obama giving the Taliban a set in stone withdrawal date, the Australians realize that there's no reason to hang around. And PM Tony Abbot underlined that today:
"This war is ending, not with victory, not with defeat, but with hope that Afghanistan is a better place and Uruzgan in particular is a better place for our presence," Prime Minister Tony Abbott said. "I firmly believe that to be the case."
When one of your best allies takes a look at your strategy and at your
commander-in-chief and realizes that there's no sense hanging around
anymore, that says something.
Around 400 of the Australian military are committed to remain in Afghanistan through 2014 to train the Afghan military in Kabul and Kandahar. Whether that holds good if the U.S. completely bugs out as President Obama is threatening to do if no security arrangement gets signed by Karzai is doubtful.
Over 250 Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners were freed when the Taliban launched a military-style assault on Pakistan's Central Prison in Dera Ismail Khan, including several of what Pakistani security referred to as 'high level prisoners', including six people scheduled for execution.
Central Prison is supposedly one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the country.
According to one of the surviving guards, the Taliban attack force blew up the main gate and then targeted the guards with RPG and mortar fire.Gunmen blew up the power lines to the prison and detonated bombs to breach the outer walls. At least 12 people were killed, including five policemen and four Shi'ite Muslim prisoners whose throats were slit by the Sunni Taliban attackers. The attack was extremely well planned...out of an estimated population of 5,000 prisoners, the Taliban knew exactly where of the prisoners they wanted to free were incarcerated.
My sources tell me this was almost certainly an inside job. Only about 70 of the 200 prison guards who were supposed to be on duty were present that night, and most of them simply ran away without returning fire. Some of the inmates were were also reportedly provided with cellphones by the guards, and were likely in touch with the Taliban.
Also, if mortars were used, inside information and good recon would have been necessary to get the range and coordinates. And the location of the prison, in the Pashtun areas that border Afghanistan ensured that the Taliban likely had local support for the attack as well.
There was a similar mass jailbreak in the northern town of Bannu about a year ago which was carried out with inside help from the prison guards.In fact, thus latest attack was reportedly led by Taliban commander Adnan Rashid, who was busted out of jail in the Bannu attack.
The talks have been authorized by the Taliban's leader Mohammad Omar.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government is being excluded from the talks, but he's insisting that his High Peace Council will follow up with its own talks a few days later,provided his preconditions are met. The preconditions?
“The conditions are: The talks, having begun in Qatar, must immediately move to Afghanistan,” Karzai said. “Second, the talks must bring about an end of the violence in Afghanistan, and third, the talks should not become a tool for any third-party country” to pursue its own interests in Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban are pretty open about calling Karzai 'a U.S. stooge' and refusing to deal with him, we'll see how that ends up.
The only U.S. conditions are almost exactly what I predicted when I first wrote about the U.S. working with Qatar to open a Taliban office six months ago:
Essentially, the scenario will likely go something like this. In exchange for releasing captured terrorists from Gitmo into Taliban custody, recognizing the Taliban as legitimate political rulers in Afghanistan plus a suitable baksheesh in the form of some more aid money, we will be allowed to retreat more or less gracefully and Mullah Omar and the Taliban will mouth some platitudes about disengaging from al-Qaeda.
Or to quote the New Speak spouted by the Obama Administration, two statements 'opposing international terrorism launched from Afghan soil and supporting the peace process:'
In addition to agreeing to meet with Afghans, the statement issued by Mujahid said “the Islamic Emirate does not want to inflict harm to other countries from its soil” and wants “good relations” with all countries. It said Taliban objectives for the office included “to support a political and peaceful solution.”
A U.S. official said the statement fulfilled the requirements. The Taliban also repeated its demand for an end to the foreign “occupation” of Afghanistan and its goal of establishing “an independent Islamic system” there.
Keep in mind that people like the Taliban don't regard the activities of people like Hamas, al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba or Hezbollah to be terrorism in the slightest. And at any rate, any agreements made with an infidel are meaningless anyway as far as the Taliban is concerned.
And that wonderful Islamic system? Pure 7th century, especially when dealing with uppity women:
Yes, the Taliban want to be back in power, want all foreign troops out of the country and want all of their detainees released. They will undoubtedly get everything they want and more.
Those detainees include about 60 prisoners the United States still holds in Afghanistan and five being held at Guantanamo Bay. Most of the rest of the Taliban killers with American blood on their hands were already turned over to the Afghan government by the Obama Administration, so the remainder include some real hard cases.
