Showing posts with label Taliban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taliban. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Navy Seal Team 6 - The Cover-up Continues

Navy Seals Team 6 – Update or Conspiracy Alert

US (Obama) bars media from covering return of 30 dead soldiers killed in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has ruled out media coverage of a ceremony marking the return of 30 US soldiers, including 22 Navy SEALs, who were killed when the helicopter they were travelling in was shot down in Afghanistan.

The return of the remains in flag draped coffins to the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, possibly today, was denied media coverage because given the nature of the attack there were "no identifiable remains" of these servicemen, Pentagon spokesman Marine Col David Lapan told reporters during an off camera briefing.

The International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was reportedly shot down by an insurgent rocket-propelled grenade while transporting the US service members and Afghan commandos to the scene of an engagement between ISAF and insurgent forces.

As a result of the attack, the helicopter exploded in midair, killing everyone on board.

"Due to the catastrophic nature of the crash, the remains of our fallen service members will be returned to the US via Dover AFB in unidentified status, until they can be positively identified by the Armed Forces Mortuary Affairs Office at Dover," another Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt Jane Campbell said in a statement later.

"Because the remains are unidentified at this point, next-of-kin are not in a position to grant approval for media access to the dignified transfer," he said.

Therefore, in accordance with the policy of the Department of Defense, no media coverage of the arrival and dignified transfer is permitted, Campbell said.

"Families will however, be given the opportunity to be present for the arrival," he said.

Coverage of arrival of soldiers killed in battlefield was banned for the media during the previous Bush administration.

The Obama administration permitted media coverage of the return ceremony for service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, subject to the approval by the next-of-kin. But this time the Department of Defense ruled against the media coverage.

Pentagon Press Association president Nancy Youssef said the organization has protested the decision to ban media coverage and had sought to reverse the decision.  posted at Times of India  -  US

Navy Seals Team 6 – Update or Conspiracy Alert

Posted  by Ask Marion on 7, 2011

Saturday, August 6th, 2011 Fox news released the alert early in the day that twenty members of Seal Team Six, the unit responsible for getting Osama Bin Laden were killed in Afghanistan. Additional information trickled out bit by bit…  And in minutes the blogosphere lit up.  More people than not immediately felt and stated their suspicions that something was just not right with this news.

Then mysteriously by the end of the day the reports began to change and the news was “corrected”, now it was being reported that it wasn’t any of the guys from the Bin Laden mission but other Seals.

We have friends who has a son serving right now that is part of a Special Forces Team and just back states side at a base filled with Special Forces.  He says that everyone of them believes that there is something fishy with the deaths, the reports, the events and especially the changing story.  Below is some input:

Was Seal Team Six Executed by Obama Administration?

The shocking death of the SEALS who took out bin Laden is starting to stink like a corpse.  And the one who’s sniffing that stench the loudest is Ann Barnhardt.  Immediately upon the tragic news of the deaths of Seal Team 6, Ann erupted with disgust at why President Obama’s staff had blared news of the deaths before the families of the deceased had themselves been notified.  This is NOT in accordance with military protocol.  She was also vehemently suspicious of just how Obama had been able to know the identities of the dead personnel when there hadn’t been enough time for DNA analysis; indeed, most of the bodies hadn’t yet been recovered.  But most of all she was highly suspicious as to just how the bumbling buffoons of the Taliban had been able to take out the elite Seals.  We all know that America’s soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan are awesome – but, face it folks, the Seals are a breed apart.

Seals operate in total secrecy, nobody knows who they are, where they are or what they’re doing; in short, the Seals are ‘invisible’ to the world, including their own fellow soldiers.  In fact, the Seals are ‘invisible’ to themselves in terms of knowing where they will be within the next hour or what they will be doing.  That secrecy protects them.  And the protection is ratcheted even higher when one adds in the amazing agility with which Seals move; finding them is nearly impossible because they slip and slide amongst the landscape like – well, like seals do in the ocean, darting at awesome speeds in the twinkling of an eye.  Which means that even if you DO get them in your sights, their speed is so incredible they could vanish before you pull the trigger.  So, given the slovenly ineptitude of the Taliban (a ragtag bunch of losers who more often blow themselves up instead of their targets), it is unthinkable that such a band of incompetents would have been able to execute such a huge number of highly trained, incredibly well-protected Seals.  It was akin to a high school dweeb taking down Bruce Lee with a single kick.

As far as Barnhardt was concerned, the death of the Seals could only have happened because of insider information.  The Taliban had to have known exactly where and when those Seals would be appear on the landscape – and had to been waiting with proper weaponry that would fire at precisely the right moment and angle.  Only then could all of those Seals been taken down.  The Seals wouldn’t have told the Taliban, their brother officers wouldn’t have and neither would have their immediate superiors.  No, only someone much higher up, someone privy to top secret information could have given that out.  And once you understand that an attack of this magnitude needed an insider, the next logical question is – why would the insider do that?  What would be their motive?

Well, if that insider were a President who refused to take out bin Laden because that President didn’t want to ‘upset’ the Muslims, than getting revenge on the ones who did is a whopper of a motive.  A fit of the self-pitying sulks only makes the motive worse.  Contrary to the lies from his administration, Obama was not glorified by the take down of bin Laden, he was instead humiliated.  This is because Obama never had a single thing to do with the terrorist’s death; it was all the work of CIA Director Leon Panetta.  Four months before the attack on the terrorist, Panetta and General Petraeus had located bin Laden’s whereabouts and begged the President to authorize a takedown of the murderer.  But Obama flatly refused.  He was more concerned with the feelings of the Muslim world than the grief and pain of the American victims of 9/11.  Enraged by Obama’s stance, Panetta then staged a palace coup by secretly organizing the entire operation himself (with the explicit cooperation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates).  The killing of bin Laden was thus Panetta’s triumph, not the Commander in Chief – which accounts for that humiliating picture of the Command Center in the White House basement on the night bin Laden died.  Whereas Clinton, Gates and even VP Biden are all seated at the command table as they’re briefed (off camera) by Panetta on the takedown, the President of the United States is banished from the table to squat in the corner like a tyke on his potty straining to make Number 2.  (Obama even has his finger in his mouth.)  It also explains why Obama’s nanny, Valerie Jarrett, was nowhere in sight.  Because she’d shrieked even worse than Obama against taking out the terrorist because of her concern for Muslim ‘good will’, Panetta had slammed the door of the room shut in her face.  Trust me – Valerie and Barack had more than enough motive to ‘punish’ the Seals.

Well, someone did just that because now the Seals are dead.  Barnhardt is smelling a rat – and I am also.  And the smell is only getting worse with the news (which Barnhardt outlines below) that the Seals themselves were not only clumped together in abnormally huge numbers (they never travel in large packs) but were also NOT traveling in their usual specially armored choppers. 

I hope and pray that I (and Ann) are wrong.  But I don’t think so.

