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Taliban Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2014 12 Comments
This year, we have two deserving Nobel Peace Prize winners, each of whom has an inspiring story of fighting against great odds for the humanity of others, and suffering great pain in the process. They are the people we imagine when we think of the Nobel Peace Prize in our mind's eye. Even if that mind's eye doesn't always meet reality. Amy Davidson in The New Yorker has brief backgrounds on this year's winners:
Malala Yousafzai, who is seventeen years old, and Kailash Satyarthi, who is sixty, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday morning—for, in the committee’s words, “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” Satyarthi, who is Indian, is a man who has fought for children for decades; Malala, who is Pakistani, is a child, and a fighter herself. There was some thought, ahead of the announcement, that Malala, as she is known, would be awarded the prize alone. She is more famous than Satyarthi. Two years ago, gunmen from the Taliban got on her school bus and shot her in the head, shattering her skull—an attack she answered by becoming one of the world’s clearest voices for girls’ education. Satyarthi has survived physical attacks, too, and has led raids on factories that hold small children as bonded laborers.... ccording to press reports, he has worked directly with more than eighty thousand children, and has fought to change the conditions and chances of hundreds of thousands more.
And then there's this:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 21, 2014 34 Comments
Now this is interesting. The General Accounting Office has just issued a report concluding that the Department of Defense broke the law in the Bergdahl-Taliban swap (h/t @JakeTapper). It has to do with the requirement of congressional notification prior to transferring a detainee at Gitmo. Bowe Bergdahl was swapped for 5 high level Taliban Gitmo detainees with no notice to Congress. Here's the Summary of the GAO report:
The Department of Defense (DOD) violated section 8111 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014 when it transferred five individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the nation of Qatar without providing at least 30 days notice to certain congressional committees. Section 8111 prohibits DOD from using appropriated funds to transfer any individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay unless the Secretary of Defense notifies certain congressional committees at least 30 days before the transfer. As a consequence of using its appropriations in a manner specifically prohibited by law, DOD also violated the Antideficiency Act.
The full report is here, and concludes as follows:
Our opinion in this matter rests upon the Secretary of Defense’s responsibility to comply with a notification condition on the availability of appropriations to transfer individuals from Guantanamo Bay. This opinion does not address the Secretary’s decision to transfer the five individuals in this case as part of DOD’s efforts to secure the release of an American soldier. However, when DOD failed to notify specified congressional committees at least 30 days in advance of its transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Qatar, DOD used appropriated funds in violation of section 8111. As a consequence of using its appropriations in a manner specifically prohibited by law, DOD violated the Antideficiency Act. See 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a). DOD should report its Antideficiency Act violation as required by law.
So what? Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch says the penalties are pretty significant:

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 09, 2014 3 Comments
As is typical with our mainstream media these days, the sexy story of the day fades as the next sexy story of the day comes along. Back in the real world, however, the United States and its citizens paid a high price to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban and end the al-Qaeda sanctuary in that country. So one would hope that Americans would want to know that things in Afghanistan have gone from bad to worse since their presidential elections.
Driven by increased ground combat between insurgents and government forces, civilian casualties in Afghanistan surged 24 percent through the first half of the year, reaching their highest levels since 2009, according to the United Nations. The findings were released just as a Taliban attack unfolded in the densely populated center of Kandahar, the main city in southern Afghanistan. At least nine people were killed in the Kandahar assault and the ensuing gun battle, including four civilians, Afghan officials said, violently illustrating how ground fighting, as opposed to improvised explosive devices, has emerged as the deadliest facet of the war. The United Nations report said that the death toll this year was especially high for women and children.
The Afghan runoff election results are highly questionable due to allegations of serious fraud committed by the outgoing Hamad Karzai regime and ballot stuffing by the apparent winner, Ashraf Ghani. Ghani's vice presidential candidate is former Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum. Seen as more moderate than Ghani, Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah claimed victory on Tuesday in Afghanistan's disputed election, blaming fraud for putting him behind in preliminary results as fears rise of instability, ethnic unrest and Taliban military successes:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 29, 2014 28 Comments
This video does not appear to be a Pallywood production. The Times of Israel reports, Gaza surveillance cameras pick up Israeli strike on terrorists:
Unverified footage posted to YouTube on Saturday appears to show the Israeli air strike carried out Friday afternoon on a car carrying two operatives belonging to the Popular Resistance Committees, a coalition of armed groups in Gaza. The footage shows a vehicle driving along a coastal road before being struck. Passersby remain seemingly unharmed. Israel confirmed carrying out the targeted killing of Osama Has​sumi, 29, and Mohammad Fatzih, 24, on Friday, charging that they were involved in a cell responsible for repeated rocket fire on Israel’s southern cities over the past several weeks and were planning terror attacks on Israeli civilians.
Interesting comment at YouTube:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 18, 2014 12 Comments
Hillary Clinton joined FOX News' Bret Baier and Greta Van Susteren Tuesday evening for a much anticipated interview, where the former Secretary of State answered questions on a number of topics - Benghazi, the controversial swap of Sgt. Bergdahl for the Taliban five, the IRS scandal, and a wide range of other issues. Clinton is out with a new book, "Hard Choices," and she indicated on numerous occasions as she answered some of the questions, "I write about this in my book." That said, I'm not sure there was much to come out of the FOX interview that couldn't be found in the pages of Clinton's book. As is often the case with most interviews with any subject, there seemed to be a few missed opportunities for further pressing on some of her answers, as several noted in comments on Twitter. There were a couple instances however where Bair or Van Susteren tried to politely prod Clinton to expand upon an answer. Here was one exchange between Van Susteren and Clinton on the topic of the Bergdahl swap.

GRETA: Afghanistan. Would you have made that swap for Sgt. Bergdahl? Five Taliban for Sgt. Bergdahl? CLINTON: Well, as I write in the book, and at the time, I was trying to put together a bigger deal, a deal that would create a negotiation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban to try to move the Taliban to renounce violence, renounce al Qaeda, and agree to support the constitution and the laws. GRETA: Isn't that part of their ideology though, violence? I mean look at the violence towards women. Aren't we abandoning the women to the Taliban?

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 14, 2014 37 Comments
The latest frontrunner talk among the Republican insiders and DC media types is none other than Mitt Romney. But are Americans ready for a third run for President by the 2012 GOP loser to Barack Obama? With the economy in virtual stagnation for six years, Russia annexing Ukranian territory and Islamic terrorists on the doorstep of Baghdad -- Mitt Romney (circa 2012) suddenly seems like a wise soothsayer:
“I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation that lines up with the world’s worst actors, of course the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran, and nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough, but when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them, when [Syrian President] Assad, for instance, is murdering his own people, we go to the United Nations and who is it that always stands up for the world’s worst actors? It is always Russia, typically with China alongside, and so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council, that has the heft of the Security Council, and is of course a massive security power — Russia is the geopolitical foe.” - Mitt Romney, October 2012

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 14, 2014 6 Comments
The other day we noted how the father of Johnny "Mike" Spann reacted with dismay to the Taliban-Bowe Bergdahl swap. Mike Spann, a CIA officer and former Marine, was the first American killed in the Afghanistan war, during an uprising of prisoners in Northern Afghanistan. We have covered the story many times over the years. It is one of heroism, of small groups of special forces and CIA officers who operated in conjunction with Northern Afghanistan ethnic warlords to rout the Taliban long before there was a sizable U.S. ground presence. One of those warlords was Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who wrote a memorial to Spann and erected a monument (featured image). General Dostum is back in the news as he's running for Vice President of Afghanistan [the runoff election is today], and as ethnic warlords once again are seen as the key to fighting the Taliban as the U.S. winds down. Oh, and General Dostum is on Twitter. The uprising that led to Spann's death included not only so-called American Taliban John Walker Lindh (now in prison in the U.S.), but also one of the 5 Taliban leaders exchanged for Bergdahl. We've previously featured Spann's daughter Alison, and all her great accomplishments. Alison was recently interviewed on Fox News (via Instapundit) and echoed her grandfather's dismay at the swap:

Posted by New Neo on June 12, 2014 19 Comments
If Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, her Republican opponent had better show part of this clip. I'm surprised it isn't being talked about more, because it is positively Obaman in its offensiveness and duplicity, and its contempt for the listener. It also comes across as insincere and unconvincing, but that never stopped Obama either: Let's contemplate that in print:
These five guys are not a threat to the United States. They are a threat to the safety and security of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s up to those two countries to make the decision once and for all that these are threats to them. So I think we may be kind of missing the bigger picture here. We want to get an American home, whether they fell off the ship because they were drunk or they were pushed or they jumped, we try to rescue everybody.
Hillary must think the American people have forgotten why we went into Afghanistan in the first place. Maybe they have; after all, what difference does it make? It happened so long ago---twelve and a half years, and even longer ago by the time the 2016 election rolls around---that a great many of the voters to whom Hillary expects to appeal would have been little children back then.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 11, 2014 13 Comments
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, along with Defense Department General Counsel Stephen Preston, appeared Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee for a hearing to address The May 31, 2014 Transfer of Five Senior Taliban Detainees. The agreement to release those five detainees when the U.S. arranged to recover Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from captivity has sparked controversy since those details became known. Another point of contention has been the Obama administration’s decision not to notify Congress of the exchange in advance.  Both of these were areas of focus that received much attention in Wednesday’s hearing. Hagel provided some insight into the negotiation process of the exchange at the start of the hearing in his prepared opening remarks, explaining that the opportunity came about quickly and many of the details had not been clarified until merely days before the exchange took place. This, he indicated, influenced the decision not to notify Congress in advance.  In addition, Hagel explained, there were concerns about potential leaks that could derail the process.
As the opportunity to obtain Sergeant Bergdahl’s release became clearer, we grew increasingly concerned that any delay, or any leaks, could derail the deal and further endanger Sergeant Bergdahl. We were told by the Qataris that a leak would end the negotiations for Bergdahl’s release. We also knew that he would be extremely vulnerable during any movement, and our military personnel conducting the hand-off would be exposed to a possible ambush or other deadly scenarios in very dangerous territory. And we had been given no information on where the hand-off would occur.
This sparked criticism from both sides of the political aisle. From the Wall Street Journal:

Posted by New Neo on June 10, 2014 14 Comments
As soon as Obama was elected it became a foregone conclusion that this would be the result in Iraq---that the country would be taken over by the worst forces in the area. Since then, it's been a slow denouement:
Insurgents seized control early Tuesday of most of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, including the provincial government headquarters, offering a powerful demonstration of the mounting threat posed by extremists to Iraq’s teetering stability. Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, overran the entire western bank of the city overnight after Iraqi soldiers and police apparently fled their posts, in some instances discarding their uniforms as they sought to escape the advance of the militants... The collapse of government forces in Mosul echoed the takeover earlier this year of the town of Fallujah in western Anbar province, where U.S. troops fought some of their fiercest battles of the Iraq war...
The Iraqi government is asking for international and/or US help, "by virtue of the Joint Cooperation agreement between the two countries." But that horse left the barn a long time ago. As a result of Obama's decisions regarding the Iraq pullout, there are not even any residual US forces left in the country, as remain in so many other places where Americans have fought and died:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 10, 2014 29 Comments
The polling is pretty consistent that the public is not buying Obama's spin on the trade of 5 senior Taliban Gitmo detainees for alleged deserter Bowe Bergdahl. CBS News reports:
Just over a week after U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was freed by the Taliban, a CBS News Poll shows 45 percent of Americans disapprove of the deal that saw him released in exchange for five Taliban militants, while 37 percent approve of it. About one in five do not have an opinion. Views differ by political party: most Republicans disapprove of the deal, while just over half of Democrats approve. Among those who have served in the military, 55 percent disapprove of the prisoner swap. Most Americans -- 56 percent -- say the U.S. paid too high a price to secure Bergdahl's release. Among veterans, that figure rises to 65 percent. Republicans and independents say the deal cost the U.S. too much, while Democrats are more divided: 42 percent think the terms of the agreement were reasonable, but almost as many -- 39 percent -- say the U.S. paid too high a price.
Pew Research further finds:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 08, 2014 6 Comments