We might even see a couple of celebrity detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed go free as well, perhaps being turned over to Qatari custody for awhile before being quietly released. The Qataris, who have acted as the Taliban's lawyer throughout the negotiations are a likely choice for role of halfway house in these situations.
Karzai and other members of the Afghan elite who've grown wealthy during our occupation will leave once the Taliban takes over. President Obama never liked him anyway - he was 'Bush's man' - and once President Obama failed in a clumsy attempt to muscle him out of power when he first took over, he ceased working with us or trusting us.
Those Afghan security forces we spent billions to equip and train? Some of the officers, especially the more high ranking ones who were in a position to steal and put a little bit away will likewise leave. The rest will serve Afghanistan's new masters. Like the other Muslim armies we built in Iraq and 'Palestine', the Afghan forces would happily turn those shiny new M-16s we gave them on us if the occasion arose.
This is how Obama's War ends, the Good War, the one he accused President Bush of 'dropping the ball on', the one Obama in his arrogance insisted he was going to win after his overblown campaign rhetoric.
Instead, after a dysfunctional adventure that saw us doubling down on the original folly with no clear goals and with Rules of Engagements that handcuffed our warriors and put them in harm's way to no purpose, we're bugging out. Again, from the original piece I wrote last January:
In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, we have emboldened our enemies, spent blood and treasure and accomplished nothing of real permanence, although it pains me to say it because I have a very real knowledge of the sacrifices involved.
Instead of handling AfPak the way it should have been handled from the very beginning, we blundered in without any clear strategic goals or direction. Once our enemies and for that matter, those whom were willing to be our friends realized our leaders had no idea what they were doing and weren't serious about real victory, the rest was merely a matter of time.
This is a national disgrace unworthy of the sacrifices of the brave men and women we sent there.
Three members of the U.S. military, Anne Smedinghoff, a 25-year-old foreign service officer ,a U.S. civilian who worked for the U.S. Defense Department and an Afghan doctor were killed yesterday by a suicide car bombing attack while travelling to donate books to a school in the Zabul province in South Afghanistan.
Another American civilian was killed by the Taliban in a separate attack in eastern Afghanistan.
In a statement, Secretary of State John Kerry paid tribute to Anne Smedinghoff, a native of Illinois, who was killed in what he called a "despicable attack".
He said: "She tragically gave her young life working to give young Afghans the opportunity to have a better future."
Kerry described Smedinghoff as "vivacious, smart, capable, chosen often by the ambassador there to be the lead person because of her capacity."
He said "there are no words for anyone to describe the extraordinary harsh contradiction for a young 25-year-old woman, with all of her future ahead of her, believing in the possibilities of diplomacy to improve people's lives, making a difference, having an impact" to be killed, Kerry said.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack in Zabul and said the bomber was seeking to target either a coalition convoy or the governor.
"We were waiting for one of them," Ahmadi said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It was our good luck that both appeared at the same time."
While the Obama Administration continues to make attempts to negotiate with the Taliban, so far they've shown little interest. With President Obama's set in stone date of a pullout by 2014 and a significant drawdown of U.S. forces already scheduled for the latter part of this year, they simply see it as a case of waiting us out before they take over again.
As Taliban leader Mullah Omar once famously said in an interview after President Obama's mini surge in Afghanistan, "The Americans have the watches, but we have the time."
Remember when presidential candidate Barack Obama called Afghanistan the Good War, the one we had to win? Remember when he accused then President Bush of 'dropping the ball' in AfPak in order to concentrate on Iraq?
"So, you know, I think that, have we achieved everything that some might have imagined us achieving in the best of scenarios? Probably not. You know, there's a human enterprise, and you know, you fall short of the ideal," said Obama.
The president went on to say that America has achieved some measure of success in Afghanistan, however. "Did we achieve our central goal? And have we been able, I think, to shape a strong relationship with a responsible Afghan government that is willing to cooperate with us to make sure that it is not a launching pad for future attacks against the United States? We have achieved that goal. We are in the process of achieving that goal."
Here's what President Obama is talking about when he speaks about us negotiating:
Today, the Taliban announced that they had finally agreed to open up what they're calling 'a political office' in Doha, Qatar with the Obama Administration's enthusiastic support.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the new liaison office will conduct negotiations and foreign relations between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ( the Taliban name of the country) and the international community.