————————-

Tip from Afghanistan

Posted by Ann Barnhardt – August 7, AD 2011 6:57 AM MST

I received a tip from a soldier stationed with an aviation brigade out of Jalalabad overnight.

“Almost immediately, after news of the crash began to spread, we were placed in an internet and phone blackout. This means communication with family, friends and “others” back home, in real time, is prevented until further notice.

However, there are also chinook pilots, crews and mechanics assigned here who were privy to the details of the crash almost immediately. One of confirmed details they have been discussing is that the chinook shot down belonged to a National Guard unit. Which is causing people to whisper in astonishment, “why were some of the most elite of America’s military, in such large numbers, tooling around on a National Guard aircraft?”

Also, those around me are wondering why such a large number(extremely unconventional for Seals, Green Berets, etc) of them riding in a single aircraft instead of being spread out into numerous aircraft.

Without question, I mean no disrespect to the pilots and crew of the National Guard aircraft, but the fact is that it’s very “strange” that Seals would be conducting an actual mission, with such large numbers, in such a basic aircraft. Especially, given the fact, that there were special operation chinooks easily available, and sitting idle, when this tragedy took place.”

I am not a journalist. I have no means of checking this. But SOMEONE needs to investigate if in fact the SEALS were on a National Guard helo, if there were SPECOPS Chinooks available and idle, and what the difference in armament is between Guard Chinooks and SPECOPS Chinooks. This potential difference in armament is HUGE and could account for the possibility of the Chinook being shot down by an RPG, if that is what happened.

Hello? Journalists? Anyone out there?

UPDATE: The SPECOPS Chinook is a very different beast that is heavily upgraded with enhanced survivability features. It is the Boeing MH-47E/G. Boeing’s Homepage for the SPECOPS chinook here. The soldier quoted above contends that the SEALS were NOT in one of these units, but rather in a standard Chinook while these SPECOPS Chinooks were available and sitting idle. Again, a JOURNALIST needs to confirm this.

UPDATE 2: From a reader:

Ann,
You are on to something here. I was in the 160th 1982- 1985 and I can tell you that the reason the aviation wing was created was so special ops would never again have to fly missions with anyone other than their own pilots and birds.

UPDATE 3: From a reader:

Ann, I’m sure you’re getting a lot of notes on the Chinook debacle. I’m retired USAF familiar with how the system works when it comes to the questions asked by your Jalalabad contact. First, look to the Command Authority. Dispersion protocols are almost never broken except on direct order up the chain high enough that nobody could question or refuse the order without jeopardizing their career.Second, ‘who benefits’? Follow the trail of beneficiaries to the incident. Tactically, intell had to be passed to the shooters as to the timetable. I’m willing to bet that there were several RPG’s (if not Stinger’s – remember, we provided quite a few and never kept a record during the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan) involved. Then, once fired, the shooters had to egress unseen to fight another day. Many people I know, including some recently back from that area say this stinks to high Heaven, as you do.

Updated August 8, 2011 3:30pm ET

Today 31 NATO troops, 20 of them Navy Seals from the Osama bin Laden operation died in what is reported as a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

The chances of this story being true is almost nil.  The chances of this being a staged cover-up is over 80%.  We believe these people were murdered to silence them.  This is why.

Some Possibly Killed in Abbottabad Helicopter Crash Months Before
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor – Veteran Times

We have solid information on two areas:

  1. Osama bin Laden died in 2001 as an active CIA employee and his body was recovered in Afghanistan and taken to “the sand box.”  We were told it was frozen.  We have so much verification from this, CIA, ISI, US military and top officials.  I have a direct confirmation from Bin Laden’s CIA handler who I grilled mercilessly on this.
  2. The Abbottabad operation involved numerous American deaths, witnessed, bodies all over, a helicopter crash. (suppressed translated TV interview below)  These bodies were recovered by land vehicle from Islamabad and there was NO “successful” bin Laden operation of any kind.  There was and has been a CIA safe house in Abbotabad where terror suspects were stored for years.

This gave the US several areas of severe vulnerability.  Generally, Navy Seals are the best people in the world at keeping their mouths shut, these are real team players, as the term “Seal Team” belies.

We at VT were informed that the bin Laden operation was staged at this time, a theatrical farce, to cover the exit of Secretary Gates, the move by former CIA Director Leon Panetta into the DOD as Secretary of Defense and to stem any heroic claims by new CIA Director Petraeus of killing the long dead Osama bin Laden, the long frozen CIA operative.

Petraeus is a possible presidential contender and had to be denied this “gift from heaven,” a fast track to the oval office for sure.

Will We Ever Know What Happened?

Again, I remind you, I went over specific meetings on bin Laden with his handlers, getting every last detail.  I have watched what has gone on, the continuing need to vilify a long dead top CIA operative to provide residual cover for the Bush administration….

The reason?  Bush and his cronies are all facing charges of war crimes, not just in minor jurisdictions but heading for the ICC, putting them on the dock with Gaddafi ( a far less harmful character).

As for the timing of this incident?  This we will work on.  What we can easily surmise is that some of the dead have been dead since their bodies were taken away from the helicopter crash site in Abbotabad.

Who would order such a thing?  We are going to have to wait but we are going to find out.  However, we expected this, the timing is exactly as predicted.

HOW VT TRIED TO SAVE THEM

When the phony Abbotbad operation came out, I immediately understood what happened.  I also saw much potential good from it other than the tragedy of the dead Americans from the crash.  I wrote of this and see their deaths as more heroic than many recognize.

They died to erase for all time remnants of the Bush era fairly tale of bad guy and evildoer Osama bin Laden.  Enough good men had died chasing a ghost who lived only in phony video and audio tapes by “Bin Laden Studios” in Tel Aviv and in the continual “boogeyman” rhetoric of professional fear-mongers.

Not long afterward, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, another able public servant announced the near defeat of Al Qaeda, another Bush fairly tale.

Al Qaeda has never existed, there are no magic worldwide terror conspiracies other than those run by governments.  There are several of those and I have written extensively on these.  Google will help you with this if you are curious.

When VT saw why the government staged this, we saw we could accomplish two things:

  1. We could simply report the truth for those willing to believe it, something we believe is the right thing to do.
  2. We could also support the United States in a very real way, knowing Pakistan would weather this crisis, timed, in some ways, as a face saving move in response to the embarrassing Raymond Davis affair.  I believed if the truth came out, clear enough for insiders, intel and military for sure, to understand that we knew and other insiders knew, there would be no reason to “clean house” afterward, to stage a cover-up and get rid of any involved.

Abbotabad – How Many Died Here?

I had felt that we had provided cover for the Seal Team, we hadn’t trashed them, we acknowledged the dead at Abbotabad where no one else bothered, this is our job as fellow members of America’s military forces (current and former).

