From WikiLeaks as netted by Norway's Aftenposten via Islam in Europe: A craven, jihad-appeasing American ambassador to Denmark, Bush appointee James P. Cain, writes home about his "discreet discussions" with Jyllands Posten and the Danish government conveying Uncle Sam's fervent pleadings not to see J-P reprint the Danish Motoons in 2006 on the first anniversary of their original publication. The ambassador's takeaway? "On the negative side, though, this popular center-right government has hardened its views on the absolute primacy of free speech."

Meanwhile, today, five men -- two Swedish residents with Tunisian backgrounds, one Lebanon-born Swede and an Iraqi (gee, what common denominator not mentioned might they share?) -- have been arrested plotting to storm J-P's Copenhagen office. A little American support for "the absolute primacy...

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This year's final column:

I end the year with a question and one last outrage.

The U.N. believes about 1 million Afghans between the ages of 15 and 64 - roughly 8 percent of the population -- are addicted to drugs. The publication Development Asia estimates 2 million Afghan addicts.

Depending on whose figures you read next, some staggering number of these same addicts ends up in the Afghan National Police (ANP). Fully "half of the latest batch" of police recruits tested positive for narcotics, the Independent reported in March, drawing on Foreign Office Papers from late 2009. Also in March 2010, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) reported, depending on the province, 12 to 41 percent of Afghan police recruits tested positive. The GAO added: "A State official noted that this percentage likely understates the number of opium users because opiates leave the system quickly; many recruits who tested negative for drugs have shown opium withdrawal symptoms later in their training."...

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This piece suspects that is the case.

Why would Rove be interested in corralling Julian Assange? To help protect the Bush legacy, our source says. "The very guy who has released the documents that damage the Bushes the most is also the guy that the Bush's number one operative can control by being the Swedish prime minister's brain and intelligence and economic advisor."

Really? Hmm. I have long suspected that "conservative" rage against WikiLeaks is related to conservative exposure on Bush disasters they support(ed) to the hilt (or now blame Obama for), but dunno about this Rove notion. It's diverting, though.

Just for escapist fun and a massive injection of energy, don't miss (below) Doris Day singing "Canadian Capers" from My Dream Is Yours (1949); Carmen Miranda with Banda Luna singing " Chatanooga Choo-Choo" from  Springtime in the Rockies (1942), and The Glenn Miller Orchestra with Tex Beneeke and the Modernaires singing "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" from Orchestra Wives (1942), featuring the dance duo the Nicholas Brother, Fayard and Harold. (Fun fact: Next to my desk, I happen to have a Nicholas Brothers photo signed by Fayard in 2000.)

Merry Christmas to all.







...

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As I wrote in this week's column, Scott and Vicki Behenna went before the Army Clemency Board earlier this month to plead their son's extremely compelling case for clemency.

The Clemency Board has released its decision: No.

In an email they write:

To the thousands of Michael Supporters, God bless each of you.

We have been in this fight together for the past two years and your encouragement and support has been the driving force behind all we have been able to accomplish.  Last year, the Clemency Board gave Michael a reduction of 5 years off his 20 year sentence. 

On December 2nd we again pleaded Michael's case before the Army Clemency Board.  We pointed out to them that Michael's sentence was 50% larger than the highest sentence given to any soldier convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone.  We also addressed Michael's unblemished record in prison for the past two years, his many accomplishments while incarcerated, and his unblemished civilian record.

We...

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Do not miss this video of the Tommy Robinson, counter-jihad virtuoso and leader of the English Defense League laying out the extraoridnary lengths to which the British government is going to try to shut him down. These include attempting to suborn perjury from an old friend currrently facing a 12-year stretch in jail. Echoes of The Informer, the 1935 John Ford movie  based on the Liam O'Flaherty novel in which British police get Gyppo Nolan (Victor McLaghlen) to inform on his friend and IRA leader Frankie McPhillip for 20 pounds...only this is real.

Via Vlad Tepes.

Gates of Vienna comments:

The video [above], which was just released today by English Defence League leader  Tommy Robinson, is very timely, thanks to today’s arrest of Guramit Singh....