"Right now, having a strong presence in Afghanistan, we still want to have a political office for negotiations," said Mujahid. "In this regard, we have started preliminary talks and we have reached a preliminary understanding with relevant sides, including the government of Qatar, to have a political office for negotiations with the international community."
The choice of Qatar is significant.
Qatar is an oil emirate in the Persian Gulf that spends a great deal of money financing Islamism in the world. It has always been a major source of funding for the Muslim Brotherhood and its subsidiary organizations like CAIR, MPAC and ISNA.
It also finances and owns al-Jazeera ( AKA Jihad TV) which features as one of its most popular programs the anti-Semitic and anti-western sermons of Sheik Youseff Qaradawi. As you know, al-Jazeera (or rather, Emir Al-Thani) just purchased Al Gore's Current TV for a cool $500 million, giving it an enhanced western platform and a potential lobbyist in Al Gore, who will stay on for a fat paycheck as a 'consultant'.
The Taliban will thus have an important diplomatic presence in the Persian Gulf ( and remember that Saudi Arabia and the UAE recognized the Taliban government when it first took over), a built in conduit for financing, a friendly media outlet close by with a reach that extends to the United States and quite possibly, a built in, well connected lobbyist with strong ties to the Democratic Party.
And they will now have official recognition of their status as legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.
Essentially, the scenario will likely go something like this. In exchange for releasing captured terrorists from Gitmo into Taliban custody, recognizing the Taliban as legitimate political rulers in Afghanistan plus a suitable baksheesh in the form of some more aid money, we will be allowed to retreat more or less gracefully and Mullah Omar and the Taliban will mouth some platitudes about disengaging from al-Qaeda. The reality, of course is that thanks to our assassination of Osama bin-Laden, al-Qaeda under its Egyptian born, ex-Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheik Ayman Zawahiri has now largely relocated again to the Middle East to take advantage of the Arab Spring. In any event, once the Taliban takes over again, al-Qaeda will be there as well.
Kharzai and other members of the Afghan elite who've grown wealthy during our occupation will duck out,while the rest of the Afghan people will return to the 7th century Sharia Disneyland they had before we came.
Those Afghan security forces we spent billions to equip and train? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious by now. Just like the other Muslim armies we built in Iraq and 'Palestine', the Afghan forces will be in service to the new regime and will just as soon turn those shiny new M-16s on us or our allies given the chance.
Don't get me wrong. With all respect to our heroic warriors (and I was writing about them when hardly anyone else was) the whole decision to go into Afghanistan in the first place was ridiculous, especially since we did nothing about Pakistan, a country that has fomented far more terrorism than ever emanated out of Afghanistan.
I've characterized it before as one genius of a president making a decision to put an army and billions of dollars in equipment into a land locked country surrounded by more or less hostile territory without any real strategic goals in mind, and a second genius of a president deciding to double down to avoid looking ridiculous after his overblown campaign rhetoric.
In an odd way, our wars in Iraq and AfPak operated at cross purposes to each other.
In Iraq, we took out the Sunni counter weight to Shi'ite Iran and left a Shi'ite dictatorship in its place where the political power is concentrated in Iran proxy Moqtada al-Sadr, the power behind President Maliki. The one positive was our destroying of al-Qaeda in Iraq and driving the remnants out of the Middle East.
In Afghanistan, we failed to defeat the Taliban, and are now reduced haggling with them over a ceasefire we need much more than they do. And with the assassination of Osama bin-Laden, the Obama Administration's empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood and Maliki's oppression of Iraq's Sunnis, al-Qaeda is back in its natural home in the Arab world again.
In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, we have emboldened our enemies, spent blood and treasure and accomplished nothing of real permanence, although it pains me to say it because I have a very real knowledge of the sacrifices involved.
Instead of handling AfPak the way it should have been handled from the very beginning, we blundered in without any clear strategic goals or direction. Once our enemies and for that matter, those whom were willing to be our friends realized our leaders had no idea what they were doing and weren't serious about real victory, the rest was merely a matter of time.
Yesterday's The Hindu has published a detailed report on the secret negotiations beyween the Taliban and the US. And even more interesting is whom the go between is...none other than radical Muslim Brotherhood jihadist Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a name I'm sure you're all familiar with.
