Authorities have been examining whether Fort Hood massacre suspect Nidal Malik Hasan wired money to Pakistan in recent months, an action that one senior lawmaker said would raise serious questions about Hasan’s possible connections to militant Islamic groups.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said sources “outside of the [intelligence] community” learned about Hasan’s possible connections to the Asian country, which faces a massive Islamist insurgency and is widely believed to be Osama bin Laden’s hiding place.

Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, would not identify the sources. But he said “they are trying to follow up on it because they recognize that if there are communications – phone or money transfers with somebody in Pakistan – it just raises a whole other level of questions.”

~~~

Hasan’s finances have been a mystery since last week, when the Army major and psychiatrist allegedly shot and killed 13 colleagues at the sprawling Central Texas military base. Hasan earned more than $90,000 a year and had no dependents, yet lived in an aging one-bedroom apartment that rented for about $300 a month.

~~~

Authorities know that Hasan sent repeated e-mails, starting some time in December 2008, to a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen. That cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, formerly served as imam of a large northern Virginia mosque where Hasan worshipped. The U.S.-born cleric praised Hasan after the massacre as “a hero.”

In January, al-Awlaki told readers of his blog about “44 ways to support jihad” – a term often translated as “holy war.” Many of his points dealt with ways to fund such efforts.

“Probably the most important contribution the Muslims of the West could do for Jihad is making Jihad with their wealth,” al-Awlaki wrote. “In many cases the mujahideen are in need of money more than they are in need of men.”

~~~

Colleagues and associates have described Hasan as a loner who voiced his opposition to the wars, including his assertion that Muslims were justified in fighting American troops. Hasan’s family has said he became more distressed as he learned he was about to be deployed to Afghanistan.

“He is a kind of fundamentalist. He thinks a Muslim must defend themselves,” said Golam Akhter, a civil engineer from Bethesda, Md., who said he spoke with Hasan on several occasions at the mosque where they worshipped.

He said he knew Hasan was a doctor but didn’t know he was a member of the Army.

“He used to dress in long dresses just like Pakistanis, and that made me also concerned,” Akhter said. “Usually only the imam uses those loose and long shirts and sleeves. That made me [wonder], being very educated, why he is using the imam’s dress.”

The article notes the contact Hasan made with one radical cleric but fails to note the other contacts:

Maj. Hasan made some of the contacts while visiting known jihadist chat rooms on the Internet, according to one of The Times’ sources, a senior FBI official. He said that several people with whom Maj. Hasan was in contact had been the focus of investigations by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The other source, a military intelligence official, said those in contact with Maj. Hasan are located both in the U.S. and overseas. The official said they are “broadly known and characterized as Islamic extremists if not necessarily al Qaeda.”

~~~

These ties are in addition to Maj. Hasan’s already-reported links to radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who called Maj. Hasan a “hero” on a blog post about last week’s Fort Hood shooting, which left 13 dead and 29 wounded.

The missed connections is obvious now. Why they were missed is another issue which at the end of the day is going to come down to one of the left’s favorites….political correctness.

James Dobbins, who served as a special envoy to Afghanistan during the Bush administration and is now at the Rand Corp., said that Kerry had made many “sensible” points in the speech but that he found the conclusion unsatisfactory.

“The argument seems to be that we’re not going to send more troops until we start winning — which seems to me to be an inversion of the usual sequence,” he said.

This is the moment….when on the same day, Nobel Peace Laureate, President Obama, gave an address at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville, in part to offer a statement on the 14 Americans who lost their lives in two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan.

“I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way. I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary,” Obama said to loud applause. “And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt.”

The problem I have with this, is that we already have troops in theater in “harm’s way”, in what he claimed as a “war of necessity”; and his top general whom he had chosen is requesting reinforcements. And the dithering Democrat appears to want to vote “present”.

This is the moment, when Senator John Kerry says NATO allies and the UN need to step up and do more to support the efforts in Afghanistan. I agree; and so does NATO, which is backing Gen. McChrystal’s request for the counterinsurgency approach and troop increase:

America’s NATO allies signaled broad support Friday for an ambitious counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, adding to the momentum building for a substantial U.S. troop increase.

NATO defense ministers meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, endorsed the strategy put forward by Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and allied commander. The alliance rejected competing proposals to narrow the military mission to fighting the remnants of Al Qaeda.

This is the moment when Senator Kerry also said:

“Achieving our goals does not require us to build a flawless democracy, defeat the Taliban in every corner of the country, or create a modern economy-what we’re talking about is “good-enough” governance, basic sustainable economic development, and Afghan security forces capable enough that we can drawdown our forces,”

Can anyone say “duh”? Who has ever said we were attempting to build a western-style democracy that looks like our own? Or that we would spend blood and treasure on Afghanistan until its opium fields were magically transformed into pink daffodils, fuzzy bunnies, and cotton candy clouds floating overhead?

“given the balance of our strategic interests, it should give serious pause to military and civilian strategists alike that the current balance of our expenditure between Afghanistan, where there is virtually no Al Qaeda, and Pakistan, where there is, tallies thirty-to-one.”

Here’s failed presidential candidate John ” I served in Vietnam” Kerry, September 14, 2006 at Howard University:

The central front in the war on terror is still in Afghanistan, but this Administration treats it like a sideshow. When did denying al Qaeda a terrorist stronghold in Afghanistan stop being an urgent American priority? How did we end up with seven times more troops in Iraq – which even the Administration now admits had nothing to do with 9/11 – than in Afghanistan, where the killers still roam free? Why is the Administration sending thousands more American troops into the crossfire of a civil war in Iraq but we can’t find any more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan?

With Pakistan in the midst of cleaning out the hornets nest of Taliban fighters in southern Waziristan, I’d say now would be an ideal time for sending more troops to deny the Taliban any safe havens into Afghanistan and to send out a message that America is resolute in its commitment to see things through.

In regards to the claim of no al Qaeda in Afghanistan, after making big campaign issues out of Afghanistan as being “the good and necessary war” that we had to return to, there might be a minimal al Qaeda footprint there today; but should the Taliban regain power in Afghanistan, is there really any question that the Taliban today is inextricably linked to al Qaeda, and wouldn’t provide it safe haven and continued alliance?

While the Afghan Taliban share many of al-Qaida’s violent goals, including the defeat of the Kabul government, Barrett said, they are more regionally focused and do not hold the same global jihadist views.

Some U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, warn against underestimating the relationship between al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban.

While the Taliban and al-Qaida may have differences, senior counterterrorism officials say that al-Qaida still has strong historical ties to Mullah Omar and that is not likely to go away. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Should we cut deals with irreconcilables?

President Barack Obama’s review of strategy in Afghanistan means America will end up making a deal with the Taliban, and tolerating warlords, to end the fighting.