Updates on Bergdahl story, Obama to issue executive order on student loans, parents outraged over photos shown in sex-ed class...

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 06, 2014 14 Comments
I recently reported on the plight of former US Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been languishing in a Mexican jail while authorities hold him on assorted weapons charges for the 3 guns he was carrying in his vehicle. The backlash against the release of 5 Taliban terrorists from Gitmo in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has dramatically increased dissatisfaction with how President Obama is performing. Combining elements of these new items together, one Texas gun store owner proposes a prisoner swap that should be much more satisfying (see Featured Image): Meanwhile, William A. Thien, the Commander-in-Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, has written directly to Obama in an effort to free Tahmooressi:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 06, 2014 21 Comments
The NY Times ran an editorial on June 5, The Rush to Demonize Sgt. Bergdahl, excoriating Republicans for hypocrisy as to condemnation of the exchange of 5 top Taliban Gitmo detainees for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. There are many all-too-typical Times sleights of hand, such as referring to Bergdahl as:
... a free-spirited young man who asked many questions but gave no indication of being a deserter, let alone the turncoat that Mr. Obama’s opponents are now trying to create.
In condemning a rush to judgment as to Bergdahl by critics, The Times Editors rush to an alternative judgment. More important, the centerpiece of the Editorial, with which it begins, is a quote from John McCain (emphasis added):
Four months ago, Senator John McCain said he would support the exchange of five hard-core Taliban leaders for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. “I would support,” he told CNN. “Obviously I’d have to know the details, but I would support ways of bringing him home and if exchange was one of them I think that would be something I think we should seriously consider.”
NY Times Rush to Demonize Sgt Bergdahl 6-6-2014 9 30 am I've underlined the words "Obviously I’d have to know the details" because those words were not in the original versions of the Editorial.  Rather, it was a late correction which significantly scales back the notion that McCain previously supported this exchange deal. I've tracked the changes in the Editorial through a very useful service, NewsDiff.  The NewsDiff archive history page for the Times Editorial reflects that the Editorial originally had a less aggressive title, and also did not include the part of McCain's quote I've highlighted.  In omitting that language from the quote, the Times made it seem as if McCain supported the same deal that Obama struck.  That supposed support was the foundation for the Editorial, but when the foundation shifted, the Times made like nothing changed. Here's the edit history of the intro paragraph via NewsDiff:

Posted by New Neo on June 05, 2014 35 Comments
Nothing about the Bergdahl/Taliban affair should have been surprising to people who have studied Obama over the years. Not Obama's audacity, nor his disregard of prior bipartisan warnings in Congress or from the intelligence community, nor his aides' attempts to discredit those from Bergdahl's unit who are calling Bergdahl a deserter or worse, nor Obama's refusal to offer any apologies whatsoever for his actions in this affair, nor his lies and broken promises, nor the fact that quite a few Democrats are lining up to defend him like the good party hacks that they are. An intellectual reaction is one thing. But there's still an emotional reaction---what Peter Wehner referred to as a visceral reaction---which is to be stunned, disgusted, outraged, and full of trepidation about both the long-term effects of this move and what Obama will be doing for a series of encores. I've been wanting to know what the American electorate thinks of it all. Today I read that the results of a Fox News poll showed Americans evenly split on the subject, and that news surprised me, too, although it probably shouldn't have.
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