The warning comes after Kenya sent troops across the border into Somalia to pursue Islamist Al-Shabaab militants. The terror group has threatened Kenya with retaliatory attacks, saying it considers the forces’ incursion an affront to Somalia’s sovereignty.

Al-Shabaab, which is linked to al Qaeda and has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, is fighting to impose its own interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia, on Somalia.

Wow, yes, I can understand why they would be concerned about this danger, especially since two days after this alert was made, a grenade was detonated at a Kenyan pub. Yikes.

What I cannot understand, given the above and a host of similar dangers, is why our DOJ felt compelled to take back their current training manuals on terrorism. As one might expect, the manuals included information on Islamist terrorists. Well, CAIR, the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood connected organization in America, along with another Muslim organization, threw a hissy fit about the US mentioning Islmaist terrorists in their manuals. So, what did the Obama Administration do? They kowtowed to CAIR:

Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole confirmed on Wednesday that the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive.

“I recently directed all components of the Department of Justice to re-evaluate their training efforts in a range of areas, from community outreach to national security,” Cole told a panel at the George Washington University law school.

The move comes after complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the 2004 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial.

In a Wednesday Los Angeles Times op-ed, Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) president Salam al-Marayati threatened the FBI with a total cutoff of cooperation between American Muslims and law enforcement if the agency failed to revise its law enforcement training materials.

The DOJ is removing ALL references to Islam in these manuals. I am sorry, but this is just insane. This nation has suffered attacks at the hands of Islamists, and is under threat from Islamists around the globe even now. How dare our DOJ capitulate to an organization associated with the Muslim Brotherhood which has waged jihad against the United States!

Oh, but wait – there’s more:

Maintaining the training materials in their current state “will undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community,” al-Marayati wrote.

Multiple online sources detail MPAC’s close alignment with CAIR.

In his op-ed, Al-Marayati demanded that the Justice Department and the FBI “issue a clear and unequivocal apology to the Muslim American community” and “establish a thorough and transparent vetting process in selecting its trainers and materials.”

Specifically, al-Marayati called for a new “interagency task force” to review the training materials — a task force including representatives of the Islamist organizations the FBI is tasked with monitoring. (Click HERE to read the rest.)

So let me make sure I understand this. The very groups who have ties to Islamist radicals are making demands on just how our government goes about finding these groups, and how they deal with these threats? And the DOJ is acquiescing to this? Are you kidding me with this?

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t it precisely this kind of political correctness that allowed Major Nidal Hasan to stay in the Army? Despite his preaching radical Islam, associating with known terrorists (Anwar al-Awlaki),and poor performance reviews, he was allowed to stay in the Army. As a result, he was able to gun down a number of soldiers in cold blood at Fort Hood. Had it not been for the actions of a couple of people, there is no telling the amount of carnage he could have waged.

How CAIR, an organization the FBI determined was an organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, has amassed so much power in the United States is beyond me. What is even more startling is that it is not held in high regard by the majority of Muslims in this country: Although widely publicized in the media, CAIR is regarded as a leadership group by only 12 percent of Muslims in America, according to an August 2 report by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center. Muslim groups that separate politics from religion, such as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, do not ally with progressive groups and get little media attention.

That said, considering high officials are submitting to them makes it clear that this DOJ needs a massive overhaul. From the top on down, including Eric Holder, and Deputy AG Cole, who acknowledged that these materials had been returned (at taxpayer expense to placate these groups, they need to go. They do not have our best interests at heart, and are putting us in danger by their caving to groups like CAIR. We have been attacked by radical Islamists, and those same groups are planning to do us harm even now. To deny this, to put US citizens at risk, is downright criminal, or it should be.

How many more American lives are we willing to lose in the name of political correctness? Naming an enemy and preparing for that enemy are not the same as being intolerant or biased, it is just the reality in which we live.

To ignore known and real threats as the DOJ is willing to do lest they offend is sheer insanity. At least that’s what I think. What do you think?

The world focused on the Northern areas of Pakistan to capture or kill the al-Qaeda or Taliban operatives. But the harsh reality is that even if these operatives are eliminated, there are other outfits in the rest of the southern part of Pakistan that have the same aims, will and training as that of al-Qaeda or Taliban.

After 2001 Pakistanis were spoon fed the propaganda that the violence in Pakistan is due to America’s presence in Afghanistan. As a result, many hate the U.S. intervention and see Islamists as the defenders of Pakistani sovereignty. Those who support the Islamists for their religious beliefs are relatively few in number, but they are better organized. The arrests of extremists depends on the willingness of Pakistan’s secret agencies and/or the influence of the Saudi government.

The dual policy of keeping the U.S. happy while supporting the terrorist outfits was charted out by the then-President of Pakistan Gen. Pervez Musharraf. He half-heartedly banned some 23 organizations but failed — deliberately — to bring their sponsors to justice.

The story of Southern part of Pakistan is much scarier than the Northern part. Just as the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approached, those “banned” outfits were on the rise, exploiting the anti-Americanism in the country and misusing the name of religion.

Jaish-e-Muhammad, the group blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament, is the second largest jihadi group in Southern Punjab. It carries out regular public gatherings and has strong influence in the U.K., Europe, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and even in the U.S. Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi was their financial patron-in-chief at one point. Another major financer is Saudi Arabia.

JeM changed its name a few times because of the “ban.” It went from Khudam-al-Islam to Al Rehmat Trust International to Usman Trust. Currently it is operating under the banner of Al Shafi Islamic Medical. Its publications were never out of print.

The failed Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, spent much of his time at a JeM madrassa in Karachi. He was transported to the North later by Laskhar-e-Jhangvi for further training.

LeJ’s parent organization — Sipah Sahaba Pakistan — changed its name from Millat-e-Islamia to International Quran Movement to Ehle Sunnat wa Jamaat. Its propaganda organ publications were available to the masses outside mosques and various market places.

The LeJ formed and operated its new wing, also known as Lashkar e Jhangvi al Almi (LeJ International). With its headquarters in Pakistan, it covers Europe and the U.K. The LeJ is organized into small cells of around eight cadres each, who operate independently of the others.

LeJ leader Malik Ishaq told an Urdu newspaper about his involvement in the killings of 102 people. He was allowed a stipend and provided a mobile phone in jail. Ishaq was released this year after the courts found no evidence against him.

Gen. Musharraf’s government carried out just one operation against the Islamic fundamentalists, under pressure from the Chinese government, when he ordered the Red Mosque Siege. Pakistani intelligence officials said they found letters from Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to the leaders of the mosque, directing them to conduct an armed revolt. One of the leaders was released by the courts later.

The LeJ, JeM and Harkat ul Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) formed a common front called Lashkar-e-Umer with countrywide branches for close cooperation and pooled resources. These groups still support each other in one form or another.

The Karachi-based Al Rasheed Trust, was “banned” and listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department on September 22, 2001. The group is still operating and its chief was one of the few who had direct access to bin Laden.

Similarly, another group, the Falah-e-Isnaniyat Foundation (FIF) is linked with Lashkar and Jamat-al-Dawa and protected by the security establishment. These groups are also supported and funded by the Saudis.

The freehand operations of these groups have radicalized Pakistani society. Anti-Americanism spreads while Arabization has taken hold.

There are more and more mosques in each city, many run by such outfits. In some places three separate mosques of different sects are built next to each other. The sermons delivered there go unchecked and ultimately fuel the hatred and twisted ideology of dividing Muslims and bringing ‘sharia’ of their liking to the world. Public Billboards promoting jihad and hatred of America are everywhere cloaked as appeals for “charity.”

Pakistan’s internal crises include a deep cynicism that has seeped into every nook and cranny of everyday life. Politically, the army continues to run the popular narrative. Socially, if liberals talk about rapprochement with India, they’re accused of being controlled by RAW, the C.I.A. or the Zionists — or all three. The radical view that it’s acceptable to kill Shi’a, Ahmadis, Hindus and Christians and destroy their places of worship is widespread.

Because of this chaos, ordinary Pakistanis who want to travel, work and study abroad are finding it harder to do so. In the eyes of many immigration officials around the world, to be Pakistani is synonymous with being a criminal.

It’s been said many times that 9/11 changed the world. After the attacks, Afghanistan and Pakistan felt the heat.

Ten years later, the diseases that had been contained in Pakistan metastasize more rapidly than ever. Pakistan’s militants, all of them, are a threat to international peace. If the West’s strategy for combating radicalism continues on its present parochial course, the world will feel the heat.

Holy shit. Are you KIDDING me with this? Check out the “rationale” from the maker of this “Hero” figure:

Navy SEALs have become national heroes since news broke that they took down Osama bin Laden, so it’s fitting that the newest action figure from a Connecticut company is a fierce-looking President Barack Obama as a SEAL.

The minute Obama said late on the night of May 1 that the U.S. had found and killed bin Laden, Emil Vicale knew which his action figure company’s would make next — Rambama.

On Wednesday morning, Hero Builders released the Obama SEAL Team 6 action figure — a muscular President in fatigues armed with an M1-A4.

Vicale, who owns the custom action figure company in Oxford, said the speech was a pivotal moment in the Obama presidency.