“Moderate Taliban” is rather oxymoronic, isn’t it? And wasn’t it the moment of the third presidential debate in 2004 that John frickin’ Kerry said the following:

When the president had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, he took his focus off of them, outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, and Osama bin Laden escaped.

So it wasn’t ok to do business with Afghan warlords then, but today it’s a practical solution?

The Taliban may not have their sights set on waging a global jihad war; but they are clearly one of those who “If they’re not with us, they’re with the terrorists”. An al Qaeda without safe haven is an al Qaeda made impotent.

Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio also warn against the narrower approach that seeks to draw distinctions between al Qaeda and its allies:

if the US and its coalition partners prevent the Taliban and its allies from returning to power in Afghanistan, then this will necessarily weaken al Qaeda’s allies and, in turn, al Qaeda itself. In the military’s view, al Qaeda is not a standalone problem but instead one head of several on a jihadist hydra.

In the piece below, we take a look at the insurgency in Afghanistan more closely – from al Qaeda’s perspective. We do not think that a shift to a predominately counterterrorism campaign utilizing airstrikes and the like is sufficient to beat back the threat to America’s interests. In fact, we argue that such thinking is rooted in a dangerous ignorance of al Qaeda and our terrorist enemies. Al Qaeda was never a self-contained problem that could be defeated by neutralizing select individuals – even though capturing or killing senior al Qaeda members surely does substantially weaken the network.

Instead, Osama bin Laden and his cohorts deliberately fashioned their organization to be the tip of a much longer jihadist spear.

The previous administration has been criticized by the current one for “taking its eyes off the ball” and diverting resources to Iraq “which didn’t attack us” and failing to catch bin Laden.

The current administration can be criticized for reneging on its campaign warhawk stance in a desire to divert resources from Afghanistan to pursue funding and public support for its domestic agenda of “nation rebuilding”. Shoveling socialism down the throat of “that region of the world” that didn’t attack us and had nothing to do with 9/11. As Steve Schippert puts it:

Though I’ve been screaming this in my own mind for weeks and weeks, actually months, maybe I ahve not said it out loud enough. Because it has a 95% probability of accuracy, with a 5% chance pub pressuer can change Obama’s mind —

We will not see an Afghan Surge (TM) for one simple, yet critical, reason. Do you all recall, post-stimulus, the Obama budget forcasts that were eventually blown out of the water by both the CBO and reality? Do you remember whaere most of the budgetary “savings” came from?

That’s right, a draw down in Iraq. Merely shifting these resources in number and cost to Afghanistan will have an even more devastating impact on the already laughable Obama budget projections, and materialize right in the heat of 2010 election cycles. Deficit beyond imagination and so far off Obama forecasts as to appear wholly mindless. the 2010 elections would be an even hotter Hell to pay for Dems supporting the O nonsense.

This was the reality that I saw from the beginning: That Afghanistan will be starved of resources rather than fed them as Candidate Obama assured in his pledges to fight “the real war” in Afghanistan.

It is domestic budget – NOT intellectually considered counterinsurgency v. counterterrorism strategies – which will dictate how this White House conducts the war in Afghanistan.

The trick for them is how to sell not shifting resources from Iraq to Afghanistan as brilliance rather than the domestic policy trickery that it really is.

Our enemies can take heart: This President and his team have greater and more aggressive designs on the American society and its free market-based economy than on them, the jihadists who would slit our throats quite literally given opportunity.

And this budget elephant in the Situation Room is what makes me so angry when folks consider Biden/Levin/Kerry options as intellectually vetted counterterrorism alternatives.

Bull. Look at the budget. Someone go back to spring ‘09 and dig up the Iraq Drawdown accounting in O’s budget as the source for freed funds. Fighting the enemy in Afghanistan? It was bullshit on the campaign trail, and its bullshit now. Iraq Drawdown funds (created or saved) were never – EVER – accounted for as shifting to another theater of war, “real” or imagined. It was shifted to redistribution schemes here at home.

Go ahead. Prove me wrong. Please. Someone.

For John Kerry, the 2004 presidential candidate who served in Vietnam, he has taken all the wrong lessons he learned from that conflict, and is trying to apply them to this conflict. John Kerry’s Afghanistan plan is the same as his Vietnam plan.

For 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate, President Obama, Afghanistan is a diversion; a distraction. I don’t think there’s any question that Democrats would love nothing better than to return us back to the glory days when Overseas Contingency Operations were largely a law enforcement issue, and we suffered the drip, drip, drip of “small-scale” terror attacks.

This is the moment…

Also blogging:
Brutally Honest
The Radio Patriot

The Lahore Press Club has received two letters from the Taliban warning of an attack any time after Oct. 10. The letter explained that the attacks would be carried out if the journalists continue to portray the Taliban as terrorists instead of highlighting them as “mujahedeen.” The letter warned the journalists to “stop becoming a mouthpiece of America and prepare the people for jihad against American infidels.”

Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud (C) sits with other millitants in South Waziristan, October 4, 2009.
REUTERS/Reuters TV

WaPo:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 17 — Pakistan’s army launched a ground offensive Saturday morning aimed at rooting out Islamist insurgents in the lawless tribal region of South Waziristan, an intelligence official in the area said.

The military had been planning the operation for months, amassing nearly 30,000 troops in the area and attempting to soften targets with aerial strikes. Military officials and security experts estimate that between 5,000 and 10,000 “hardcore” Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents are based in the area, which the United States views as a terrorism hub and has targeted with unmanned drone strikes.

The offensive comes after two weeks of bloody militant attacks killed more than 100 people in Pakistan, assaults that officials say are nearly all planned in South Waziristan.

Bill Roggio:

A military offensive in Waziristan will pit Pakistani troops against the best fighters the Taliban have to offer. The military has been defeated four times in South Waziristan since 2004, and has signed a series humiliating peace agreements in an effort to keep the Taliban at bay. Instead, the Taliban insurgency has metastasized throughout the tribal areas and into the Northwest Frontier Province.

Read more analysis and history at The Long War Journal

A member of the Pakistani Taliban offers prayer as his his gun lies in front him at a mosque in the Buner district, northwest of Islamabad, April 23, 2009.
REUTERS/Stringer

While the Pakistan military is reportedly gathering itself into launching a major (counter)offensive, causing thousands to flee Waziristan, the Taliban continues to take the fight to the Pakistan government:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Militants dressed in police uniforms simultaneously attacked three law enforcement agencies in Lahore on Thursday morning, the fifth major attack in Pakistan in the last 10 days.

The government, of course, is handicapped by an infestation of Islamist sympathizers and anti-Americans within the Pakistan military itself:

officials said Pakistan was handicapped in fighting the onslaught because of discord between the civilian government and the military that spilled into the open in the last week, particularly over American aid legislation that the army said represented a violation of sovereignty. [wordsmith link insertions- also re: Mike's America]

“We cannot fight the Taliban when the army and the government are at loggerheads,” said Jahangir Tareen, a member of Parliament from Punjab and a former federal minister.

