Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

By

Armed Taliban gunned down, Rolling Stone calls “murder”

Michael Yon calls it when he sees it,
Calling BULLSHIT on Rolling Stone

Seldom do I waste time with rebutting articles, and especially not from publications like Rolling Stone.  Today, numerous people sent links to the latest Rolling Stone tripe.  The story is titled “THE KILL TEAM, THE FULL STORY.”  It should be titled: “BULLSHIT, from Rolling Stone.”

Here’s what it’s about,

The online edition of the Rolling Stone story contains a section with a video called “Motorcycle Kill,” which includes our Soldiers gunning down Taliban who were speeding on a motorcycle toward our guys.  These Soldiers were also with 5/2 SBCT, far away from the “Kill Team” later accused of the murders.  Rolling Stone commits a literary “crime” by deceptively entwining this normal combat video with the Kill Team story.  The Taliban on the motorcycle were killed during an intense operation in the Arghandab near Kandahar City.  People who have been to the Arghandab realize the extreme danger there.  The Soviets got beaten horribly in the Arghandab, despite throwing everything including the Soviet kitchen sink into the battle that lasted over a month.  Others fared little better.  To my knowledge, 5/2 and supporting units were the first ever to take Arghandab, and these two dead Taliban were part of that process.

The killing of the armed Taliban on the motorcycle was legal and within the rules of engagement.  Law and ROE are related but separate matters.  In any case, the killing was well within both the law and ROE.  The Taliban on the back of the motorcycle raised his rifle to fire at our Soldiers but the rifle did not fire.  I talked at length with several of the Soldiers who were there and they gave me the video.  There was nothing to hide.  I didn’t even know about the story until they told me.  It can be good for Soldiers to shoot and share videos because it provides instant replay and lessons learned.  When they gave me the video and further explained what happened, I found the combat so normal that I didn’t even bother publishing it, though I should have because that little shooting of the two Taliban was the least of the accomplishments of these Soldiers, and it rid the Arghandab of two Taliban.

VIdeo below the fold,
(more…)

25730
Share

By

The Afghan war document dump UPDATED

Wikileaks has the Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010,

an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.

The Wikileaks link doesn’t seem to work all the time, so here’s the NYTimes,

The reports — usually spare summaries but sometimes detailed narratives — shed light on some elements of the war that have been largely hidden from the public eye:

• The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military. This type of weapon helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

• Secret commando units like Task Force 373 — a classified group of Army and Navy special operatives — work from a “capture/kill list” of about 70 top insurgent commanders. These missions, which have been stepped up under the Obama administration, claim notable successes, but have sometimes gone wrong, killing civilians and stoking Afghan resentment.

• The military employs more and more drone aircraft to survey the battlefield and strike targets in Afghanistan, although their performance is less impressive than officially portrayed. Some crash or collide, forcing American troops to undertake risky retrieval missions before the Taliban can claim the drone’s weaponry.

• The Central Intelligence Agency has expanded paramilitary operations inside Afghanistan. The units launch ambushes, order airstrikes and conduct night raids. From 2001 to 2008, the C.I.A. paid the budget of Afghanistan’s spy agency and ran it as a virtual subsidiary.

There’s also evidence that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants (or as Stacy puts it,

The White House has denounced the leaks as “irresponsible,” but what about the facts revealed? For $1 billion a year, we’re paying for Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency to help kill our troops in Afghanistan.)

and that Iran is giving weapons, training and funds to the Taliban.

I was listening to John Batchelor last night while driving home, who compared these documents with the Pentagon Papers from the 1960s. Doug Mataconis is wondering about that, too.

But, haven’t we heard about these during the past years? Haven’t we read about all of this – or at least most of it – at Long War Journal?

Ed Morrissey drives the point home,

Like many, I prepared myself to read through the reports on the Wikileaks’ massive document dump from the classified military files of the Af-Pak theater, expecting to find something exotic and new.  Like many today, I suspect, I’m underwhelmed by the reality.  The Washington Post reports that the main takeaways are that Pakistan’s intel forces continued their contacts and support of the Taliban, that the war effort was underresourced, and that the Taliban had heat-seeking missiles that could attack our helicopters … which the US provided Afghan fighters during the Soviet occupation.