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This week's syndicated column is about Lt. Michael Behenna, one of the so-called Leavenworth Ten, all of whom who remain -- SGT Evan Vela Carnahan, PFC Corey Claggett, MSG John E. Hatley, SPC William B. Hunsaker, SGT Michael Leahy, SFC Joseph Mayo, SGT Michael P. Williams -- should be granted clemency immediately, if only to balance the US scales of justice which have offered freedom and clemency to thousands of incarcerated terrorists in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan.

Here is the latest on Michaels' story.

Earlier this month, I received an e-mail update from Scott and Vicki Behenna, whose son, Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, is serving 15 years in Fort Leavenworth military prison over the May 2008 shooting of a known killer in Iraq -- a terrorist for whom the Army would actually issue a kill/capture order before realizing he was already dead.

By the...

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From: WRAMC [Walter Reed Army Medical Center] Announcements
Sent: Wed 12/8/2010 11:19 AM
To: WRAMC Master Mail List
Subject:  WRHCS [Walter Reed Health Care Service] Commander's Muharram Greeting  (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE


WALTER REED,

Yesterday we began the first day of the Islamic New Year with the month of Muharram, one of four sacred months out of the twelve months of the year. This is a time of fasting, prayer, and reflection. I and the command group wish each of you Muharram Mubarak.

Van Coots, MD


Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

---

From CNN last week:

On the eve of the latest White House Afganistan update, the incoming head of the House Armed Services Committee said he wants to hear directly from the commander, Gen. David Petraeus, to determine what progress has been made.

Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-California, who next month will take over as chairman of the defense committee, said Wednesday he will ask Petraeus to testify.

"I want to have General Petraeus come and report to us on what's happening over there. I think that we will find he has made some pretty good progress," McKeon said in a roundtable with journalists.

Then why put Ceasar Petraeus to the trouble of testifying in the first place?

Is...

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In terms of news coverage, the war in Afghanistan is "like a faint heartbeat, accounting for just 4 percent of the nation’s news coverage in major outlets through early December, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism," the New York Times reports today.

And that's down from 5 percent last year.

“It’s never passed the threshold to be a big story week in, week out for Americans,” said Mark Jurkowitz, the associate director of the project.

One senior foreign correspondent for television, when told of the 4 percent coverage figure, said he was impressed — given the relatively small contingent of foreign journalists in Afghanistan.

“There are like seven of us there,” remarked the correspondent,...

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This week's Washington Examiner column:

Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin didn't rush onto a battleground this week; he walked into a military courtroom. He didn't fire a weapon; he pleaded guilty to disobeying orders related to deployment, and not guilty to the more serious charge of "missing movement."

But Lakin put his life, in the sense of his distinguished 17-year career as an Army surgeon, his income, his pension, and his personal freedom, on the line because of his sworn duty to the U.S. Constitution.

All members of the US military take the following oath:

"I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign...

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While researching this week's column, I came across an extraordinary collection of videos at Kansas Watchdog,  all taken during Labor Weekend's Leavenworth Ten Freedom Ride. They showcase the families of the wrongly incarcerated soldiers whose debt to society, if they ever had one, is long paid. In fact, we owe them our attention at the very least, and, if possible, our assistance in their legal defense. For more information, see United American Patriots and Leavenworth Ten Freedom Ride.

I've written columns and posted about these men both collectively and individually (for example, Sgt. Evan Vela, Lt. Michael Behenna), but it's just not enough. My friend John Work has written compellingly about Sgt. John Hatley here.  

I've never highlighted the details of PFC Corey Claggett's case only because I didn't know them. I do now and they are harrowing. To date, Corey has served more than four years in solitary confinement for following an unlawful order...

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A story to get us all in the ... um, what was that spirit?

From The Telegraph via WND.com:

More than 330,000 copies of the diaries, accompanied by 51 pages of glossy information about the EU, have been delivered to British schools as a "sought after" Christmas gift to pupils from the commission.