The best defense is a strong offense, and thus far, the Pakistan Taliban with their al Qaeda allies have made the government appear impotent and weak (appearances are sometimes NOT deceiving). How can Pakistanis feel confidence in their government’s ability to protect them when the government and the military can’t even protect themselves?

By exposing the weak links in the country’s security apparatus and complacency among top officials, the Thursday’s attacks again risked undermining the faith of ordinary Pakistanis in the military, the police and the intelligence agencies, said a retired army brigadier, Javaid Hussain.

The frequency of the assaults, Mr. Hussain said, also demonstrated that the new Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, remained aligned closely to Al Qaeda and was receiving technical training, planning and support for the attacks from the terrorist organization. They furthermore showed how the Taliban was working in tandem with the cells and supporters among jihadist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammad, based in southern Punjab, Brig. Hussain said.

Our own president’s dithering over what to do in Afghanistan affects how Pakistan may handle their Taliban problem:

In an interview at the Journal’s offices this week in New York, Pakistan Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi minced no words about the impact of a U.S. withdrawal before the Taliban is defeated. “This will be disastrous,” he said. “You will lose credibility. . . . Who is going to trust you again?” As for Washington’s latest public bout of ambivalence about the war, he added that “the fact that this is being debated—whether to stay or not stay—what sort of signal is that sending?”

Mr. Qureshi also sounded incredulous that the U.S. might walk away from a struggle in which it has already invested so much: “If you go in, why are you going out without getting the job done? Why did you send so many billion of dollars and lose so many lives? And why did we ally with you?” All fair questions, and all so far unanswered by the Obama Administration.

As for the consequences to Pakistan of an American withdrawal, the foreign minister noted that “we will be the immediate effectees of your policy.” Among the effects he predicts are “more misery,” “more suicide bombings,” and a dramatic loss of confidence in the economy, presumably as investors fear that an emboldened Taliban, no longer pressed by coalition forces in Afghanistan, would soon turn its sights again on Islamabad.

Should Pakistan perceive that America will go the way of the paper tiger, why shouldn’t they appease the Islamists, much as Saudi Arabia had done, much as Saddam Hussein had done?

For decades Islamabad has viewed and used terrorist groups as assets to be cultivated. Before the Soviet invasion, Pakistan used Islamist militants for operations in India and Afghanistan. Today, Pakistan aids the Afghan Taliban mainly in the belief that if U.S. and international commitment to Afghanistan wanes, it would be better to be friendly with a group like the Taliban that can keep Indian influence in the country at bay—the same logic behind Pakistan’s pre-2001 support for the Taliban.

Pakistan has long been a conflicted ally and a breeding ground/safe haven for Islamists and Islamic terrorists.

While the Taliban takes decisive, pre-emptive action….Islamabad dithers indecisively.

Sound familiar?

When will the new offensive arrive? How many more homicide bombings and pre-emptive attacks, until then?

It sounds like President Obama might be looking to have it both ways on Afghanistan.

A U.S Marine from Delta Company of 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion patrols near the town of Khan Neshin in Rig district of Helmand province, southern Afghanistan September 8, 2009.
REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic (AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT MILITARY IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Asked why Obama is questioning a key assumption of his Afghanistan strategy just six months after he stood before a bank of flags and endorsed the white paper, administration spokesmen have cited the potential impact on counterinsurgency efforts of the country’s fraud-riddled presidential election in August. They have also noted that Obama said in March that he would review whether the United States was “using the right tools and tactics to make progress.”

Meanwhile, four days after two combat outposts were overrun, leaving 8 U.S. and 4 Afghan soldiers dead, the Taliban is claiming that it has raised a flag over Nuristan in response to the NATO claim that over 100 insurgents were killed during that attack.

The Taliban are not the only ones who are influenced by America’s perceived weakness (and the apparent lack of resolve on the part of the current administration to outlast and defeat them).

Pakistan has been making recent gains and newfound courage in facing down Taliban militants and al Qaeda; but this “dithering” on the part of President Obama is creating a loss of confidence in America’s willingness to outlast the enemy’s resolve when the going gets tough.

Dan Twining:

As Chris Brose and I recently argued, it is vital for the West to prevail in Afghanistan because of its effect in shaping Pakistan’s strategic future. Proponents of drawing down in Afghanistan on the grounds that Pakistan is the more important strategic prize have it only half right: if Pakistan is the strategic prize, it should be unthinkable not to press for victory in Afghanistan given the spillover effects of a Western defeat there. All of Pakistan’s pathologies — from terrorist sanctuary in ungoverned spaces, to radicalized public opinion that creates an enabling environment for violent extremism, to lack of economic opportunity that incentivizes militancy, to the (in)security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, to the military’s oversized role in political life in ways that stunt the development of civilian institutions — all of this will intensify should Afghanistan succumb to the Taliban as the West withdraws.

These dynamics, in turn, will destabilize India in ways that could torpedo the country’s rise to world power — and the strategic dividends America would reap from India’s success. New Delhi is now a truer proponent of Washington’s original objectives in Afghanistan — the Taliban’s decisive defeat by military force rather than reconciliation and the construction of a capable Afghan democracy — than some American leaders are now. Afghanistan is in India’s backyard — they shared a border until 1947 — and the collapse of its government would destabilize Pakistan in ways that would quickly cost Indian dearly. Indian strategists fear that the spillover from a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would induce Pakistan’s “Lebanonization,” with the Pakistani Taliban becoming a kind of South Asian Hezbollah that would launch waves of crippling attacks against India. India cannot rise to be an Asian balancer, global security provider, and engine of the world economy if it is mired in interminable proxy conflict with terrorists emanating from a weak or collapsing state armed with nuclear weapons on its border.

Pakistan’s government is already wavering in it’s confidence over the new administration, due to the “dithering” and appearance of a lack of resolve to “win” in Afghanistan. The talk of whether or not to narrow the focus to counterterrorism operations rather than on counterinsurgency has the propagandistic perception of a Black Hawk Down type of retreat by this administration. Trying to save costs and conduct war “cheaper and smarter” comes across as another name for being risk-averse and half-assed in commitment.

Stephen M. Walt, who supports the narrower approach, also deplores the “middle ground” position:

President Obama has reportedly ruled out a major reduction in U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and is still mulling over the military’s request for more troops. The LA Times says he’s looking for “middle ground” here, which would be consistent with Obama’s decision-making style. In this case, however, it’s the worst of a set of bad options. If things eventually go south (as I believe they will), he’ll get blamed for not giving the commanders enough to do the job and for incurring additional costs to no good purpose.

Looking for “an exit strategy” is not the right mentality; nor does it send the correct message to our enemies nor to our allies. The way the debate should be framed is: What is the strategy needed to defeat both the al Qaeda NETWORK and the Taliban?