More importantly, we got out word, I certainly did enough radio and TV on this, enough that, for anyone who care, the “truth was out there.”

This is all we could do but I hoped it would stem a need for covering tracks.  After all, anyone leaking real information on the operation would only seem like they had gotten it from me and I put it out there in such a manner that I allowed room to be “debunked.”

I do this to protect myself but I really was thinking of them.  These are great guys, Seals are among the best people on earth.  The Seal and Special Forces communities are, of the military groups in the US, some of the finest people I know.

They also help cover my “behind,” which I appreciate.

This is just too obvious, too brazen.  I can’t imagine it started at the White House or even cabinet level but maybe I am deluding myself.  Bin Laden was all about the election.

After the bond collapse and credit disaster yesterday, anything threatening President Obama’s reelection is seen, by some, as a threat to America’s financial survival.  This debt crisis is a bigger threat to the US than a Japanese invasion in 1942 would have been.

You may not see it that way and you certainly cant get out your hunting rifle to fix it. (Don’t be a sap, kill a Jap!)

Osama in Better Days

Someone had gotten to someone.  My best guess and this is a guess…an expose’ by the mainstream media, perhaps Murdoch, another guess, conjecture I admit, regarding the farce at Abbottabad, information possibly gotten through spying, bribery and blackmail, threatened to take down Obama.

With Murdoch’s good friend and “monkeyboy,” Netanyahu ‘on the ropes,” with crowds marching in Israel’s streets demanding his ouster, we have more timing to factor in.

The bin Laden killing, the third rate drama of capturing an unarmed frozen dead guy and throwing him into the ocean had probably become an albatross around certain high ranking necks.

Norway was no accident, it was a warning too.  It has been containerized, just as the Murdoch espionage issue is now “poor Rupert and the pie thrower.”

These Americans are casualties in a game, one like 9/11, sacrificial pawns, like Britain’s 7/7, all lies, all theatre, all evil.

This is not for public consumption.  There are those who know exactly who I am talking to.

There are many of us here who still keep our mouths shut about so many things.  There are too many who don’t even care, most of us at VT do.  Yes, I am aware I can be jailed, I am aware my passport can be pulled, I already see the damned surveillance.

Amateurs.

We aren’t anti-American.  I am simply sick of seeing solutions that go one direction, stealing everything that isn’t nailed down.  I am also sick of the fact that Washington can’t visit the “head’ without Israel’s permission.

This…today, this is too much. It is unforgivable.  We are not going to allow this to stand.

We have a long standing history of “cleaning house” after operations of this kind.  Usually its dead senators in plane crashes, heart attacks, car wrecks, like the Minot Barksdale or 9/11 incidents.  I could name a dozen more.  Does the name Wheeler meaning anything to you?  Anyone remember Pat Tillman?

But this many?

g

Keep checking in with us and Ann Branhardt for updates to this story.  Ask Marion~

Video: Seal Team 6 – Investigate the White House

Monday, August 8, 2011

Navy Seals Team 6 - Update or Conspiracy Alert

Saturday, August 6th, 2011 Fox news released the alert early in the day that twenty members of Seal Team Six, the unit responsible for getting Osama Bin Laden were killed in Afghanistan. Additional information trickled out bit by bit…  And in minutes the blogosphere lit up.  More people than not immediately felt and stated their suspicions that something was just not right with this news.

Then mysteriously by the end of the day the reports began to change and the news was “corrected”, now it was being reported that it wasn’t any of the guys from the Bin Laden mission but other Seals.

We have friends who has a son serving right now that is part of a Special Forces Team and just back states side at a base filled with Special Forces.  He says that everyone of them believes that there is something fishy with the deaths, the reports, the events and especially the changing story.  Below is some input:

Was Seal Team Six Executed by Obama Administration?

The shocking death of the SEALS who took out bin Laden is starting to stink like a corpse.  And the one who's sniffing that stench the loudest is Ann Barnhardt.  Immediately upon the tragic news of the deaths of Seal Team 6, Ann erupted with disgust at why President Obama's staff had blared news of the deaths before the families of the deceased had themselves been notified.  This is NOT in accordance with military protocol.  She was also vehemently suspicious of just how Obama had been able to know the identities of the dead personnel when there hadn't been enough time for DNA analysis; indeed, most of the bodies hadn't yet been recovered.  But most of all she was highly suspicious as to just how the bumbling buffoons of the Taliban had been able to take out the elite Seals.  We all know that America's soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan are awesome - but, face it folks, the Seals are a breed apart.

Seals operate in total secrecy, nobody knows who they are, where they are or what they're doing; in short, the Seals are 'invisible' to the world, including their own fellow soldiers.  In fact, the Seals are 'invisible' to themselves in terms of knowing where they will be within the next hour or what they will be doing.  That secrecy protects them.  And the protection is ratcheted even higher when one adds in the amazing agility with which Seals move; finding them is nearly impossible because they slip and slide amongst the landscape like - well, like seals do in the ocean, darting at awesome speeds in the twinkling of an eye.  Which means that even if you DO get them in your sights, their speed is so incredible they could vanish before you pull the trigger.  So, given the slovenly ineptitude of the Taliban (a ragtag bunch of losers who more often blow themselves up instead of their targets), it is unthinkable that such a band of incompetents would have been able to execute such a huge number of highly trained, incredibly well-protected Seals.  It was akin to a high school dweeb taking down Bruce Lee with a single kick.

As far as Barnhardt was concerned, the death of the Seals could only have happened because of insider information.  The Taliban had to have known exactly where and when those Seals would be appear on the landscape - and had to been waiting with proper weaponry that would fire at precisely the right moment and angle.  Only then could all of those Seals been taken down.  The Seals wouldn't have told the Taliban, their brother officers wouldn't have and neither would have their immediate superiors.  No, only someone much higher up, someone privy to top secret information could have given that out.  And once you understand that an attack of this magnitude needed an insider, the next logical question is - why would the insider do that?  What would be their motive? 

Well, if that insider were a President who refused to take out bin Laden because that President didn't want to 'upset' the Muslims, than getting revenge on the ones who did is a whopper of a motive.  A fit of the self-pitying sulks only makes the motive worse.  Contrary to the lies from his administration, Obama was not glorified by the take down of bin Laden, he was instead humiliated.  This is because Obama never had a single thing to do with the terrorist's death; it was all the work of CIA Director Leon Panetta.  Four months before the attack on the terrorist, Panetta and General Petraeus had located bin Laden's whereabouts and begged the President to authorize a takedown of the murderer.  But Obama flatly refused.  He was more concerned with the feelings of the Muslim world than the grief and pain of the American victims of 9/11.  Enraged by Obama's stance, Panetta then staged a palace coup by secretly organizing the entire operation himself (with the explicit cooperation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates).  The killing of bin Laden was thus Panetta's triumph, not the Commander in Chief - which accounts for that humiliating picture of the Command Center in the White House basement on the night bin Laden died.  Whereas Clinton, Gates and even VP Biden are all seated at the command table as they're briefed (off camera) by Panetta on the takedown, the President of the United States is banished from the table to squat in the corner like a tyke on his potty straining to make Number 2.  (Obama even has his finger in his mouth.)  It also explains why Obama's nanny, Valerie Jarrett, was nowhere in sight.  Because she'd shrieked even worse than Obama against taking out the terrorist because of her concern for Muslim 'good will', Panetta had slammed the door of the room shut in her face.  Trust me - Valerie and Barack had more than enough motive to 'punish' the Seals. 

