Target Centermass

Category: War on Terror

  • UNC Students Debate Attack as ‘Terrorism’

    Apparently, some today are willing to argue that water isn’t wet.

    A rally at UNC on Monday turned into a heated debate between protestors who were calling on university administrators to label Friday’s attack as “terrorism” and students who thought the protest was divisive and insensitive to Muslims.

    About 20 students gathered in The Pit, a gathering point near the center of UNC’s campus where Friday’s attack occurred, to “condemn religious violence” and to ask UNC administrators and the news media to call last week’s crime terrorism, organizers wrote in a news release.

    Nine students were injured after being hit by a Jeep Grand Cherokee allegedly driven by Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, a recent UNC graduate. When Taheri-azar, a native of Iran, called 911 to turn himself in, he said he attacked the students to “punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world.” University police have said he specifically intended to avenge the deaths of Muslims.

    Monday’s protestors had intended to give speeches about their aim, but those plans were scuttled following a large and impromptu debate about the message that the rally sent to Muslim students.

    Jonathan Pourzal, a UNC sophomore, told the protestors that their mission offended him. He said attempts to label the alleged crimes as terrorism strengthen prejudices against Muslims.

    “By calling it religious violence, you are telling people that Muslims are violent,” Pourzal said.

    Well, let’s see. The attack was most assuredly violent, and the motivations were most definitely religious in nature. To correct Mr. Pourzal, by not calling it religious violence, you are telling people that you’re an idiot.

    No, Taheri-azar didn’t open fire with an AK-47 or trigger an IED. He did not fly a plane into the crowd of students, but he did drive an SUV into a crowd of innocents with intent to harm and possibly kill. It may seem pretty penny-ante (from a distance) when compared to other acts but, make no mistake, it was certainly an act of terror.

  • Cindy Sheehan Arrested After U.N. March

    Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan is back in the headlines again for yet another arrest. Bully for her — she’s scored another attention fix.

    Cindy Sheehan, who drew international attention when she camped outside President Bush’s ranch to protest the Iraq war, was arrested Monday along with three other women during a demonstration demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

    The march to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations by about a dozen U.S. and Iraqi anti-war activists followed a news conference at U.N. headquarters, where Iraqi women described daily killings and ambulance bombings as part of the escalating violence that keeps women in their homes.

    Women Say No to War, which helped organize the news conference and march, said Sheehan and three other women were arrested while trying to deliver a petition to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations with more than 60,000 signatures urging the “withdrawal of all troops and all foreign fighters from Iraq.” Police said they were arrested for criminal trespassing and resisting arrest.

    […]

    Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the U.S. Mission, said in response to Sheehan’s arrest: “We invited her in to discuss her concerns with a U.S. Mission employee. She chose not to come in but to lay down in front of the building and block the entrance. It was clearly designed to be a media stunt, not aimed at rational discussion,” Grenell said.

    This is the third arrest for Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan (see here and here for her previous run-ins with the long arm of the law). At this point, one has to wonder how much ink has to be wasted on this woman, be it through biassed fluff pieces in the media or through fingerprinting during bookings.

    Meanwhile, Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan’s upcoming protest in front of an American military base in Germany is still on, and Davids Medienkritik brings us the good word that a counter-rally is in the works.

    Cindy Sheehan will be in Germany this upcoming weekend to spread her message of retreat and defeat as she marches from a church in Landstuhl (a town where wounded American soldiers are treated) to a location outside Ramstein Airbase where she plans to set up another “Camp Casey.”

    But not everyone is planning to sit around and silently watch the German media fawn and drool over Ms. Sheehan. Several groups are organizing a peaceful counter demonstration to support American and Coalition soldiers and victory in Iraq. We strongly encourage all of our readers in Germany and surrounding areas to converge on Ramstein this Saturday to take part! Our website has already christened the demonstration site “Camp David.” We will be contacting other bloggers throughout Germany and Europe to spread the word.

    Check it out for details.