And a “middle ground” commitment seems to be a recipe for dithering disaster. Better to pick one or the other. Not a “moderate” position, which is just a dilution of either roadmap.

Robert Kaplan (author of Imperial Grunts and Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts) has an interesting article in the NYTimes today (which Stephen Walt also comments on in his post that I linked to), regarding what countries stand to benefit from our stay and success in Afghanistan, and how we don’t have a choice but stay and succeed. He also concludes:

one could make an excellent case that an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan is precisely what would lead to our decline, by demoralizing our military, signaling to our friends worldwide that we cannot be counted on and demonstrating that our enemies have greater resolve than we do. That is why we have no choice in Afghanistan but to add troops and continue to fight.

But as much as we hone our counterinsurgency skills and develop assets for the “long war,” history would suggest that over time we can more easily preserve our standing in the world by using naval and air power from a distance when intervening abroad. Afghanistan should be the very last place where we are a land-based meddler, caught up in internal Islamic conflict, helping the strategic ambitions of the Chinese and others.

An Light Armor Vehicle (LAV) travels through Helmand province with the solar eclipse visible in the background on July 22.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post

Remember when President Bush was slammed for not listening to his generals (or more accurately, the ones political opponents could agree with)? Remember when Senator Obama parroted the same (Hat tip: Mike’s America):

Obama said that while President Bush has said that he follows the advice of his generals regarding Iraq, when they give the president advice he doesn’t like — cautioning against the War in Iraq, for example — Bush doesn’t listen to them.

“There were generals at the beginning of the conflict that said this is going to require many more troops, will cost us much more … those generals were pushed aside,” Obama said.

Although I do believe that listening to military officials should not automatically lead civilian leaders to carry out their suggestions, I worry whether or not President Obama has the right instincts, the right mindset, the right advisers to make the best possible strategic decision:

White House officials are resisting McChrystal’s call for urgency, which he underscored Thursday during a speech in London, and questioning important elements of his assessment, which calls for a vast expansion of an increasingly unpopular war. One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting, said, “A lot of assumptions — and I don’t want to say myths, but a lot of assumptions — were exposed to the light of day.”

Among them, according to three senior administration officials who attended the meeting, is McChrystal’s contention that the Taliban and al-Qaeda share the same strategic interests and that the return to power of the Taliban would automatically mean a new sanctuary for al-Qaeda.

Leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Taliban government provided much of al-Qaeda’s leadership with a safe haven before being toppled by U.S. forces later that year. Since then, some White House officials say, al-Qaeda has not regained its foothold even as the Taliban insurgency has strengthened.

The deliberations over McChrystal’s assessment are expected to last several weeks, and officials who participated in Wednesday’s meeting say it is too early to discern what direction Obama intends to take.

Although participants described the discussions as fluid, divisions are becoming clearer between those in the administration who want to broaden the U.S. effort, including sending in additional combat forces, and those who want to adopt a narrower anti-terrorism effort focused primarily on al-Qaeda.

I fear the possibility that we may be returning back to the pre-9/11 days of treating the global jihad movement as merely a law enforcement issue. I feel as though President Obama has no interest in being a “war president”, and sees it as a distraction from carrying out his domestic agenda.

Asked whether a more limited counterterrorism effort would succeed in Afghanistan, he said, “The short answer is: no. You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy.”

In the days leading up to the deliberations this week, senior White House officials emphasized what they say have been the administration’s achievements against al-Qaeda, underscoring that defeating the terrorist organization, rather than rebuilding Afghanistan, has always been Obama’s stated goal.

Nation-building is nothing knew to our military’s history and has often been par for the course after any major conflict. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is vital to our interest and our security that we leave behind a stable government that is not allied to our enemies; that does not become a safe-haven for the al-Qaeda network. The last time we left, after the Soviet war in Afghanistan, a vacuum was left which the Taliban eagerly filled.

The WaPo article has administration officials noting improvements within Pakistan as being taken into account for how we will proceed from hereon out.

However,

McChrystal said that “we must show resolve” and warned that “uncertainty disheartens our allies and emboldens our foes.”

And even though President Obama is right in conducting deliberations on a new way forward, the perception is, he is wavering from his “war of necessity” rhetoric of the past, and lacks resolve and leadership to give confidence to our allies and demoralize our enemies:

In an interview at the Journal’s offices this week in New York, Pakistan Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi minced no words about the impact of a U.S. withdrawal before the Taliban is defeated. “This will be disastrous,” he said. “You will lose credibility. . . . Who is going to trust you again?” As for Washington’s latest public bout of ambivalence about the war, he added that “the fact that this is being debated—whether to stay or not stay—what sort of signal is that sending?”

Mr. Qureshi also sounded incredulous that the U.S. might walk away from a struggle in which it has already invested so much: “If you go in, why are you going out without getting the job done? Why did you send so many billion of dollars and lose so many lives? And why did we ally with you?” All fair questions, and all so far unanswered by the Obama Administration.

As for the consequences to Pakistan of an American withdrawal, the foreign minister noted that “we will be the immediate effectees of your policy.” Among the effects he predicts are “more misery,” “more suicide bombings,” and a dramatic loss of confidence in the economy, presumably as investors fear that an emboldened Taliban, no longer pressed by coalition forces in Afghanistan, would soon turn its sights again on Islamabad.

Mr. Qureshi’s arguments carry all the more weight now that Pakistan’s army is waging an often bloody struggle to clear areas previously held by the Taliban and their allies. Pakistan has also furnished much of the crucial intelligence needed to kill top Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in U.S. drone strikes. But that kind of cooperation will be harder to come by if the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan and Islamabad feels obliged to protect itself in the near term by striking deals with various jihadist groups, as it has in the past.

America still has a reputation for being a paper tiger that makes us less safe, if we give the perception validity by appearing to abandon Afghanistan. And as Dan Twining notes, Pakistan is the strategic prize we endanger:

A recent trip to Islamabad and Lahore revealed to me that most Pakistani elites — including the small minority that could credibly be described as sympathetic to Western goals in Afghanistan — already believe that the game is up: the will of the transatlantic allies is broken, Obama doesn’t have the courage or vision to see America’s mission in Afghanistan through to victory, and the U.S. is well along the road to walking away from Afghanistan as it did after 1989. This widespread Pakistani belief has encouraged behavior deeply inimical to Washington’s regional aims, with the effect that the American debate over whether Afghanistan is worth it is inspiring Pakistani actions that will make success all the harder to achieve.