Well, someone did just that because now the Seals are dead.  Barnhardt is smelling a rat - and I am also.  And the smell is only getting worse with the news (which Barnhardt outlines below) that the Seals themselves were not only clumped together in abnormally huge numbers (they never travel in large packs) but were also NOT traveling in their usual specially armored choppers.  

I hope and pray that I (and Ann) are wrong.  But I don't think so.

-------------------------

http://barnhardt.biz/

Tip from Afghanistan

Posted by Ann Barnhardt - August 7, AD 2011 6:57 AM MST

I received a tip from a soldier stationed with an aviation brigade out of Jalalabad overnight.

"Almost immediately, after news of the crash began to spread, we were placed in an internet and phone blackout. This means communication with family, friends and "others" back home, in real time, is prevented until further notice.

However, there are also chinook pilots, crews and mechanics assigned here who were privy to the details of the crash almost immediately. One of confirmed details they have been discussing is that the chinook shot down belonged to a National Guard unit. Which is causing people to whisper in astonishment, "why were some of the most elite of America's military, in such large numbers, tooling around on a National Guard aircraft?"

Also, those around me are wondering why such a large number(extremely unconventional for Seals, Green Berets, etc) of them riding in a single aircraft instead of being spread out into numerous aircraft.

Without question, I mean no disrespect to the pilots and crew of the National Guard aircraft, but the fact is that it's very "strange" that Seals would be conducting an actual mission, with such large numbers, in such a basic aircraft. Especially, given the fact, that there were special operation chinooks easily available, and sitting idle, when this tragedy took place."

I am not a journalist. I have no means of checking this. But SOMEONE needs to investigate if in fact the SEALS were on a National Guard helo, if there were SPECOPS Chinooks available and idle, and what the difference in armament is between Guard Chinooks and SPECOPS Chinooks. This potential difference in armament is HUGE and could account for the possibility of the Chinook being shot down by an RPG, if that is what happened.

Hello? Journalists? Anyone out there?

UPDATE: The SPECOPS Chinook is a very different beast that is heavily upgraded with enhanced survivability features. It is the Boeing MH-47E/G. Boeing's Homepage for the SPECOPS chinook here. The soldier quoted above contends that the SEALS were NOT in one of these units, but rather in a standard Chinook while these SPECOPS Chinooks were available and sitting idle. Again, a JOURNALIST needs to confirm this.

UPDATE 2: From a reader:

Ann,
You are on to something here. I was in the 160th 1982- 1985 and I can tell you that the reason the aviation wing was created was so special ops would never again have to fly missions with anyone other than their own pilots and birds.

UPDATE 3: From a reader:

Ann, I'm sure you're getting a lot of notes on the Chinook debacle. I'm retired USAF familiar with how the system works when it comes to the questions asked by your Jalalabad contact. First, look to the Command Authority. Dispersion protocols are almost never broken except on direct order up the chain high enough that nobody could question or refuse the order without jeopardizing their career. Second, 'who benefits'? Follow the trail of beneficiaries to the incident. Tactically, intell had to be passed to the shooters as to the timetable. I'm willing to bet that there were several RPG's (if not Stinger's - remember, we provided quite a few and never kept a record during the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan) involved. Then, once fired, the shooters had to egress unseen to fight another day. Many people I know, including some recently back from that area say this stinks to high Heaven, as you do.

h/t to George King

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Tragedy! Twenty Members of Seal Team Six, the Unit Responsible for Getting Osama Bin Laden, Killed In Afg... Coincidence?

Is there anybody out there besides me that thinks this is just too much of a coincidence??

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A military helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing 31 U.S. special operation troops, most of them from the elite Navy SEALs unit that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, along with seven Afghan commandos. It was the deadliest single incident for American forces in the decade-long war.

The Taliban claimed they downed the helicopter with rocket fire while it was taking part in a raid on a house where insurgents were gathered in the province of Wardak late Friday. It said wreckage of the craft was strewn at the scene. A senior U.S. administration official in Washington said the craft was apparently shot down by insurgents. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the crash is still being investigated.

NATO confirmed the overnight crash took place and that there "was enemy activity in the area." But it said it was still investigating the cause and conducting a recovery operation at the site. It did not release details or casualty figures.

"We are in the process of accessing the facts," said U.S. Air Force Capt. Justin Brockhoff, a NATO spokesman.

One current and one former U.S. official said that the dead included more than 20 Navy SEALs from SEAL Team Six, the unit that carried out the raid in Pakistan in May that killed bin Laden. They were being flown by acrew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified.

President Barack Obama mourned the deaths of the American troops, saying in a statement that the crash serves as a reminder of the "extraordinary sacrifices" being made by the U.S. military and its families. He said he also mourned "the Afghans who died alongside our troops."

The death toll would surpass the worst single day loss of life for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001 -- the June 28, 2005 downing of a military helicopter in eastern Kunar province. In that incident, 16 Navy SEALs and Army special operations troops were killed when their craft was shot down while on a mission to rescue four SEALs under attack by the Taliban. Three of the SEALs being rescued were also killed and the fourth wounded. It was the highest one-day death toll for the Navy Special Warfare personnel since World War II.

With its steep mountain ranges, providing shelter for militants armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, eastern Afghanistan is hazardous terrain for military aircraft. Large, slow-moving air transport carriers like the CH-47 Chinook are particularly vulnerable, often forced to ease their way through sheer valleys where insurgents can achieve more level lines of fire from mountainsides.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday gave the first public word of the new crash, saying in a statement that "a NATO helicopter crashed last night in Wardak province" and that 31 American special operations troops were killed. He expressed his condolences to President Barack Obama.

The helicopter was a twin-rotor Chinook, said an official at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was receiving his information from an Afghan officer in Kabul.

The crash took place in the Sayd Abad district of Wardak province, said a provincial government spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid. The volatile region borders the province of Kabul where the Afghan capital is located and is known for its strong Taliban presence.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that Taliban fighters downed the helicopter during a "heavy raid" in Sayd Abad. He said NATO attacked a house in Sayd Abad where insurgent fighters were gathering Friday night. During the battle, the fighters shot down the helicopter, killing 31 Americans and seven Afghans, he said, adding that eight insurgents were killed in the fight.