In short, it’s the Long War Journal, only less detailed

I’ll be reading through the documents and will post more on this story; while the documents per se may not be as scandalous as the Pentagon Papers, we shouldn’t be surprised if the Obama administration a. blames Bush as it always does, and b. uses them as a pretext for pulling out of Afghanistan.

UPDATE
Wikileaks Hath Spoken
Now Step Aside Or Get Stampeded By Journalists Seeking Pulitzers

When Wikileaks becomes an equal opportunity leaker and starts thumbing its nose at Vlad Putin, for instance, then maybe we’ll talk. The thing is, journalists and intelligence folks who run afoul of Vlad have a strange habit of getting dead. (One would think there would be a story to be leaked in there somewhere to the industrious folks at Wikileaks.)

But stand clear. There’s a Pulitzer at stake, and it’s being pulled violently by teams in New York, London and Berlin.

ShrinkWrapped believes the war is over; I agree up to a point – what if the Wikileaks was timed in order to preempt Petraeus from extending the US troops stay in Afghanistan, when, prior to Petraeus taking his post, was scheduled for July next year?

—————————————-

Due to personal business that needs to be attended this morning, there will be no podcast today and the Carnival of Latin America will be posted in the afternoon.
Thank you for your patience and support.

21911
Share

By

The runaway story on The Runaway General

UPDATE
McChrystal offers to resign

The Rolling Stone article, The Runaway General, on Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is certainly THE news story of the day. The content of the article was shown to McChrystal before it was released to the public.

Hardly surprising, McChrystal Called to Washington to Explain Remarks

The article, in the magazine’s latest edition, quotes the general and his aides as criticizing Vice President Joseph Biden, special envoy for Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, and U.S. Ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry.

As the top U.S. civilian and military officials in Afghanistan, Eikenberry and McChrystal are required to jointly implement U.S. policy in the country.

The Rolling Stone profile, titled “The Runaway General,” mentions the first meeting that McChrystal had with President Barack Obama the week after he took office. They met with a dozen senior military officials in a Pentagon room known as The Tank. The reporter of the article cites a source familiar with the meeting saying that McChrystal thought Obama appeared “uncomfortable and intimidated” by the room filled with military brass.

‘Photo Op’

The article also describes the first one-on-one meeting McChrystal had with Obama in the Oval Office four months later, which an adviser to McChrystal called “a 10-minute photo op.”

McChrystal is described by an aide as “disappointed” in this first meeting with the president. While McChrystal voted for Obama, the two didn’t connect from the start, the article says.

The thing is, McChrystal is in charge of 142,000 troops in Afghanistan from the U.S. and 45 partner nations, which he understands to be his personal responsibility. Personal responsibility: a concept probably beyond the reach of a president who could spare all of 20 minutes – if that – for this:

Right now (emphasis added),

McChrystal is executing a strategy which took the White House months to approve. The approach involves adding 30,000 U.S. troops to carry out a counter-insurgency, which includes convincing Afghans to resist the Taliban’s takeover of parts of the country. The general said recently that this would take more time than expected.

The Obama administration dithered on a strategy and insists on a July 2011 withdrawal date – which tells the Afghans their lives are not worth helping the US since the US is scheduled to leave anyway, and then what?

So what it may come down to is, Obama Should Probably Fire McChrystal, but He Can’t

McChrystal is a big boy, and after a tenure that saw the leak of his bleak strategic review and the fallout from his London speech calling for an Afghan troop surge, I have a lot of trouble buying that McChrystal would make another goof of this magnitude.

Which makes me wonder whether we are witnessing McChrystal falling on his sword to get the word out on the Obama administration’s folly in Afghanistan. I’m not 100 percent convinced of it, but it is a real possibility.

I also very much agree with Rich that the president would be well within his rights to dismiss McChrystal over this. I just don’t think he can. The fact is that McChrystal has more credibility onAfghanistan than Obama does. And to the extent that Obama has credibility there at all (and higher approval ratings for his Afghanistan policy than his presidency generally), it is credibility imported from McChrystal. As such, I figure that firing the general would be disastrous forObama , not just on substance but politically. Fairly or unfairly, it would make his administration look petty and prideful, willing to let an (admittedly serious) breach in decorum set back our best chance for success in the longest war in American history.