  • “The Head of the Snake”

    Tonight’s must-read: Michael J. Totten takes a look at a true torture chamber from the reign of Saddam Hussein and the genocide museum it has become today.

    Hat tips to several of the fine sites on my blog roll but, what the heck, let’s officially send one to In the Bullpen.

  • An Apology and a Link Dump

    Sorry, y’all, about the sparse posting of late — darn that real-world job thing. I’ve spent last night, early morning and a good chunk of tonight logged into work and, frankly, I’m a little sick of my computer right now. That said, as a substitute for actual material, here’s a handful of links about this, that and the other.

    Bringing Power to the People

    One of the most persistent myths about Iraq is that our efforts to improve the electrical system failed. That’s just plain wrong. The country’s in far better shape than it was under Saddam.

    But freedom always has a cost: In this case, the demand for power soared after Saddam fell — and crashed the grid. It’s been a long, hard fight to get it back up.

    Iraq never had an adequate power grid. Under the Ba’athist regime, Baghdad might have enjoyed power 18 or 20 hours a day, but other cities got three or four. One of the first things we did was to distribute power more equitably. Baghdad gets less, so its residents complain — but if you’re in almost any other Iraqi city, you’re far better off today than you were three years ago.

    In the wake of the war, we faced two immediate problems:

    * First: The grid was even more decrepit than the worst pessimists had suspected. Saddam never funded electrification adequately; spare-parts money from the Oil-For-Food program went to build palaces and monuments instead.

    * Second: As soon as the borders opened, appliances flowed in, from refrigerators to air-conditioners to satellite dishes (the dishes are everywhere). Money came out from under a few million beds and the country went on a massive shopping spree that hasn’t ended. As soon as the Saddam-era system was exposed to “normal” demands, it crashed.

    Nonetheless, power generation last July averaged 5,300 megawatts; the top pre-war peak was 4,300. Just now, output’s down to 3,900 to 4,200 megawatts— because the system’s being serviced and upgraded to meet this summer’s demands.

    Power matters. As one ranking official (who preferred not to be named) put it, “Power is the Iraqis’ No. 1 concern” and “the center of gravity” for our efforts. Power outages affect far more lives than terrorism does.

    The insurgents and terrorists realize this. The progress to date has come despite frequent attacks on transmission lines and on the pipelines that fuel the power plants (another action that turns Iraqis against our mutual enemies).

    […]

    The challenge isn’t just power generation, either. Everything was decrepit, from sub-stations to the power lines themselves. We faced a daunting task. And our fellow Americans in Iraq have done a far better job than they’ve received credit for doing.

    We aren’t just fixing it all while the Iraqis watch, either. We couldn’t. The cost would be prohibitive, and rebuilding the entire power system was never our intention. Our goal was to jump-start the system, then teach Iraqis how to do it — and more and more projects are now carried out by Iraqi firms and ministries, with U.S. officials offering only supervision and advice.

    Iraqis won’t be fully content for years, of course. They desperately want to be part of the modern world — and that’s going to take a long time. Meanwhile, they’re finding workarounds. Many Baghdad neighborhoods have chipped in to buy communal generators to provide reliable power to their homes. Not the perfect system, but it buys time for development.

    Significant problems remain, no question about it. Iraq was a ruined country. But things are going far better than you’ve been told.

    The emphasis above was added, and Ralph Peters calling out poor coverage by our media is nothing new. I’ll always happily link to columns by or involving him, as I’ve previously done here, here and here. I’ll also happily plug my introduction to Peters, which was his somewhat-prescient novel, The War in 2020. I first cracked that entertaining adventure in the gunner’s seat of an M1 while waiting on a gunnery range at Ft. Hood, travelling in the way-back machine to May of ’93.

    Abbas claims al-Qaida is operating in Gaza

    The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that he believes al-Qaida has infiltrated the occupied territories and could further destabilise the region.

    “We have indications about a presence of al-Qaida in Gaza and the West Bank. This is intelligence information. We have not yet reached the point of arrests,” Mr Abbas told Al Hayat, the London-based Arabic newspaper.