There have been at least 17 coalition and Afghan aircraft crashes in Afghanistan this year.

Most of the crashes were attributed to pilot errors, weather conditions or mechanical failures.

However, the coalition has confirmed that at least one CH-47F Chinook helicopter was hit by a rocket propelled grenade on July 25. Two coalition crew members were injured in that attack.

Meanwhile, in the southern Helmand province, an Afghan government official said Saturday that NATO troops attacked a house and inadvertently killed eight members of a family, including women and children.

NATO said that Taliban fighters fired rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire at coalition troops during a patrol Friday in the Nad Ali district.

"Coalition forces responded with small arms fire and as the incident continued, an air strike was employed against the insurgent position," said Brockhoff. He added that NATO sent a delegation to meet with local leaders and investigate the incident.

Nad Ali district police chief Shadi Khan said civilians died in the bombardment but that it was unknown how many insurgents were killed.

Helmand, a Taliban stronghold, is the deadliest province in Afghanistan for international troops.

NATO has come under harsh criticism in the past for accidentally killing civilians during operations against suspected insurgents. However, civilian death tallies by the United Nations show the insurgency is responsible for most war casualties involving noncombatants.

In south Afghanistan, NATO said two coalition service member were killed, one on Friday and another on Saturday. The international alliance did not release further details.

With the casualties from the helicopter crash, the deaths bring to 365 the number of coalition troops killed this year in Afghanistan and 42 this month.

(Photo: Vanity Fair)

This was the largest single loss of life ever for SEAL Team Six.

The Associated Press has learned that more than 20 Navy SEALs from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden were among those lost in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

For anyone who questions what really happened to Bin Laden and what happened in that reported raid… the witness list is getting thin! (Bit my bit posts, photos and accounts related to these events are vanishing from the web… soon they will vanish, or be re-written with nobody to verify them, for posterity!)

“Just because something is a conspiracy does not mean it isn’t true!”  …Rubicon

Source:  Gateway Pundit and  Fox News

Update from Fox News… It has been confirmed that the helicopter carrying the Navy Seals plus 7 Afghans was shot down with an RGB.  Curiously neither the Taliban nor any Al-Qaeda groups have taken credit?  Odd??

My condolences to the families of the 31 Navy Seals that had their lives taken from them in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. My prayers go out to everyone who them loved them all.

Related:

Osama Bin Ladin Killed in US Military

Joe Biden Opens His Mouth about US Navy Seals

Doubts and Questions Abound

Monday, May 2, 2011

Osama Bin Laden Killed in US Military Operation in Pakistan; USA Has Body

Top Comments on Twitter and Facebook:

Obama sure uses a lot of "I's" in his message... "I authorized...I've oversaw..." Meanwhile, our brave troops are in harms way!

I thought Bin Laden was dead 9 years ago. Just when Barry’s popularity needs a BIG boost. I’m skeptical. sorry.

This is the case of a president that wants to assure his re-election and is and will do everything in his power to make it happen.  This is only the beginning of his smoke and mirrors!

Crowds cheering USA and waving American flags appear at

The timing of this is really weird. It's possible Pakistan and U.S has known his whereabouts for a while & this is a political stunt.

Osama killed by American hands. To the Navy Seals who got the S.O.B., I & all Americans offer heartiest congratulations & deepest gratitude.

If Osama is really dead, good… He can rot in Hell. However, I am very skeptical! I think it is very convenient timing for Obama’s reelection… a bit too convenient!

In his last attack on the world, Osama blew up all of our twitter feeds.

OOPS: MSNBC (and Geraldo on Fox) Says “Obama,” Not Osama Killed http://bit.ly/lgptA7

FBI: 10 Most Wanted list with Bin Laden has not been updated with "Dead/Capture" http://goo.gl/pg7fn

Phillies Crowd Erupts in ‘U-S-A’ Cheers on News of Bin Laden Death http://bit.ly/jr7yuH

Ground zero crowd cheering USA, fire trucks passing by honking in support http://t.co/Kq5m7vF

PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCES: BIN LADEN STILL DEAD http://j.mp/k2OFgH

FDNY celebrate bin Laden kill.  NYTimes front page http://cl.ly/6Nte

Video:  Osama Bin Laden is Dead

Osama Bin Laden Killed in US Military Operation in Pakistan

WASHINGTON--Osama bin Laden has been killed, President Barack Obama announced Sunday night.

President Obama made the announcement almost ten years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Within an hour of the news breaking, thousands of spectators were gathering outside of the White House chanting "USA, USA" and singing "God Bless America." Elsewhere in the United States, crowds gathered and fans at baseball games burst into spontaneous cheers.
"Justice has been done," the president said.

CNN and other news agencies reported that the US is in possession of the body and that identification has been absolutely confirmed. No details of bin Laden's death have been yet released.

The operation that killed the al-Qaida leader in a mansion outside of Islamabad was apparently the culmination of weeks of intelligence gathering and no less that five top secret national security meetings between Obama and his war cabinet.

US military and diplomatic installations are on a state of heightened alert and members of the Obama administration and the President have been alerting members of Congress and foreign leaders all night long.

Bin Laden was apparently killed in a "human operation" that was based on actionable intelligence in a mansion outside of Islamabad, Pakistan, according to CNN. He was killed in a highly secure compound, built in 2005, that was a virtual fortress of 15-foot-high walls and barbed wire.

The entire operation lasted just 40 minutes and was conducted by an elite team of US Navy SEALS, CIA officers, and other special military commandos. Pakistani intelligence officials apparently were key to the success of the mission, initial reports suggested.
The announcement comes nearly a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks which started a tireless hunt for the terrorist mastermind and al-Qaida leader.

Challenging the might of the "infidel" United States, Osama bin Laden masterminded the deadliest militant attacks in history and then built a global network of allies to wage a "holy war" intended to outlive him.

The man behind the suicide hijack attacks of September 11, 2001, and who U.S. officials said late on Sunday was dead, was the nemesis of former President George W. Bush, who pledged to take him "dead or alive" and whose two terms were dominated by a "war on terror" against his al-Qaida network.

Bin Laden also assailed Bush's successor, Barack Obama, dismissing a new beginning with Muslims he offered in a 2009 speech as sowing "seeds for hatred and revenge against America."
Widely assumed to be hiding in Pakistan -- whether in a mountain cave or a bustling city -- bin Laden was believed to be largely bereft of operational control, under threat from U.S. drone strikes and struggling with disenchantment among former supporters alienated by suicide attacks in Iraq in 2004-06.

But even as political and security pressures grew on him in 2009-2101, the Saudi-born militant appeared to hit upon a strategy of smaller, more easily-organized attacks, carried out by globally-scattered hubs of sympathizers and affiliate groups. Al=Qaida sprouted new offshoots in Yemen, Iraq and North Africa and directed or inspired attacks from Bali to Britain to the United States, where a Nigerian Islamist made a botched attempt to down an airliner over Detroit on Dec 25, 2009.