Don’t blame McChrystal, blame Obama

The real trouble is that Obama never resolved the dispute within his administration over Afghanistan strategy. With the backing of Gates and the Pentagon’s top generals, McChrystal sought to apply to Afghanistan the counterinsurgency approach that succeeded over the last three years in Iraq, an option requiring the deployment of tens of thousands more troops. Biden opposed sending most of the reinforcements and argued for a “counterterrorism plus” strategy centered on preventing al-Qaeda from establishing another refuge.

In the end, Obama adopted what is beginning to look like a bad compromise. He approved most of the additional troops that McChrystal sought, but attached the July, 2011 deadline for beginning withdrawals. Since then both sides have been arguing their cases, in private and in public, to the press and to members of Congress.

McChrystal may be at fault for expressing his frustrations to Rolling Stone. He is not at fault for the lack of coherence in the Afghan campaign or the continued feuding over strategy. That is Obama’s responsibility.

We’ll see what happens next.

(Post re-edited to include omitted link & text)

UPDATE
ShrinkWrapped looks at How a new meme takes shape

21119
Share

By

Mineral riches in Afghanistan

One of the world’s most remote, corrupt and fractional countries may soon become an extractory economy:

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
…
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

You can bet the Chinese will be there – but in what capacity?

At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.

How big is it? It is soooo big,

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

That amount is approximately half the GDP of Vermont.

Power Line:

What happens when you superimpose a trillion dollars worth of natural resource wealth on a primitive society? That’s what happened in Saudi Arabia, and the results were not pretty. A Defense Department memo quoted in the linked New York Times article makes the parallel explicit by suggesting that Afghanistan could become “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” Let’s hope that doesn’t turn out to be true.

This is a gamechanger indeed. Just One Minute links to Spencer Ackerman, who posts, Vast Deposits Of Fodder For Conspiracy Theorists Discovered In Afghanistan.

First: Is the Obama administration stupid enough to go through an announced withdrawal now?

UPDATE
And, as my friend Moe puts it,

On the bright side, we’ve just been given a really, really good reason to have the Obama administration stop ignoring India. Look at a map and you’ll see why.

Check out Old Timer’s comment below for the skeptical tea leaves.

20903
Share

By

About that “Times Square Incident”

Because no understatement is understated enough for the White House, Power Line points out that the Obama administration refers to the Times Square terrorist attack as “the Times Square Incident”:

that attempted bombing is properly referred to on the White House Web site as “the Times Square incident.” (Is anyone in the White House familiar with The Ox-Bow Incident? You might want to change that to “the Times Square happening” or “the Times Square event.”)

Don’t Mention the War
Why does the Obama administration find it so hard to utter the words ‘terrorism’ and ‘jihad’ and ‘Islamic extremism’?

Still, the Obama administration celebrated the “Times Square incident,” as it is delicately called on the White House’s website. It is, the administration believes, a counterterrorism success. After praising the “ordinary citizens” who “were vigilant and reported suspicious activity to the authorities,” President Obama claimed that the attack “failed because these authorities—local, state and federal—acted quickly and did what they’re trained to do.” The Washington Post followed up with an account saying that Shahzad’s swift capture was a “rare moment to celebrate” for beleaguered Attorney General Eric Holder. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs echoed this sentiment, saying, “We want to celebrate the success of, rightly so, of what law enforcement was able to do.”

But success in the war on terror is not apprehending terrorists after their attacks fail. Success is preventing them from attempting the attack in the first place.

The Times Square attack was the third time in the past six months that an individual terrorist with ties to high-level Islamic radicals overseas has launched an attack on the American homeland. In each instance, America’s vast, multibillion dollar intelligence and law enforcement establishment failed to detect the terrorists’ plans beforehand. And in each instance Obama administration officials moved quickly to minimize the significance of the attack and downplay the connections that the attackers had with international terrorists.

Not that the terrorists have been shy about claiming credit:

It wasn’t just the Jaish-e-Mohammed. Leaders of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or “Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan”) claimed responsibility for “the recent attack in the USA” in a series of videos. Such claims are hard to prove, of course, and terrorist groups often claim responsibility for attacks in which they had no role to project an aura of power and boost recruitment. But these claims were interesting not only because of their contents but because of the timing of their posting. The first video was posted a day before the attack on an Internet video channel created that same day.

The other two terrorist attacks in the last six months?

  • Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas
  • The second attack came on December 25, 2009, when a Nigerian al Qaeda recruit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, boarded a Detroit-bound plane wearing an underwear bomb

In all three instances, the administration refuses to recognize that we are at war, no matter that even Bill Roggio is receiving emails from

a representative of the Pakistani Taliban, who was notifying me that one of their top leaders had released a tape claiming responsibility for the attempt to murder U.S. citizens in Times Square

Jennifer Rubin:

It is worth asking why. One gets the impression that somehow the administration thinks it’s a problem to engage in a multi-pronged outreach to the “Muslim World” (We can question the utility of that, but they imagine it’s helpful.) and to identify the actual enemy — which is a segment of that world, namely radical jihadists who just so happen to terrorize and kill a great many other Muslims. It is perhaps out of condescension that the Obama brain trust thinks the distinction will be lost on the worldwide Muslim audience. Therefore, we can’t use the “I” word or the “M” word except in praise.

Identifying the enemy by name also makes it difficult to adhere to the criminal-justice model that the Obama team and its lefty lawyers plainly adore. If there is a network of ideologically motivated, non-state terrorists, then are public trials and dispensing Miranda rights really the way to go?

So let’s keep referring to “incidents”. We wouldn’t want to go against the narrative, would we?

Share

By

About that “Times Square Incident”

Because no understatement is understated enough for the White House, Power Line points out that the Obama administration refers to the Times Square terrorist attack as “the Times Square Incident”:

that attempted bombing is properly referred to on the White House Web site as “the Times Square incident.” (Is anyone in the White House familiar with The Ox-Bow Incident? You might want to change that to “the Times Square happening” or “the Times Square event.”)

Don’t Mention the War
Why does the Obama administration find it so hard to utter the words ‘terrorism’ and ‘jihad’ and ‘Islamic extremism’?

Still, the Obama administration celebrated the “Times Square incident,” as it is delicately called on the White House’s website. It is, the administration believes, a counterterrorism success. After praising the “ordinary citizens” who “were vigilant and reported suspicious activity to the authorities,” President Obama claimed that the attack “failed because these authorities—local, state and federal—acted quickly and did what they’re trained to do.” The Washington Post followed up with an account saying that Shahzad’s swift capture was a “rare moment to celebrate” for beleaguered Attorney General Eric Holder. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs echoed this sentiment, saying, “We want to celebrate the success of, rightly so, of what law enforcement was able to do.”

But success in the war on terror is not apprehending terrorists after their attacks fail. Success is preventing them from attempting the attack in the first place.

The Times Square attack was the third time in the past six months that an individual terrorist with ties to high-level Islamic radicals overseas has launched an attack on the American homeland. In each instance, America’s vast, multibillion dollar intelligence and law enforcement establishment failed to detect the terrorists’ plans beforehand. And in each instance Obama administration officials moved quickly to minimize the significance of the attack and downplay the connections that the attackers had with international terrorists.

Not that the terrorists have been shy about claiming credit:

It wasn’t just the Jaish-e-Mohammed. Leaders of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or “Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan”) claimed responsibility for “the recent attack in the USA” in a series of videos. Such claims are hard to prove, of course, and terrorist groups often claim responsibility for attacks in which they had no role to project an aura of power and boost recruitment. But these claims were interesting not only because of their contents but because of the timing of their posting. The first video was posted a day before the attack on an Internet video channel created that same day.

The other two terrorist attacks in the last six months?

  • Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas
  • The second attack came on December 25, 2009, when a Nigerian al Qaeda recruit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, boarded a Detroit-bound plane wearing an underwear bomb

In all three instances, the administration refuses to recognize that we are at war, no matter that even Bill Roggio is receiving emails from

a representative of the Pakistani Taliban, who was notifying me that one of their top leaders had released a tape claiming responsibility for the attempt to murder U.S. citizens in Times Square

Jennifer Rubin:

It is worth asking why. One gets the impression that somehow the administration thinks it’s a problem to engage in a multi-pronged outreach to the “Muslim World” (We can question the utility of that, but they imagine it’s helpful.) and to identify the actual enemy — which is a segment of that world, namely radical jihadists who just so happen to terrorize and kill a great many other Muslims. It is perhaps out of condescension that the Obama brain trust thinks the distinction will be lost on the worldwide Muslim audience. Therefore, we can’t use the “I” word or the “M” word except in praise.

Identifying the enemy by name also makes it difficult to adhere to the criminal-justice model that the Obama team and its lefty lawyers plainly adore. If there is a network of ideologically motivated, non-state terrorists, then are public trials and dispensing Miranda rights really the way to go?