But Christians have been angered because the diary section for December 25 is blank and the bottom of the page with Christmas Day is marked only with the secular message: "A true friend is someone who shares your concerns and will double your joy".



...

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From Tom Tamcredo:

Dear Friend, Harry Reid filed for cloture on the DREAM Act Amnesty last night, and the Senate will vote on it on Saturday.  I don't need to tell you just how big a disaster this will be for our country it passes.   This bill will give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, in state tuition and affirmative action to illegal aliens, and cost the taxpayers 6.2 billion dollars. Call your senator and demand they vote against the DREAM Act. Click here for direct lines or call the Senate operator at (202) 224-3121 247 and ask for your Senator. Target these Senators on the Fence Mary Landrieu (D-LA) Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Joe Manchin (D-WV) These Senators Have Pledged to Vote No, but we don't know if they made any back-room deals.  Call them and politely ask that they reaffirm their opposition to the DREAM Act Kay Hagan (D-NC) Olympia Snowe (R-ME) Susan Collins (R-ME) Max Baucus (D-MT) Kent Conrad (D-ND) Ben Nelson (D-KS) Remind them that this is not an amnesty...

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The Washington Post reported on December 13:

Russia delivered at least 1,800 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles to Venezuela in 2009, U.N. arms control data show, despite vigorous U.S. efforts to stop President Hugo Chavez's stridently anti-American government from acquiring the weapons.

Ah, brave new "reset" world. And love those  always impotent yet "vigorous attempts." In virtually every WikiLeaks story that has caught my eye, the US is demonstrated  thwarted again and again.

The United States feared that the missiles could be funneled to Marxist guerrillas fighting Colombia's pro-American government or Mexican drug cartels, concerns expressed in U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and first reported in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

It had been unclear how many of the Russian SA-24 missiles were delivered to Venezuela, though the transfer itself was not secret. Chavez showed off a few dozen at a military parade in April 2009, saying they could "deter whatever...

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Such a sad story, with an even sadder ending: Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin has received a sentence of six months and been ousted from the Army for his decision, which he says he now regrets, to question Barack Obama's eligibility by not following deployment orders.

I wonder how Barack Obama feels about the case. I wonder if anyone in the White House press corps will dare ask him what he thinks about a career Army officer so driven by his duty to uphold the Constitution that he put it all on the line, believing it would be worth it if in the end his action could somehow trigger the release of that well-hidden document in Hawaii, the 1961 Barack Obama birth certificate, which should include such homey points as the birth hospital name and the attending physician.

Why must that mundane information remain the nation's ultra secret? The answer in large...

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Mainly expected, but still a blow. Was hoping he would be acquitted of "missing movement."

From the AP:

FORT MEADE, Md. — A military jury on Wednesday afternoon found an Army doctor who disobeyed orders to deploy to Afghanistan because he questions President Obama's eligibility for office guilty of missing a flight that would have gotten him to his eventual deployment.

The jury returned the verdict against Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin of Greeley, Colo., on the charge of "missing movement" by design. It carries a possible two-year sentence.

Lakin previously pleaded guilty to another charge against him. All told, he now faces a possible 42 months in prison. A military jury will sentence him after a sentencing phase.

The blog Yid with Lid reports this week on the most outrageous intrusion of the Obama administration into free speech in America to date: The IRS's "Israel Special Policy," which kicks in to deny tax-exempt status to non-profits whose policies "espouse or support positions inconsistent with the Obama administration’s Israel policies."

Since when does the "Obama administration" determine tax status according to "correct" political beliefs? Since at least this summer when the pro-Israel non-profit Z-Street was informed by an IRS agent that its non-profit tax status had been delayed if not ultimately denied due to its political beliefs.

What we are witnessing is a massive power grab, chilling effect and abuse of power all rolled up into one.

From the pro-Israel non-profit group Z-Street's suit against the IRS:

...

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Of course, it had to happen -- a WikiLeaks cable about the rise of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands from July 2009.