It was also a parallel to the speech that inspired the company in the first place almost 10 years earlier.

On Sept. 14, 2001, Vicale listened to then-President George Bush’s bullhorn speech from Ground Zero and was inspired to create Hero Builders. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Never mind that Obama did not GIVE the order to take out bin Laden, and had to be yanked off the golf course by the adults in the White House, HE did nothing to get bin Laden. HE did not risk his life. HE likely doesn’t even know how to OPERATE a gun, which I think I can say without fear of contradiction given this:

Yeah, doesn’t sound to me like someone who would have an M-1 in his arms, does it to you? Much less someone I think it is safe to label a “milquetoast,” as someone did in the comments.

Okay – I am too busy being disgusted to write more. What is your reaction?

Wow. I am not surprised by this news, though, in all honesty. The photo released by the White House as the Powers-That-Be watched the mission unfold (or at least some of it), made that abundantly clear:

From the get-go, it looked to me like Obama was sitting in the “Kid’s Chair,” while the adults were around the big table. If the White House Insider is accurate, and Larry Johnson is now stating after intel he’s received that the insider is at least 80% accurate, that’s exactly what was going on here. The decision had been made, and not by Obama. As the Insider stated in a previous interview, it was a coup, a term the insider stands by in the update on May 3, 2011 to SocyBerty.

Make no mistake – this is huge. Huge.

So, who did give the order to go after Osama bin Laden? It was Leon Panetta, backed by Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper. Not Barack Obama, despite his taking credit for it (though that is not a surprise, either – that has been his MO for years and years). If you have not had your fill of Obama BS, just watch his “60 Minutes” interview in which he blathers on and on about his “plan.” As you will read below, there was no such plan, at least not from him.

There is so much to this interview, and I urge you to read the complete post, but here are some key components:

Q: You stated that President Obama was “overruled” by military/intelligence officials regarding the decision to send in military specialists into the Osama Bin Laden compound. Was that accurate?

A: I was told – in these exact terms, “we overruled him.” (Obama) I have since followed up and received further details on exactly what that meant, as well as the specifics of how Leon Panetta worked around the president’s “persistent hesitation to act.” There appears NOT to have been an outright overruling of any specific position by President Obama, simply because there was no specific position from the president to do so. President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president. (Emphasis mine.)

I mentioned above who was doing the overruling – a star-studded group if ever there was one (well, except for maybe Jim Clapper – you remember him – the Director Of Intelligence who seemed woefully ignorant of Intelligence, who claimed the Muslim Brotherhood was “largely secular.” Yes, that guy.). Anyway, it was this group against Valerie Jarrett, and her puppet, Obama:

I was correct in stating there had been a push to invade the compound for several weeks if not months, primarily led by Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper. The primary opposition to this plan originated from Valerie Jarrett, and it was her opposition that was enough to create uncertainty within President Obama. Obama would meet with various components of the pro-invasion faction, almost always with Jarrett present, and then often fail to indicate his position. This situation continued for some time, though the division between Jarrett/Obama and the rest intensified more recently, most notably from Hillary Clinton. She was livid over the president’s failure to act, and her office began a campaign of anonymous leaks to the media indicating such. As for Jarrett, her concern rested on two primary fronts. One, that the military action could fail and harm the president’s already weakened standing with both the American public and the world. Second, that the attack would be viewed as an act of aggression against Muslims, and further destabilize conditions in the Middle East.

Wow. Yes, those should be our primary concerns when it comes to National Security, would it make Obama look bad, and angering Muslims? Good grief. That does confirm what many of us have thought, though. Our National Security has been couched by how it will appear to Muslims around the world, not about what is best for the United States of America. There is something seriously, seriously wrong with that.

The interviewer then asked about how they got Obama to change his opinion, to which the insider said they didn’t – Obama didn’t HAVE an opinion. The complete response is too long to include here, but the term “masterful manipulation” was used to describe how Leon Panetta made this happen. Here is just part of the response by the Insider:

[snip] Basically, the whole damn operation was already ready to go – including the specific team support Intel necessary to engage the enemy within hours of being given notice. Panetta then made plans to proceed with an on-ground assault. This information reached either Hillary Clinton or Robert Gates first (likely via military contacts directly associated with the impending mission) who then informed the other. Those two then met with Panetta, who informed each of them he had been given the authority by the president to proceed with a mission if the opportunity presented itself. Both Gates and Clinton warned Panetta of the implications of that authority – namely he was possibly being made into a scapegoat. Panetta admitted that possibility, but felt the opportunity to get Bin Laden outweighed that risk. During that meeting, Hillary Clinton was first to pledge her full support for Panetta, indicating she would defend him if necessary. Similar support was then followed by Gates. The following day, and with Panetta’s permission, Clinton met in private with Bill Daley and urged him to get the president’s full and open approval of the Panetta plan. Daley agreed such approval would be of great benefit to the action, and instructed Clinton to delay proceeding until he had secured that approval. Daley contacted Clinton within hours of their meeting indicating Jarrett refused to allow the president to give that approval (emphasis mine). Daley then informed Clinton that he too would fully support Panetta in his actions, even if it meant disclosing the president’s indecision to the American public should that action fail to produce a successful conclusion. Clinton took that message back to Panetta and the CIA director initiated the 48 hour engagement order. At this point, the President of the United States was not informed of the engagement order – it did not originate from him, and for several hours after the order had been given and the special ops forces were preparing for action into Pakistan from their position in Afghanistan, Daley successfully kept Obama and Jarrett insulated from that order. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

At this point, you may be wondering just who Valerie Jarrett is, and why she has so much influence over Obama, more so than a number of top Cabinet officials. Well, she is the Senior Advisor to the President now, but prior to that worked for Mayor Richard Daley, and hired Michelle Obama as an assistant to the mayor. Oh, but get this – only after “…re-assuring Michelle’s fiancé, Barack Obama, that the job was right for her.” Gee, sexist much?

Anyway, here are some of the ways in which she has been described:

Chicago businesswoman Valerie Jarrett has earned all sorts of nicknames as an aide to President-elect Barack Obama — from “First Friend” to “big sister” to “the other half of Obama’s brain.” As co-chair of his transition team, Jarrett has spent the past week denying rumors, parsing policy changes and insisting that she doesn’t know where she’ll end up in the new administration (although Beltway gossip suggests she may be appointed to Obama’s seat in the Senate). Of her relationship with the 44th commander-in-chief, Jarrett says simply: “He is my dear friend. I would do anything the President of the United States asked me to do.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

And apparently, she has a tremendous amount of sway over Obama in terms of policy, foreign and national. That is quite something for someone who was not elected, or had to pass Congressional scrutiny.

But that is not all there is to Valerie Jarrett (or Michelle Obama). There is more that is not so glowing:

[snip]But not a word about Jarrett’s involvement in Michelle Obama’s patient-dumping scheme at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Jarrett sat of the board of directors.

And not a word about Jarrett’s involvement in Grove Parc — the Chicago slum complex managed by Jarrett’s company, Habitat, Inc. To this day, Jarrett refuses to answer questions about the dilapidated housing development. [snip](Click here to read the rest.)

Yeah, she’s a piece of work, the embodiment of a Chicago-style politics. But she also is someone who has WAY too much power in the White House, and way too much power over affairs of State.

Again, if only 80% of what the White House Insider says is true, this is damaging stuff, indeed. It explains a lot, though, including Obama’s look while sitting in the Kiddy chair while the mission unfolded, and how fortunate we are that there are actual grown ups in this Administration willing to stick their necks out to protect our nation. One thing is for sure – that does not include Obama or Valerie Jarrett. When push came to shove, Obama continued to cave to Jarrett rather than listen to the people in positions to know better. His incompetence is dwarfed only by his narcissism for taking credit for results for which he had no involvement whatsoever.

One thing is crystal clear – Obama is not presidential material, and he sure as hell should not be president again. At least that’s what I think. How about you?

Yep, Hamas has “condemned” the killing:

While many Middle East leaders welcomed America’s military action, the mixed reaction across the region cast a shadow over both the “Arab Spring” and the future of talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

[...]

The Hamas prime minister of the Gaza strip, Ismail Haniya, said: “We condemn the assassination of a Muslim and Arab warrior and we pray to God that his soul rests in peace.

“We regard this as the continuation of the American oppression and shedding of blood of Muslims and Arabs.”

The Hamas reaction put it immediately at odds with Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, with which it is due to sign a unity deal today to join the Palestinian government.

Oops. Still, good to know where they stand, isn’t it? Not that I really expected anything different from Hamas.

And how about its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood? (And yes, Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood as its “political arm in December 1987…“) Well, this headline pretty much says it all:
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Sticks With Bin Laden Uh, yeah. That does pretty much say it all, but of course, you know there is more, beginning with the lovely slogan behind the head of Mohamed Badie below:

Mohamed Badie, the leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, talks during a news conference in Cairo on November 30, 2010. The banner in the background reads: “Islam is the solution.” By Amr Dalsh/Reuters

Oh, yes – they are such a moderate group, that Brotherhood, aren’t they? Ahem.