So let’s keep referring to “incidents”. We wouldn’t want to go against the narrative, would we?

20182
Share

By

Shahzad on Homeland Security list since 1999; VIDEO

Yes, siree, the Times Square bomber who was pulled out of the plane that would have taken him out of the country after his terror attack had been on the Homeland Security list since before the second WTC attack:
Faisal Shahzad on Homeland Security List Since 1999

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list – Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) – between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.

TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law.

He could buy a one-way airline ticket for cash and get on the plane to Dubai but you and I can’t even wear a belt through the metal detector at the gate.

And… the anything-but-a-radical-Islamist-terrorist dude was Taliban-trained:
Suspect’s Ties to Pakistan Taliban Probed
Islamabad Official Claims Shahzad Received Instructions From Suicide-Bomber Trainer; Group Has Been Targeted by CIA Drones

Pakistani investigators also are probing Mr. Shahzad’s possible connections with Jaish-e-Muhammad, an outlawed Islamist militant group, after the arrest Tuesday of Tohaid Ahmed and Mohammed Rehan in Karachi. A senior Pakistani government official said the two men were believed to have links to Jaish. Mr. Ahmed had been in email contact with Mr. Shahzad; Mr. Rehan took Mr. Shahzad to South Waziristan, the official said.

There, Mr. Shahzad received training in explosives in a camp run by Qari Hussain, the official said. Mr. Hussain is a senior commander with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistan Taliban’s formal name, and trains suicide bombers, the official said. Mr. Hussain is also a cousin of Hakimullah Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban’s chief. The 30-year-old Mr. Shahzad has admitted to investigators that he received training from militants in Waziristan, U.S. officials said.

Jawa has the video of Faisal on Times Square during a prior visit,

Watch CBS News Videos Online

In lighter news, maybe the authorities were following him on Twitter!

UPDATE
James Joyner doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry,

The interesting question to me is: Which would be worse?

That is, would it be better if our ridiculously expensive and cumbersome Homeland Security apparatus wasn’t monitoring Shahzad, despite his being a Pakistani national or the right age set constantly traveling back to his homeland? Or that they’d been following him for eleven years but didn’t catch him until well after he finished his plot, avoiding disaster only through his incompetence?

Share

By

Shahzad on Homeland Security list since 1999; VIDEO

Yes, siree, the Times Square bomber who was pulled out of the plane that would have taken him out of the country after his terror attack had been on the Homeland Security list since before the second WTC attack:
Faisal Shahzad on Homeland Security List Since 1999

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list – Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) – between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.

TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law.

He could buy a one-way airline ticket for cash and get on the plane to Dubai but you and I can’t even wear a belt through the metal detector at the gate.

And… the anything-but-a-radical-Islamist-terrorist dude was Taliban-trained:
Suspect’s Ties to Pakistan Taliban Probed
Islamabad Official Claims Shahzad Received Instructions From Suicide-Bomber Trainer; Group Has Been Targeted by CIA Drones

Pakistani investigators also are probing Mr. Shahzad’s possible connections with Jaish-e-Muhammad, an outlawed Islamist militant group, after the arrest Tuesday of Tohaid Ahmed and Mohammed Rehan in Karachi. A senior Pakistani government official said the two men were believed to have links to Jaish. Mr. Ahmed had been in email contact with Mr. Shahzad; Mr. Rehan took Mr. Shahzad to South Waziristan, the official said.

There, Mr. Shahzad received training in explosives in a camp run by Qari Hussain, the official said. Mr. Hussain is a senior commander with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistan Taliban’s formal name, and trains suicide bombers, the official said. Mr. Hussain is also a cousin of Hakimullah Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban’s chief. The 30-year-old Mr. Shahzad has admitted to investigators that he received training from militants in Waziristan, U.S. officials said.

Jawa has the video of Faisal on Times Square during a prior visit,

Watch CBS News Videos Online

In lighter news, maybe the authorities were following him on Twitter!

UPDATE
James Joyner doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry,

The interesting question to me is: Which would be worse?

That is, would it be better if our ridiculously expensive and cumbersome Homeland Security apparatus wasn’t monitoring Shahzad, despite his being a Pakistani national or the right age set constantly traveling back to his homeland? Or that they’d been following him for eleven years but didn’t catch him until well after he finished his plot, avoiding disaster only through his incompetence?

20132
Share