May 14, 2005
This story comes to us from Armies of Liberation, who asks that we have a link fest on this one, gather support for getting the word out on this story, and watch it unfold over the next few days.
ThereÂ’s an al-Qaeda jihad against the Zaidis in Yemen, and many of the al-Qaeda jihadists are leaders in the Yemeni government and security forces. They've bombed civilians, closed schools, trashed libraries, had mass arrests, prohibited Zaidi sermons, dragged charred bodies through the streets, and more.
Nabil al-Wazer is prominent in the Popular Forces Union, a Zaidi party with a secular basis. HeÂ’s also related to the partyÂ’s leader. Just like they bombed the Zaidi region (Saada), now its the turn of the Zaidi party to be attacked. Its part of the jihad against the Yemeni Zaidis (shia). Otherwise the government would return him safely to his family.
Nabil al-Wazer is being held by Houssain Abo Dunya in Hajja since Tuesday. Kidnapped. HeÂ’s kidnapped. His location is known. Since Tuesday. Not a police in sight. Nothing.
The kidnapper is asking for approximately $50,000 US dollars.
So the Yemeni government can do mass arrests and arbitrary arrests, but not legitimate arrests. It can target its citizens but not protect them. It can arrest women, and boys, and old men, but not criminals. One would think that if a citizen is kidnapped, the law enforcement would go recover him. So is the Yemeni government a state, or is it a mafia if they donÂ’t perform even the most basic functions like hostage recovery?
Unless theyÂ’re in on it. LetÂ’s all watch and see what happens next.
Related reading - Why Al-qaeda survives in Yemen.
Cross posted at Hyscience
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May 13, 2005
These Marines fought and died while motormouths at Columbia University spit on the lives that these men sacrificed. To me, these people are anathema. Some academics in America's universities are running their mouths about freedom this and freedom that, but are not willing to lift their little finger in behalf of their own way of life, they just complain. They are against much, and for little. This, while other men, instead, walk the walk, they stand for much and complain little, they fight, they die, and we live on. God bless our Marines and their families, and God bless these men!
"In 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, the squad had ceased to be. Every member of the squad -- one of three that make up the 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment -- had been killed or wounded, Marines here said. All told, the 1st Platoon -- which Hurley commands -- had sustained 60 percent casualties, demolishing it as a fighting force." - Villainous Company via BlackFive
In a foreign country far from their home, a company of United States Marine Reservists from Ohio,
citizen soldiers all, paid the ultimate price for the freedoms
that academics in the U.S., and especially Columbia University's professors, take for granted. They were very likely,
like most Marines, plain-spoken men. They were men of deeds, not words. The went to war for their country, their loved ones, and our way of life; they fought, they died, they ceased to exist.
[...]
The explosion enveloped the armored vehicle in
flames, sending orange balls of fire bubbling above the trees along the
Euphrates River near the Syrian border.
Marines in surrounding vehicles threw open
their hatches and took off running across the plowed fields, toward the
already blackening metal of the destroyed vehicle. Shouting, they
pulled to safety those they could, as the flames ignited the bullets,
mortar rounds, flares and grenades inside, rocketing them into the sky
and across pastures.
Gunnery Sgt. Chuck
Hurley emerged from the smoke and turmoil around the vehicle, circling
toward the spot where helicopters would later land to pick up
casualties. As he passed one group of Marines, he uttered one sentence:
"That was the same squad."
Meanwhile, what was going on at Columbia University?
On Friday, the university senate voted by a 53-10 margin, with five
abstentions, against a resolution to re-establish an ROTC program on
campus. Prominent in this roll call of dishonor was President Lee
Bollinger, who voted against, and Provost Alan Brinkley, who gave an
impassioned speech comparing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
policy to a campus organization that allowed "African-Americans to join
. . . only if they pass for white." Oddly, Mr. Brinkley abstained from
voting, suggesting he lacked even the courage of these convictions.