Back to the article:

[snip] Most of yesterday’s headlines proclaiming the death of Osama bin Laden used epithets like “terror mastermind” or “bastard” to refer to the internationally feared mass murderer. (That latter headline is from the New York Post.) But in its first public statement on the killing of bin Laden, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood used the honorific term “sheikh” to refer to the al-Qaeda leader. It also accused Western governments of linking Islam and terrorism, and defended “resistance” against the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan as “legitimate.”

The Muslim Brotherhood’s response to bin Laden’s death may finally end the mythology — espoused frequently in the U.S. — that the organization is moderate or, at the very least, could moderate once in power. This is, after all, precisely how Muslim Brothers describe their creed — “moderate,” as opposed to al-Qaeda, which is radical. “Moderate Islam means not using violence, denouncing terrorism, and not working with jihadists,” said Muslim Brotherhood youth activist Khaled Hamza, for whom the organization’s embrace of “moderate Islam” was the primary reason he joined.

Yet the Muslim Brotherhood’s promise that its “moderation” means rejecting violence includes a gaping exception: the organization endorses violence against military occupations, which its leaders have told me include Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Palestine — in other words, nearly every major conflict on the Eurasian continent. “I never fought in Afghanistan,” Mehdi Akef, the former Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, told me in January, just before the revolt. “But I encouraged them and sent money to Bosnia and Palestine until now.” Muslim Brotherhood leaders have endorsed attacks on Israeli civilians as an exception to their no-violence-except-against-occupation exception, viewing all of Israel as an occupation. “Zionism is gangs,” said Akef. “It’s not a country. So we will resist them until they don’t have a country.”

Huh. So, let’s recap – the Muslim Brotherhood fancies itself “moderate” because they are not “jihadists,” yet they have a jihad against the United States, and think it is A-Okay to target Israeli civilians. But they are “moderates.” Got it.

Get this, though – there are even more contradictions for the Muslim Brotherhood to deal with in its propaganda attempts. Oops, I mean, in stating their credo:

The attacks of September 11, 2001, however, created a real problem for the Muslim Brotherhood’s paradigms, since it was a violent attack against civilians on territory that could not be considered occupied. Rather than denounce the attacks, however, the organization chose to argue, outrageously, that Islamists were not responsible.

In some cases, Muslim Brothers have simply expressed doubts about the “theory” that al-Qaeda was behind the attacks. “I don’t believe it was jihadists. It was too big an operation,” said Abdel Monem Aboul Fotouh, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Office who is often touted as one of the organization’s reformers. “This was done by a country, not individuals. It’s not a conspiracy theory — it’s just logical. They didn’t bring this crime before the U.S. justice system until now. Why? Because it’s part of a conspiracy.”

Uh huh. So, even though Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda took credit for 9/11 (and a bunch of other attacks), we aren’t to believe them, or retaliate for them because the Muslim Brotherhood thinks it’s some cockamamie conspiracy theory? Hmm. How do I respond to that? Oh, I know – they can bite me.

Oh, but wait – it gets worse. Guess who they actually blame? This should not be a surprise:

More frequently, Muslim Brotherhood leaders blame a more predictable target. “The Jews and the Zionist lobby,” Muslim Brotherhood legal thinker and former parliamentarian Sobhi Saleh declared to me one March afternoon in his Cairo office, when I asked him who was responsible for the attacks. “And this study is well-known in America and it’s on the Internet. And a Christian preacher in Lebanon gave me a book on this at a conference. And it was a scientific research.”

But of course, it’s all Israel’s fault. That’s right. Sure it was. I mean, really, how can one disagree with such blinding logic? I jest – this is not logic. It’s something (fill in the blank), but logic it ain’t.

Finally, check out the Muslim Brotherhood’s statement on the death of bin Laden. Pay close attention to their victim-hood claims:

[snip]“The whole world, and especially the Muslims, have lived with a fierce media campaign to brand Islam as terrorism and describe the Muslims as violent by blaming the September 11th incident on al-Qaeda.” It then notes that “Sheikh Osama bin Laden” was assassinated alongside “a woman and one of his sons and with a number of his companions,” going on to issue a rejection of violence and assassinations…

[...]

In a way, the Muslim Brotherhood’s statement is vintage bin Laden: it’s Muslim lands, not America, that are under attack; it’s Muslims, not American civilians, who are the ultimate victims; and, despite two American presidents’ genuine, effusive promises to the contrary, Islam is the target. It’s an important indicator that despite its increased responsibility in post-Mubarak Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood may well remain deeply hostile toward even the one of the most basic and defensible of American interests in the Middle East — that of securing Americans from terrorism. (Click here to read the rest.)

Indeed. Poor pitiful things – everyone is SO mean to them. Blech.

Their claims against violence are a bit of a stretch, are they not? Especially when Hamas is a part of this very organization, and they have declared Jihad against the USA, as well as violence against Israeli citizens. Honestly, though, it still boggles my mind how many Americans happily went along with this group taking over Egypt, and how many were even DEFENDING them. But you know, you just can’t make some people see reason or accept facts. One would think, though, that as long as groups like this keep speaking up, those Americans who had/have no problem with the MB might just think again.

Hey, a woman can dream, can’t she?

I had another post all ready to go this morning of Lara Logan’s interview on “60 Minutes,” but that can keep until tomorrow. Today, the big news, as President Obama announced late last night, Osama bin Laden has been killed.

The reports have been a bit conflicting on just how he died, however. Initially, reports stated he had been killed by a drone attack last week, and that they had kept his body to determine through DNA analysis that it was indeed him.

Obama’s statement to the nation, though, claimed that he had (reaffirmed) the order to the CIA to get bin Laden (Bush initially gave the order), and that bin Laden was killed yesterday. Now we are told it was a Navy Seal who took him down, on a mission aided by CIA intel, as well as information gleamed from Khalid Sheik Muhammad at Gitmo. Apparently, the Pakistanis aided the US in this mission as well.

Following are excerpts of Obama’s remarks on this historic event (and I am glad he was finally able to use the word, “terrorist,” since it was one he and his Administration have worked hard not to use. Ahem.):

“Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

“It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory — hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.

“And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.

“On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to (emphasis mine – you knew it was coming, right?), or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.

“We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda — an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.

“Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.

“Yet Osama bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.

“And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

“Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

I admit, while watching this, I was waiting for Obama to say, “I just returned from Pakistan where I, personally, took out Osama bin Laden, with the help of our military. And you thought George Bush was a cowboy. He doesn’t have anything on me.” Sorry, but there were just a few too many “I”‘s in there for someone who has downplayed the whole issue of terrorism.

Yes, he gave the command to proceed, which is good. Yet many are acting as if this is showing great leadership on his part, while to me, it seems like a no-brainer. I mean, really – have our expectations of him sunk so low that the opportunity to take out this mastermind of terror is seen as a sign of “leadership”? Wow.

Back to the comments:

“For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.

“Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must — and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.

“As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.

Hillary Clinton just made the point that bin Laden killed many Muslims, too, just as Obama did, and that bin Laden had made threats against Pakistanis themselves. One can make of that what one will…

More from Obama:

[snip] “Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

“The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who’s been gravely wounded.

“So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.

“Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.

“We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.

“Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.[snip]

There is a bit more to this speech, and you can click here to read it.

Can I just say, though, listening and watching Obama last night really puts a lie to the meme that he is such a great speaker. He isn’t. His speech was stilted and halting, with a number of mistakes as he read the teleprompter. It was blatantly clear that he was – you could watch his eyes move.

I am confused as to why they chose to bury bin Laden at sea, and so quickly. I would have thought they would want to perform an autopsy, recover the bullet that killed him, see if he really was ill, all of that. So that choice is interesting to me. Why the rush to dispose of him? Oh, wait – here is why – it is in keeping with Islamic tradition.

Huh? Okay, so Obama makes it crystal clear that bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. However, we do know he was the leader of Al Qaeda, a Muslim organization, but alright. Interesting distinction Obama (and Clinton) are making here. Still,we finally get this mass murderer, we have his body, and we forgo obtaining some answers to uphold his religious tradition? Wow. What do you think about that? Is it an attempt to stave off more attacks?

If so, that is a bit misguided. We KNOW there will be reprisals from Al Qaeda as a result,as Leon Panetta has acknowledged we can expect. Honestly, these people are bound and determined to get us anyway, so taking out this one man who has caused so much damage to our great nation is a reason to be thankful, even if one abhors violence, or killing for any reason.

Bringing justice to this man who has done so much damage to our nation as a result of the tireless efforts of our intelligence community and our highly trained military, is a good day. Thanks to all of those who have worked to this end, though it is not an end to the war on terrorism. Bin Laden may be gone, but there are others out there wishing us harm. Our military and intelligence officers continue to have their work cut out for them, regardless of Obama taking the credit for this, it belongs, IMHO, to those who were on the ground. Well done.