From the Guardian:

3. (S) The Wilders Factor -- Golden-pompadoured, maverick parliamentarian Geert Wilders' anti-Islam, nationalist Freedom Party remains a thorn in the coalition's side, capitalizing on the social stresses resulting from the failure to fully integrate almost a million Dutch Muslims, mostly of Moroccan or Turkish descent. In existence only since 2006, the Freedom Party, tightly controlled by Wilders, has grown to be the Netherlands second largest, and fastest growing, party. Recent polls suggest it could even replace Balkenende,s Christian Democrats as the top party in 2011 parliamentary elections. Wilders is no friend of the U.S.: he opposes Dutch military involvement in Afghanistan; he believes development assistance is money wasted; he opposes NATO missions outside "allied" territory; he is against most EU initiatives; and, most troubling, he forments...

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Fox News reports:

The U.S. Air Force has blocked access on its network to more than 25 media websites, including the New York Times, that have posted the secret U.S. diplomatic cables obtained and released by the site WikiLeaks. ...Other sites that have been blocked include Germany's Der Spiegel, France's Le Monde, Britain's Guardian and Spain's El Pais, Tones said. ...

Can't find a complete list of blocked sites yet.

The Air Force uses two different systems: a secure site on which classified information can be used and an unclassified site for day-to-day operations, Tones said. The sites will be unblocked "when we determine they are no longer a risk to unclassified Air Force networks," she said, adding that the Air Force reviews the sites almost daily. "We work diligently to use our resources in the most effective and efficient manner possible," she said. "And blocking access to the WikiLeaks' material diminishes our need to go through the labor and resource-intensive process...

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US Army Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin with brother Greg Lakin  outside a military court at Ft. Meade, Md. yesterday.

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Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin didn't rush into a foreign battleground yesterday; he walked into a Ft Meade, Md. military courtroom. He didn't fire a weapon and vanquish the enemy; he pled guilty to disobeying three orders related to deployment, and not guilty to the most serious charge of "missing movement."  But Terry Lakin put his life, in the sense of his distinguished 23-year career as an Army surgeon, his income, his pension, and his freedom, on the line from his devotion to his sworn duty to the US Constitution.

All members of the US military take the following oath:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and...

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Seventy-two percent of "southern Afghan males" believe "foreigners are disrespectful of their religion and culture." Why is that percentage so low?

---

Don't know what happened to Ann Marlowe, whose astute comments on Afghanistan, as noted in July, include the following:



What we have in Afghanistan is a counterinsurgency strategy of tactics. COIN is a set of tactics: station your troops among the people, conduct a lot of meetings with tribal elders to find out what bribes they want, protect them from the insurgents, connect them with their officials—every private knows the mantra. But COIN is not a strategy.

Or, as I wrote then, COIN is a bad strategy. Marlowe:

Strategy requires a political vision. Throughout history, counterinsurgency has barely worked when conducted by a government with substantial popular support.

Where is the historic model? I asked this question of COIN strategist Frederick Kagan back in March 2009 at a Washington conference...

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Wasn't life great?



STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Two blasts rocked the center of Stockholm on Saturday in a possible attack inspired by Sweden's presence in Afghanistan [i.e., jihad], killing the bomber and wounding two other people, police and media said.



Swedish news agency TT said that 10 minutes before the first blast, when a car exploded near a busy shopping street, it received an email with threats over the Swedish presence in Afghanistan and over a years-old case of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad by a Swedish artist.





Police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said the car exploded at peak shopping hours at 5 p.m. (12 p.m. EST). About 10 to 15 minutes later another explosion took place on a street 300 meters (984 ft) away.



A man was found dead near the second explosion and two people with minor injuries were also found...

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This week's syndicated column:

WikiLeaks is exposing the way our government conducts "business." It is not a pretty process. Sometimes Uncle Sam limps along like a powerless giant, as when secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton vainly plead with China to stop facilitating the military rise of Iran. (But don't let that stop you from buying that made-in-China flat-screen TV for Christmas. Great price.) Sometimes Uncle Sam slimes around like the mob, as when shutting down opposition to the Copenhagen climate accord is his racket and bullying is his game.