    Later he added that Palestinian security forces had been given the task of heading off any extremist plots. “Our forces are trying with all available means to prevent them from arriving to carry out terrorist attacks in this region,” he said.

    Israel’s acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said he was not surprised by the remarks.

    Nor should anyone be surprised; stability in the world of Islam is not to the benefit of murderous extremists. For that matter, stability and progress among the Palestinians is not exactly a goal for the surrounding Arab states — a victimized Palestinian people allows allows the despotic states to misdirect the unrest of their people towards the supposed great and little satans of America and Israel.

    Deadly blast ahead of Bush visit

    A suspected suicide car bomb outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi has killed an American diplomat and at least three other people, but President George W. Bush said terrorists would not stop his visit to Pakistan.

    Bush was in neighboring India when the explosion happened on Thursday, and he immediately vowed to stick with his plan to fly to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, on Friday evening.

    “Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan,” he said, adding the bombing showed the war on terrorism must continue.

    Bush is not expected to visit the southern city of Karachi during his short visit.

    National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley admitted Bush’s overnight visit to Pakistan was “not a risk-free undertaking.”

    The article goes on to mention the actual victim, but the following story does the man a far better justice.

    Foy spent life serving his country

    David Foy was 51, had served 23 years as a senior chief in the Navy, but wanted to continue serving his country. So he signed up for the State Department and spent the last three years in two very remote parts of the world, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan.

    Just five months ago he took over as facilities manager at the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, supervising the building’s maintenance staff.

    Yesterday Foy was killed, along with three other people, when a suicide bomber stopped by consulate security staff drove his car into Foy’s vehicle, throwing it onto the grounds of a nearby Marriott Hotel.

    “He talked many times about the challenges he had there, between the different languages and their way of repairing things versus our way,” said Foy’s brother-in-law David Cushing at the family home in North Carolina.

    Foy had four grown daughters, the youngest 20 and in college in the United States. Neither the girls nor Foy’s wife, Donna, lived with him overseas. The State Department has ordered that families of diplomats posted in Pakistan stay outside the country for security reasons.

    […]

    The family, Cushing said, “would like him to be portrayed as someone who spent his life serving the country.”

    And that is how he should be portrayed and remembered. My gratitude goes out to David Foy, as do my best wishes for his family.

  • High Five for World Peace

    Now, before it’s too late! There’s only a little time left in International High-Five a Muslim Day and I’m rather late to the show.

    Do check the video — it’s great for a chuckle, though I doubt we’ll be seeing any Christian riots over the portrayal of Jesus. Hey, maybe this is just the sort of outreach we need to find world peace. After all, there are most certainly far worse ideas being presented.

  • Senior Zarqawi Aide Captured

    Too many times has the story been trumpeted that the noose is tightening around the neck of bloody terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and I’ll admit I’ve played my part in the brass soundings. Still, one day one of these stories just may be the linchpen to the bastard’s demise. Maybe this is the one, though I’m not holding my breath.

    Iraqi Interior Ministry forces captured a senior aide to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi state television said.

    Iraqiya named the man as Abu Farouq and said he was captured with five others in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of the capital.

    It said Abu Farouq al-Suri, previously unknown to the media, was captured by the Wolf Brigade, one of several counter-insurgency units operating within the Shiite-run Interior Ministry but accused by Sunnis of targeting civilians in their community.

    The word Suri is Arabic for Syrian, indicating that the captured man may have come from Iraq’s western neighbour.

    US military spokespeople were unaware of the capture.

    Previous postings, all too familiar and hopeful, are as follows:

    And I ain’t even going to pretend I blogged each rendition of this tale. Still, every single one brings hope for the end of the menace that is Zarqawi.

  • Sheehan to Protest at U.S. Posts in Germany in March

    Ah, Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan, you should certainly be able to get a good attention fix with the plans you’ve got in the works now.

    Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and the woman who protested the war last summer outside President Bush’s Texas ranch, is scheduled to bring her anti-war message to U.S. military installations in Germany next month.