There is a video I want to share with you. It is an impromptu celebration at Ground Zero after learning of bin Laden’s demise. This pretty much says it all, though there are many good videos out there of interviews with family members of those lost on 9/11, and first responders. I urge you to take a look and listen when you have time. Until then, I leave you with this:

UPDATE: A few of you have been kind enough to provide links regarding why Osama bin Laden was buried at sea. Here are the pertinent facts:

[snip] The official described the procedure to NBC News as follows:

* The deceased’s body was washed and then placed in a white sheet.
* The body was placed in a weighted bag.
* A military officer read prepared religious remarks that were translated into Arabic by a native speaker.
* After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased’s body eased into the sea from the USS Carl Vinson.

The rites sparked a debate about Islamic customs, with some Muslim clerics calling the procedure humiliating and others saying it was proper.

A U.S. official said that the burial decision was made after concluding that it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. There also was speculation about worry that a grave site could have become a rallying point for militants.

President Barack Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial. [snip]

Okay, so there weren’t a lot of countries willing to accept his body. There is cremation, after all.

And how do you feel that so much care was taken to prepare his body according to Islamic tradition? Wow…

It is believed that his cover was blown in retaliation for naming ISI chief Ahamad Shuja Pasha in a US lawsuit by families of 26/11 Mumbai attack victims. The suit asserts that Pasha and other ISI officers were ‘purposefully engaged in the direct provision of material support or resources’ to the planners of the Mumbai attacks.

A similar legal complaint was filed in Pakistan on behalf of Kareem Khan, a resident of North Waziristan who said that his son and brother were killed in a drone strike. Khan was seeking $500 million in compensation, and accusing CIA’s top officer in Pakistan of running a clandestine spying operation out of the United States Embassy.

This locking of horns should have been tackled sensibly. Instead, the confrontation ended up costing CIA an experienced officer. Interestingly, not many Americans known the name of the former CIA station chief, whereas whole of Pakistan is familiar of his name, especially the people in North Waziristan. Yes, North Waziristan, which the US believes is the new haven of militant extremists. 

This is not the first time that the two agencies have engaged in a power struggle. On September 30th this year, a US fighter helicopter crossed into Pakistan airspace and fired on a position occupied by Pakistani soldiers. As a result of this attack, three soldiers were killed and the rest severely injured. 

Hurting an ally came with a huge price for the US when Pakistan halted the flow of NATO supplies into Afghanistan through the Torkham for at least 10 days. It’s not that the trucks were just parked and were driven away after the ban was lifted. The Pakistani agency made sure to set an example and did not guard the trucks. As a result, the trucks were attacked by terrorists. 

These are just two major incidents that happened this year on Pakistan’s home ground, where the CIA, NATO, the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department cannot act without the ISI’s blessing. Its not your turf, but theirs.
Not helping ease relations were notorious incidents such as the threat by an obscure American pastor to burn the Quran, protests against a proposed Islamic Center in New York City and a Pakistani official delegation cutting its trip to United States short because of protocol issues. 

To make matters worse, none of the internecine US-Pakistan clashes were reported properly in the American press. The coverage was either one-sided or full of accusations. The media did cover the NATO trucks blockage, but offered neither context nor an apology for the cause of the attack. It did cover the removal of the CIA spy but did not suggest establishing person-to-person contact rather than strictly military-to-military relations. 

US agencies, whether on or off the ground, have to realize that Pakistan has sacrificed a lot more than it deserves. The Americans at the same time need to know that United States’ presence in Afghanistan has radicalized Pakistanis and turned many of them not only against the West. One count says the Pakistan army has lost more than 3,200 soldiers in recent fighting against Taliban forces along their border with Afghanistan. This does not include the civilians killed by drone attacks or by the suicide bombers.

This little rift between the two agencies is an open secret, and has been going on for years now. Every now and then, the CIA tries to prove that it has more resources and pushes ISI to ‘act as advised’. It needs to bring its ego down a notch, just for the sake of the war which both countries have to win. 

The release of State Department cables by Julian Assange at WikiLeaks has continued to have an impact at home and abroad. I am still not sure how it is this man has not been charged with espionage, or Pfc Bradley Manning with treason for providing classified information to a foreign national, but that is just me. That Assange is still free after not one, not two, but three massive data dumps of sensitive, classified information, is beyond me.

Recently, Philip Shenon of The Daily Beast had this article highlighting some of the effects of these leaks, After the Leaks, the Shakeup. This is disturbing, to put it mildly:

The Obama administration is planning a major reshuffling of diplomats, military officers, and intelligence operatives at U.S. embassies around the world out of concern that WikiLeaks has made it impossible—if not dangerous—for many of the Americans to remain in their current posts.

Administration officials tell The Daily Beast that while planning is only in its preliminary stages, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA assume that they will have to shake up staffing at a number of American embassies and consulates within the coming months.

The shakeups are most likely at embassies where U.S. diplomats and other officials wrote classified cables—made public by WikiLeaks over the last week, or soon to be made public, with the Americans identified by name and title—in which they were harshly critical of corrupt or incompetent local government leaders.

I find this so troubling on a number of levels, not the least of which is that Assange has put lives at risk as a result of his personal vendetta against the United States. Additionally, he has ruined the work of some of our diplomats who will have to be reassigned:

[snip] “We’re going to have to pull out some of our best people,” said a senior U.S. national-security official, “because they dared to report back the truth about the nations in which they serve.”

“That’s another part of the tragedy of this,” said a senior U.S. national-security official. “We’re going to have to pull out some of our best people—the diplomats who best represented the United States and were the most thoughtful in their analysis—because they dared to report back the truth about the nations in which they serve.”

The State Department acknowledges that the WikiLeaks dump has done damage to American foreign policy, a problem that is likely to be compounded by the withdrawal of U.S. diplomats and other embassy officials who cannot be easily replaced because they are—not surprisingly—among the government’s best-trained specialists on the foreign nations and regions where they are now posted. [snip]

Former President Bill Clinton also stated that these leaks were going to cost lives. In addition to that most chilling thought, the State Department has to withdraw diplomats who have laid groundwork to establish diplomatic relations, thus ending all of their carefully orchestrated work. All because of this one man who stole our classified cables.

Tell me again why we have not levied espionage charges against this man?

There is a great deal to this article, and I urge you to read the entire piece, but there was a component of this that was particularly troubling:

[snip] In an interview with The Daily Beast, Edelman, now teaching at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, would not discuss the contents of the cables, because they are officially still classified. But he said their public release was one small part of the “absolute catastrophe to American statecraft” that would be created by the WikiLeaks dump.

“There’s every prospect of people getting killed over this,” he said, noting that State Department cables often identify local intelligence contacts who might now be targeted for violence. “Certainly you’re going to have to be very careful what you say to an American diplomat, if you say anything at all.”

Administration officials say it is impossible to predict how many American diplomats and other embassy officials may have to be moved out of their posts, and from which embassies and consulates, because it is still unclear exactly what more WikiLeaks intends to make public. [snip]

Indeed, Assange has threatened to release a tremendous amount of information regarding Gitmo and BP, which is being held by approximately 100,000 individuals should anything happen to the site, and to him, presumably. This is in addition to the promised dump of information regarding the banking industry, including Bank of America. In other words, he is holding the United States hostage.

Again, he has been charged with no crimes by our government.

Here is something else that I find to be very disturbing:

[snip] The Obama administration appears to have given up all hope of stopping the release of the cables since Assange is believed to have shared the full library with some of his deputies within WikiLeaks.

State Department officials insisted there was no panic within the department over the release of the cables by WikiLeaks, especially since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides have anticipated the release of the cables for more than six months.

Um, what? They knew this was coming (again – for the third time), and their response was what, exactly? To try and hack into WikiLeaks, plant a virus to disrupt the flow of this classified information that might endanger lives? No, not exactly:

[snip]A White House official tells The Daily Beast that “there have been no heart attacks” and that the State Department has been working for months to try to identify the U.S. diplomats and their local intelligence sources whose work—and safety—might be compromised in the cables released by WikiLeaks.

“We’ve known about this for some time,” Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley, the department chief spokesman, told reporters last week. “The compromise happened months ago. And we have been working diligently with other agencies of government to assess the impact, understand what might have been downloaded and provided outside of the government. We’ve been prepared for this day for some time.”

Philip Shenon is an investigative reporter based in Washington D.C. Almost all of his career was spent at The New York Times, where he was a reporter from 1981 until 2008. He is the bestselling author of The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation. He has reported from several warzones and was one of two reporters from The Times embedded with American ground troops during the invasion of Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.

Ah, yes – to prepare for the release by identifying agents and diplomats. Well, that is important, I’ll grant you. But if we are supposed to be the most powerful nation on EARTH, how is it that this one man, Julian Assange, aided by some lowly private, is able to put lives at risk without the US impeding him? Why has he not been arrested? Why was he allowed to release such sensitive information?

I am no computer guru by a long shot, but I do know that people are able to plant viruses all the time. Most of us have had to deal with the fallout of a Trojan Horse getting into our computers. Is it really possible that the United States does not have hackers capable of doing that to shut down this site and corrupting the files? For real? I just find that to be incredulous – aren’t we supposed to have the best of the best, the brightest of the brightest working for our government to protect our national security and classified information?