After all, why shouldn’t the Pakistani security services continue to invest in their friendly relations with the Taliban if Mullah Omar and company soon will take power in Afghanistan’s Pashtun heartland? Why should the Pakistani military take on the militant groups that regularly launch cross-border attacks into Afghanistan when the NATO targets of those attacks will soon slink away in defeat? Why should the Pakistani government get serious about wrapping up the Quetta Shura when the Afghan Taliban appears to be ascendant in the face of Western weakness? Why should Pakistan’s intelligence service break its ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the world’s most potent terrorist groups, when it forms such a useful instrument with which to bleed U.S. ally India? And why should Pakistani civilian and military leaders overtly cooperate with the United States when it appears such a weak and unreliable ally of the Afghan people — incapable, despite its singular wealth and resources, of defeating a 25,000-man insurgency in one of the poorest countries on Earth?

Some believe President Obama gives a great speech. He could have spent his political capital of charm and charismatic rhetoric to good use by rallying the world and our NATO allies around why it is vital for Afghanistan to succeed. By making the case that a safer and stable Afghanistan is in the best interest of every nation. Instead, we are finding ourselves with fair-weathered allies who are uninspired and unmotivated to commit more of their own resources and will to succeed than we are willing to put out. They need leadership.

Instead of it, we are getting a president who seems to regard Afghanistan as a distraction from his domestic agenda. But Afghanistan is now his war, and can make or break his presidency every bit as much as the domestic front.

American Power links to the LATimes:

Signs are growing that Obama will seek to change the war goals, to redefine what is success and divert the discussion away from the more-troops measure. It’s not defeat in Afghanistan; it’s victory of a different kind. The president used a similar strategic argument recently when abandoning the Bush administration’s missile defense shield in Europe: it’s not less defense, it’s defense done smarter and cheaper.

Trying to shift the goal posts will not fool America’s enemies who will, no doubt, be able to claim a victory over the paper tiger super power. Capturing or killing Osama bin Laden may be a feather in the cap, but is not the prize that will signal an end to the war. It will not send his merry band of takfiri terrorists home packing, to forever give up their martyrdom calling. Nor will narrowly defining the enemy as a specific terror group (al Qaeda) make America safer.

The citizens’ militia has occupied three of the villages and is trying to push the Taliban out of the other two. Some 20 houses suspected of harboring Taliban were destroyed, he said. At least four militants were killed, he said.

The government has in the past encouraged local citizens to set up militias, known as lashkars, to oust Taliban fighters.

“It is something very positive that tribesmen are standing against the militants. It will discourage the miscreants,” Rehman said. [Atif-ur-Rehman, the district coordination officer]

The Taliban, violating the latest in a serious of truces over the years, predictably took advantage of the agreement and have been aggressively expanding territory and control. Just as in Iraq, where clerics and tribal leaders turned on the militant jihadis and their oppressive rule (aka the Sunni Awakening), local villagers are doing the same in Taliban controlled area… and is welcomed action by the Pakistani government.

It was the latest in a series of instances of people turning their guns on the Taliban in recent weeks and trying to force them out of their areas and will encourage the Pakistani government which needs public support to defeat the militants.

The United States, which needs sustained Pakistani action to help defeat al Qaeda and cut off militant support for the insurgency in Afghanistan, will also be heartened by the move.

The Pakistani military has been battling Taliban in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, for more than a month after the militants took advantage of a peace pact to gain new ground.

The army offensive has broad public support even though many in Pakistan are ambivalent about the Taliban and are wary of the government’s close alliance with the United States.

It was only a little over a week ago where Chris Brummitt of the AP was reporting that villagers were outraged at the Pakistani Army’s successful mission, driving the Taliban out of Sultanwas.

When Pakistan’s army drove the Taliban back from this small northwestern village, it also destroyed much of everything else here.

F-16 fighter jets, military helicopters, tanks and artillery reduced houses, mosques and shops to rubble, strewn with children’s shoes, shattered TV sets and perfume bottles.

Commanders say the force was necessary in an operation they claim killed 80 militants. But returning residents do not believe this: Although a burned-out army tank at the entrance to Sultanwas indicates the Taliban fought back, villagers say most fighters fled into the mountains.

Beyond any doubt is their fury at authorities for wrecking their homes _ the sort of backlash the army doesn’t want as it tries to win the support of the people for its month-old offensive against the Taliban in Pakistan’s northwest frontier region near the border with Afghanistan.

“The Taliban never hurt the poor people, but the government has destroyed everything,” Sher Wali Khan told the first reporting team to reach the village of about 1,000 homes.

“They are treating us like the enemy,” he said as he collected shredded copies of a Quran from the ruins of a mosque, one of three that were damaged, possibly beyond repair.

This is a repetitive complaint from previous Army offensive drives in the militant controlled regions… the collateral damage in both infrastructure and civilian lives. The Army efforts are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. In the middle? The villagers themselves.

Needless to say, allowing villagers to do their own policing at the local level is an approach the Pakistan government embraces as a preferred solution. However what remains to be seen is if the locals’ access to comparable arms and munitions can compete with the superior funded Taliban and their financial organizations.

In the Sunni Awakening, it’s success depended upon US aid in both dollars and military back up support. Perhaps the US dollars dedicated to fighting Pakistan’s jihad movement and that now defunction “war on terror” should be devoted to ensuring a level weaponry playing field between the Taliban and the locals… then let them regain their territory, back yard by back yard.

But one thing should be obvious to the Muslim world… while they may purport to hate the US, they hate being under Taliban oppressive rule even more. Again it shows that Muslim support for this brand of Shariah law is waning.

And that lesson… just as was learned in Iraq when the jihad movements were given full rein to demonstrate their cruel brutality against fellow Muslims… needs to be driven home yet once more.

Cue the violin and color me unsympathetic. I simply found this disillusionment amongst jihadi-wannabes simply amusing and pathetic:

Reporting from Brussels — Determined to die as martyrs, the French and Belgian militants bought hiking boots and thermal underwear and journeyed to the wilds of Waziristan.

After getting ripped off in Turkey and staggering through waist-deep snow in Iran, the little band arrived in Al Qaeda’s lair in Pakistan last year, ready for a triumphant reception.

“We were expecting at least a welcome for ‘our brothers from Europe’ and a warm atmosphere of hospitality,” Walid Othmani, a 25-year-old Frenchman from Lyon, recalled during an overnight interrogation in January.

Instead, the Europeans — and at least one American — learned that life in the shadow of the Predator is nasty, brutish and short.

Wary of spies, suspicious Al Qaeda chiefs grilled the half-dozen Belgians and French. They charged them $1,200 each for AK-47 rifles, ammunition and grenades. They made them fill out forms listing next of kin and their preference: guerrilla fighting, or suicide attacks?

Then the trainees dodged missile strikes for months. They endured disease, quarrels and boredom, huddling in cramped compounds that defied heroic images of camps full of fraternal warriors.

“What you see in videos on the Net, we realized that was a lie,” Othmani told police. “[Our chief] told us the videos . . . served to impress the enemy and incite people to come fight, and he knew this was a scam and propaganda.”