Qaradiwi is famous for praising Hitler and calling for the extermination of all Jews at the hands of Islam.He's also a huge fan of clitorectomies, wife beating, murdering homosexuals, and of course, the world-wide caliphate.He also praised "martyrdom operations" in Iraq frequently - against our troops.
The Indians are incensed at the American use of Qaradawi as a mediator because of his long standing call for a jihad against India to retake Kashmir:
In 2009, Mr. al-Qaradawi had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, asserting that “the Kashmiris were properly fighting jihad against the Indian army.” The jihad was legitimate, he argued, since mujahideen groups sought to create an Islamic state. Therefore, the edict concluded, it was incumbent on all Muslims to help Kashmiris gain their “freedom from Indian aggression.”
New Delhi, Indian diplomatic sources said, has been warily watching Mr. al-Qaradawi's emergence as peace broker — fearful that his growing influence could help regional jihadist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad find new sanctuaries in a rapidly changing West Asia or a future Afghan regime which includes the Taliban.
The negotiations themselves have already resulted in Taliban leader Mullah Omar being taken off the American list of most wanted terrorists.Other deal poimts involve the release of all prisoners still held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, the lifting of United Nations sanctions on the Taliban leadership and recognition as a legitimate, non-terrorist political group.In other words, we're supposed to free the jihadists now held at Club Gitmo, legitimize the Taliban and turn a blind eye as they return Afghanistan back to the 7th century hellhole it was before we came.
In exchange, the Taliban will agree to play nice and to sever ties with al-Qaeda...which is headed back to the Middle East anyway now that we're leaving to take advantage of the new opportunities offered by the American retreat and the Arab Spring.By the way, that's exactly why Osama bin-Laden was fingered, because the new al-Qaeda head, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zarahiri, a former Muslim Brotherhood member, wanted to head back to the Middle East to partake of those new opportunities and bin-Laden refused.
Don't buy the horse manure currently being peddled that the Muslim Brotherhood are 'peaceful' and about political change. They're about change all right, by any means necessary. And they have no problem whatsoever with jihadist violence when it suits them.
Embarrassing that the Obama Administration would turn to a genocidal racist like Qaradawi as a mediator for peace negotiations and add to his clout and prestige. They think they're using the Muslim Brotherhood..but the reality is that the Brotherhood is using them.
U.S. relations with our 'ally' Pakistan took another ratchet downwards when Pakistan's foreign minister accused the U.S. of using Pakistan as a scapegoat after American head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen testified before Congress and accused Pakistan's ISI agency of supporting the al-Qaeda linked Haqqani network in planning and executing last week’s 22-hour assault on the US Embassy in Kabul and a truck bombing that wounded 77 American soldiers a few days earlier:
The Haqqanis are "veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency [ISI]," he said in opening remarks before the Senate Armed Services Committee, adding that it had provided the Haqqanis with support to conduct the Kabul attacks:
"With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted the truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy," Mullen said of the recent attack on a base in Wardak that wounded 77 U.S. soldiers. "We also have credible intelligence that they were behind the June 28 attack against the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations."
Mullen said Pakistan's government has chosen to "use violent extremism as an instrument of policy," which jeopardizes its relationship with the United States and its role as a player in the region.
Speaking of its support for the Haqqani Network, Mullen said, "they may believe that by using these proxies they are hedging their bets, or redressing what they feel is an imbalance of regional power. But, in reality, they have already lost that bet."
He added that by "exporting violence, they have eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being."
Panetta said that in recent high-profile meetings with Pakistani officials, U.S. officials have conveyed "a very clear message to them and to others that they must take steps to prevent the safe haven that the Haqqanis are using.
"We simply cannot allow these kinds of terrorists to be able to go into Afghanistan, attack our forces, and then return to Pakistan for safe haven and not face any kind of pressure from the Pakistanis for that to stop."
Panetta called the existence of safe havens "not tolerable" and "unacceptable," and said continued U.S. pressure on Pakistan's leaders was the only way they would get that message. "The only way to deal with the Pakistanis, " he said, "is to keep giving them a clear message of where the lines are. "
The Pakistanis, of course, had their own things to say about where the lines are.Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik baldly denied Mullen's accusations about ISI involvement with the Haqqani Network, and warned the U.S. that Pakistan would not allow a U.S. attack over the border aimed at the Haqqanis,who are apparently a protected species in Pock-kee-stawn.