    “[We’ve already heard] that Cindy Sheehan is like Hanoi Jane [Fonda] coming here,” said Elsa Rassbach, an event organizer with American Voices Abroad, which is supporting Sheehan’s trip.

    But, she said, “We’re here to just democratically talk about U.S. policy.”

    The Hanoi Jane comparison sounds about right for Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan. To denounce our government policy and lie about America on our soil, however disgusting in this case, is her right. To do it abroad, as she will, is beyond vile.

    On March 11, protesters plan to walk from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to a parking lot just outside Ramstein Air Base, where Sheehan will be at a “camp,” paying tribute to those who have died in the Iraq war.

    “Cindy will be with us at Camp Casey Landstuhl/Ramstein to call attention to the fact that Germany is Europe’s logistical hub for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and others threatening Iran and the Middle East,” according to an event flier. “Germany has the power to stop the further use of U.S. bases in Germany for illegal wars and criminal methods of warfare — the power and the right to just say no!”

    Organizers are hoping to erect the camp — known as Camp Casey for Sheehan’s son — in a parking lot outside Ramstein Air Base’s west gate. The parking lot is under German jurisdiction, said Erin Zagursky, an Air Force spokeswoman at the base. Protest organizers are meeting with city officials in Ramstein and Landstuhl to gain permission for their event.

    […]

    Sheehan’s goals are to bring the troops home and have peace on earth, she said in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes.

    She also wants to teach the world to sing in freakin’ perfect harmony. And everybody gets a pet bunny.

    Her son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, 24, was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004.

    Snark aside, SPC Sheehan was honored by Blackfive in a manner far, far better than anything than anything Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan has done or will continue to do in her constant quest for notoriety.

    Sheehan said in an e-mail she was too busy for a phone interview with Stars and Stripes.

    “I don’t know anything about the visit,” she wrote. “It is being arranged by some people in Germany.”

    With the Kaiserslautern military community home to more than 50,000 Americans with military ties, Sheehan could face a rough welcome. When asked for comment Wednesday on Sheehan’s upcoming visit, several soldiers in Kaiserslautern asked if they could be quoted anonymously.

    One soldier, who recently returned from Iraq, did give his name but didn’t have much to say about Sheehan.

    “Anything I would have to say about her, you couldn’t print,” Army Staff Sgt. Mark Genthner said.

    SSG Genthner speaks — or rather diplomatically refuses to speak — for a great many of our troops. Here’s hoping Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan will have a grand opportunity for a great deal of interaction with those she’s trying to save.

    Certainly, friendly confines and adoration await Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan on much of her European vacation.

    Beginning March 9, Sheehan’s European visit will take her to Frankfurt, Aachen, Landstuhl and Ramstein in Germany. On March 13, Sheehan is scheduled to have a news conference in Paris, and the following day will address the European Union parliament in Strasbourg, France.

    A protest organizer in Landstuhl said he was asked by others, including some of the 732 members of the European Union parliament, to arrange the protest involving Sheehan.

    “The meeting with Cindy Sheehan is coming to us by an offer of members of the European Union in Strasbourg,” said Detlev Besier, a Protestant reverend in Landstuhl. “They asked whether it was possible or not to visit Ramstein Air Base and the hospital. It was not our idea. We were asked whether it was possible or not.”

    Yes, the tripe of Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan will play very well in France and before the EU parliament. Perhaps she may even call for an end to the American military occupation of Germany, as she has previously of Iraq and Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.

    Rassbach said she did not know what response servicemembers would have to Sheehan’s appearance outside Ramstein Air Base.

    Oh, I have some guesses. Hat tip to Greyhawk and the Gunn Nutt, who weigh in with their thoughts on the plans for Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan’s Euro adventures.

    Previous Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan blogging:

  • Dems May Unite on Plan to Pull Troops

    Apparently, the Democrat party is gelling around the idea that strategic redeployment is a double-plus good strategy for Iraq. To translate from their window-dressing newspeak, the accurate phrasing they’re looking for is, in a word, retreat.

