Category: Terrorism

Another Failure of Obama’s Antiterror Policy

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They have captured the Taliban’s military chief and 2nd in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Karachi, Pakistan:

The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

(emphasis mine)

After 911, he was running around for about 6½ years under Bush. Obama got him after only a bit more than 1 year.

<tinfoil hat>I’m beginning to wonder if Bush and His Evil Minions™ made a political decision not to capture bin Laden because it kept people scared, and scared voters are Republican voters.</tinfoil hat>

Can We Please Start Arresting Bankers?

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Seriously, the good folks at Citi are planning to start selling, “derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis.”

That’s right, they are creating instruments that will allow people to bet against our financial system, and win if they, or their friends take it down:

Credit specialists at Citi are considering launching the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis. The firm has drawn up plans for a tradable liquidity index, known as the CLX, on which products could be structured that allow buyers to hedge a spike in funding costs.

(emphasis mine)

Seriously, if our forfathers understood the need to prevent this sort of casino gambling masquerading as insurance when the parliament passed the Marine Insurance Act of 1746, no that’s not an error, taking out insurance on something in which you have no interest in the continued existence of the insured property has been illegal for 264 years, because otherwise, people do things like take out insurance in their neighbor’s house, and then burn it down.

These people are terrorists under the (admittedly lax) standards of the PATRIOT act and its successors, and they should be pursued as such, with all the jurisprudence that Dick Cheney wants for suspected al Qaeda members.

H/t Felix Salmon, who crystallizes the basic point rather clearly:

We learned in the crash of 1987 [and 2001, and 2008, me] that when financial markets start selling products which insure a portfolio against catastrophic loss, the very existence of those products can destabilize the market and make it more prone to crashing. And, of course, we learned that such insurance has a tendency not to get paid out on exactly when it’s most needed. But heaven forfend that the market should ever learn from its mistakes.

We need hand cuffs for dishonest and delusional bankers today, or we’ll need pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers for all bankers tomorrow.

Insert South Carolina Joke Here

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No, this is not The Onion.

You have a Lt. Governor who thinks that nutritious lunches for poor children is like feeding strays, a governor who has forever ruined the idea of hiking the Appalachian trail, and is now asking for the stimulus money that he refused, and now the South Carolina lege has passed a law requiring that people who wish to overthrow the United States government pay a fee and get a license for the privilege:

Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina’s Secretary of State and declare their intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” passed last year and now officially on the books, states that “every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States … shall register with the Secretary of State.”

There’s even a $5 filing fee.

By “subversive organization,” the law means “every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State.”

The interesting thing here is that it appears to me that this definition might very well apply to any number of the more rabid Confederate heritage groups.

The members of the South Carolina legislature had better find someone to cut their meat, because if we allow them to handle knives, it will get very ugly.

[on edit]
It appears that the definitive word on the state was made in 1860, following the vote for secession, by Congressman James Petigru, “South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.”

Well, This Has Fail Written All Over It

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It appears that Yemen, under US pressure is looking to arrest Anwar al Awlaki, the Imam tied to both the Fort Hood shooter and the Underoos bomber.

The problem here is that, absent any information that he’s actually involved with al Qaeda, he’s just someone who speaks in support of them.

That makes him a bad person, but we are in the process of making him a martyr, and the counter-terrorism forces will use his sermons, convincing Muslims even more thoroughly that this is a war on Islam.

Really, I think that anyone involved in counter-terrorism should read Wasp by Eric Frank Russell, or at least the first chapter:

The title of Wasp comes from the idea that the main character’s actions and central purpose mimic that particular insect; just as something as small as a wasp can terrorize a much larger creature in control of a car to the point of causing a crash and killing the occupants, so the defeat of an enemy may be wrought via psychological and guerrilla warfare by a small, but deadly, protagonist in their midst.

The point is, pedants arguing about anaphylaxis notwithstanding, is that the wasp cannot kill us, it can only induce us to kill ourselves.

Kansas Judge Declares Open Season on Gynecologists

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Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert has ruled that Scott Roeder may present to the jury a defense that his actions were “justifiable homicide”, which carries a 5 year sentence:

”This judge has basically announced a death sentence for all of us who help women,” said Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo., a longtime friend of Tiller who also performs late-term abortions. ”That is the effect of the ruling.”

Dr. Hern is 100% correct

The facts of the case are not in dispute: On a balmy Sunday morning, Roeder got up from a pew at Wichita’s Reformation Lutheran Church at the start of services and walked to the foyer, where Tiller and a fellow usher were chatting around a table. Wordlessly, he pressed the barrel of a .22-caliber handgun to Tiller’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

Prosecutors charged Roeder with first-degree murder, and the 51-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., later admitted to reporters and in a court filing that he killed Tiller. The prosecution stands ready with more than 250 prospective witnesses to prove it.

But what had been expected to be a simple trial was altered Friday when Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert decided he would allow Roeder to build a defense case calling for a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter because he sincerely believed the May 31 slaying would save unborn children.

