““Basically the note says that he does not mourn his brother Tamerlan, that Tamerlan was a martyr now and that he was in paradise, that Dzhokhar expected to join him there soon,” . . . . That the bombings were in retribution for the US crimes against Muslims in places like Iraq and Afghanistan; that the victims of the Boston bombing were ‘collateral damage,’ the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in US wars around the world, summing up that when you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims.”\
Going to be a long hot summer, no matter how you call it. The Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan are on the move, not on the run. Bring our troops home now.
In January, President Obama approved peace negotiations between Afghan President Karzai and the Taliban. Since their failed attempt, April has been deadliest month of the year in Afghanistan. Now the Taliban has launched their new spring offensive, “The Drawn Sword of Allah” that will begin on Sunday across the country. In a press release the Taliban said they will target “America, NATO and their backers for the gratification of Allah Almighty, independence of Afghanistan and establishing in it an Islamic government while we humbly raise our hands towards Allah Almighty for its success and hope for a favorable and triumphant end.”
The militant group’s leadership vowed that “every possible tactic will be utilized in order to detain or inflict heavy casualties on the foreign transgressors,” including suicide attacks on military bases and diplomatic areas. The leadership also threated more so-called insider attacks by members of the Afghan security forces against their colleagues or foreign troops.
Such attacks threaten the strength of the Afghan forces as they work to take over responsibility from international troops. The latest one occurred in March, when a member of Afghanistan’s government-backed militia program shot and killed five of his colleagues in Badghis province in northwest Afghanistan.
In a sign of Taliban’s determination to replace Afghanistan’s government with one promoting a stricter interpretation of Islamic law, they named their new offensive after a legendary Muslim military commander, Khalid ibn al-Walid. Also known as “the Drawn Sword of God,” he was a companion of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
This is an article from July 2012. It was written about the coming threat from IEDs like the bomb that disrupted the Boston Marathon. Lots of good stuff which may explain our problem. Seems like the IED threat to the homeland was known near a year ago.
This story is originated from Congressional testimony. It is worth reading about what Obama knew a year ago.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, homemade, low-tech bombs, often hidden along roadsides, have been some of the deadliest threats to United States soldiers. In Afghanistan alone, these improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were responsible for 1,290 of the 2,477 U.S. and coalition casualties since 2001, according to iCasualties.org, which tracks troop deaths.Now, IEDs could be coming to U.S. shores.
According to Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, head of the military’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, some of the same terrorists who amassed the know-how on building IEDs are setting their sights on the U.S.
Air Force Lt. Col. Jon Trainer, 51, has been awarded a Bronze Star Medal for his creation of a PowerPoint presentation that informs the military about how to properly treat Islamic religious materials and for his role in a suicide prevention training program, the Dayton Daily News reports.
Considering that the Bronze Star is the military’s fifth most prestigious award — and bearing in mind the Islamic-centered work that led to the accolade — it’s certainly a story worth telling.
Trainer’s response to radical extremism unfolded in early 2012. After deadly riots broke out in Afghanistan last year following revelations that Korans were accidentally burned, Trainer apparently came up with a solution. The Daily News has more:
After the accidental burning last year of Qurans by U.S. troops in Afghanistan sparked deadly rioting, an Air National Guard chaplain from Springfield stepped in and potentially saved countless American lives.
For his effort, Lt. Col. Jon Trainer received the prestigious Bronze Star — a medal given for heroic or meritorious achievement in connection with operations against an armed enemy.
And he did it with a PowerPoint presentation.
Within 48 hours of the riots that left 30 people dead, including two U.S. troops and two additional military advisers, Trainer created a PowerPoint presentation addressing how Islamic material should be handled and disposed of. In addition to laying out these elements, the Daily News reports that the chaplain, a nondenominational Christian pastor, also identified what constitutes important Islamic material.
I wonder would the Bible have been according such treatment?
As the debate over the federal government’s drone strike program is climaxing in Washington, the Air Force has quietly erased previously published drone strike data from its website. Additionally, the Air Force has now changed its policy of publishing statistics of drone strikes in Afghanistan each month.
Air Force Central Command (AFCENT) had been publishing monthly updates on drone strikes, or “weapons releases from remotely piloted aircraft (RPA),” since October. However, data published in February suddenly “contained empty space where the box of RPA statistics had previously been,” the Air Force Times reports.