The rock-bottom worst of the revelations, however, shows Uncle Sam patronizing the American people, lying to us about fundamental issues that any democracy catastrophically attacked and supporting armies abroad ever since doesn't merely deserve to know, but needs to know. Our democracy...

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Martin Bosma, a Dutch member of parliament for Geert Wilders' PVV, has been invited into the pages of an establishment Dutch (read wild-eyed, left-wing) newspaper, NRC Handelsblad, to contribute a column every three weeks. I sure hope they can take it because I can't wait see more.

Brought to us (English-speakers) courtesy Gates of Vienna and translator VH:

You are tolerant until it gets too crazy for you by Martin Bosma It’s not just that you don’t like me. You even begrudge me my job. If NRC-subscribers were the only ones allowed to have the right to vote (be honest: don’t you dream of that sometimes?), my party would not get beyond four seats [of the 150 in parliament]. With my fifth place on the list of candidates of the Party I could have well dropped out of the boat. Your preferences are somewhere else: You’d assign 51 seats to GreenLeft and D66. (With the 37 seats...

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US Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna

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Just came back from a tense morning in the Army Court of Criminal Appeals in Arlington, Virginia, where long-awaited oral arguments appealing US Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna's surreal conviction for "unpremeditated murder" while fighting the war in Iraq were heard. Lt. Behenna, 27, is currently serving 15 years in military prison (reduced from 25 years) for killing a known al Qaeda operative named Ali Mansur  believed to have been responsible for attacks on Behenna's platoon in 2008. Michael is one of the Leavenworth Ten we must not forsake.

Fifteen years is a harsh (insane) sentence, and harsher than other such sentences handed...

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This is getting creepy.

From LibraryJournal.com (links from the original):

The Library of Congress (LC) has been blocking access to the WikiLeaks website since December 3, on its wireless network available for visitors as well as on its own staff's computers, according to a report on the Talking Points Memo (TPM) Muckraker website. It's the first time that the LC has blocked WikiLeaks, and it comes on the heels of an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo advising federal agencies on policies regarding classified information. ...

The OMB memo does not call for agencies to block access to any websites, but the notice does state that federal employees and contractors may not access classified material on non-classified government systems, "including classified documents available on WikiLeaks and other websites."

This requirement does...

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Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) published an op-ed in the Denver Post this week, arguing that the US needs to scale backs its goals dramatically in Afghanistan.

Our current mission in Afghanistan goes far beyond accomplishing our national security objectives. We need to lower the governance bar in Afghanistan by allowing decentralized institutions that, albeit imperfect by Western standards, are culturally much closer to the Afghan people. We must de-emphasize the restructuring of Afghan society as a primary objective, and stop building costly infrastructure projects at U.S. taxpayer expense. An abbreviated version of the counterinsurgency strategy should be limited to relatively secure areas and a counterterrorism approach of targeting threats in specific areas instead of occupying key terrain should be used for Taliban-controlled regions.

For those two perfectly...

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Not even WikiLeaks has brought us anything quite so sordid.

Here from the Telegraph is an extremely detailed account of the "rape" charges Europe has arrested Julian Assange on. Bottom line (literally):

But the more one learns about the case, the more one feels that, unlike the bell in Enkoping, the allegations simply don’t ring true.

On Dec. 3, Maj. Gen. John Campbell, commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division, spoke to reporters about the Afghan Border Policeman who shot and killed six US soldiers from the 101st on Nov. 28. He doesn't mention teatime, as NATO reported, also on Dec. 3, but he does add details, particularly to the larger unfolding story.

From the Clarksville (TN) Leaf Chronicle report:

Campbell spoke with reporters Thursday about the attack Monday at a remote Afghan observation post in Nangarhar province.

The soldiers went to the OP to check on the ABP officers stationed there, he said, and were shot in the back during an artillery practice. They were with Afghan National Army soldiers and were greeted by ABP, one of whom was the gunman, Campbell said.

Five of the soldiers — all...

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Photo: Filip Dewinter (Belgium's Vlaams Belang) and Heinz-Christian Strache (Austria's FPO) studying maps in Israel

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An indicator of life, a flicker of the survival instinct in this moribund time? Leading politicians of the European Counter-Jihad have found their way to the wellspring of civilization, the frontline of the Counter-Jihad: Israel.