While remaining the potent figurehead of al-Qaida, bin Laden turned its core leadership from an organization that executed complex team-based attacks into a propaganda hub that cultivated affiliated groups to organize and strike on their own. With his long grey beard and wistful expression, bin Laden became one of the most instantly recognizable people on the planet, his gaunt face staring out from propaganda videos and framed on a U.S. website offering a $25 million bounty.

Officials say U.S. authorities have recovered bin Laden's body, ending the largest manhunt in history involving thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and tens of thousands of Pakistani soldiers in the rugged mountains along the border.

Whether reviled as a terrorist and mass murderer or hailed as the champion of oppressed Muslims fighting injustice and humiliation, bin Laden changed the course of history.

ASYMMETRIC WARFARE

The United States and its allies rewrote their security doctrines, struggling to adjust from Cold War-style confrontation between states to a new brand of transnational "asymmetric warfare" against small cells of Islamist militants. Al=Qaida's weapons were not tanks, submarines and aircraft carriers but the everyday tools of globalization and 21st century technology -- among them the Internet, which it eagerly exploited for propaganda, training and recruitment.

But, by his own account, not even bin Laden anticipated the full impact of using 19 suicide hijackers to turn passenger aircraft into guided missiles and slam them into buildings that symbolized U.S. financial and military power. Nearly 3,000 people died when two planes struck New York's World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the hijackers. "Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs," bin Laden said in a statement a month after the September 11 attacks, urging Muslims to rise up and join a global battle between "the camp of the faithful and the camp of the infidels." In video and audio messages over the next seven years, the al-Qaida leader goaded Washington and its allies. His diatribes lurched across a range of topics, from the war in Iraq to U.S. politics, the subprime mortgage crisis and even climate change.

A gap of nearly three years in his output of video messages revived speculation he might be gravely ill with a kidney problem or even have died, but bin Laden was back on screen in September 2007, telling Americans their country was vulnerable despite its economic and military power.

MILLIONAIRE FATHER

Born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, one of more than 50 children of millionaire businessman Mohamed bin Laden, he lost his father while still a boy -- killed in a plane crash, apparently due to an error by his American pilot. Osama's first marriage, to a Syrian cousin, came at the age of 17, and he is reported to have at least 23 children from at least five wives.

Part of a family that made its fortune in the oil-funded Saudi construction boom, bin Laden was a shy boy and an average student, who took a degree in civil engineering. He went to Pakistan soon after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and raised funds at home before making his way to the Afghan front lines and developing militant training camps. According to some accounts, he helped form al-Qaida ("The Base") in the dying days of the Soviet occupation. A book by U.S. writer Steve Coll, "The Bin Ladens," suggested the death in 1988 of his extrovert half-brother Salem -- again in a plane crash -- was an important factor in Osama's radicalization.

Bin Laden condemned the presence in Saudi Arabia of U.S. troops sent to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait after the 1990 invasion, and remained convinced that the Muslim world was the victim of international terrorism engineered by America. He called for a jihad against the United States, which had spent billions of dollars bankrolling the Afghan resistance in which he had fought.

TRAIL OF ATTACKS

Al-Qaida embarked on a trail of attacks, beginning with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six and first raised the specter of Islamist extremism spreading to the United States.
Bin Laden was the prime suspect in bombings of U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996 as well as attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224. In October 2000, suicide bombers rammed into the USS Cole warship in Yemen, killing 17 sailors, and al-Qaida was blamed. Disowned by his family and stripped of Saudi citizenship, bin Laden had moved first to Sudan in 1991 and later resurfaced in Afghanistan before the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996. With his wealth, largesse and shared radical Muslim ideology, bin Laden soon eased his way into inner Taliban circles as they imposed their rigid interpretation of Islam. From Afghanistan, bin Laden issued religious decrees against U.S. soldiers and ran training camps where militants were groomed for a global campaign of violence.

Recruits were drawn from Central, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and even Europe by their common hatred of the United States, Israel and moderate Muslim governments, as well as a desire for a more fundamentalist brand of Islam. After the 1998 attacks on two of its African embassies, the United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at Afghanistan, targeting al-Qaida training camps. Bin Laden escaped unscathed. The Taliban paid a heavy price for sheltering bin Laden and his fighters, suffering a humiliating defeat after a U.S.-led invasion in the weeks after the September 11 attacks.

ESCAPE FROM TORA BORA

Al-Qaida was badly weakened, with many fighters killed or captured. Bin Laden vanished -- some reports say U.S. bombs narrowly missed him in late 2001 as he and his forces slipped out of Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains and into Pakistan.

But the start of the Iraq war in 2003 produced a fresh surge of recruits for al-Qaida due to opposition to the U.S. invasion within Muslim communities around the world, analysts say. Apparently protected by the Afghan Taliban in their northwest Pakistani strongholds, bin Laden also built ties to an array of south Asian militant groups and backed a bloody revolt by the Pakistani Taliban against the Islamabad government.

Amid a reinvigorated al-Qaida propaganda push, operatives or sympathizers were blamed for attacks from Indonesia and Pakistan to Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Spain, Britain and Somalia.
Tougher security in the West and killings of middle-rank Qaida men helped weaken the group, and some followers noted critically that the last successful al Qaida-linked strike in a Western country was the 2005 London bombings that killed 52.

But Western worries about radicalization grew following a string of incidents involving U.S.-based radicals in 2009-10 including an attempt to bomb New York's Times Square. In a 2006 audio message, bin Laden alluded to the U.S. hunt for him and stated his determination to avoid capture: "I swear not to die but a free man."

© 2011 Thomson/Reuters

dc1

Crowd in Front of White House

Related:

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Why the U.S. Should Listen to India's Voters

Last November, 131 million Americans voted, and the whole world took notice. Over the last month, about 700 million Indians voted, and most Americans, like most of the world, didn't much notice.

To be sure, American elections are more important to people all over the world than those in any other country. But the election in India is more important to Americans than most of us realize. Including, perhaps, our president.

This was not always so. During the Cold War, India was something of a de facto ally of the Soviet Union. This was due in part to our alliance with its rival neighbor Pakistan, but also to a feeling of solidarity with the U.S.S.R. on the part of the ruling Congress Party and its two historic leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi.

The Congress vision of India was built on three pillars: socialism, autarky and secularism. Socialism meant a government-driven economy policed by a Permit Raj -- government bureaucrats had to approve every economic change. Autarky meant cutting India off from world trade, so that local industries could grow. Secularism meant toleration of religious diversity in a nation with both a large Hindu majority and the world's second-largest Muslim population.

The fall of the Soviet Union removed two of these three pillars. Manmohan Singh, then finance minister and now prime minister, began dismantling the Permit Raj. Successive governments led by the Congress Party and the Hindu nationalist BJP opened up India to trade, and export industries grew. Secularism remained, embraced by the Congress and not entirely repudiated by the BJP.

