By GottaLaff
Today's Quickie:
When BushCo was in power, said former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke on Hardball just now, Muslims wouldn't stand up and criticize Al Qaeda. They do now.
Oh, and per Clarke, the world likes us again, and hence, is more cooperative. (Yes, I just wanted to say "hence".)
Apparently, having a Kenyan Muslim commie Marxist in the White House is paying off.
Score- Bush= 1 Big Al Qaida Bad Guy vs Obama= 3 Big Al Qaida Bad Guys**
BAGHDAD, April 20 (UPI) -- The leader of an al-Qaida terrorist group operating north of Baghdad was killed by U.S. forces, an Iraqi military commander said Tuesday.**Just this week even.
Ahmad al-Obaidi, also known as Abu Suhaib, was killed in an operation separate from the deaths of two other al-Qaida leaders -- Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi -- killed in an operation in northern Iraq, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported.
The military official said Obaidi was responsible for al-Qaida operations in the Ninawa, Kirkuk and Salahiddeen regions.
By GottaLaff
On MSNBC now: The top two leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq were killed in a U.S.-Iraqi operation.
Vice President Biden [slightly paraphrased]:
Their deaths are potentially devastating blows to Al Qaeda in Iraq, but also demonstrates capability of Iraqi security forces. They led this effort. They have taken the lead in securing Iraq and its citizens. ...
There will be more difficult days ahead... but the future of Iraq won't be shaped who want to destroy, but those who want to build a strong and confident Iraq.
Dude's got a bit of that crazy eye thing going doncha think? Just breaking on MSBNC, more as I get it.
Update via BBC, MSNBC tv is saying that the Pentagon has confirmed it-
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says an intelligence team has killed the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
Mr Maliki said Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, believed to lead al-Qaeda's local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, had also been killed.
There is no confirmation of the reports and no comment from the US military.
There have been previous reports that Masri has been captured, but these have turned out to be untrue.
By GottaLaff
Dana Perino, the former White House press secretary, declared that “we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” Rudy Giuliani upped the ante on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in January. “We had no domestic attacks under Bush,” he said. “We’ve had one under Obama.” (He apparently meant the Fort Hood shootings.)
Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove’s memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol. This gang’s rewriting of history knows few bounds. [...]
[S]omeone will have to remind our amnesia-prone nation who really enabled America’s enemies in the run-up to 9/11 and in its aftermath. [...]
Rove and his book are yesterday. Keep America Safe is on the march. Liz Cheney’s crackpot hit squad achieved instant notoriety with its viral video demanding the names of Obama Justice Department officials who had served as pro bono defense lawyers for Guantánamo Bay detainees. [...] As if to underline the McCarthyism implicit in this smear campaign, the Cheney ally Marc Thiessen (one of the two former Bush speechwriters now serving as Washington Post columnists) started spreading these charges on television with a giggly, repressed hysteria uncannily reminiscent of the snide Joe McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn. [...]
When even the relentless pursuer of Monicagate is moved to call a right-wing jihad “out of bounds,” as Starr did in this case, that’s a fairly good indicator that it’s way off in crazyland. [...]
In this spectrum, the Keep America Safe crowd is a fringe. But it still must be challenged. As we’ve learned the hard way, little fictions, whether about “death panels” or “uranium from Africa,” can grow mighty fast in the 24/7 media echo chamber. [...]
What could yet give some traction to the Keep America Safe revisionism is the backdrop against which it is unfolding: an Iraq election with an uncertain and possibly tumultuous outcome; the escalation of the war in Afghanistan; and an increasingly cavalier Iran. If any of these national security theaters goes south, those in the Rove-Cheney cohort will claim vindication in their campaign to pin their own failings on their successors.
Obama may well make — or is already making — his own mistakes. And he will bear responsibility for them. But they must be seen in the context of the larger narrative that the revisionists are now working so hard to obscure. The most devastating terrorist attack on American soil did happen during Bush’s term [...] The ensuing Iraq war allowed those who did attack us on 9/11 to regroup in Afghanistan and beyond — and emboldened Iran, an adversary with an actual nuclear program. [...]
If we are really to keep America safe, it’s essential we remember exactly which American politicians empowered Iran, Al Qaeda and the Taliban from 2001 to 2008, and why. History will be repeated not only if we forget it, but also if we let it be rewritten by those whose ideological zealotry and boneheaded decisions have made America less safe to this day.