Disenchantment aside, the accounts of four of the returning militants arrested in Europe combine with intercepts to paint a detailed picture of Al Qaeda’s secret compounds. They also reinforce intelligence that a campaign of U.S. Predator drone airstrikes has sown suspicion and disarray and stoked tension with tribes in northwestern Pakistan, anti-terrorism officials say.

At the same time, the case shows that wily militant leaders still wage war in South Asia and train a flow of foreign recruits. The few trainees from the West remain an urgent concern. Anti-terrorism forces have detected at least one American, a convert to Islam, who trained with Al Qaeda in Pakistan during the last year, Western officials say.

Militant paths from the U.S. and Europe may cross: Prosecutors in Brussels have made a request to interrogate a witness now in the United States who was in Pakistan with the European suspects, a Belgian anti-terrorism official said.

Police in Europe tracked the group’s radicalization and travel with the help of real-time U.S. intercepts that corroborate the confessions, and they exploited the men’s reliance on the Internet. Fear of an imminent attack spurred their arrests here in December after Hicham Beyayo, 25, a Belgian just back from Pakistan, sent a troubling e-mail to his girlfriend.

“I am leaving for an O [operation] and I don’t think I will return,” Beyayo wrote Dec. 6, according to investigative documents. “My request has been accepted. You will get a video from me to you from the [organization].”

Beyayo told police that he was boasting to impress his girlfriend. But investigators believe the group may have been groomed for missions at home.

“They were much more valuable for operations in Europe,” said the Belgian anti-terrorism official, who, like others interviewed, requested anonymity because the investigation is continuing. “Al Qaeda does not need Belgians and French to fight in Afghanistan.”

Islamic resistance doesn’t come cheap

Beyayo is about 5-foot-5, chubby and bespectacled. Like the others, he is of North African descent. He grew up in the tough Anderlecht neighborhood of Brussels, and his brothers have done time for robbery and arms trafficking. But he does not have a criminal record. He interspersed college courses with fundamentalist Islam.

“He is the intellectual of the family,” said his lawyer, Christophe Marchand. “He bears no ill will against Belgium. He went to Afghanistan to join an Islamic resistance movement.”

Islamic resistance is expensive. The unemployed Beyayo scrounged together about $5,000 for the trip.

The Frenchman Othmani, a father of two, had to borrow about $1,000 from his mother, and he spent hundreds on hiking boots, a sleeping bag, thermal underwear and a “big Columbia-brand jacket for the cold.”

The leader was Moez Garsalloui, 42, a Tunisian married to the Belgian widow of a militant who killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, an anti-Taliban warlord, in a suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The balding, bearded Garsalloui sought recruits among visitors to a radical website run by his wife, who is revered in militant circles.

It was Garsalloui’s first trip to South Asia, but he took advantage of his wife’s strong Al Qaeda ties, investigators say. He organized smuggling contacts and met four Belgians and two French in Istanbul in December 2007. He carried a bag full of cash — about $40,000, according to the confessions.

Garsalloui went ahead alone, leaving the others to a harsh monthlong trek. Turkish smugglers frightened them by waving a pistol around, charged extra because they were “Arabs,” and stole their gear and clothes, claiming it was for charity.

“They cleaned us out,” Othmani recalled. “What they took was for the so-called poor, but evidently it was nothing of the kind.”

Later, the recruits tried to burn their passports “because we all intended to die as martyrs in Afghanistan,” Othmani said. But the smugglers confiscated the documents.

Next came a nocturnal mountain crossing into Iran. The recruits struggled through deep snow. A Belgian’s foot turned blue. Beyayo fell repeatedly, dragged along by comrades as he moaned that this was the place where they would die.

After several men called their mothers from Iran, the group entered Pakistan via Zahedan, an Iranian border town that is a hub for militants and smugglers, the Belgian anti-terrorism official said. As they approached the tribal zone dominated by the Taliban, military patrols looked the other way and diners at a roadside restaurant seemed to know exactly where they were headed.

Their destination was a village in the Waziristan region about two hours past Bannu. But the reception was nothing like the heyday of the Afghan camps when Westerners, especially converts, got a chance to meet Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden himself.

Saudi Arabians armed with AK-47s emerged from a mosque looking hostile. They thought the French in particular could be spies, a senior French anti-terrorism official said. Increasing infiltration has contributed to recent captures and killings of militants, investigators say.

“They thought they would get a hero’s welcome because they were Europeans,” the Belgian official said. “That was not the case.”

Tensions eased when Garsalloui showed up. But the recruits were kept in a kind of limbo. They had the misfortune of arriving just as U.S. forces unleashed a drone-fired missile barrage that would kill half a dozen veteran Al Qaeda chieftains in 2008. In an e-mail to his wife, Garsalloui said he narrowly escaped a strike that had killed a top Libyan. “I came close to dying,” he wrote.

In other words, you just missed martyrdom. Face it: You’re a failure, and now your al-Qaeda-linked wife knows it.

Better luck next time.

Fearful of the drones as well as informants spotting them and targeting hide-outs for missile strikes, the trainees hunkered inside during the day. They moved frequently among crowded, squalid houses shared with local families in mountain hamlets.

Hoping to fight the Americans

The suspects say they wanted desperately to fight American troops in Afghanistan. To their dismay, the chiefs made them cough up more cash for weapons. They were assigned to train with an Arab group numbering 300 to 500, but spread out in small units for security. Religious and military instruction took place indoors, with firearms and explosives sessions confined to courtyards for secrecy.

A Saudi chief named Mortez assured the Europeans that they would go to the Afghan front. But idle weeks followed.

“We were quite angry for different reasons,” Beyayo recalled. “We waited and Mortez’s promises didn’t come true. Life as seven together plus the host family was not always easy. And . . . [Garsalloui] played the little boss and gave us orders.”

Only Garsalloui and a strapping Belgian, who both spoke fluent Arabic, went to Afghanistan as part of a Saudi unit.

Garsalloui later e-mailed a photo of himself wielding a grenade launcher to his wife. He bragged to comrades that he had killed American soldiers with a bazooka. Investigators are trying to verify the claim.

Meanwhile, Beyayo and Othmani say they chafed in safe houses, cooking foul meals, cringing during bombardments, getting sick. Beyayo suffered a bout of malaria.

A slippery character named Amar appeared, worsening the mood.

“We realized with time that this individual was there to test us, to spy on us,” Beyayo recalled.

“He also gave us a speech according to which we should not dream because we were not ready to fight. . . . The idea of going back to Belgium and France began to form among us. Morale-wise, we were crushed.”

One Belgian stormed out, intent on reaching the nearest city on his own and making his way back to Europe, the Belgian anti-terrorism official said. After hours of hiking through a desolate valley, he realized that it was hopeless and turned back.

Late last year, Beyayo, Othmani and two others finally came home and into the clutches of police, who had monitored them closely. A central question: the extent of their involvement in terrorist activity.

Their defense lawyers insist that they are failed holy warriors.