While Geert Wilders of the Netherlands was speaking, magnificently as usual, in Tel Aviv (via Gates of Vienna), a tour-busload of 35 of potential political and cultural allies from Belgium (Filip Dewinter "the so-called occupied territories"***), from Germany (Rene Stadtkewitz"This country is the country of...

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Marine Corps photo of a weekly souvenir bazaar near Kandahar airfield.

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I use quotation marks in the headline because that is how the Taliban are describing the bomber who struck Sunday at a "weekly souvenir bazaar" at the Afghan army's 203rd Corps headquarters in Gardez, killing "two soldiers from the US-led coalition."

Americans? Unclear in this WSJ report. The compound also houses a U.S. military base, the paper notes. "The coalition did not disclose the nationalities of allied casualties, but most soldiers deployed in Paktia are American. Afghan officials said 18 people were injured in the blast, including five Afghan soldiers."

The Taliban "identified the suicide bomber as Gul Rasul. The insurgent group's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that the bomber was an Afghan army soldier who had joined the military so he could carry out such an attack," the WSJ reports. "An Afghan defense ministry spokesman said he did not know the identity of the attacker."

...

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The State Department has a new job: Clear, hold and build -- inside the Baghdad Embassy complex.

The next time someone tells you about the lasting victory in Iraq George W. Bush, COIN, and Gen. Petraeus secured, could you please pull out the following news report for comment? Obama may be presiding president but this is a result of the Bush doctrine of standing the Iraqis up so that the US might stand down.

From the Washington Post: "Cost to keep Americans safe in Baghdad after troops leave will be high"

Worth every penny?

State has plans to move about 600 employees now living in Baghdad into barracks to be built within the new embassy complex there. Why? "The imminent departure of the military from Iraq and the associated return of property and facilities to the government of Iraq, including a substantial amount of housing, makes the timely construction of the building important to the continued operation of the embassy," State Department officials said in an August...

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Caption from the Lewiston (ME) Sun-Journal: Chelsea McLain, 20, of Ridge Road in Peru, holds the last family photograph of her and husband Buddy McLain and their son Owen. It was taken in June, about five months before Buddy, a private with the 101st Airborne, was killed along with five other soldiers during an ambush in Afghanistan.

That would be a teatime "ambush," according to reports trickling out, which also give the impression the shooter was killed on the spot by two Americans.

But maybe not. This AP report tells us the Aghan-Taliban "policeman" who killed the six Americans was himself "killed in the shootout in Nangarhar...

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This combination of 6 undated photos provided by the U.S. Army shows from the top left, Pvt. Buddy W. McLain of Mexico, Maine; Pvt. Austin G. Staggs of Senoia, Ga.; Sgt. Barry E. Jarvis of Tell City, Ind.; and bottom from left, Spec. Matthew W. Ramsey of Quartz Hill, Calif.; Pfc. Jacob A. Gassen of Beaver Dam, Wis.; and Staff Sgt. Curtis A. Oakes of Athens, Ohio -- ALL KILLED WHILE DRINKING TEA with Afghan police on Monday, November 29, 2010. (AP Photo/U.S. Army)

----

Ever since the first Obama mini-surge into Afghanistan back in the summer of '09 when 4,000 Marines entered Helmand Province, I have been, admittedly, having fits over the "strategy"...

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Punchline first, because it's good to laugh, even mirthlessly.

Set-up: Hillary Clinton was in Kyrgyzstan (oh, to be in Bishnek now that December is here) yesterday for five (5) hours to pay protection money, I mean, sign a deal to give Kyrgyzzies "a share of lucrative fuel contracts for a critical transit hub here for troops headed to Afghanistan," as the Washington Post reports.

While here, Clinton lauded Kyrgyzstan for taking the initial steps toward democracy, saying the people were "pioneers" among the former Soviet republics in the region. "Parliamentary democracy can help ease tensions between different regions and different groups of people," she said at the town hall meeting. " 'Compromise' is not a dirty word in a democracy," she said.