By GottaLaff
A Pakistani helicopter gunship attacked, and most likely killed, a pretty big fish, Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, an al-Qaeda-linked commander of the Pakistani Taliban:
Pakistani officials said Saturday that a top Taliban leader was probably killed in an airstrike in the northwest, dealing another blow to a militant group that fighters say has been leaderless since January. [...]Analysts said that Mohammed's death, coming amid stepped-up military operations and U.S. drone strikes, would help reduce the Pakistani Taliban to something more like the patchwork of local insurgencies that it was before it grew into a lethal umbrella group. Mohammed had been considered a candidate to lead the national organization.
"They're shellshocked," Aftab Sherpao, a former Pakistani interior minister, said of the Taliban. "Pakistan is on the front foot right now."
By GottaLaff
I've been posting a lot about this lately:
By GottaLaff
Dickette has no common decency. Need proof?
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
By GottaLaff
Shallow Thoughts:
Liz Cheney is branding lawyers who defend terrorists as Al Qaeda sympathizers.
Does that mean that lawyers who defend serial killers are homicidal maniac sympathizers? And that those who defend the worst kind of kidnappers are pedophile sympathizers?
Despicable Dickette may have forgotten: Defense lawyers have a job to do. It entails defending their clients. That's called "being professional" and it's how the American legal system works. If they fail to do that, they can be sued for malpractice.
Now go slither back under that rock.
By GottaLaff
Greg Sargent has posted a one-liner that caused me to smile and grimace simultaneously.
That must have looked really weird.
But seriously, I had previously posted a screen grab of the "Dep't. of Jihad" chyron that appeared under Wolf Blitzer as he inadvertently confirmed CNN's adherence to the Peter Principle.
Now check out Greg's mini-post:
Glenn Greenwald stacks Wolf Blitzer up against Edward R. Murrow, and finds the comparison somewhat wanting.
[M]odern political journalism -- at best the vile McCarthyite campaign was going to be presented in the standard "each-side-says" format which defines modern journalistic "objectivity" [...]
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Before the wingers get all up in arms, this report isn't saying that it wasn't a terrorist act, or even that it absolutely failed (terrorism aims to terrorize, no?), but it does highlight the desperation and incompetence that Al Qaeda has sunk to. I mean, the kid hadn't even gotten the detonation drill down? I looked for the vid, it's not available in the US, but you can find versions here.
A bomb on board a U.S. Christmas Day flight would have failed to bring the plane down even if it had been detonated successfully, a new test explosion suggests.
A controlled blast on a Boeing 747, using the same explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of smuggling on board, failed to burst the fuselage.
It means, had the bomb exploded on December 25, Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit would have successfully landed .
However, experts said the alleged Islamist terrorist and the passenger next to him would have died, while other passengers would have suffered ruptured ear drums.
(snip)
The controlled experiment was carried out for the BBC Two documentary How safe are our Skies? Detroit Flight 253.
Dr John Wyatt, an international terrorism and explosives adviser to the UN, replicated the conditions on board the Detroit flight on a decommissioned Boeing 747 at an aircraft graveyard in Gloucestershire.
Captain Joseph said the noise and the smoke would have been awful, ‘not to mention the parts of the bodies that were disintegrated as part of the explosion’.
But Captain Joseph said the experiment could help to put air travellers at ease: ‘I think this should be a confidence-builder for passengers.
‘After seeing... how well the aircraft maintained its structural integrity, and obviously the pilot’s capacity to fly the aircraft, it should give them a great deal of confidence.
By GottaLaff
This just arrived by e-mail:
Secret Joint Raid Captures Taliban's Top CommanderHmm, I wonder why BushCo couldn't do that.
The Taliban's top military commander was captured several
days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by
Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to
American government officials.
The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan
described by American officials as the most significant
Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in
Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks
second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the
Taliban's founder, and was a close associate of Osama bin
Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several
days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both
taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/world/asia/16intel.html? emc=na
By GottaLaff
Helen's like a little bulldog. She won't let go until she gets an answer... or until they move on, which is how it usually ends. From yesterday:
It's amusing how such a tiny, frail person can make so many people in power blink.
Of course, it goes without saying, there's nothing tiny and frail about her mind or her vocal chords.
By GottaLaff
The U.S. and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen on Sunday in the face of al-Qaida threats, after both countries announced an increase in aid to the government to fight the terror group linked to the failed attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas. [...]Much more here.
White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said the American Embassy, which was attacked twice in 2008, was shut Sunday because of "indications al-Qaida is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of San'a, possibly our embassy."