With the de facto alliance with the Soviets defunct, India was now open to an American alliance. Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit India in years. George W. Bush moved further, cultivating closer ties with India and signing and getting ratified a nuclear cooperation treaty.

It became obvious that we had much in common. Both countries have a large and capable military, both have nuclear weapons, both have electoral democracies and English common law traditions, and both are prime targets of Islamist extremists. After Sept. 11, when Pakistan's Gen. Pervez Musharraf made a U-turn and promised to help the United States in Afghanistan, he did so in the awareness that the United States had a friend on the other side of his border.

India also has the potential to contain the power of China, in conjunction with other well-armed democracies around its periphery -- Japan, South Korea and Australia. Its economy has been growing almost as fast as China's, and it now has a middle class of perhaps 200 million people.

The election held over four weeks in April and May has produced a result very much to our advantage. The Congress Party has been returned to power with a larger share of the vote than indicated by pre-election and exit polls and will no longer need Communists and left-wingers for majorities in the Lok Sabha. The BJP attacked Congress for being too close to the United States; voters evidently decided that this was not a minus but a plus.

All of which puts the ball in Barack Obama's court. He has scarcely mentioned India in public since he became president, even as he has been making emollient noises to the mullah regime in Iran. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, said publicly she wouldn't object to China's abuses of human rights, while India has worked hard to uphold human rights.

The United States is preoccupied with the turmoil inside Pakistan, as well as with Pakistan's problematic role in the fight against the Taliban. But building closer relations with India would give us more leverage in Islamabad. Clinton, who played a constructive role in her husband's outreach to India, should understand this. Perhaps Obama does, too.

But it's hard to tell. Obama has continued military operations in Iraq and stepped them up in Afghanistan, but otherwise he is banking heavily on the proposition that he can persuade those who have been our sworn enemies that they should be our friends. Maybe that will work. But in the meantime, it would not hurt to show some solicitude for our friends in India, with whom we share strategic interests and moral principles. The 700 million voters of India have chosen to be our ally. We should take them up on it.

Michael Barone :: Townhall.com Columnist  by Michael Barone - a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report and the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, published by National Journal every two years. He is also author of Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan, The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again, the just-released Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Competition for the Nation's Future

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Muslim World Becomes More Intolerant While As the West Continues to Reach Out With a Message of Tolerance

UC Irvine Advertises Hate On Campus

UC Irvine promotes hate:

(OC Task Force, via ROP)
The Muslim Student Union's "Israel: The Politics of Genocide" event began May 5 and runs through May 21.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful...
The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine presents
ISRAEL: THE POLITICS OF GENOCIDE
May 5th - May 21st, 2009
Guest speakers include noted anti-Semites Cynthia McKinney and George Galloway.

Jew-bashing hate speech is allowed.

Posted by Gateway Pundit at 5/13/2009 09:29:00 PM

 

Christians Unwelcome Here: The Muslim world is becoming more intolerant

As the West continues to reach out to the Muslim world with a message of tolerance, some Muslim communities are growing increasingly intolerant toward people of other faiths. A case in point is Iraq, where Christians are being chased out of their homeland.

New research reported by Associated Press indicates that the number of Christians in Iraq has fallen to between half and one-third of the estimated population of 1.4 million before the first Gulf War. Christians have been fleeing the country after being targeted in sectarian attacks, and most find the general climate increasingly less accommodating. After a series of particularly violent anti-Christian attacks in Mosul last October, leaders of the Catholic Chaldean church and other Christian denominations wrote a protest letter stating that "it seems that Iraq is one step closer to becoming an Islamic state intolerant to non-Muslims."

The Taliban last week threatened Pope Benedict XVI, whom they call "the most important personality in the Christian world," with violence over "stupid and irresponsible acts of proselytism" they contend are being conducted in Afghanistan by "crusader" missionaries. This followed edited footage aired on al-Jazeera that appeared to show the military's top chaplain in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Gary Hensley, encouraging troops to "hunt people for Jesus." Unedited footage released later showed the chaplain discussing in detail what constituted impermissible proselytizing and cautioning the troops not to cross the line.

For the Taliban, the mere presence of Christians in their country - not to mention Jews, Hindus and others - is anathema. Under current Afghan law - which is under the regime the United States and other Western countries are expending blood and treasure to defend - converting to another religion from Islam is a capital offense. Afghan aid worker Abdul Rahman, who converted to Catholicism, was allowed to flee to Italy after his arrest in 2006 created an international outcry.

During his recent tour of the Middle East, the pope denounced the "ideological manipulation of religion" and called for reconciliation between the various faiths. However, as the West promises, promotes and pleads for diversity, as national leaders travel to the Middle East to offer apologies and seek conciliation and fair play, the region answers them with faith-based apartheid. This is an issue President Obama cannot afford to ignore in his June 4 address to the Muslim world.

Source:  The Washington Times - Washington Times Editorials

Monday, May 4, 2009

Fred Thompson: Obama Loosed 'Dogs of War' on CIA

Former Senator, TV star and presidential candidate Fred Thompson tells Newsmax that President Barack Obama is revealing his “naivete, ineptitude and arrogance” as he deals with matters of national security.

The Tennessee Republican, who now hosts a radio show on Westwood One along with his wife Jeri, also said the “dogs of war have been loosed” over left-wing attempts to single out Bush-era officials for prosecution relating to the treatment of detainees.

Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella cited the announcement that the Defense Department is going to release many pictures showing alleged abuse by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked Thompson what purpose that might serve.

“None, other than to serve as propaganda tools for our worst enemies,” Thompson said.

See Video: Fred Thompson Slams Obama's National Security Debacle 

“This was set in motion when the president first decided to release” CIA memos on interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects, Thompson told Newsmax.

“There was no purpose in doing that except to make him look good internationally and to the left wing here at home,” he said. “It did a lot of damage.

“In one stroke of a pen he declassified top-secret documents that people would otherwise go to jail for releasing. It gave al-Qaida and the Taliban a blueprint as to the outer limits of our interrogation techniques.

“We have to remember that [the techniques were used] in the aftermath of 9/11. Congress was briefed on these techniques. Some of them asked if they were really going far enough to get what they needed to get, and it was approved at high levels in the administration.

“They carefully crafted them as best they could to not go too far, and to provide safeguards when they were carrying out these admittedly rough techniques on these people who had this vital information.

“So now we’re really talking about a war crimes tribunal, which this country has never done. We’ve never brought to criminal court prior administrations in this country.

“Harry Truman could have been accused of war crimes, I suppose, for dropping the bombs. President Obama authorized the killing of those three [pirates] in the Indian Ocean not too long ago. Prosecuting these people under these circumstances is something you hear about in banana republics and third-world countries, not the United States of America.