BlackFive writes that "the university's decision was
remarkable for two reasons. The first is that, though it has obviously
escaped their notice, we are at war. Moreover, Columbia's student body
had previously voted 2-to-1 to bring back ROTC. The second is a
federal law called the Solomon Amendment, which prohibits schools from discriminating against military recruiters. If they refuse, they must forfeit federal funding." But breaking the law doesn't seem to concern America's left that infests her academic institutions. The academic left's traitorous acts in a time of war is kindly addressed by BlackFive in saying that, "America's elite universities
have cloaked their hostility to our armed forces in the language of
civil rights. They portray this as a principled stand against the
military's legal policy of discharging homosexuals ("don't ask, don't
tell"
. It's an interesting stance, since these colleges booted ROTC
off campus long before "don't ask, don't tell" became official policy." I, on the other hand, would consider it appropriate to simply say that they are self-centered, egotistical, bubble-minded, cowards that will use almost any excuse to not stand-up for the very country that provides them the bubbles that they live in.
But inasmuch as BlackFive is far more politically correct(and appropriately so) then I can be on this issue right now, I recommend that you go read his perspective ....
Semper Fi, (1960-1965)
Hat tip - Villainous Company via BlackFive
Cross posted at Hyscience
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I'm guest-blogging at B5 this week.
Thanks for the link, but even more for being angry about this. It infuriates me.
- A Marine wife of 26 yearsMay 12, 2005
Here's a quick roundup of events in Iraq with a focus on Operation Matador, and a few other news events of interest:
"The Adventures Of Chester" offers a "significant events log" of Operation Matador, with a map image for perspective. Numbers on the map correspond to the listed event, listed in rough chronological order.
(...) 1. Sunday, early morning: The bridge crossing(s) that began the
operation were supposedly slower in progress than planned. Did this
give a tip-off to the enemy? Mortar fire hit the bridging sites from
Ubaydi and on the south side of the Euphrates at another site.
(...) 3. One squad of Lima Co, 3/25, spent the better part of Sunday clearing
a particular house in Ubaydi. The enemy had hidden in the basement and
fired armor-piercing bullets through the floor at the Marines. Most of
the day was spent destroying them, by this one squad, reinforced with
heavy machine guns, a tank, and F-18 airstrikes.
(...) 7. Monday night - A US convoy, 7km east of Al Q'aim and Camp Gannon,
was hit with a significant combined arms counterattack, including
multiple dismounted insurgents in buildings along the road with AK-47s,
RPGs, roadside bombs, and two suicide vehicle bombs. The convoy was
sent to retrieve a tank that had been diabled by an AT mine. A suicide
bomber hit one Humvee of Marines and the wounded were retrieved and put
in a tank for transport to an evac site. Shortly after leaving the kill
zone, an M88 tank retriever hit another AT mine. The Abrams towed the
M88 to a safe zone, and after the wounded were evac'ed, both the
original Abrams and the damaged M88 were towed to Camp Gannon. Catch the rest at Chester's ... (update - apparently Chester is having some bandwidth problems and may have inadvertantly moved the post/will fix if and when available).
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Remember the picture? That little girl had a name:
Her name was Farah, and she died in the arms of Major Mark Bieger who found her after the car bomb that attacked our guys while Farah and other kids were crowding around.
The name of the guy who snapped the picture is Michael Yon and he has a blog:
"The soldiers here have been angry and sad for two days. They are angry
because the terrorists could just as easily have waited a block or two
and attacked the patrol away from the kids. Instead, the suicide bomber
drove his car and hit the Stryker when about twenty children were
jumping up and down and waving at the soldiers. Major Bieger, I had
seen him help rescue some of our guys a week earlier during another big
attack, took some of our soldiers and rushed this little girl to our
hospital. He wanted her to have American surgeons and not to go to the
Iraqi hospital. She didn't make it. I snapped this picture when Major
Bieger ran to take her away. He kept stopping to talk with her and hug
her."