“The Pakistan nation will not allow the boots on our ground, never,” Mr. Malik said in an interview with Reuters. “Our government is already cooperating with the U.S. — but they also must respect our sovereignty.”
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar likewise warned the U.S. not to cross what she called 'red lines' and not to use Pakistan as a scapegoat. ”If many of your goals are not achieved, you do not make someone a scapegoat,” she said, speaking to the American Government.
Khar spoke these lines with such conviction and inherent dishonesty that I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out she was related to Hillary Clinton somewhere along the line.
The Pakistanis have been nurturing, arming and training the Haqqani Network and other Islamist groups for years. In fact,things are so symbiotic that the Pakistani military and the Haqqani fighters both forces major bases practically next door to each other in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. The ISI has a similar relationship with Islamist terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and several others of that ilk.
Pakistan sees the Haqqanis in particular as an instrument of policy to attack India and protect their interests in Afghanistan, especially since they know that President Obama has a set-in-stone date for bugging out. He's going to want to campaign as the guy who killed bin-Laden and brought the troops home from those 'illegal' Bush wars.
The fact that Pakistan is a rogue basket case of a nation that actively supports terrorism (the Mumbai Attacks and the British 7/7 bombings are just two examples) and engages in a nice sideline of illegal nuclear proliferation to people like Iran and North Korea is also not exactly unknown to the United States. This isn't new information. That's exactly why we couldn't trust the Pakistanis with our knowledge that Osama bin-Laden had been hiding out in fancy digs with right to the Pakistani Military Academy in Abbotobad for six years, why Pakistan arrested five Pakistani informants who helped the CIA find out where Osama bin-Laden was hiding out and imprisoned them on charges of espionage and why almost every time we've let them know drone attacks are imminent the terrorists have safely moved away and we end up bombing an empty building.
We've essentially turned a blind eye towards Pakistan's treachery and enabled it because we need to bribe them. Around 75% of the supplies needed for our war in landlocked Afghanistan comes through the Pakistani port of Karachi and travels overland via the Torkhum Pass, which is why we've been paying Pakistan off to the tune of billions per year. And while we've finally begun the process of paying baksheesh to five countries instead of one to lessen the impact of our deteriorating relations withPakistan, it isn't nearly complete yet and will likely not have that much of an impact since our leaving Afghanistan is fairly imminent. So we'll do nothing now.
As for Pakistan, it's going to remain the same violent, corrupt Islamist hell hole it always was, with the added attraction of a civil war between various Islamist groups as the army splits apart into factions, with Pakistan's nuclear arsenal as the grand prize for the winner. You see, when Pakistan's powers-that-be got into in bed with various terrorist groups like the Haqqanis and Lashkar-e-Taiba, they thought they were going to be using them. Instead, they've made them strong enough that the Army isn't going to be either unified enough or powerful enough to take them on.
Our whole toxic relationship with Pakistan started because of our involvement in Afghanistan. Under the Bush Doctrine, we would have been more than justified in hitting Pakistan as well, and in terms of our war aims we likely would have been better off.
In the beginning it more or less worked because we had in Pervez Musharraf a dictator who at least stayed bought. Condi Rice, arguably one of the most inept Secretaries of State since William Jennings Bryan torched that arrangement by insisting that Musharraf allow the klepotocrat Bhuttos back in to the country as 'partners, to show more democracy', and the rest is history.
But as I've said before, it would be a nice touch if, as we left AfPak we took out Pakistan's nuclear facilities and perhaps kidnapped their rogue nuclear scientist AQ Kahn and took him to a nice, isolated interrogation room to find out exactly what he sold and to whom.
Of course, nothing remotely like that is going to happen under this president.
As I've mentioned here before, the Obama Administration has been negotiating with the Taliban directly for a ceasefire that would allow us to retreat gracefully for a few months now.
There really wasn't all that much to negotiate - President Obama wants us out of AfPak so he can pose as the man who brought our troops home come election time, and the Taliban likewise want us gone. The Pakistanis are detaining Taliban head Mullah Omar as a sort of prisoner/guest, and one of Mullah Omar's chief lieutenants, Tayeb Agha was handling the negotiations, which took place in Germany and Qatar earlier this year between Agha and other Taliban leaders and senior officials from the US State Department and Central Intelligence Agency.
The one thing the Taliban insisted on was absolute confidentiality. They didn't want to be seen as negotiating with the American infidels or making any public concessions, especially since their official stance is that they will defeat the Americans and force them to leave.