This is bullsh#@, and my guess is that this is an artifact of one of two things:

  • The anti-abortion terrorists have one of their own on the bench in Sedgwick County, Kansas.
  • This judge thinks that he’s going to be able to clarify things properly to a jury, which would make them understand the Kansas statute’s concept of, “”an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.”

In either case this is not a clusterf%$#, but we won’t see the Obama DoJ getting involved in the Civil Rights area, they have already, “declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.”

Obama has always been lukewarm on abortion rights, and now we get to see just how lukewarm he is.

The underoos bomber was not being soft on terrorists, but if the DoJ stays out of this, it’s giving aid and comfort to terrorists.

What Dan Said

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Dan Froomkin, that is, about the bogus numbers that the Pentagon keeps feeding the media regarding Guantanamo detainees who have returned to the fight:

Denbeaux calls this week’s outrageous Pentagon assertions the latest example of what he calls “numbers without names and trends without numbers.” He told me he’s outraged it’s been so widely picked up — including by the Times.

“I don’t see what the point is of a public editor criticizing a story for the New York Times if they’re going to republish it a year later,” he told me.

Gullible, amnesiac journalists are a dangerous thing. Is our profession really incapable of learning anything from its mistakes?

Yes, journalists are so tied to their sources that they will repeat the same lie, even if it it’s known to be a lie, over, and over, and over, and over again.

This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions.

Cracks in the Republican Façade

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Dick Lugar just called out Dick Cheney on his statements about terrorism:

Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, defended President Barack Obama’s handling of recent terrorism threats, taking issue with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s criticism.

“It’s unfair,” Lugar said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “I think the president is focused.”

It’s either a sign of the apocalypse, or Senator Lugar is thinking about switching parties.

Read the Rude Pundit

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He’s a genius, as he shows in his latest, “It Shouldn’t Surprise Us that Some Ex-Gitmo Detainees Want to F%$# Us Up.” (%$# mine):

We are incapable of dealing with the notion that whether you’re the good guy or the bad guy is a matter of perception. And that sometimes the United States is the bad guy. Unless we’re willing to confront that and do something about it (like, at minimum, apologize and offer compensation), then we shouldn’t be surprised that Yemeni Mel Gibsons will seek to go all Lethal Weapon on us.

The man is a genius, if somewhat profane.

Go read.

Why the Air Force as an Independent Service Should be Abolished: Part 32

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Matthew Yglesias reports that retired USAF Lieutenant General Tom McInerney has just called for mandatory strip searches of all Muslims aged between the ages of 18 to 28 in an interview with (who else)Fox News.

This guy is bats%$# insane, but his insanity is endemic with the Air Force, as has been noted in a number of stories regarding a pervasive atmosphere of religious harassment at the Air Force academy.

(I’ve done a couple of posts on the problem generally.)

The problem here is not that he was in the Air Force. Any organization will have its share of crazies, criminals, and incompetents.

The problem is that he made it to 3-stars, despite being clearly unhinged, and there is way too much of that in the US air force.

In fact, in the video below, it’s clear that it’s so crazy that the interviewer on Fox feels the need to call him out on this, because of the hostility it would engender:

Bootnote: It looks like Al-Jazeerah is already covering it, so congratulations general, you just murdered a dozen or so US troops over the next few months.

Elections Have Consequences: Not Pandering to the House of Saud

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In response to the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253, the TSA will engage in aggressive screening of travelers from 14 countries.

I think that, once again, we are seeing something that is more security theater than real security, but there is a refreshing change in this little charade:

Citizens of 14 nations, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, who are flying to the United States will be subjected indefinitely to the intense screening at airports worldwide that was imposed after the Christmas Day bombing plot, Obama administration officials announced Sunday.

………………

Citizens of Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, countries that are considered “state sponsors of terrorism,” as well as those of “countries of interest” — including Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen — will face the special scrutiny, officials said.

(emphasis mine)

This is significant break from the way that Bush and His Evil Minions™ dealt with the House of Saud, which basically involved putting their tongues so far up the anus of Prince Bandar that they tasted tonsils.

The Right to Blaspheme is the Core of Civil Rights in a Modern Democracy

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So, we now have the breaking news that a a man armed with knives and axes attempted to break into the home of Kurt Westergaard, one of the artists who created the Danish cartoons (see pic).

The response to such terrorism must be more speech that religious fundamentalists find blasphemous, hence my reposting the picture. If you allow the clergy to determine what can, or cannot, be said, you eventually create a theocracy, and history has shown that theocracies are amongst the worst forms of despotism.

Additionally, as I have said before, “If your God can’t take me calling him a pig felcher, then he ain’t much of a God.”

While I understand how backward 3rd nations, like, for example, Ireland might want to outlaw blasphemy, I think that modern nations must necessarily understand that as a condition for full access to the benefits of western economies and markets.

The free traders believe that open markets create open societies, but given the explosion of blasphemy laws, and blasphemy prosecutions, since the adoption of the GATT (Now WTO), I would argue that the opposite has occurred.