Michael Yon's blog also gives us some details on rounding up suicide bombers.
Go read it ...
Hat tip - Speed of Thought and Mudville Gazette
Cross posted at Hyscience
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May 05, 2005
This post will be updated throughout the day. Developing.......
Another UPDATE: Our man on the streets is at the scene and reports this:
Walked over to see the "bomb" damage. What a crock. A couple windows
popped. Whoopdidoooooo. All the news pimps are there with Grim faces.
There is a guy from fox news who must be, a midget. He was standing on
a video crate. Ran into Ellis Hennigan from the daily news. Guy looks
like he weighs 50 pounds. What a pussy.
This was no terrorist. This was some idiot slob from the UN.
I would disagree with our crack reporter only on one count. A terrorist does not necessarily have to belong to a terrorist organization. Probably the work of a lone nutjob, but a lone nutjob inspired by jihadi ideology and using terror to attempt to affect the outcome of the British election is a terrorist nontetheless.
UPDATE: If we're looking for suspects I'd suggest starting to look at The Islamic Thinkers Society of New York, which seems to be connected to the global al Muhajiroun movement. Not coincidentally, al Muhajiroun is led by Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad who makes London his home base for calling for global jihad--even against the U.K. The group also is suspected of having loose ties to al Qaeda.
These people have the balls to set up protest in New York and their members have been recorded as saying, "Next time we will get all of New York City."
Their members are just crazy enough to believe the bullshit spouted by their salafist leaders and just dumb enough to think these bombs might send some sort of scary message to the British people.
Ed Moltzen and He Who Will Not Be Named remind us that the IRA are also suspects in this thing. The latter notes that today marks the 20th anniversary of the hunger-strike death of Bobby Sands. Nothing is impossible....but, come on.....has the IRA ever attacked on U.S. soil?? UPDATE within and UPDATE: T.C. Leather Penguin also suspects the Irish. I can't argue with that logic.....
UPDATE: Can I just remind everyone that a bomb is a bomb is a bomb, so the fact that whoever did this used toy grenades for the bomb-casing is sort of irrelevant. It may be relevant that the bombs were small, but not that they were 'toys'.
Two small pre-dawn blasts shattered windows at the British consulate Thursday as voters in Britain went to the polls in a general election, police said. There were no injuries reported.One reader, who I will not name, just e-mailed me with this.The explosions occurred shortly before 4 a.m./0800 GMT and were caused by two primitive metal "novelty grenades," one in the shape of a pineapple, the other a lemon, both packed with gunpowder, police on the scene said.
"There were some shattered windows and there are no injuries. We are investigating it," a New York Police Department spokesman said in an interview.
The incident, which briefly upset British financial markets, occurred as polls in Britain were opening but police said it was not known whether the blasts was connected to the consulate. Prime Minister Tony Blair is seeking a third term in office after a short campaign where he battled public anger against his support of the war in Iraq.
Detective Noel Waters said the explosion was caused by "two small improvised explosive devices" in or near a large concrete flower box -- typically used in New York to prevent vehicles from driving into buildings.
"It sounded like thunder -- two loud bangs," one witness told WINS radio.
There was minimal damage to the building, with only a door, window and a nearby car damaged, police said.
New York has remained on high alert since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers.
Asked whether the police had ruled out terrorism in Thursday's incident, Waters said only, "We have not ruled out anything at this point."
Police at the scene said no arrests had been made.
Authorities blocked off the area, just a few blocks from the United Nations. The building is located at 845 Third Avenue, between 51st and 52nd streets.
British voters have been warned that Britain and its interests could be targeted by terrorists during the election campaign.
Dude, those toy grenades went off 3 blocks from my office. Holy Crap!
I love this headline from The Scotsman: No Motive for New York Explosions. Right.
Dr. James Joyner seems to think the amateurish nature of the grenades points away from professionals. I concur.