I still do not understand how this private was able to gather all of this information. Who hasn’t seen spy shows in which the security of information is critical, and any attempt to swipe it sets off alarms all over the place? Do we not have that capability? Apparently, that is only in the movies…

Evidently not. So, PJ Crowley’s response to all of this is that they had been prepared for this day for some time? How about not allowing that day to happen at all? How about interrupting the flow of our classified information to the rest of the world? How about tracking down this asshole and ARRESTING him?

Am I missing something here? Because I am just at a loss as to why our government would not find a way to stop Assange. Again, that could just be me…

UPDATE: Julian Assange has been arrested in London on the Swedish sex crime charges.

In response to my queries, a reader at NQ provided this article from the Washington Post, “Why Prosecuting WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Won’t Be Easy,” which states this:

[snip] What law did Assange violate? It will surprise many that there is no statute making it illegal to reveal classified information. There are statutes that criminalize the disclosure of very specific types of classified information, such as the identity of a covert operative (think Valerie Plame) or “codes, ciphers or cryptographic systems.” But there is no catch-all law that simply says, “Thou shalt not disclose classified information.”

Indeed, when Congress tried to enact such a statute, President Bill Clinton sensibly vetoed it. His reason: The government suffers from such an overclassification problem – some intelligence agencies classify even newspaper articles – that a law of this sort would end up criminalizing the disclosure of innocuous information. And even that vetoed statute would have applied only to government officials, not to private individuals or journalists.

It IS a surprise, but that explains why “news” outlets like the NY Times could reprint the classified information.

But there is also this, which is why people like Sen. Diane Feinstein want to charge Assange with espionage:

Instead, prosecutors in the Assange case, like the prosecutors in the AIPAC case I handled (author Baruch Weiss), would resort to the Espionage Act of 1917, an archaic, World War I-era statute that prohibits “willfully” disclosing “information relating to the national defense.” According to Judge T.S. Ellis in the AIPAC case, this means that the prosecution must prove, among other things, that a defendant knew that the information he was disclosing was potentially damaging to national security and that he was violating the law. [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

How could Assange NOT think it would damage the United States? Indeed, isn’t that his point? Moreover, if Assange commissioned the theft of this information, that seems like espionage to me. He obtained it somehow. And I still do not understand how this private was able to get away with this information, which raises some other questions…

Let’s see – how long have we had a relationship with the U.K.? Um, how about forever? Admittedly, in the early days, it was a bit rocky (ahem), but not only have they been one of our staunchest allies, they have also been one of our closest friends. Those days seem to be over now:

BRITAIN’S special relationship with the US — forged by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt in the second world war — no longer exists, says a committee of influential MPs.

Instead, America’s relationship with Britain is no more special than with its other main allies, according to a report by the Commons foreign affairs committee published today.

The report also warns that the perception of the UK after the Iraq war as America’s “subservient poodle” has been highly damaging to Britain’s reputation and interests around the world. The MPs conclude that British prime ministers have to learn to be less deferential to US presidents and be “willing to say no” to America.

The report, entitled Global Security: UK-US Relations, says Britain’s relationship with America is “extremely close and valuable” in a number of areas, particularly intelligence co-operation. However, it adds that the use of the phrase special relationship, in its historical sense, “is potentially misleading and we recommend that its use should be avoided”.

Yikes. Sounds like they’re telling us they’re just not that into us anymore:

It does not reflect the “ever-evolving” relationship between the two countries and raises unrealistic expectations, the MPs say.

“Over the longer term, the UK is unlikely to be able to influence the US to the extent it has in the past,” the committee adds.

In an apparent rebuke to Tony Blair and his relationship with President George W Bush, the report says there are “many lessons” to be learnt from Britain’s political approach towards the US over Iraq.

“The perception that the British government was a subservient poodle to the US administration is widespread both among the British public and overseas,” the MPs say. “This perception, whatever its relation to reality, is deeply damaging to the reputation and interests of the UK.”

While the relationship between the American president and the British prime minister was an important part of dealings between the two countries, the cabinet and parliament also had a role to play. “The UK needs to be less deferential and more willing to say no to the US on those issues where the two countries’ interests and values diverge,” the MPs say.

They are also critical of the US use of extraordinary rendition and torture. The report calls for a comprehensive review of the use by the CIA of British bases, such as that on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, to carry out extraordinary rendition.

“The issues relating to rendition through Diego Garcia to which we have previously drawn attention raise disturbing questions about the uses to which US bases on British territory are put”, the MPs say.

They express regret at “considerable restraints” on the ability of both the government and parliament to scrutinise US activities carried out on British territory.

Hold the phone – I thought Obama was going to end all of that. Hmmm. Is it possible he lied to us. Impossible, right? Oh, yeah, sure:

“We recommend that the government should establish a comprehensive review of the current arrangements governing US military use of facilities within the UK and in British overseas territories.” The review should “identify shortcomings in the current system of scrutiny and oversight … and report to parliament on proposals to remedy these”.

The report also demands a statement from the government on the implications of the Court of Appeal judgment regarding the alleged collusion of MI5 in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident.

Last month the court ordered the government to release evidence from American intelligence reports which showed that MI5 was aware of the torture.

Senior US officials subsequently suggested that releasing such evidence might prevent the US from sharing some intelligence with Britain.

Ah yes, the Obama “tit for tat.” THAT should have been his campaign slogan, if you ask me. I thought Bush was bad about payback. Who knew it was going to be worse with Obama? Well, most of us, really, because we could tell he was an arrogant, petulant, immature, power hungry egotist.

Check out a sampling of some of the Comments following this article:

John Higgins wrote: As an American, I stand by Britain. Despite the idiot in the White House, and despite what a bunch of MPs say, we share a common history, have stood shoulder to shoulder on the field of battle; there is no other country to which America is more indebted, there are no other people which Americans could love more.

Emanuel Goldstein wrote: Special relationship – it takes two to tango. Mr Obama has mocked the UK, and our Royalty, whilst fraternising with tinpot dictators such as Chavez and Gaddaffi.

William Brown wrote: The UK needs must be wary of an America whose leadership stands in awe of Venezuela’s Mr. Chavez and is likely to side with Argentina should occasion arise.

And this is one is along the same lines of Obama’s treatment of Netanyahu. That would be his treatment of PM Gordon Brown:

adam jackson wrote:you brits should have called it off when our president gave brown a box of dvds he couldnt watch, and her majesty an ipod full of his own ramblings.

Yeah. That would be a reference to those tasteless, classless, CHEAP ass gifts the Obamas gave to the Browns on their first official visit. Beside the dvd’s Brown couldn’t watch, not just because he is going blind, but because they were not suitable for viewing in Europe, there were the cheap helicopters from the White House Gift Shop Michelle gave to the Brown’s two boys. These would be cheap-ass gifts for anyone on their economic level, much less as the President of the United States. There was no thought, no care, no graciousness in those gifts at all. State Gifts, I might add, that are required by law. Pathetic.

Heck, they couldn’t even be bothered to have a State Dinner for them. Oh, no. They can throw parties regularly to have the stars they want, and on our dime, even let that sexist pig JayZ into the Situation Room, but handle official duties with class and grace? Hah!

Then there was Obama giving back the bust of Churchill pretty much as soon as he got into the Oval Office. Yeah, that carried a bit of a sting for our friends across the Pond.

No wonder the U.K. is breaking up with us after all these years. Who could blame them?

UPDATE: Larry mentioned that this might be a good time to have this:

It is time for serious soul-searching regarding the role of the CIA and the intelligence community. Last month’s operational and intelligence failures led to the deaths of seven CIA officers in Afghanistan and might have resulted in nearly 300 deaths on a Northwest Airlines plane headed for Detroit.

It is particularly shocking that President Barack Obama’s chief of counterterrorism, John Brennan, conceded that the latter failure was caused by the fact that there was “no one intelligence entity or team or task force assigned responsibility for doing a follow-up investigation” of the considerable intelligence that was collected.

It is unbelievable that the President had to order the creation of a system for tracking threat reports. The failures beg the question of what have we learned since 9/11.

Previous CIA failures regarding the unanticipated decline and fall of the Soviet Union, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq War demonstrate a $75 billion intelligence enterprise that can provide neither strategic nor tactical warning to policymakers and is reluctant to provide uncomfortable truth to power.

The serious problems that need to be addressed include the important nexus between intelligence and policy — and the need for a CIA that is not beholden to policy or political interests; the militarization of the intelligence community – which must be reversed; the lack of Congressional oversight – which must be corrected, and the decline of operational tradecraft – which must be investigated.

Before addressing reform in Part II, however, we must first confront the mythology that surrounds the intelligence enterprise.

The Greatest Myth: The 9/11 Commission offered insight into the systemic problems of the CIA and the intelligence community. The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 solved the problems that had been exposed by the 9/11 Commission by creating a director of national intelligence, the so-called intelligence tsar.

In fact, the 9/11 Commission failed to use the powers it had been given to explore the reasons for the 9/11 intelligence failure.

It deferred unnecessarily to the White House’s use of “executive privilege,” and failed to stand up to CIA Director George Tenet, who refused to permit commissioners to debrief prisoners held by the CIA. The commission failed to use its subpoena powers and lacked experience in the world of the intelligence community.