By GottaLaff
Many of you may wonder why I chose to use the “ 72 year old friend” as the introduction to my Special Comments. I selected the moniker so readers could see that from my age and life experiences I give a different perspective to the issues of today.Now for his Special Comment:
Time and time again the Republicans have proven they care more about party ideology than working with President Obama and the Democrats for what's best for the American people.Many thanks again for another interesting, relevant piece, 42bkdodgr. You never fail to say what so many of us are thinking and feeling, and we thank you for your unique perspective.
We have seen this behavior in their delaying for almost a month, the extension of unemployment insurance, dearly needed by many Americans, before they all voted in favor; and we also saw it during the debate on health care reform in both houses of Congress.
Now we are seeing it again with Republicans trying to make political hay out of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner. Instead of working with and standing by the President, they are sniping at him.
One can only imagine how the Republicans would have acted on September 11, 2001 if any Democrat had acted like Rep. Peter Hoekstra did in using the incident of Christmas day as the basis for sending out a fund raising letter. They would have been called unpatriotic.
Then there is Senator DeMint who is holding up Senate approval of Erroll Southers to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Agency. The reason given by DeMint is that Mr. Southers might unionize the TSA agents.
So for DeMint, it seems unions are a greater terrorist threat than Al-Qaeda terrorists. One can only shake ones head at this logic. What is even scarier, Senator DeMint is still saying he is doing the right thing, but now he is saying the Democrats are trying to rush the nominee vote; even though its been over 3 months since Obama nominated Southers for the position.
Republicans and Dick Cheney keep saying that Obama is not aggressively fighting terrorists to protect the country. I guess they don’t consider U.S. aided attacks in Yemen, on December 24th and another one the previous week, against Al-Qaeda and possibly killing two of its leaders, as not being aggressive enough.
Dick Cheney and the Republicans seem to forget President Bush let bin Laden escape from Afghanistan while his administration prepared for an unnecessary war with Iraq, based on lies and misinformation.
Not only was the war unnecessary but it help recruit more terrorists for Al-Qaeda around the world.
From the Republican outcry, I can only assume they prefer a President who uses color coded alerts before holidays and elections, that scare and frighten the American public, for political advantage in order to make it appear his administration is on top of terrorists' activities.
I certainly don’t want a president to act in such a manner; but if President Obama had used such tactics, I can assure you that Republicans would have found fault with him anyway. What we don’t need at this time are fear tactics, but some sane reasoning to resolve the difficult problem of travel security for American citizens and how to protect this country against future terrorist attacks.
Its time for the Republican Party to act as true patriots, that they always claim to be, and work with President Obama to ensure our country and all Americans around the world are safe from terrorist attacks.
By GottaLaff
A week after U.S. and Yemeni officials said the radical Yemen cleric Anwar Awlaki may have been killed in a U.S.-backed Christmas eve air strike, a Yemeni journalist says Awlaki has surfaced to proclaim, "I'm alive."We need better aim.
By GottaLaff
Via an e-mail alert from the New York Times:
Two officials said the United States government had intelligence from Yemen before Christmas that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda there were talking about "a Nigerian" being prepared for a terrorist attack.
By GottaLaff
I have a quick break between San Francisco vacation activities, and ran across this, your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash via my pal Mark Karlin:
When you look back over the 9/11 act of terror that Bush could have likely prevented, but was too lazy to try and prevent after being warned, Al Qaeda beat the Neo-Cons from that point on. [...]Please read the whole thing here. I only gave you a sample.It appears Obama is taking a different path, and that his concern about the nukes in Pakistan falling into terrorist hands is far more on target in regards to our safety, and is a strategic approach to terrorism rather than an end run for oil fields. It's important to also note that by destabilizing Iraq, Bush and Cheney only made the theological extremists in Iran all the stronger.
Let's hope that our primal fear of falling from the sky doesn't overcome our ability to outmaneuver the terrorists.
Becoming terrorized only accomplishes their goals.
Of course they do.
CAIRO – Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner on Christmas day, saying it was retaliation for a U.S. operation against the group in Yemen.
In a statement posted on the Internet, the group said 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab coordinated with members of the group.
Yemeni forces, helped by U.S. intelligence, carried out two airstrikes against al-Qaida operatives in the country this month. The second one was a day before the attempted bombing of the plane.
The group said the would-be bomber used explosives manufactured by al-Qaida members.
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