Upon further investigation, Air Force Times reporters Brian Everstine and Aaron Mehta discovered additional statistics from previous months were missing as well.
The data removal coincided with increased scrutiny on RPA policy caused by President Barack Obama’s nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA. Brennan faced opposition in the Senate over the use of RPAs and his defense of their legality in his role as Obama’s deputy national security adviser.
On Feb. 20, two days before the metadata indicates the scrubbed files were created, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., sent a letter to Brennan saying that he would filibuster the nomination over concerns about using RPA strikes inside the U.S., a threat he carried out for over 12 hours on March 6 (Brennan was confirmed the next day).
That same day, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., told a crowd in South Carolina that strikes by American RPAs have killed 4,700 people.
A Defense Department spokesman told the Air Force Times that the department had nothing to do with the data scrub. AFCENT did not respond to inquires from the Air Force Times.
If you want to know how seriously O takes war, today’s must-read is by Vali Nasr at Foreign Policy accusing the White House of serial mismanagement of Afghanistan in the name of political expediency. It’s long but devastating. Take advantage of the slow news day to read it in full. A choice bit:
[T]he president had a truly disturbing habit of funneling major foreign-policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisors whose turf was strictly politics. Their primary concern was how any action in Afghanistan or the Middle East would play on the nightly news, or which talking point it would give the Republicans. The Obama administration’s reputation for competence on foreign policy has less to do with its accomplishments in Afghanistan or the Middle East than with how U.S. actions in that region have been reshaped to accommodate partisan political concerns…
The Obama administration’s approach to reconciliation … is not exactly what Holbrooke had in mind for a diplomatic end to the war. Holbrooke thought that the United States would enjoy its strongest leverage if it negotiated with the Taliban when the country had the maximum number of troops on the ground in Afghanistan. He had not favored the Afghanistan surge, but once the troops were there, he thought the president should use the show of force to get to a diplomatic solution.
But that did not happen. The president failed to launch diplomacy and then announced the troop withdrawal in a June 2011 speech, in effect snatching away the leverage that would be needed if diplomacy were to have a chance of success. “If you are leaving, why would the Taliban make a deal with you? How would you make the deal stick? The Taliban will talk to you, but just to get you out faster.” That comment we heard from an Arab diplomat was repeated across the region…
It was to court public opinion that Obama first embraced the war in Afghanistan. And when public opinion changed, he was quick to declare victory and call the troops back home. His actions from start to finish were guided by politics, and they played well at home. Abroad, however, the stories the United States tells to justify its on-again, off-again approach do not ring true to friend or foe. They know the truth: America is leaving Afghanistan to its own fate. America is leaving even as the demons of regional chaos that first beckoned it there are once again rising to threaten its security.
He ran in 2008 as the “smart power” candidate who’d recommit to the war in Afghanistan and make sure that it could never again be used as a safe haven by jihadis. He went through the motions for 18 months after getting elected, but ultimately the Taliban called his bluff and now here we are. Bear that in mind as you watch Biden run through his tough-guy shtick below. Exit question: Is it really true that the guy who traded Hosni Mubarak for the Muslim Brotherhood and who appointed Chuck “Jewish Lobby” Hagel as his defense secretary has done more for Israel’s security than any president in modern history?
The ARGUS array is made up of several cameras and other types of imaging systems. The output of the imaging system is used to create extremely large, 1.8GP high-resolution mosaic images and video.
The U.S. Army, along with Boeing, has developed and is preparing to deploy a new unmanned aircraft called the “Hummingbird.” It’s is a VTOL-UAS (vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial system). Three of them are being deployed to Afghanistan for a full year to survey and spy on Afghanistan from an altitude of 20,000 feet with the ability to scan 25 square miles of ground surface.
This camera, like those from cellphones, is what help ARGUS achieve its high level of detail. (Image: YouTube screenshot)
On this helicopter is the pod where ARGUS is mounted. (Photo: DARPA)
U.S. Marine Corps special operators will soon be outfitted with the Colt M45 Close Quarters Combat Pistol, marking the first time in nearly 30 years that Colt pistols will accompany Marines into combat.
Here’s some recent footage of the pistol from the 2013 SHOT show:
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