The CIA’s Inspector General concluded that the 9/11 failure was about personal failures, accountability and bureaucratic ineptitude. The same could be said for the Christmas Day events. The commission focused on larger issues: budgets and funding, organizational problems and structural fixes.

The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 actually made a bad situation worse. It created a new bureaucracy under a director of national intelligence (DNI) beholden to the White House, as well as a centralized system that stifles creative thinking and risks more politicized intelligence.

The DNI was not given the authority to challenge the Pentagon’s control of key intelligence agencies and their budgets, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was not given a central depository to fill the analytical gaps between domestic and international terrorist threats.

Thus, the major problems exposed by 9/11 – the lack of a centralized repository of data and the need for more, rather than less, competitive analysis on terrorism – was repeated in the Christmas Day failure.

Finally, by making the DNI responsible for the daily briefing of the President, it ensured that the “tsar” would have little time to conceptualize and implement the strategic reforms that were needed.

President Barack Obama’s unwillingness to request a National Intelligence Estimate before making his decision late last year to increase military forces in Afghanistan revealed his lack of respect for the work of the intelligence community.

Myth Number Two: The intelligence community is a genuine community that fosters intelligence cooperation and the sharing of intelligence information. The intelligence community has never functioned as a community.

With the exception of the production of National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs), which are indeed a corporate product of the community, there is limited sharing of the most important and sensitive documents collected by the various intelligence agencies, and very little esprit de corps within the community.

There have always been deep rivalries between civilian and military agencies, with the CIA and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence Research often lined up against the Defense Intelligence Agency and the four military intelligence branches.

This division was particularly profound during the debates over Soviet military power and the verification of Soviet and American arms control agreements, with military intelligence consistently exaggerating the strength of the Soviet military and opposing the disarmament agreements of the 1970′s and 1980′s.

The 9/11 and Christmas Day failures revealed continued parochialism and lack of cooperation within the community.

The intelligence community suffers from an inability to learn from its failures and successes. The CIA needs to emulate the U.S. Army, which routinely conducts after-action reports and boasts a Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The center has a small staff, takes advantage of teams of experts to investigate specific issues, and maintains a direct line of communication to senior military leaders to understand what needs to be examined.

Conversely, the CIA has resorted to a culture of cover-up to conceal failures such as the collapse of the Soviet Union; 9/11; the Iraq War; the Christmas Day event; and the suicidal bombing of the CIA’s most important facility in Afghanistan.

Myth Number Three: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence offers a genuine possibility for exercising central control over the intelligence community. The creation of the DNI has worsened the malaise within the CIA without reform for either the agency or the intelligence community.

The fact that the President had to meet with more than 20 intelligence principals to discuss the Christmas Day failure points to the crazy-quilt bureaucratic structure created in the wake of 9/11, as well as the lack of centralized authority and responsibility within the community.

The Pentagon has veto power over the DNI with respect to transferring personnel and budgetary authority from individual agencies into joint centers or other agencies. This fact undermines the possibility of any legitimate reform process.

The first DNI, John Negroponte, became frustrated and left suddenly in December 2006 for a lesser position at the State Department. His two successors have been retired naval admirals, Mike McConnell and Dennis Blair; neither has an understanding of the importance of strategic and long-term intelligence.

The DNI spends far too much time preparing for his daily briefing of the President, which should be in the hands of the CIA, and the issue of cyber-security, which should be in the hands of the NSA.

Instead of pursuing reform, Negroponte, McConnell and Blair have built a huge, lumbering and bloated bureaucracy that includes a principal deputy director, four deputy directors, three associate directors and no fewer than 19 assistant deputy directors.

The DNI has a huge budget (over $1 billion) and has taken its management staff from the CIA and INR, thus weakening the overall intelligence apparatus. There has been no real accountability of the DNI; Congressional intelligence oversight committees have failed to monitor the DNI’s hiring of contractors with extravagant salaries.

Myth Number Four: The CIA is not a policy agency, but is chartered to provide objective and balanced intelligence analysis to decision-makers without any policy axe to grind.

This is possibly the most harmful myth of all, because CIA’s covert action, which has registered a series of strategic disasters over the past 60 years, is part of the policy implementation process.

As a result, much clandestine collection over the years has been designed to collect information that supports policy.

The CIA was unfairly described 30 years ago as a “rogue elephant out of control.” In fact, the CIA is part of the White House policy process. Various presidents have authorized regime change in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, the Congo, the Dominican Republic and South Vietnam, which have had disastrous consequences for U.S. interests.

The White House authorized assassination plots in Cuba, the Congo and South Vietnam, and provided legal sanction for the CIA to create secret prisons, conduct torture and abuse, and pursue renditions, often involving totally innocent people without recourse to judicial proceedings.

Myth Number Five: The 9/11 and Christmas Day failures were due to the lack of sharing intelligence collection. The conventional wisdom is that the 9/11 intelligence failure was caused primarily by the failure to share intelligence, particularly the failure of the CIA to inform the FBI of the presence of two al-Qaeda operatives in the United States.

In actual fact, the problem was far more serious; it was a problem of sloppiness and incompetence in dealing with sensitive intelligence information.

It has been established that 50-60 analysts and operatives from the CIA, the FBI and the NSA had access to information that Khaled al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who had links to al-Qaeda, had entered the United States long before 9/11.

These analysts and operatives failed to inform leading officials at their own agencies of the two al-Qaeda operatives, who fell through the cracks of the system. Eight years later, the Nigerian bomber similarly escaped detection despite excellent intelligence collection that was seen by most intelligence agencies.

There is still an inadequate flow of information between intelligence agencies. The United States lacks one central depository for all information on national and international terrorism, and the proliferation of intelligence agencies makes sharing of intelligence products even more cumbersome.

The DNI and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) were created after 9/11 to make sure that intelligence was shared, but this led to a downgrading of the CIA and the lack of a single agency responsible for analyzing intelligence on terrorism.

Tremendous amounts of useful intelligence are collected, but intelligence analysis has not been appreciably improved.

The NSA had information on the Nigerian bomber that wasn’t shared with the CIA and the FBI; the CIA prepared a biographic study of the Nigerian bomber, which it didn’t share with NCTC. The State Department did not pursue whether the Nigerian bomber had a U.S. visa, let alone a multiple-entry visa, in his possession.

The so-called intelligence community lacks an effective computer system to coordinate all intelligence information, although it does have access to the State Department’s consular database-listing visa holders, which it failed to consult.

The DHS’s customs and border units had sufficient intelligence to interrogate the bomber when he landed in Detroit; its Transportation Security Agency lacked intelligence to keep him from boarding a plane to Detroit.

Myth Number Six: The CIA successfully recruits foreign assets. The CIA’s National Clandestine Service (NCS) relies on walk-ins and rarely recruits major espionage assets. The most successfulwalk-ins, moreover, such as Col. Oleg Penkovsky, often have great difficulty in getting CIA operatives to accept them.

The NCS has had little success in recruiting assets in the closed world of terrorism or in closed societies such as China, Iran and North Korea. Many of the agents recruited from Cuba, East Germany and the former Soviet Union were double agents reporting to their host governments. The suicide bomber in Afghanistan last month was a double agent.

The CIA has to rely on foreign intelligence liaison sources for sensitive intelligence collection and even the recruitment of foreign assets. There are few al-Qaeda operatives who have been killed or captured without the assistance of foreign liaison, particularly the Pakistani intelligence service.

But the suicide bomber at the CIA base in Afghanistan last month was recruited with the help of the Jordanian intelligence service, an extremely risky way to recruit assets; he was brought onto the base without proper inspection and met with more than a dozen officers.

The loss of top-ranking CIA operations officers in Afghanistan points to the need for a review of CIA clandestine operations. The current CIA director, a former congressman, has surrendered to the clandestine culture and cadre; he is unlikely to lead a reform movement.

And President Obama’s appointment of former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, a master of the CIA cover-up over the past two decades, points to a continued cover-up.

Instead of a CIA outside the policy community telling truth to power, providing objective and balanced intelligence to policymakers and avoiding policy advocacy, as President Harry S. Truman wanted, we now have the CIA as a paramilitary organization.

Indeed, there has been a trend toward militarization of the entire intelligence community. In the Bush administration, the CIA was significantly weakened, with a director, Michael Hayden, who was a four-star general.

The Obama administration appointed a retired admiral to be the director of national intelligence, a retired general to be national security adviser, and retired generals to be ambassadors to key countries such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

By placing the position of the DNI in the hands of the military, the Bush and Obama administrations completed the militarization of the CIA and even the intelligence community itself, where active-duty and retired general officers run the Office of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office.

The Pentagon is responsible for nearly 90 percent of all personnel in the intelligence community and 85 percent of the community’s $75 billion budget.
The absence of an independent civilian counter to the power of military intelligence threatens civilian control of the decision to use military power and makes it more likely that intelligence will be tailored to suit the purposes of the Pentagon. This is exactly what President Truman wanted to prevent.