John Little posts this link to the British Consulate, New York. No official word yet.
Michelle Malkin points us to USS Neverdock who links to this Telegraph article about al Qaeda sleeper cells in the U.S. I would simply point out that this bombing bears none of the classic al Qaeda markers.
Ok, now Michelle Malkin and GOP and the City are putting forth the notion that this might be a 'test run' for something larger. While we can't rule anything out, I hightly doubt it.
Idiotarian quote of the day from U.K. Today (via Scared Monkey's): "How convenient for Tony Blair that there should be a potential bomb explosion on election day."
Others: Interested Participant, Command Post, check out the fatwas issued below for others.....
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April 23, 2005
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April 20, 2005
Coalition forces in Iraq are welcoming the deployment of 450 more Australian military personnel. “These are great soldiers,” said a U.S. official in Baghdad, Iraq.
The new Australian contingent will bring the number of “Aussies” in country up to 1,370, officials at the Australian embassy here said.
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March 02, 2005
We at the Jawa Report have long speculated that the threatened use of nuclear weapons against Mecca could serve as a rational deterrent to Islamic jihadis using weapons of mass destruction against the US. Indeed, many Washington insiders suggest that the Administration has sent back-door messages to terrorist organizations that if they were to use a WMD within the borders of the US that a nuclear strike against Mecca would result. This, they argue, is the reason no WMD attack has happened since 9-11. more...
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March 01, 2005
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January 26, 2005
From time to time, a foreign national will walk into a US embassy and start divulging sensitive information. In some circles these people are known as walk-ins. And today, the comments section of Winds of Change had, what can be considered an inadvertent walk-in of sorts.
Recently there has been a great deal of discussion about the validity of the notion of "activistism." Activistists tend to define themselves by their apparent desire for protest for it's own sake, rather than as a tool to achieve specific political ends. Much of this discussion has been carried on in posts by Marc Cooper, Michael Totten, myself, and most recently Joe Katzman at Winds of Change. The current debate deals with, in part, about the role of activistism in today's left, and the ideological nature of those who seem to be calling the shots in the Democratic Party. Closely related to this subject is the notion that the activist left is completely tone deaf on national security, due to the apparent allergy that the far left has to the field of strategic studies.
In the comments section of Joe Katzman's roundup of discussion about activistism, a certain T.J. Madison manages, in his comment, to provide a glaring illustration of this allergy to strategic thinking in just under 100 words.
In the context of discussion about prevailing trends in the Democratic Left, T.J. Madison has become an unintentional walk-in in the debate about the intellectual proclivities of the activistist left and the role of activistism in the Democratic weakness on security.
more...
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January 21, 2005
From another report comes the news that a top Zarqawi lieutenant, Omar Hadid, was killed during the Battle of Fallujah in November.
The authenticity of the tape has not yet been established, however, one has to wonder why the Internet message has no video of Zarqawi, only audio.
Companion post at Interested-Participant.
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January 13, 2005
How and where these casualties met their death has never been clarified. Prior to the surrender the Imperial Japanese Army issued instructions to destroy all documents relating to these camps. Japan’s Government has never told the full story of the treatment of POWs either in Japan or overseas.
Our group has endeavoured to unveil this hidden history, and this list is nearing completion. The roll of Commonwealth soldiers has already appeared on our web site. We are now adding the names of American and Dutch casualties to each individual camp site.
We wish to express our deep sympathy to those who lost their lives in this conflict. We trust that this list will prove helpful to families and friends, especially those who up to now did not know the fate of their loved ones.
Data from the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers, along with lists of names retrieved from cemeteries and war memorials, were used to compile the listing.
The effort to compile a listing of the dead Allied POWs should be heralded. No doubt, there are generations of families who are eager to know what happened to their loved ones.
Companion post at Interested-Participant.