“They just weren’t tough enough,” Marchand said.

Sounds like they should have a film crew chronicle their failed exploits and turn it into a reality-based sob show: Who will be Europe’s next top tough-enough terrorist?

Apparently, not them.

Taliban militants have burnt down more than 200 schools in Pakistan’s restive Swat valley in the last two years and made all out efforts to prevent girls from receiving education, a media report here said on Sunday. The militants told the residents in the valley that if they were good Muslims they would stop sending their daughters to schools, ‘The Sunday Times’ said in a report from Mingora, the capital of Swat.

“Every evening (Taliban commander) Maulana Fazullah, nicknamed ‘Radio Mullah’, broadcast the names on the radio of girls who had stopped going to school – it would be, ‘Congratulations to Miss Kulsoon or Miss Shahnaz, who has quit school.’ Then he warned others if they continued with their education they would go to hell,” the paper said. The Taliban have torched over 200 of Swat’s 1,500 schools in the last two years, it said.

~~~

…The newspaper also gave a graphic account of the havoc created by Taliban in Swat. A 22-year-old medical student from the valley had secretly catalogued the horrors of life in Swat under the Taliban.

The burning-down of schools, bodies hanging upside down, public lashings and decapitated heads with dollars stuffed in their nostrils and notes reading, ‘This is what happens to spies,’ were all captured on the student’s mobile phone at great personal risk, the report said. The paper noted that Fazullah in December announced a deadline of January 15 for all girls to stop attending school. The medical student’s account was corroborated by Ziauddin Yusufzai, who ran two schools in Swat and was spokesman for the private school association until he fled the bombing three weeks ago.

Abe Greenwald writes about the coming fall of the Pakistan government:

When Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December of 2007, we were appalled but not exactly shocked. In fact, a sort of unspoken consensus about the likelihood of her being taken down had been in the air since she announced her campaign for opposition leadership months earlier. Pakistan tends to deliver in this way.

The buzz now, and it’s palpable, is that the civilian government of Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari will fall to Taliban/al Qaeda forces. Counterinsurgency guru David Kilcullen predicts the collapse in “one to six months.”…

~~~

There is very little to be “learned reliably” about Pakistan’s security or its nuclear arsenal. An American official who spoke with Zardari on his recent trip to the U.S. accused Pakistan’s president of “outright lies about security now established in every district in the country.” Things are radicalizing in areas outside of the high-profile Swat valley. There is new, unprecedented popular support for jihad throughout the country, no matter what various groups call themselves. This comes from one supporter: “You can’t use the name al-Qaeda anymore . . . If you say even one good thing about al-Qaeda, you will be arrested. So groups now give themselves different names-Jaish-so-and-so, Lashkar-this-and-that. But it’s all the same. They are all working toward what al-Qaeda is working toward: to destroy America.”

Sure, Pakistan is doing its best right now to clear these militants.

Pakistani troops on Saturday stormed into the main town in the Swat valley and fought street battles in a bid to wrest the capital of the northwest from Taliban control, the military said.

Chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said parts of Mingora had already been cleared and that 17 militants, including an important commander, had been killed.

The ground assault on Mingora, a city with an estimated population of around 300,000 — most of whom have fled — marks the most crucial phase of the military’s blistering offensive against the Taliban in the scenic valley.

Although the military has bases inside Mingora, the town has been under effective Taliban control. As the administrative and business hub of the district, its capture is essential for the army to declare victory in Swat.

Pakistan says 15,000 troops in Swat are now fighting 1,500-2,000 “hardcore militants”, nearly a month after ordering a battle to eradicate fighters who advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the national capital.

“Today the most important phase of operation Rah-e-Rast, the clearance of Mingora, has commenced,” said Abbas.

~~~

The military says 1,095 militants and 63 soldiers have died in the onslaught launched in the districts of Lower Dir on April 26, Buner on April 28 and Swat on May 8, but those tolls cannot be confirmed independently.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown voiced support Saturday for Pakistan’s “vital” drive against the Taliban, pledging more aid to support those displaced by the fighting.

But is it too little too late?

And what will Obama do when push comes to shove? You know it and I know it….he will cave. His excuse will be that he doesn’t want to create more anti-Americanism so he will do nothing. Oh, he will speak eloquently about this and that while saying nothing but in the end….when a nuclear armed Pakistan is on the verge of being taken over by Islamic fanatics….he will do nothing.

Abe again:

The lesson to follow here is the one learned in Iraq. The U.S. must let the Pakistanis know which is the winning side (if, indeed, that’s to be our side). That means overwhelming military force in the areas we know extremists now control. A total rollback of the organized terror groups could then be followed with the kind of largess only America can provide. And that largess should be tied to benchmarks gauging progress on corruption and reform in Islamabad. Or we would just continue praising the efforts of our ally.

Abe finished with a simple request. If that paragraph above seems extreme and over the top….come back in six months and see if it does still.

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told President Obama that nuclear sites in Pakistan’s restive frontier province are “already partly” in the hands of Islamic extremists, an Israeli journal has said, amid considerable anxiety among US pundits here over Washington’s confidence in the security of the troubled nation’s nuclear arsenal.

Pakistan has responded:

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rahman Malik has claimed that at least 1,000 Taliban have been killed during the ongoing military operation against the militants in Swat and its neighboring districts, according to a report in an Urdu daily.

The Pakistani Army launched the operation against the Taliban militants on May 5 in Swat and neighboring districts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Describing the Taliban as ‘‘enemies of Pakistan,’’ Rahman Malik added: ‘‘The Taliban is eyeing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. However, if we can make nuclear weapons, we also know how to secure them.’’

Great to hear their confidence, don’t know if I believe him tho. At this point it appears they have allowed the Taliban and other fanatical Islamic organizations to fester for far too long in their country, that’s a scary thought with the country holding nuclear weapons.

A car bomb destroyed an Internet cafe and tore through a bus carrying handicapped children in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least 11 people and wounding at least 30, police said.

~~~

The car bomb devastated a street in the main northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday afternoon as it was busy with shoppers and traffic.

Television images showed several vehicles burning fiercely, and a stricken white-and-green bus that had been dropping handicapped children at their homes around the city.

The eight students still on board were injured, one seriously, medics and police said. Four other children and seven adults were killed, and dozens more were injured, they said.

Safwat Ghayur, a senior police official, said one of a string of shops wrecked by the blast was an Internet cafe – a favorite target for violent Islamist extremists in Pakistan who consider the Web a source of moral corruption.

Ghayur said the cafe had received several threats and even been attacked recently by gunmen. He said police were holding suspects in the shooting, but refused to elaborate.

While no jihad movement is anxious to step forward to claim this debacle as their own, Pakistan officials are probing links to Baitullah Mehsud’s Taliban as retaliation for killings in SWAT.

In contrast, a US missile strike was reported to hit a Taliban training camp, killing 25, and Pakistan troops killed dozens of Taliban in another battlefront.