Finally, the Congressional intelligence oversight process has made no genuine effort to monitor CIA’s flawed intelligence analysis or its clandestine operations, and failed to challenge the illegal activities of the CIA that were part of the policy process.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has sat on her hands while CIA Director Leon Panetta methodically dismantled and marginalized the oversight responsibilities of the Office of the Inspector General.

Melvin A. Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University, spent 42 years with the CIA, the National War College, and the U.S. Army. His latest book is Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA. [This story originally appeared at Truthout.org.]

Charles Krauthammer wrote the following piece about a week before Obama’s most recent “I have to have my face on tv” speech regarding our security and the Christmas Day terrorist attempt. Since I cannot stand to watch him (I have the exact same aversion to him talking as I did to Bush, only I didn’t need Dramamine with Bush like I do with Obama’s constant head-swiveling teleprompter reading the times I have had to watch him), I have to go by transcripts, though those are soporific. There’s nothing like a good double cappuccino to help me through those moments.

Fortunately, there are others who can stand to watch Obama’s speeches, one of whom is Mr. Krauthammer himself. Here is his impression of Obama’s speech on terrorism and the Christmas Day attempt:

It makes this piece, A Terrorist War Obama Has Denied, even more prescient:

Janet Napolitano — former Arizona governor, now overmatched secretary of homeland security — will forever be remembered for having said of the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit: “The system worked.” The attacker’s concerned father had warned U.S. authorities about his son’s jihadist tendencies. The would-be bomber paid cash and checked no luggage on a transoceanic flight. He was nonetheless allowed to fly, and would have killed 288 people in the air alone, save for a faulty detonator and quick actions by a few passengers.

Heck of a job, Brownie.

That reference is even more appropriate when you consider the following:

Holy SMOKES – this is the head of Homeland Security?? Unbelievable. Krauthammer seems to think so, too:

The reason the country is uneasy about the Obama administration’s response to this attack is a distinct sense of not just incompetence but incomprehension. From the very beginning, President Obama has relentlessly tried to play down and deny the nature of the terrorist threat we continue to face. Napolitano renames terrorism “man-caused disasters.” Obama goes abroad and pledges to cleanse America of its post-9/11 counterterrorist sins. Hence, Guantanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York — a trifecta of political correctness and image management.

And just to make sure even the dimmest understand, Obama banishes the term “war on terror.” It’s over — that is, if it ever existed.

Obama may have declared the war over. Unfortunately, al-Qaeda has not. Which gives new meaning to the term “asymmetric warfare.”

And produces linguistic — and logical — oddities that littered Obama’s public pronouncements following the Christmas Day attack. In his first statement, Obama referred to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as “an isolated extremist.” This is the same president who, after the Fort Hood, Tex., shooting, warned us “against jumping to conclusions” — code for daring to associate the mass murder there with Nidal Hasan’s Islamist ideology. Yet, with Abdulmutallab, Obama jumped immediately to the conclusion, against all existing evidence, that the would-be bomber acted alone.

And even if Obama declares, “the buck stops with me,” as it surely SHOULD – he is the president, after all – his unwillingness to acknowledge the reality of the world in which we live, is, well, frightening. The speech on Thursday did little to change that, not unlike the one he made shortly after the failed terrorist attempt. When he could get himself off the links, that is:

More jarring still were Obama’s references to the terrorist as a “suspect” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device.” You can hear the echo of FDR: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — Japanese naval and air force suspects allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor.”

Obama reassured the nation that this “suspect” had been charged. Reassurance? The president should be saying: We have captured an enemy combatant — an illegal combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians — and now to prevent future attacks, he is being interrogated regarding information he may have about al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Instead, Abdulmutallab is dispatched to some Detroit-area jail and immediately lawyered up. At which point — surprise! — he stops talking.

This absurdity renders hollow Obama’s declaration that “we will not rest until we find all who were involved.” Once we’ve given Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, we have gratuitously forfeited our right to find out from him precisely who else was involved, namely those who trained, instructed, armed and sent him.

This is all quite mad even in Obama’s terms. He sends 30,000 troops to fight terror overseas, yet if any terrorists come to attack us here, they are magically transformed from enemy into defendant.

The logic is perverse. If we find Abdulmutallab in an al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen, where he is merely preparing for a terror attack, we snuff him out with a Predator — no judge, no jury, no qualms. But if we catch him in the United States in the very act of mass murder, he instantly acquires protection not just from execution by drone but even from interrogation.

The president said that this incident highlights “the nature of those who threaten our homeland.” But the president is constantly denying the nature of those who threaten our homeland. On Tuesday, he referred five times to Abdulmutallab (and his terrorist ilk) as “extremist[s].”

A man who shoots abortion doctors is an extremist. An eco-fanatic who torches logging sites is an extremist. Abdulmutallab is not one of these. He is a jihadist. And unlike the guys who shoot abortion doctors, jihadists have cells all over the world; they blow up trains in London, nightclubs in Bali and airplanes over Detroit (if they can); and are openly pledged to war on America.

Any government can through laxity let someone slip through the cracks. But a government that refuses to admit that we are at war, indeed, refuses even to name the enemy — jihadist is a word banished from the Obama lexicon — turns laxity into a governing philosophy. (letters@charleskrauthammer.com)

As I said, his “the buck stops with me” did little to change that impression that we are, indeed, at war. Napolitano admitting she had no idea the extent of what Al Qaeda can do was shocking – I bet the average person in, say, Kansas, or just about anyone at your local 7-11, could tell you that Al Qaeda is a scary damn operation. What doesn’t she, or Obama, get about that? What does it take to convince them?

Clearly, Obama has not yet been convinced by what this country has endured thus far, even in the last few months under his watch: Fort Hood and the soldiers and civilian killed there; Khost, Afghanistan and the CIA agents lost there; and the Christmas Day attempt. Frankly his speech did little to truly demonstrate the buck stopped with him. Rather, the intelligence community was clearly laid out by the president, yet not one person in the upper echelons lost their job. Not “Heckuva Job” Napolitano, not Brennan, not Leiter, not anyone. Huh. Already cheapening the whole, “Buck stops here” thing, if you ask me.

Until Obama is willing to admit, acknowledge, and deal with the reality of organized terrorism which has as its focus US, I shudder to think what can happen next…

For immediate release
For additional information please contact
Steve Wolff
+1 858 695-0460
Steve@wolffconsultingservices.com

Re: The Lessons of Flight 253

As the “Christmas Bomber” once again showed us – fortunately without loss of life – today’s passenger checkpoint, which was designed to find the guns and knives of the 1970’s hijacking era, is woefully inadequate for today’s IED threat. Putting our hope into body imaging systems alone is likewise foolhardy. Only a layered approach combining intelligence and passenger information with a careful selection of data-redundant and data-integrated technologies will have a chance of countering the IED threat.

While all travelers must be screened, they do not need to be screened to the same level. For watch-list and some normal passengers, one out of 3 or 4 checkpoint lanes should be converted to a High Security Lane, which uses intelligence and passenger data coupled with effectively selected, integrated technologies for primary- and especially, secondary search. Everyone else would be screened by baseline methods.

The current security system only screens bag-by-bag or passenger-by-passenger and does not integrate passenger and scanner data to permit detection of a possible threat dispersed across one or more individuals. A layered data-integrated approach represents the best option for detecting and deterring such threats.

Several post-911 initiatives have been proven to lead to real, measurable security improvements but many aviation security experts believe that the TSA is not strategically addressing the above shortfalls, focusing instead on adding more “boxes”. A change of focus, mentality and organization at the TSA is urgently needed; otherwise the next bombing attempt may well succeed.

Sincerely,

The Association of Independent Aviation Security Professionals

Steve Wolff – Former VP Product Development, InVision Technologies, Inc.

R.Adm. Cathal Flynn – Former FAA Associate Administrator for Security

Douglas R. Laird, former Director of Security for Northwest Airlines

Jim Welna – Former Airport Police Chief at Minneapolis Airport; former Security Committee Chair of the Airports Council International

Peter Reiss – Former IFALPA Security Chairman and Representative to International Civil Aviation Organization Panels. Retired NWA Captain.

Larry Johnson – Former Deputy Director for Transportation Security and Anti-Terrorism Assistance at the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism

What you may NOT have heard was the connection between this same man and Hillary Clinton:

The Politiken newspaper reported Sunday that Danish intelligence knew the 28-year-old Somali man was held in Kenya in September for allegedly plotting an attack against U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said he was later released due to lack of evidence.

But Denmark’s ambassador to Kenya, Bo Jensen, told the news agency Ritzau the man was arrested in Kenya for incomplete travel documents. He said Kenyan authorities never told the embassy he was suspected in any terror plot.

I don’t remember hearing word ONE about an attempted assassination on Secretary Clinton’s life. It wasn’t all that recent, either. It was on August 5th of 2009. If you do a search, the first date you’ll find for any mention of this attempt (or at least the first one I found) was from September 8th, 2009. In a blog, I might add, but even it backed off from the assertion:

A plot by al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants to bomb the hotel where Secretary Clinton was staying during her visit to Nairobi, Kenya, last month (shown above) was foiled at the last minute, The Australian reports. Very scary.

[Update (Sept. 10): This story might not be true -- see stacyx's comment below. FP regrets any error; at the time of posting, the story seemed credible.]