“The president’s opened up a terrible Pandora’s Box and there’s going to be a price to pay before this thing is ended.”

Martella asked if the Obama administration was acquiescing to its far-left base when it released the CIA memos on interrogation techniques.

“I think in this case, in all probability, they thought that they could cater to their left wing, appease their demands, by releasing these memos and then it might not go any further,” Thompson said.

“Because surely they were able to see that this was bad for them the way it’s going to be bad for the country.

“This is going to have ramifications that are far-reaching. They thought they could put the genie back in the bottle after they opened it, and of course appeasement never works that way.

“There was a firestorm. The attorney general’s received 250 names in a petition to urge the appointment of a special prosecutor for this. The left-wing blogs went nuts. They started running television ads and so forth.

“And then after promising that there would be no prosecutions, [Obama] acquiesced and now opened the door for that. So I think it’s a case of naivete, ineptitude and unbelievable arrogance and lack of experience.

“We elected someone who didn’t have two minutes’ worth of experience with regard to matters concerning national security. Now he’s cast in this position and he’s making decisions that are going to have far-reaching ramifications not only abroad, and not only with our enemies, but in dividing our country even further here at home in ways I don’t think we’ve ever been divided before.

“We’re going to have members of Congress testifying against each other if they go down this road.”

Martella noted that Rep. Peter King of New York has said that if Democrats do go ahead and attempt to prosecute Bush administration CIA interrogation lawyers, the Republicans should “go to war” with them.

“That just gives you an example of the atmosphere on Capitol Hill today,” Thompson observed.

“People are angry. People are upset. You’ve got people on the left, you’ve got the Democrats talking about truth commissions, talking about investigations and Congressional hearings and urging prosecution. They’re fighting among each other on the Democratic side as to just how they should go and how far they should go.”

Some of these Democrats are “the same people who were briefed on these techniques back in 2002,” Thompson said, “including Nancy Pelosi, who’s not telling the truth now, who’s trying to parse words and trying to get around the fact that she knew what was going on, as others did back when this happened.

“That creates a new level of animosity like I’ve never seen before, and I served in the Senate for eight years. The dogs of war have been loosed in this country and I don’t know what is going to happen before we see the end of it. But none of it’s going to be good.”

Thompson’s radio show is heard on weekdays from noon to 2 p.m.

By: Jim Meyers

See Video: Fred Thompson Slams Obama's National Security Debaclehttp://video.newsmax.com/?assetId=V3661156

Source:  Newsmax

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On Torture And War Criminals

Muslims: 'We Do That On First Dates'

The West Coast Plot: An "Inconvenient Truth"

Hoekstra: Congress Knew About Memos

U.S. Presidential Libraries

Video:  Top Intelligence Republican:  Ready Fire, Aim

Friday, February 13, 2009

Obama and the Great Game

Patrick J. Buchananby  Patrick J. Buchanan

The day before Richard Holbrooke arrived in Kabul, eight suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Justice and Education ministries, killing 26 and wounding 57.

Kabul was paralyzed, as the Taliban displayed an ability to wreak havoc within a hundred yards of the presidential palace.

The assault came as President Obama is both conducting a strategic review and deciding how many additional U.S. troops to send.

Earlier, there was talk of 30,000, bringing the U.S. total to 63,000. Now, there are reports Obama may commit no more than the three brigades promised in 2008, and only one brigade now.

Clearly, the United States is checking its hole card. Can we draw to a winning hand? Or is this hand an inevitable loser -- and we must cut our losses and cede the pot? No longer, anywhere, is there talk of "victory."

Nor is the diplomatic news good.

Last week, Kyrgyzstan gave us six months to vacate Manas, the air base used to resupply U.S. forces. A week before, guerrillas blew up a bridge in the Khyber, cutting the 1,000-mile supply line from Karachi to Kabul. Before that, guerrillas bombed U.S. truck parks in Pakistan.

While in Pakistan, Holbrooke was told by all to whom he spoke that, while U.S. Predator strikes may be killing Taliban and al-Qaida, the deaths among tribal peoples are turning Pakistan against us.

What would winning Afghanistan for democracy profit us, if the price were losing a nuclear-armed Pakistan to Islamism?

The expulsion from Manas, after Kyrgyzstan received a reported $2 billion in aid from Moscow, raises a question.

Is Russia restarting "The Great Game" she played against Victoria's Empire in Central Asia, which ended in 1907 with a British-Russian entente, dividing Iran into spheres of influence, with both sides agreeing to keep hands off Afghanistan?

As Russia has as great an interest in preventing an Islamist Kabul, and has assisted NATO's resupply of its forces, why would Moscow seek to expel us from a base vital to the war effort?

Does Russia simply seek to be recognized by the United States as the hegemon of Central Asia, the sole great power that decides who can and who cannot use former Soviet bases?

For if Manas is closed and the Karachi-Khyber-Kabul supply line is compromised or cut, Obama would seem to have but three options.

First would be to go back, hat-in-hand, to Islam Karimov, the Uzbek ruler charged with grave human rights violations, and ask him to reopen the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) air base, from which we were expelled in 2005. And what would be Karimov's asking price?

Second is the Russia option. If Moscow now holds the whip hand in the old Soviet republics, what is Moscow's price to let us remain in Manas or use other Soviet bases over which it wields veto power?

The answer is obvious. Neither Georgia nor Ukraine is to be brought into NATO. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, won in the August war with Georgia, is not to be challenged. The U.S anti-missile missiles planned for Poland are not to be deployed.

In turn, Russia will cancel any missile deployment in Kaliningrad, recommits to the terms of all conventional forces agreements in Europe and assist in the effort in Afghanistan. Russia rejoins the West, and the West stays off Russia's front porch.

Be not surprised if the Russians come trolling before an overextended American empire an end to the Great Game in Central Asia like the one the ministers of Nicholas II offered the ministers of Edward VII.

And the third option? It is Iran.

Before 9-11, Iran was more hostile to the anti-Shia Taliban than we, and it has no desire to see them return. Indeed, Tehran was a supporter of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as both were ruled by mortal enemies.

The long way for U.S. and NATO war materiel to reach Kabul via Iran would be through a Turkey-Kurdistan-Iran supply line. The shorter would be from Iranian ports straight into Afghanistan.

Price of an entente? An end to the 30-year U.S.-Iranian cold war and a strategic bargain whereby Iran is allowed to develop peaceful nuclear power, under supervision, the United States lifts its embargo, and regime change is left to the Iranian people.

President Ahmadinejad, no fool, and facing an uncertain election this year, is already signaling interest in negotiations with Obama.

A complication. How would "Bibi" Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman regard a U.S.-Iran rapprochement -- to prevent a Taliban triumph in Kabul?

Yet, if the Taliban's enemies in Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia will not assist us, this war cannot end well. And if they will not help, Obama should cut America's losses, come home and let their neighbors deal with a triumphant Taliban.