    After months of trying unsuccessfully to develop a common message on the war in Iraq, Democratic Party leaders are beginning to coalesce around a broad plan to begin a quick withdrawal of US troops and install them elsewhere in the region, where they could respond to emergencies in Iraq and help fight terrorism in other countries.

    The concept, dubbed ”strategic redeployment,” is outlined in a slim, nine-page report coauthored by a former Reagan administration assistant Defense secretary, Lawrence J. Korb, in the fall. It sets a goal of a phased troop withdrawal that would take nearly all US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007, although many Democrats disagree on whether troop draw-downs should be tied to a timeline.

    Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman, has endorsed Korb’s paper and begun mentioning it in meetings with local Democratic groups. In addition, the study’s concepts have been touted by the senator assigned to bring Democrats together on Iraq — Jack Reed of Rhode Island — and the report has been circulated among all senators by Senator Dianne Feinstein, an influential moderate Democrat from California.

    The party remains divided on some points, including how much detail to include in a party-produced document, fearful of giving too much fodder for attacks by Republicans.

    The concern for campaign accusations of defeatism and retreat are well placed, as those are the actual features of the plan.

    ”We’re not going to cut and run — that’s just Republican propaganda,” Dean said in a speech Feb. 10 in Boston. ”But we are going to redeploy our troops so they don’t have targets on their backs, and they’re not breaking down doors and putting themselves in the line of fire all the time. . . . It’s a sensible plan. It’s a thoughtful plan. I think Democrats can coalesce around it.”

    Reed, an Army veteran and former paratrooper who has been charged with developing a party strategy on the war, said the plan is attractive to many Democrats because it rejects what he calls the ”false dichotomy” suggested by President Bush: that the only options in Iraq are ”stay the course” or ”cut and run.”

    ”It’s important to note that it’s not withdrawal — it’s redeployment,” Reed said. ”We need to pursue a strategy that is going to accomplish the reasonable objectives, and allow us to have strategic flexibility. Not only is it a message, but it’s a method to improve the security there and around the globe.”

    Withdrawal is redeployment. Black is white. Up is down. Running away from hardship is strengthening security. Granted, there are times the latter may be true; however, this is not one of those times, as radical Islamists will immediately declare it a victory so great that the Somalia tail-tucking will pale in comparison.

    Under Korb’s outline, all reservists and National Guard members would come home this year. Most of the other troops would be redeployed to other key areas — Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and the Horn of Africa — with large, quick-strike forces placed in Kuwait, where they could respond to crises in neighboring Iraq.

    Yes, let’s immediately declare that our military’s reserve components, long held as a key portion for our national security plans, are now to be kept safely under glass — only break in the event of a hurricane.

    Korb said in an interview that setting dates for troop withdrawal would send a message to the Iraqi people that the United States does not intend to set up permanent military bases in Iraq. Starting the redeployment quickly will ensure that the Army does not wear out before the insurgents do, he said.

    Trust me, the message would also be sent to our Islamist enemies — bleed us and we will flee, and we’ll set a date that you merely have to hold out to that you can enter into your Defeat-America project plan.

    But some strategists say the goal of a near-total withdrawal within two years is overly optimistic. US troops that are a plane ride away won’t be an effective deterrent, and Iraqi security forces appear unlikely to be able to handle the violence on their own in the near future, said Michael O’Hanlon, a centrist defense specialist who is a lecturer at Princeton University.

    ”You’re demanding that the political system produces a miracle,” O’Hanlon said. ”Any plan that envisions complete American withdrawal in such a period of time is still a prescription for strategic defeat.”

    Quite freakin’ right.

    In November, Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, shook much of Washington with his call for an immediate withdrawal of troops, and his estimate that all troops could be out of Iraq within six months. The generally hawkish Vietnam veteran also called for quick strike forces to remain close to Iraq — similar to the Korb plan — but that was largely overlooked in the barrage from Republicans.

    White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Murtha plan amounted to ”surrender to the terrorists.”