The reduction to costs involved in acceding to the demands of medieval fundamentalists, because the current model of “free trade” means that a country has full access to international markets unless their policies are nearly genocidal, has led mainstream politicians who are looking for allies and coalition partners, to sign off on demands that are contrary to modern civil rights.

FWIW, I believe that the same sanctions should be applied to laws that criminalize criticism of royalty (Thailand) or the nation (Turkey, etc.).

Security Theater

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Bruce Schneier, once again, is all over it:

Our current response to terrorism is a form of “magical thinking.” It relies on the idea that we can somehow make ourselves safer by protecting against what the terrorists happened to do last time.

Unfortunately for politicians, the security measures that work are largely invisible. Such measures include enhancing the intelligence-gathering abilities of the secret services, hiring cultural experts and Arabic translators, building bridges with Islamic communities both nationally and internationally, funding police capabilities — both investigative arms to prevent terrorist attacks, and emergency communications systems for after attacks occur — and arresting terrorist plotters without media fanfare.

It’s very clear that many of the so-called security measures do not enhance security, but exist to create an appearance of security.

Just go read it.

Poo of Mass Destruction

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So, on another Northwest Flight, a passenger experiencing “gastric distress”, spent an extended amount of time in the aircraft lavatory, and when quizzed about his experience, he was less than forthcoming, so we had yet another security freakout.

Needless to say, al Qaeda is planning to start opening restaurants at airports that serve really strong curry, and they will follow it up with sabotage to disable toilet heating, so we will be threatened with icy BM’s.*

*Icy BM (Bowel Movement)-ICBM, get it?

I Take One Day Off, and Look What Happens……

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So, some yahoo attempts to sew explosives into his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, and, is tackled by passengers when his attempt at setting it off fails.

I call wannabee. Means of securely detonating a bomb without flames or noise have been the purview of one-eyed, one-handed, three-fingered men since 1944.

This was just sloppy.

Then again, my track record on this is almost 100% wrong.

More on the Exit of Greg Graig, White House Counsel

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Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf of Time magazine have the full rundown, but the basic thesis is that Dick Cheney started saying bad things about Barack Obama when it started to become obvious that Cheney might be in legal jeopardy if Obama did not go all out to stop all investigations and public disclosures on law breaking by Bush and His Evil Minions™.

At Firedog Lake, Marcy Wheeler hits the nail on the head when she says, “I guess Dick Cheney is right–Obama can’t stand up to terrorists. Terrorists like Dick Cheney.”

(emphasis mine)

9/11 Plotters to be Tried in United States

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There are a couple of interesting points to this development, the first is that Attorney General Holder is clearly cherry picking, with those people for whom he feels that a conviction is guaranteed, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, getting trials in Federal Court, while other people getting military commissions, because they evidence is either shakier or tainted:

Mr. Holder also announced military tribunals for five other Guantanamo detainees, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, alleged to have planned the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Officials said the tribunals were chosen, over civilian courts, based on several factors, including the fact that their alleged crimes were against military targets or occurred overseas.

Navy Lt. Cdr. Stephen Reyes, the lawyer for Mr. Nashiri, said “The decision today was legally unsound. The real reason why the government chose to go to a commission was to ensure a conviction through otherwise inadmissible evidence.”

Another issue, and one that has not yet been brought up in the press is that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s children are currently being held by the United States, or held by someone with whom the United States has significant control over, and I’m waiting for a defense attorney to say that their client cannot aid in their own defense because, “KSM’s children [ages would appear to be in the 8-12 year old range] are held hostage by the United States.”

I am not a lawyer, I am an engineer, dammit,* but if I were a lawyer, and I were his lawyer, this would be one of the first motions that I would bring up, because if your client has the prospect of harm to his children hanging over his head.

It’s clear that the US knows the location and condition of his children, and this would be yet another mess left by Obama’s refusal to thoroughly clean house following Bush’s gulags.

*I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!

This is Not a Surprise

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It appears that the Taliban is in the process of severing its ties with al Qaeda:

Such positions may put Omar’s Taliban at odds with al-Qaeda’s extremist Sunni agenda of overthrowing what it sees as corrupt Muslim governments and targeting Shiites. Analysts said that Omar, who leads a council of Taliban commanders based in or around the Pakistani city of Quetta, wants such countries as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government if it regains power and that he has little interest in fomenting war elsewhere.

“We assure all countries that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as a responsible force, will not extend its hand to cause jeopardy to others,” Omar said in a written statement in September.

The messages from the Taliban leadership since the spring amount to something of a “revolution,” said Wahid Mujda, a political analyst who was a Foreign Ministry official under the Taliban government. “Al-Qaeda’s path is now different from the Taliban’s path, and they are growing more separated.”

This ain’t a revolution.

Al Qaeda was never particularly popular in Afghanistan, where the people are, after all not Arabs, and they have about as much love for rich Arabs as we in the United States do.

Bin Laden was there because the Taliban wanted his money, not him.

When they were in control of Afghanistan, not only were they not fierce protectors of him, but they were trying to find a way for help the US make him dead in a way that gave them some plausible deniability.