Here is “Stacyx’s” comment:

I covered this story on my blog and was initially concerned that there was no MSM coverage. Then I spoke to someone at ABC news and they said the reason the US and British media were not covering the alleged terror plot story was because all their inside sources said there was no truth to the story.

Except there was some truth to it, apparently, and the newssource that claimed otherwise, was, well, lying. What a big surprise. And what a HUGE surprise that the US and British MSM didn’t bother to cover this story.

We find out a full five months after the fact only because one of the Al Qaeda members who tried to blow our Secretary of State to smithereens in Nairobi, was caught in another country trying to kill someone else.

Holy freakin’ cow. (Clinton in Nairobi, AFP photo)

Not for nothing, but someone else almost died because the authorities did not pass along the information about this terrorist and his attempts.

Not to be a complete and total cynic about this, but I cannot help but wonder why the media decided this was not newsworthy. I have my suspicions, including that Obama’s poll numbers were already tanking then, and Clinton’s were rising. Take a look at Obama’s numbers in August:

Or could it be that if we were told about this attempt on Secretary Clinton’s life by an Al Qaeda operative, Obama would have to admit that there were actually honest-to-goodness terrorists out there, trying to do us harm? That attempted terrorist attacks were not attempted “man-made disasters“?

Uh, yeah. There is that. And then there is the total incompetence of our media, or the attempt to cover up by the media, either one of which is completely unacceptable.

And to think, we found out about this attempt on our beloved Hillary Clinton’s life because of an attempt on a cartoonist. Feel free to craft the next line to THAT set-up…

Not so great, according to this article, Barack Obama Is Vulnerable On Terror – And He Knows It; Barack Obama is playing politics over the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack and Republicans sense he is weak on the issue, writes Toby Harnden in Washington.

Oh, dear. As we know from recent experience, this is just a tad problematic:

In his weekly radio address yesterday, President Barack Obama patted himself on the back for having “refocused the fight – bringing to a responsible end the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks”.

He then told people to remember that “our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans”, before decrying “fear and cynicism” and “partisanship and division” – the code phrases for horrid Republicans used during his 2008 election campaign.

Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama’s treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

This is simply not a time to be making partisan attacks, Mr. President. Seriously. These kinds of attempts do not target one party over another, after all:

His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s father had courageously contacted the American Embassy in Abuja in November and met the CIA station chief to tell him that his son was involved with fundamentalist elements in Yemen. American intelligence had also intercepted discussions in Yemen about a possible attack by “the Nigerian”.

The Obama administration knew most, if not all, of this by last Sunday, 48 hours after the attack was thwarted. But the priority in Obamaland was to play things down and take pot shots at the Bush administration.

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security chief – who prefers the term “man-caused disasters” to “terrorism” – blithely stated that there was “no indication that it is part of anything larger”. She then insisted that the “system is working”.

Although Napolitano has taken a lot of flak for these comic utterances, she was not “misspeaking” but trotting out the agreed talking points of the day.

No doubt Napolitano was saying what she was told to say, but by going along with this absurd talking point, she has discredited herself and her office. Maybe the truth would have been better. Just a thought, and it goes for Obama’s main spokes-weasel, too:

Robert Gibbs, Obama’s chief mouthpiece, also stated that “in many ways this system has worked” and would say nothing about a possible wider plot.

In Hawaii, where Obama was holidaying, Gibbs’s deputy Bill Burton told the press that “we are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us” and that Obama was reviewing “procedures that have been in place the last several years” (i.e. Bush instituted them). He added, without apparent irony, that “the President refuses to play politics with these issues”.

Meanwhile, the White House was working overtime to build a case against Bush. A source in the White House counsel’s office told The American Spectator of memos frantically seeking information that would “show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could”.

Republicans smell blood. There is a pattern in the Obama administration of dismissing Islamist terrorist attacks as regrettable random acts. In his radio address after Major Nidal Hassan’s slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas, Obama made no mention of terrorism or militant Islam, instead blandly promising that the “ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy” would “look at the motives of the alleged gunman”.

The Obama Administration, as noted above, is discrediting itself by making these kinds of missteps, minimizing that these acts are not the least bit random:

Hassan was a committed Islamist who had corresponded with the fanatical Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaki. In June, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert being watched by the FBI and who had previously travelled to Yemen, murdered a US Army recruit in Arkansas. That rated only a tepid statement by Obama about a “senseless act of violence”.

But the violence wasn’t senseless, it had a calculated objective – just as Abdulmutallab was not, as Obama described him, an “isolated extremist”. No wonder many Americans want to grab Obama by the lapels and scream: “It’s the Jihad, stupid.” Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, clearly struck a nerve when he charged last week that Obama was “trying to pretend we are not at war”.

The White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer eagerly descended into the political fray, responding to Cheney with the obligatory jibe about Iraq and also a litany of examples of Obama’s “public statements that explicitly state we are at war”.

It’s a sure sign that you’re losing the argument when you have to research quotes from your boss’s speeches to prove that he gets it that America is at war. The problem for Obama is that people are now judging him by his actions as well as his words.

The incompetence of the US intelligence bureaucracy is not the only thing that makes Underpantsgate so damaging for Obama. More serious is his failure to understand or acknowledge the nature of the enemy – and to view war as mere politics.

And it’s about time, too, that Obama was judged by his actions. Many of us were calling for that very thing when he was running for office. Had people bothered to do that, they would have seen that there was no there there. And maybe, just maybe, we would have someone for more capable in office to deal with these not-at-all random attacks.

As it turns out, and I am sure this will not surprise any of you, Al Qaeda is working in a concerted effort to launch more attacks against us, according to the National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, who said Al Qaeda is refining its methods to thwart American defenses, and launch another attack on our soil.

To be absolutely clear:

Leiter said in a statement Saturday that officials “know with absolute certainty” that Al Qaeda and others are trying to refine their methods.

The center is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It draws experts from the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and other agencies who try to ensure that clues about potential attacks are not missed.

Make no mistake, Mr. Leiter is saying it is not a matter of IF, it is a matter of WHEN.

That is disconcerting, to say the very least. And when we have a president who is playing partisan politics with issues of terrorism, it makes it even more so. At some point, Obama is going to have to admit that terrorism is most definitely real, not just some isolated, random attacks, but a concerted effort against our country and our citizens by a determined enemy. That point needs to be now for all of our safety.

Enough dawdling, hemming,hawing, and blaming of everyone else, Mr. Obama. It’s all squarely on you. Maybe it’s time to put down those golf clubs and get to work already. Don’t you think?

I’ve been reading a book by the novelist, Vince Flynn, Extreme Measures. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Flynn’s books, they typically deal with the CIA, Washington, DC, and how politics affect the intelligence community, following the exploits of the main protagonist, Mitch Rapp, as he works to ensure the safety of the country. This book is no different.

Here is more about it (and writing in general) in Vince Flynn’s own words:

So why the book report? Well some of you may have heard about the three Navy Seals being charged for assault, who now face court martial, after capturing an incredibly dangerous terrorist, Ahmed Hashim Abed. I swear, it is just like some major scenes in the book mentioned above. It’s uncanny.

Anyway, the claim against the Navy Seals? They gave the terrorist a bloody lip when they captured him. I am not kidding. A bloody lip. Heck, I’ve seen people get bloody lips playing a game of pick-up basketball. Bear in mind, this terrorist is responsible for murdering four Blackwater guards, burning them, and dragging them through the streets of Fallujah in 2004. And, the Seals involved claim he was fine when they nabbed him:

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.

Neal Puckett, an attorney representing McCabe, told Fox News the SEALs are being charged for allegedly giving the detainee a “punch in the gut.”

“I don’t know how they’re going to bring this detainee to the United States and give us our constitutional right to confrontation in the courtroom,” Puckett said. “But again, we have terrorists getting their constitutional rights in New York City, but I suspect that they’re going to deny these SEALs their right to confrontation in a military courtroom in Virginia.”

The three SEALs will be arraigned separately on Dec. 7. Another three SEALs — two officers and an enlisted sailor — have been identified by investigators as witnesses but have not been charged.

FoxNews.com obtained the official handwritten statement from one of the three witnesses given on Sept. 3, hours after Abed was captured and still being held at the SEAL base at Camp Baharia. He was later taken to a cell in the U.S.-operated Green Zone in Baghdad.

The SEAL told investigators he had showered after the mission, gone to the kitchen and then decided to look in on the detainee.

“I gave the detainee a glance over and then left,” the SEAL wrote. “I did not notice anything wrong with the detainee and he appeared in good health.”

I might add, you know from my previous writings, I have no love lost for Blackwater. But, these guys were simply protecting a supply chain when they were attacked, no, murdered, and then set on fire.

Here is more on the tactics being used by Abed:

We are a nation of laws, but it seems to me we need to be careful that our laws are not manipulated by the very people who have harmed us. Torture is wrong, but for these Seals to be treated the way they are as a result of, at best minor injuries, and more likely, false claims by this terrorist mastermind, is disturbing. To say the least. In this case, reality is mimicking literature. Read the book, you’ll see.