Unfortunately, news of the meetings 'mysteriously' leaked out, and news articles were published the Washington Post and Der Spiegel, even naming Tayeb Agha as the lead Taliban negotiator.
That's all it took. The Taliban spun this as routine talks about prisoner exchanges and broke off all contact. Tayeb Agha broke off all contact and American officials have not been able to contact him through intermediaries.
So...who leaked this to the media?
It wasn't anyone on the American team, or the Taliban, since both sides were working on getting exactly what they wanted.
No, according to one of my notorious Lil' Birdies, the leaks came from high up in the Karzhai government - maybe even from the top.
Hamid Kharzai and his cronies may make independent noises from time to time, but they like the idea of all that US government aid continuing and all those US and NATO forces staying there to keep them in power.
The status quo suits them fine, and they know that a deal with the Taliban puts them on borrowed time. So they took advantage of media outlets that should have known better to sabotage the negotiations.
Kharzai and his friends likely have their own back room deal going on with the Taliban anyway, probably along the lines that they'll give up power without a fight in exchange for reasonably friendly relations and being allowed to leave with the money they've squirreled away.
A Chinook helicopter transporting reinforcements to an ongoing battle in Wardok province southwest of Kabul had been shot down by the Taliban, resulting in a death toll of 38.
22 US Navy SEAL commandos and three Air Force Special Ops members from the 160th Aviation were killed, along with Five US Army personnel, seven Afghan commandos and an interpreter. The SEALs were from Team Six, famed for getting Osama bin-Laden.
The back story is that this was a trap laid by Taliban commander Qari Tahir. He apparently lured US forces to the ambush site by using disinformation, planting a tip that a Taliban gathering was taking place.
Apparently there's only one feasible route in. So the Taliban simply took up positions on either side of the Tangi Valley in the mountains, waited for the helo to fly by and then took it out with rockets and RPGs.The Chinook is a tough beast, but it took multiple hits and went down. Right now, our military has secured the area and recovered the wreckage - both mechanical and human.
One of my sources on the ground told me that they can tell from the shrapnel that some of the missiles came from Iran.No surprise there.
One thing that did shock me was the stories that came out Sunday explicitly naming the unit involved. The initial news reports were given to the media by some unnamed government official to the media. Unnamed because 'the families of the KIA's have yet to be notified'. And the media ran the stories as given.
I realize that a large contingent of the media is essentially without ethics or character of any kind, but even they should have been able to figure out that the SEALs and the 160th are small, elite units...and that every family member of our warriors in those units went through agony until they were able to hear from their loved ones or were notified by the Navy or the Air Force with the names of the KIAs.
That's one of the drawbacks with a volunteer military - a disconnect between those who serve and the elites who don't, and thus remain clueless or simply don't care to think about what that involves.
In Israel, where the majority of citizens serve, no news story about a training accident or deaths in battle identifying a specific unit would ever be broadcast or released without the final line 'the families have been notified'.
I admit to a disconnect of my own here.I can't imagine how the government drone or the media types that okayed this story function on a daily basis, or live with themselves.I simply can't comprehend how someone can be that clueless, that ignorant of honor or human feeling.
As for the fallen...well there's not much to say. Not much that means anything in any real sense, except that Almighty G-d has His plans that we don't understand, He wastes nothing and that I know as sure as I sit here writing this that you will see your beloveds again in the World to Come. All I can offer is my very inadequate condolences from a stranger, and a traditional tribute that heroic fallen warriors in a noble cause receive:
Another victim was added to the string of assassinations by the Taliban in Afghanistan as Ghulam Haidar Hamidi, mayor of Kandahar, Afghanistan was killed today in a suicide bombing attack.
Hamidi, a U.S. citizen, was killed when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a corridor near Hamidi's office. The mayor was meeting elders from a city district when one of them got close to the mayor and detonated a bomb hidden in his turban.
Hamidi is just the latest in a series of killings carried out by the Taliban as they seek to assert control over Afghanistan as the US prepares to pull out. Two of Hamidi's deputy mayors were killed in attacks by insurgents last year, and in the last four months the provincial police chief, top cleric and leading powerbroker, President Hamid Karzai's half-brother, have all been assassinated.
There will likely be more of these the closer the US withdrawal date gets.