    Yes, the Democrats seem to be on the verge of rallying around an only-slightly modified version of the Murtha plan for retreat, a plan that lacks substance in the areas of actually maintaining an abililty to respond quickly enough to in-region actions and a threshold at which such re-engagement would be justified. In short, the plan offers the Iraqi government the same hollow promise we gave the South Vietnamese in 1973: we’ll be there if needed. The only problem is the Islamist terrorrists, the Iraqi people and the whole world know that we failed on that earlier promise.

    Hat tip to Charlie Munn of the Officers’ Club, who points out some key contradictions in the so-called strategy in the following:

    Next, what other key areas do we need 130,000+/- troops deployed to? (I would answer “Iran”) Afghanistan is being effectively handled by SF and light units, putting power in the hands of the locals and backing them up with a small US footprint. Does this new strategy suggest that we’ve been bungling OEF, and we need to put mech and armor units on the ground? Same with the Horn of Africa- if our footprint is the problem in Iraq, why is it the solution in other places?

    Further, the logic for this “strategic re-deployment” seems to be that US forces are causing terrorist attacks simply by being there (echoes of Osama). Following that logic, anywhere we deploy we will be attacked, so we might as well not do any military operations anywhere, ever. Also, if the threat is currently in Iraq, and we “strategically re-deploy” to where the threat is not, it is rather easy to label this strategy as a “cut and run.”

    Yes, it does seem to be a strategy of being where we ain’t targets. Well, it doesn’t take much to figure the counter-strategy for the radical Islamist bastards — hit the American military wherever they are and watch them flee all they can flee.

    Damn, but I do hope the American public sees this for the defeatist retreat that it is.

  • Reid: More Understanding for Troops Needed

    ‘Tis sad that things have come to a point where a British official must almost beg for his nation to not rush to judgement of its men in uniform.

    Defence Secretary John Reid has called for more understanding of the difficult tasks British troops face in conflicts around the world.

    He asked politicians, pundits and the public to be “a little slower to condemn and a lot quicker to understand” what life is like on the battlefield.

    Advances in technology meant soldiers “have never been under greater scrutiny”, which he said created an uneven playing field for British troops.

    […]

    “We ask an enormous amount of our troops; that the most junior faces risks, dangers, threats unimaginable to most of us; that our officers take calculated risks, and make immediate life and death decisions upon which literally thousands of lives may depend,” Mr Reid said.

    His remarks come in the wake of an international outcry over a video of soldiers beating unarmed Iraqi youths.

    The footage has reportedly lead to regional Iraqi councils in Maysan and Basra ending all co-operation with the British Army.

    Three soldiers have already been arrested in connection with the incident while military police have interviewed four youths about the attack.

    Any abuses by British forces had to be condemned but involved less than 0.05% of the 100,000 troops sent to Iraq and should be kept in perspective, he added.

    And just what did I omit from the above selection? What did my “[…]” skip over? Just the following:

    Just hours after his keynote speech in London, hundreds of mourners gathered for the funeral of Corporal Gordon Pritchard who last month became the 100th British forces member to die since hostilities started in Iraq. He was killed when the Land Rover he was travelling in was hit by a roadside bomb.

    Ah, the ever-present reminder of casualties. Nothing about how Gordon Pritchard lived, but just the fact that he died, thrust into a barely-related story. However, I’m sure the British media do a better job than their American counterparts at covering the abuse stories and accomplishments of their own troops. Well, maybe not, as a Brit veteran is, like Reid, also all but begging for the media to reel itself in on its coverage.

    A former soldier who served in Iraq has urged the media to exercise great care in coverage of the conflict.

    Iain McMenemy was speaking after Defence Secretary John Reid called for more understanding to be shown towards British troops serving in Iraq.

    Mr McMenemy said it was right that abuses by troops were dealt with.

    However, he warned against a focus on “snapshot” incidents and said there should be a greater emphasis on the pressures troops face.

    […]

    Mr McMenemy, from Larbert, near Stirling, was a Territorial Army soldier who served with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

    Recalling his reaction on seeing the controversial video footage, Mr McMenemy said: “It comes as a punch in the guts really that the soldiers have carried these actions out because it is going to be used, no matter what the circumstances, to stir up further tensions.

