Positive News from Afghanistan

[joaquinmurieta]

I really don't know. If you say we are technically in a truce, I have no reason not to believe you...

[DBCooper]

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Let the enemy fear the phrase, "The Americans are coming"

Lets finish this fight and bring these brave men and women home.

[RanchHQ]

Looks like we are headed back to the Jamie Geralick Era of Fighting Terror in the Court Room:

TERRORISTS' NEW RIGHTS
By MIKE ROGERS
Last updated: 3:13 am
June 15, 2009
Posted: 3:03 am
June 15, 2009

AFTER Islamic radicals flew hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center, bringing down the twin towers and killing nearly 3,000 Americans, our nation had an important decision to make: Do we treat this horrendous attack as a crime or an act of war?

The collective decision by the president and the people's elected representatives in Congress was that this attack was an act of war. Eight years later, that decision appears to be eroding.

On a recent trip to Afghanistan, I learned that the Obama Justice Department is reading Miranda rights to foreign terrorist suspects -- effectively extending constitutional protections reserved for US citizens to terrorists picked up on the battlefield.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is following up by explaining to the suspects their new "rights" -- so that terror suspects are now asking for lawyers and refusing to talk. This creates a major problem for US intelligence officers -- a major barrier to questioning that in the past has helped protect Americans and US interests.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs last week claimed that the idea that terrorist suspects were being read Miranda rights was "not a surprise." It turns out to be part of the Obama Justice Department's "Global Justice Initiative," which aims to expand the FBI's role in interrogations.

In short, we're starting to return to the dangerous Clinton-era policies of treating terrorism mainly as a law-enforcement issue, not a national-security threat.

What's wrong with applying the investigative techniques, evidentiary standards and protections for the accused of a US criminal investigation to foreign terror suspects captured outside of the United States? Simple: It will allow many suspects to game the US legal system -- and free some terrorists to fight again.

As the first fruit of the administration's drive to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani arrived in New York last week to face trial, indicted in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa, which killed 224 people. He was captured in Pakistan in 2004 working with Al Qaeda. What happens if he's found not guilty? Will he get to roam the streets of New York?

Information obtained from questioning captured 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad disrupted terrorist plots and saved American lives. But, as former CIA Director George Tenet wrote in his memoirs: "I believe none of these successes would have happened if we had had to treat KSM like a white-collar criminal -- read him his Miranda rights and get him a lawyer who surely would have insisted that his client simply shut up."

Elliott Ness doesn't belong on the battlefield -- that's the place for George S. Patton.

Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan is the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee's Terrorism Subcommittee and a former FBI Special Agent.

LINK: TERRORISTS' NEW RIGHTS - New York Post

[RanchHQ]

Bin Laden Son Reported Killed In Pakistan
by Mary Louise Kelly



NPR.org, July 22, 2009 · U.S. officials believe Saad bin Laden — a son of Osama bin Laden — has been killed by an American missile in Pakistan.
Saad bin Laden reportedly spent years under house arrest in Iran before traveling last year to Pakistan, according to former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

It's believed he was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone sometime this year.

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official tells NPR that without a body to conduct DNA tests on, it's hard to be completely sure. But he characterized U.S. spy agencies as being "80 to 85 percent" certain that Saad bin Laden is dead.

The U.S. counterterrorism official says Saad bin Laden wasn't important enough to target personally — that he was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

He was active in al-Qaida, but was not a major player, the official said. He was believed to be in his late 20s.

"We make a big deal out of him because of his last name," the official added.

It's not known whether Saad bin Laden was anywhere near his father when he died.

[Maximus]

There have been 30 Americans killed in Afghanistan this month. A record for any month since 9-11. I am waiting for the libs to decry our presence there. Where is the "terrorists will wait for us to leave and then kill everybody" baloney?

Thank you Ranch for posting this stuff and keeping us informed.

[dreamliner]

Originally Posted by RanchHQ

Bin Laden Son Reported Killed In Pakistan
by Mary Louise Kelly

NPR.org, July 22, 2009 · U.S. officials believe Saad bin Laden — a son of Osama bin Laden — has been killed by an American missile in Pakistan.
.

Great news, so now only 49 more of his multiple-wives' sons to go. Meanwhile where's Obama's missile targetted to Laden's head, in Obama's apologitic world?

[RanchHQ]

Obama: 'Victory' Not Necessarily Goal in Afghanistan

The enemy facing U.S. and Afghan forces isn't so clearly defined, Obama explained in a TV interview


President Obama has put securing Afghanistan near the top of his foreign policy agenda, but "victory" in the war-torn country isn't necessarily the United States' goal, he said Thursday in a TV interview.

"I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.

(Was it Hirohito who signed the WWII surrender? That doesn't sound quite right) - HQ

The enemy facing U.S. and Afghan forces isn't so clearly defined, he explained.

"We're not dealing with nation states at this point. We're concerned with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Al Qaeda's allies," he said. "So when you have a non-state actor, a shadowy operation like Al Qaeda, our goal is to make sure they can't attack the United States."

The United States and Afghanistan are struggling to shore up security in the country, amid increasing violence. The Obama administration this year stepped up U.S. military operations in the country as the U.S. military presence begins to wind down in Iraq.

"We are confident that if we are assisting the Afghan people and improving their security situation, stabilizing their government, providing help on economic development ... those things will continue to contract the ability of Al Qaeda to operate. And that is absolutely critical," Obama told ABC News.

Article Continues at: Obama: 'Victory' Not Necessarily Goal in Afghanistan - Political News - FOXNews.com

[RanchHQ]

Obama says Afghanistan ‘a war that we have to win’

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
July 15, 2008

WASHINGTON – Contending that the U.S. is not pursuing a sound strategy for keeping Americans safe, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Tuesday that fighting al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan would be his top priority after ending the war in Iraq.

"This is a war that we have to win," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery at the International Trade Center in Washington…

Of course Mr. Obama was campaigning for the Presidency back in July.
Also remember how the Democrats, including of course Mr. Obama, always claimed that we should be concentrating on Afghanistan. And, just as importantly, we should have more of our allies fighting alongside us in the war.
Finally the Democrats have now gotten both of their purported wishes. The right war in the right place – with plenty of other Western countries helping us.
And yet, look at how poorly things are going. Any minute now our ‘allies’ will turn tail and pull out. Which will give Mr. Obama an excuse to do the same.
Which, come to think of it, was surely the Democrat plan all along.

FROM: Sweetness & Light

[RanchHQ]

I haven't read much about this in the US Press, don't know why, but it is a shame we are sending missiles into Family Homes and killing Wives.

That certainly won't do much for our standing in the Muslim World.

Good thing we are closing Guantanamo. Maybe that will make up for it.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan, Aug. 5, 2009
Officials: Taliban Boss's Wife Killed

Pakistan Intelligence, Military Say U.S. Missile Struck Home of Baitullah Mahsud

CBS/AP) Two Pakistani intelligence and one army official said Wednesday that a U.S. missile strike in northeastern Pakistan had killed a wife of top Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

Mehsud's associates would not confirm the report, although they did say a woman was killed in the missile strike in South Waziristan, part of the lawless tribal region along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and where Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding.

Two intelligence and one army official, who all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the strike had destroyed the home of Mehsud's father-in-law, Akramud Din, and that two people had been killed, including one of Mehsud's two wives.

FULL ARTICLE: Officials: Taliban Boss's Wife Killed - CBS News

[Maximus]

July 2009 had the highest American death toll since 9-11. Libs?