"If at all things become difficult, we will just get all our forces back," Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said in an interview with the Express 24/7 television. "If Americans refuse to give us money, then okay," he said. "I think the next step is that the government or the armed forces will be moving from the border areas. We cannot afford to keep military out in the mountains for such a long period."
The army of course runs these things, not the defense minister. So Mukhtar is actually speaking for the Pakistani Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kayani, and the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (the infamous ISI), Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha.
An army spokesman underlined this in a separate interview by saying that if the US didn't fork over, they could rely on China, who they referred to as their "all-weather friend".
Since Pakistan has no oil or gas, China's only interest in Pakistan is as a counterbalance to India and a possible outlet to the Indian Ocean. Since China has its own Muslim problem to deal with in the Uigher insurgency, I doubt the relationship is worth $ 2 billion to them, at least not long term.
The idea that we're actually buying anything with the $2 billion in aid we give Pakistan aside from the ability to ship supplies to Afghanistan is a sick joke. As Congressman Duncan D. Hunter, a former U.S. Marine Captain who served in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2002 and 2007 revealed after a fact finding trip to Afghanistan, the Pakistanis are allowing safe havens for our enemies on their soil and refusing to take them out or allow us to. And as my regular readers know, the Pakistanis have even been caught tipping our enemies off to upcoming raids.
More Islamist attacks have originated out of Pakistan than ever came out of any other Muslim nation except Iran and perhaps Syria. It's about time we ceased the rhetoric about Pakistan being an ally and faced up to what they really are - a failed Islamist state that aids and abets terrorism and is essentially a hostile entity. We should terminate with prejudice all aid and relations with them as soon as practicable. And if I were calling the shots, I'd finish up with a pre-emptive strike on their nuclear facilities as a final kiss goodbye when the last American leaves AfPak.
Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel is under attack as I write this by suicide bombers, and there are at least ten dead already.
There were apparently a total of six bombers who struck the hotel at different points as well as a number of gunmen who are still battling the police. The attack took place at dinnertime, and one of the spots hit was the hotel's restaurant whioch was reportedly full at the time.
There was a press conference scheduled there tomorrow to announce a handover of security duties from NATO to the Afghan army. The Taliban's response to that and to President Obama's withdrawal announcement was to hit a large, prominent target in Karzai's stronghold to show that they're far from defeated and that any settlement will be on their terms.
Make no mistake - this is a message from the Taliban to both NATO and President Obama.
I can't imagine why items like this would surprise anyone at this point.
Apparently the CIA decided to carry out a little experiment. The CIA had discovered location of two 'factories' in Waziristan used to make bombs and IEDs to be used against American forces in Afghanistan. To avoid any problems with the Pakistanis they informed them of the location of the bomb factories and then monitored the area with satellite and unmanned drones to see what would happen.
Within a day or so after the Pakistanis received the intel, the CIA watched the jihadis leave taking all their weapons explosives and tools with them. Only when the goodies and the terrorists were safely removed did the Pakistani military visit each site...where they of course found nothing.
The Pakistanis, of course, are saying the tip must have come from tribal leaders, because they claim they're unable to enter these parts of Waziristan without telling them in advance. But if that's true, and the area isn't actually under Pakistani control, why would Pakistan be so upset if a drone with a couple of Hellfire missiles turns these weapons factories churning out armaments to be used against our troops into halal rubble and barbecue?
The truth of the matter is that there are significant elements in both the Pakistani military and it's ISI intelligence service that regard the jihadis as allies and the US as their enemy. And that applies to the populace of this basket case of a country as well.
It's significant that at least two of the sites in question were reportedly run by the Haqqani network, which is part of the Taliban, closely allied with al-Qaida, actively involved in killing U.S. troops and civilians in Afghanistan..and supported financially and logistically by the ISI.
Pakistan is a corrupt rogue state that funds, trains and acts as a haven for Islamist terrorists, and far more terrorist attacks have originated out of the country and its nationals than ever originated out of Afghanistan. Even worse, Pakistan's illegal nuclear program has been responsible for outlaw nuclear proliferation to countries like Iran.
Every dollar in aid we give Pakistan enables this kind of behavior, but as long as we have a huge army in Afghanistan that depends on getting 75% of its supplies through Pakistani controlled territory, we're going to keep bribing them to keep that lifeline open.
It's ridiculous to expect our warriors to fight the jihadis in AfPak with one hand while we're financing them and their allies with the other.