Clinton and Otunbayeva, the first female president in the region, appeared to form a bond, with Clinton...

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This week's syndicated column:

I am still working out why I watch the high dudgeon sparked by Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks dump of a quarter-million State Department cables that has given rise to the most heated, bloodthirsty chorus I have ever heard in Washington, notably from conservatives, and feel strangely numb.

I observe the fits over "sovereignty" lost, and note that some of the same people find such emotion in bad taste when the prompt is our unsecured, non-sovereign border. I hear the arguments that our national security is hanging by a computer keystroke, and note the fecklessness of a U.S. government that hides from us, the people, its own confirmation that North Korea supplies Iran with Russian-made nuclear-capable missiles; China transfers weapons materiel to Iran (despite Hillary Clinton's pathetic entreaties); Iran honeycombs Iraq; Syria supports...

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What an odd headline the AP chose today: "In Afghan cauldron, realism can trump rulebook." Should be more like: "In Afghan cauldron, insanity can and does trump reality." 

The insanity is the US COIN reality. Having lost the battle for hearts and minds (before it started), COIN policy now forces US Marines to barter with the Taliban for what's left -- some temporary patches of peace and quiet. Or, as the AP reports on our men in Sangin:



"The [US-British] team must rely on Afghans who coordinate with the Taliban...."

The sentence goes on but just let that astounding thought sink in for a while. The subject is development projects ($4 million worth) and, to get them done (why?), our people "must rely" on Afghans -- the people whose hearts and minds COIN theory is designed to win -- who coordinate with the Taliban. Hearts and minds are out of the equation here; "Afghans" have become the middleman linking the USMC with the Taliban to do business.  Lots of business: 

...

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G. Gordon Liddy takes "execution chic" to the next season, calling for Julian Assange to be added to the same "kill list" Anwar al-Awlaki is on, while Larry Klaman takes what has emerged as the non-establishment, non-mainstream view: Assange perfomed a public service. From WND.com (via Here's the Right Side of It):

Judicial Watch Founder Larry Klayman, however, presented in a statement of his own a radically different opinion – claiming that Assange has done "a public service."

"While I do not condone breaking the law," says Klayman, who is no longer associated with Judicial Watch, but now leads Freedom Watch, "if indeed this was the means to obtain and release so-called national security documents, the hard fact is that the government has again been caught lying to the American people about the motives and means...

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I've never heard quite so much chatter, if you can call it that, about "execution" before WikiLeaks.

Charles Krauthammer:

The real problem here is the helpless that it exposes the United States, the superpower, all its information is out there essentially with everybody enjoying impunity. I think what she [Hillary Clinton] should have said is nothing about the leaks themselves, simply say we're going to ask the military justice and the Justice Department to try to prosecute the alleged leaker, the alleged guy who stole this on treason, not just on mishandling – but on treason and to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law, up to and including execution if that is warranted.

...

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Twelve noon: I see Bill Clinton has weighed in hyperbolically -- or perhaps not. 

"I'll be very surprised if some people don't lose their lives," Clinton said while speaking in North Carolina on Tuesday night. "And goodness knows how many will lose their careers."

Was he perchance thinking of his own dear wife -- "CLINTON," as we find she likes to sign her cables -- who does seem to have taken her long and storied experience policing and investigating "bimbo eruptions" in Arkanasa to the international arena?...

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I'm hearing a lot about "blood on the hands" of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange -- and searching for evidence past initial reports last summer that WikiLeaks' war doc dump could inspire "revenge attacks" on compromised American sources in Afghanstan (did this happen? haven't found confirmation). So far, anyway, the blood I see from WikiLeaks is on the hands of a hopelessly misguided and disastrous US foreign policy determinedly ignoring Islam in its prosecution of wars in the Islamic world. Take this report (below) from the Guardian about a leaked document cables on Pakistan. Even as our now...

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I wish Julian Assange would Wikileak this story so maybe, just maybe American would finally pay attention to a real scandal.