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told President Obama that nuclear sites in Pakistan’s restive frontier province are “already partly” in the hands of Islamic extremists, an Israeli journal has said, amid considerable anxiety among US pundits here over Washington’s confidence in the security of the troubled nation’s nuclear arsenal.

Claims about the high-level exchange between New Delhi and Washington were made in the Debka, a journal said to have close ties with Israeli intelligence, under the headline “Singh warns Obama: Pakistan is lost.” The brief story said the Indian prime minister had named Pakistani nuclear sites in the areas which were Taliban-Qaida strongholds and said the sites are already partly in the hands of “Muslim extremists.” A sub-head to the story said “India gets ready for a Taliban-ruled nuclear neighbor.”

Amid all that some experts in the US are pissed off that Obama and his lackeys are shrugging their shoulders at Pakistan and the Taliban:

“It is quite disturbing that the administration is allowing Pakistan to quantitatively and qualitatively step up production of fissile material without as much as a public reproach,” Robert Windrem, a visiting scholar with the Center for Law and Security in New York University and an expert on South Asia nuclear issues told ToI in an interview on Thursday. “Iraq and Iran did not get a similar concessions… and Pakistan has a much worse record of proliferation and security breaches than any other country in the world.”…

And as the Taliban gain strength, they also gain the upper hand and are now going mano y mano with Pakistan forces:

Taliban insurgents in Pakistan’s Swat valley may be preparing to fight the army on the streets of the scenic district’s main city, as soldiers and guerrillas adopt surprising conventional war tactics. … Shaukat Saleem , a Mingora resident who escaped from Swat on Friday, said the Taliban had blocked roads in the city with trees and boulders. They’ve mined the streets, dug trenches, made bunkers and occupied many civilian homes, he said. He said that he saw “lots” of Taliban as he was leaving the city, who stopped him for questioning at 10 to 12 of their checkpoints.”

The Long War Journal is reporting that we have struck inside the frontier province of Waziristan again against Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists:

The US has struck at Taliban and al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agencies for the third time this week. Twenty-five Taliban and al Qaeda operatives are reported to have been killed and several more were wounded in an airstrike in North Waziristan.

Predator strike aircraft fired two Hellfire missiles at a Taliban madrassa and a vehicle in the town of Khaisor, which is just outside of the town of Mir Ali, Geo News reported. The strike reportedly detonated an ammunition dump at the madrassa, causing a massive explosion. No senior al Qaeda or Taliban leaders have been reported killed.

The town of Mir Ali is a known stronghold of al Qaeda leader Abu Kasha al Iraqi, an Iraqi national who is also known as Abu Akash. He has close links to the Taliban, a senior US intelligence official told The Long War Journal in January 2007. He serves as the key link between al Qaeda’s Shura Majlis, or executive council, and the Taliban.

His responsibilities have expanded to assisting in facilitating al Qaeda’s external operations against the West, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal in October 2008.

Included in the Long War update is the fact that the Abu Kasha network has been hit three times by the US and that we have stopped telling Pakistan about the strikes since the intelligence just gets passed onto al-Qaeda forces.

Up to 100 civilians, including women and children, are reported to have been killed in Afghanistan in potentially the single deadliest US airstrike since 2001. The news overshadowed a crucial first summit between the Afghan President and Barack Obama in Washington yesterday.

The one-hour bombardment of two villages in western Afghanistan near Iran, aimed at Taleban militants fighting Afghan troops, left “dozens” of bodies scattered amid the rubble, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, sitting next to President Karzai during a joint press conference in Washington, expressed “deep regret” for the bombings and announced a joint US-Afghan investigation.

See, by saying “deep regret” things will go a lot easier at the summit. Right?

I’m not complaining. I just…I can’t help but think I HAVE heard someone else complain about this kinda thing, AND I think they promised to do something different….

Yesterday I clicked on a news link about the ever ongoing Taliban encroachment in Pakistan. Leaving aside any commentary about that at the moment, I’m going to instead address Reuters and their politically correct reporting… or perhaps fear to tell the truth.

Lemme ’splain.

The article original was titled “”Residents flee Pakistan’s Swat as truce collapses” by Junaid Khan, and was appearing via a Lucianne link thru the Yahoo news site time-stamped May 5th, 8:17AM eastern time.

About halfway in was a subtitle labled “Civilian Shield”, and the opening two paragraphs following:

“CIVILIAN SHIELD”

The military said in a statement security forces had beaten back an attack on the camp but a senior military official in the region said an operation might be launched to rescue 46 paramilitary soldiers besieged there.

“We’re acting with restraint because they’re using civilians as a shield but we’ll go after them if the situation gets worse,” said the military official, who declined to be identified.

Pakistani stocks ended up but off the day’s highs as investors remained cautious amid mounting expectation the military would step up its operations against the militants.

…. snip….

Since Yahoo and Google news sites have a tendency to result in broken links in a short period of time, I went for an alternative site that was apt to keep it longer.

So I went to the Reuter’s site and retrieved their version, time-stamped May 5th, 5:26PM EDT.

Lo… behold. Not only was the headline changed to “Residents flee Pakistan’s Swat as clashes loom”, dimishing the news of a collapsed truce, but the first two paragraphs about the civilian shields following the subheading were completely removed.

What makes it more bizarre, and certainly poor editing, is that whomever took the PC red pencil to the article failed to remove the subheading of “Civilian shield”… leaving it dangling there with no explanation. The ensuing paragraphs do not even address the reasoning for the subheading’s presence.

Yup… I expect a future edit when they figure that out, and remove all references to civilian shields entirely. Had they not left that subheading in there, I many not have noticed it as quickly.

Below is the screenshot of the original Yahoo publication (in case the link above disappears). The second is beginning of the article with the Yahoo time stamp. (click on picture to see it enlarged)

In case Reuters decides to do further editing, here are the two screen shots with the missing paragraphs, but the subheading remaining, and the second screen shot being the Reuters time stamp later than the Yahoo original publishing of the unedited version.

It’s despicable that the media persists in toning down the inhuman tactics that are … yes… blatantly in violation of the GC that everyone loves to swear by lately. And apparently headlines about failed truces need to be softened as well.

The jihad movements have not succeeding in inciting fear in the hearts of infidels, but they sure have sufficiently “terrorized” the media… afraid of reporting truth.

UPDATE: 5/8/09 Aussie time Guess we’ll try this again. The Australian runs an Amanda Hodge article with the headline: “Taliban militants using civilians as human shields in Swat Valley”, and the single lead paragraph addressing that detail:

TALIBAN militants are using civilians in Swat Valley towns as human shields and planting mines in girls’ schools across Buner, say residents and the Pakistani military.

At least some media is trying to get the truth out that the Taliban are, again, operating outside of the Geneva Convenion.

Let’s see how long this one lasts….