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January 10, 2005
Characteristic of both the interrogation/torture issue and the issue of massive offensive operations the left's primary strategy has been to voice their objections loudly and persistently, believing that by so doing they'll sew the conviction that any brazen repudiation of their preference will, at the very least, result in a public relations windfall for their side. It's not only a dangerous strategy to cultivate timid expectations during a war, but it's very likely to backfire. more...
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THE Pentagon is considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.Under the so-called “El Salvador option”, Iraqi and American forces would be sent to kill or kidnap insurgency leaders, even in Syria, where some are thought to shelter.
[snip]
Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi Prime Minister, was said to be one of the most vigorous supporters of the plan.
The Pentagon declined to comment, but one insider told Newsweek: “What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are. We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defence. And we are losing.”
Hit squads would be controversial and would probably be kept secret.
Interesting. I'm not very familiar with the training of the Contras in Nicaragua, though I do have a very basic understanding of the training and the goals of the operation. In essense, this trained squad would be made up entirely of Iraqis and their main goal would be to find, capture or kill those directing the insurgency and/or terrorist attacks. Sounds like a good plan to me.
One of the things that has frustrated me, and I'm sure many more, about Iraq is that we are playing defense instead of actively searching out terrorist strongholds. It may not be this way entirely, but that is the way it seems. Some of this can be attributed to diverse objectives in Iraq. Our primary goal is to bring Democracy to the region, but in order to do this many things must fall in line including helping to rebuild/build infrastructure. There are different groups inside the U.S. military assigned to building for instance, however from an outsider's perspective it appears that we are on the sidelines more than on the front lines aggressively seeking out those that harm and kill U.S. soldiers and Iraqis.
Thankfully this isn't always the case as we saw raids into Fallujah, raids accross the entire Sunni Triangle and raids following the Mosul Mess Hall bombing, however I often question how often the U.S. military is out looking for terrorists rather than responding to calls or terrorist attacks.
In theory alone, the 'Death Squads' would be charged with finding those who operate the attacks and I do hope the area of operations includes those outside of Iraq itself. This could be a drastic improvement in tactics and should allow for increased intelligence because the 'Death Squads' would be Iraqis, therefore have a better layout of the land and better connect with the people who have information to share.
The article makes a brief mention of anti-American hostility the death squads in Nicaragua caused that I am unaware of. Perhaps a reader can share some inside knowledge on this?
Update:
The Newsweek article on Death Squads can be found here, though there isn't really much more to it that I learned from the Newsweek article. I have however talked, via email, with a former member of the CIA who was directly involved in training the Death Squads in Nicaragua. Obviously the identity of this person will remain confidential.
From what I was told, the Death Squad consisted of only Nicaraguans to carry out the missions but were trained by the CIA and U.S. Special Forces. Members of this group were not necessarily Contras, and they lived primarily inside of Nicaragua carrying out their regular day jobs but participated in searching out and capturing or killing leaders of the opposing forces at night.
When I asked why this option was a good option in Nicaragua and why it would be a good one in Iraq, the former agent told me the following (punctuation and spelling corrected):
. . . in Nicaragua the United States military had only a small force and they were covert. We couldn't send in a large number of soldiers until war was declared and we could not enter other countries where some of the ringleaders operated out of. This same scenario is happening in Iraq where some leadership of the insurgency is directed out of neighboring countries of Iraq and the United States military cannot enter these nations without approval. The Death Squad is only loosely tied to the United States so they can do what they please.
Fair enough. The former CIA agent was not able to tell me any type of anti-Americanism this type of team fueled as the article indicated, however in Iraq it would be hard to add more fuel to the overwhelming fire.