    “But I have to be honest and say I also do get a little bit annoyed that you never hear it from the soldier’s side, you only see the effect, we never actually see the cause.

    “We don’t know what happened to lead to what we’ve seen in the videos or the photographs. We only get that very, very small snapshot.”

    Mr McMenemy said that there was “no excuse” for soldiers acting irresponsibly.

    […]

    Mr McMenemy, a business consultant, said the defence secretary was right to raise concerns that the public were only seeing a “snapshot” of what goes on in Iraq.

    There are similar pleas on this side of the pond, as the conservative group Progress For America has published a couple of videos of veterans and families of our fallen trying to rouse support by espousing our under-reported progress and the nature of our enemies. Unsurprisingly, they have come under attack from the left.

    It has long been the popular notion that Hitler’s 1940 invasion of the Soviet Union was the blunder that cost Nazi Germany the Second World War. Often cited are the mistakes of opening a second front or being unprepared for the Russian winter or incapable of dealing with the eventual accumulation of Soviet resources. Today’s stories led me to think of another reason to consider Operation Barbarossa a mistake — the move depleted the desire for the leftists among the Commonwealth and its soon-to-be-official Yank allies to undermine their own countries’ war efforts, as Allied victory also became intertwined with the salvation of the then-gem of the socialist dream, the U.S.S.R. Bad move, Adolf, some of them might’ve helped ya, if only for deluded reasons. After all, that’s how the term useful idiots came to be.

  • Prosecutors to Introduce Alleged Terror Camp Photos

    Details of the prosecution case against a father-son pair of would-be domestic Islamist terrorists are surfacing, including satellite photos purported to show an al Queda training camp in Pakistan.

    The government has satellite images of a suspected al-Qaida training camp that federal prosecutors claim was attended by a man on trial for terrorism-related charges, according to a prosecution brief.

    Prosecutors had previously said they would seek to introduce images from Pakistan but had not publicly disclosed the nature of those photographs. The evidence is expected to be a key part of the government’s case against 23-year-old Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, 48.

    On Wednesday, a jury of six men and six women was seated for the trial of Hamid Hayat, who is charged with supporting terrorists by attending the camp in 2003 and 2004 and then lying about it to the FBI. Opening statements are scheduled to begin Thursday.

    The government also claims the son planned to attack hospitals and supermarkets after he returned to the U.S.

    Umer Hayat is charged with lying to the FBI about his son’s attending the camp. His portion of the trial is to begin next week before a separate jury that was seated Tuesday.

    Both deny the son attended the camp. In their brief, prosecutors did not offer any direct evidence that he did, such as photographs or witness accounts that place him there. Rather, their case centers on statements the men made to a confidential government informant in the U.S., the men’s purported videotaped confessions and the photographs they say show the actual camp.

    The Pakistani government denied any of the camps exist. Prosecutors, however, said they have satellite images “of a location consistent in appearance with the militant training camp that Hamid Hayat ultimately confessed that he attended,” according to the 60-page trial brief filed Tuesday night.

    The document outlines the government’s case against the father and son from Lodi, an agricultural community about 35 miles south of Sacramento. Both have been in custody since their arrests last June and have pleaded not guilty.

    […]

    Umer Hayat is charged with two counts of making false statements to FBI agents and faces eight years in prison if convicted. His son is charged with three counts of making false statements to the FBI about attending the camp and with providing material support to terrorists. If convicted, he faces up to 31 years in prison.

    Meanwhile, the defense has concocted a stunning argument.

    Defense attorneys have not offered an alibi to show that Hamid Hayat was anywhere other than where prosecutors say he was. But they contend the informant asked leading questions and that the FBI pressured the father and son to confess without a lawyer or interpreter present.

    Damn those leading questions.

    Mark my words — Islamist terror will assuredly come to our shores again. Thankfully, I’m pretty sure these two bastards won’t be involved.