Cross-posted at In the Bullpen
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January 08, 2005
This practice, and it's justification, recounted by The Bullpen just disgusts me:
An Associated Press photographer sat by while terrorists threw grenades at a car carrying Iraqi election officials and then executed them. Sure, the AP photographer would not be able to stop the attack nor should they, however they should not be in bed with the terrorists operating to defeat Democracy in Iraq.The Associated Press has helped pave the way in calling those that commit terrorist attacks militants, rebels or insurgents. While terrorists behead innocents, strap explosives to their waists and attack innocent Iraqis or target Coallition soldiers with IEDs, the AP only refers to them as a pest. The AP has tried to explain this by saying their reporters could be placed in harmÂ’s way while they interviewed terrorists if they called them terrorists.
So, apparently all the child molesters need to do to get more sympathetic coverage is to start making credible threats to kill a few journalists. What'll they be called I wonder, the "alternatively age preferenced?" Does anyone besides terrorists and sociopaths really need a press like this? (Hat tip: Chad )
(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia and Anticipatory Retaliation)
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January 07, 2005
The Belmont Club has the the second in a series of incisive and informative posts about the real dilemmas imposed by the superficial idealism of the torture debate. But he offers no real suggestions for how to exorcise these dilemmas, concluding: more...
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Large numbers of al-Qaida fighters are still crossing freely from Saudi Arabia into Southern Iraq, according to senior military officials in Basra, the Gulf Daily News reports.The paper says terrorists and weapons continue to flow into the country as it gears up for elections, said Colonel Jouke Spolestra, in charge of security sector reform in the southern Iraqi provinces.
Col. Spolestra, of the Royal Netherlands Navy, said that despite regular military patrols and raids on suspected insurgent strongholds, British-led forces had failed to halt the trafficking in personnel and arms. "People are coming in from Saudi Arabia, that is one cause of concern for us. There is a flow of weapons, illegal immigrants and of course even al-Qaida. We do have patrols, but it is an open border," he told the Gulf Daily News.
The flow of terrorists and weaponry into Iraq consists of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, some backed by governments and Saddam loyalists in those countries. The United States and Iraq have issued strong words to Syria and Iran, however any wording thrown to Saudi Arabia has either been nonexistent or in secret.
Cross-posted at In the Bullpen
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WASHINGTON Jan 6, 2005 — Federal authorities are looking for a man using a Middle Eastern name and possibly bogus construction credentials to try to purchase large quantities of an explosive ingredient used by Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing.The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said there was no indication that terrorism was involved, but the agency was still checking information that came from a company in Canada that reported the attempted purchase as suspicious.
[snip]
The suspect also made several e-mail inquiries to vendors, seeking to buy between 500 to 1,000 metric tons of the explosive a quantity larger than McVeigh used to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building in April 1995 but smaller than amounts companies typically might buy in bulk for construction, explosives or farm work.
This of course very well will end up being nothing but a misunderstanding.
Cross-posted at In the Bullpen
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January 01, 2005
Ok, in a bid to try to retackle the long-ago post on Murder and Warfare, let me, um... tackle it again. Or something...
"There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We're trying to teach you to be dangerous - to the enemy. Dangerous even without a knife. Deadly as long as you still have one hand or one foot and are still alive." -- Starship Troopers
There are three classes of people, as far as warfare is concerned: non-combatants, combatants, and prisoners.
Non-combatants have tacitly agreed to follow the dictates of whoever has the guns and is in control. Essentially, non-combatants have agreed not to be "dangerous", at least as far as combatants are concerned.
Combatants are the folks with the guns. They have two roles. The first role is to impose their will (or more accurately, the political will of their leadership) on the non-combatants in a war zone. Or, to put it another way, they are they guys with the guns to whom the non-combatants listen. The second role of a combatant is to resist the guys on the other side with guns and prevent them from imposing their will on the non-combatants. The primary distinguishing feature of combatants is that they are "dangerous" men.
Prisoners are people who have made the transition from combatant to non-combatant. The important thing to note about being a prisoner is that it is nothing other than a state of mind. Prisoners are disarmed, but not all who are disarmed are necessarily prisoners. To return to the terminology of Starship Troopers, prisoners are those who were formerly "dangerous" into non-dangerous people.
more...
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