From the AP:

KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan border policeman killed six American servicemen during a training mission Monday, underscoring one of the risks in a U.S.-led program to educate enough recruits to turn over the lead for security to Afghan forces by 2014....

Is this what jihadist, Muslim-on-infidel murder by our Afghan "allies" is now -- "one of the risks"? This is not a risk worth taking for the servicemen's interest, the military's interest, or the country's interest. This effort, this theory, this utopian drive to remake Afghanistan in something akin to our own image is not workable, nor is it acceptable as the blood-and-treasure-draining...

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Just scanned the NYT story on the Wikileaks document dump -- which is itself a scan of the Wikileaks document dump, given that a colossal 251,287 State Department cables have been released in this Internet/media robbery/fencing information-operation.

The several items highlighted at this early stage are either (1) obvious (Afghan government officials are corrupt! Saudis support Al Qaeda!) (2) of watch-that-space interest (Berlusconi and Putin are big pals) or (3) of urgent public interest (Syria supplies Hezbollah;  Pakistan isn't accepting our plan for their nuke materials, or, as the Politico story noted and the NYT did not, North Korea managed to ship 19 advanced, nuclear-capable, Russian-made...

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Queen (and Supreme Governor of the Church of England) and Prime Minister's Foreign Secretary's wife Islamically swathed, wrapped and encased. Hello, respect for Islam, goodbye, self-respect. And that goes for their husbands.

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Somehow, on viewing this depressing, dispiriting -- and therefore, must-see! -- Sunday pictorial from the Daily Mail (via Ruth King), this lush line from "Easter Parade" by Irving Berlin came wafting by:

The photographers

Will snap us

And you'll find that we're in the rotogravure....

From the Daily Mail

Shoeless and wearing a beekeeper-style shawl and hat, the Queen walked across the world’s largest carpet last night as she met Islamic students in Abu Dhabi at the start of her five-day state visit to the Gulf.

No sooner had the Queen and Prince Philip stepped off their chartered British Airways flight from London than they were taken straight to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, the country’s largest.

The floor of its main prayer hall is covered in a 35-ton carpet which took 1,200 Iranian women two years to stitch by hand.

...

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Gates of Vienna has a stomach-turner of a story up, with video from Vlad Tepes, about the sentencing this week of a swaggering (watch the video) Toronto Muslim man convicted of aggravated manslaughter in his attempt to "honor kill" his 16-year-old daughter. In 2007, it seems, the man drove his minivan at his daughter, his son-in law and the daughter's 17-year-old boyfriend, dragging the girl under the vehicle causing head injuries, breaking his son-in-law's pelvis, and causing more minor injuries to the boyfriend. The father was sentenced to five years in federal prison and, and taking off for time already served, will serve about four years.

A few years ago, the shockeroo of the story would have been, first, in the nature of the crime: A father tries to mow down his daughter and others because he doesn't like the girl's boyfriend -- as a point of "HONOR"?? Are you KIDDING?? How twisted it that?

No more. We have come to learn that this is a practice widely practiced mainly in Islamic...

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This week's syndicated column:

A few days ago, I got to do what many Americans would like to do -- ask Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano a thing or two. Before I report on what I asked and what she said, I must note there were "ground rules" in effect. The conversation itself between a small group of mainly conservative-minded journalists and Napolitano was free and even easy, but reporting on any aspect of the exchange required after-the-fact approval from DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Sean Smith.

This rankles. It is also something new in my personal experience. Sure, I have conducted scores of one-on-one interviews "on background," a term which, in brief, I define as a means to acquire an understanding of a story from a source unwilling to be quoted directly, at least at first. Follow-up conversations may or may not be "on the record."...

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I just found out that Sgt. Evan Vela was denied parole last month -- again.

This is a T-R-A-V-E-S-T-Y.

Evan's father recaps the whole outrageous story here, which culiminates in last month's hearing where, notwithstanding the better part of four years served, unanimous support for parole from prison officials, letters of support from Idaho Senators Crapo & Risch, Idaho Congressman Simpson, and Idaho Governor Otter.,, and the promise of employment on release, the answer came back, parole denied. The US government can and does free countless killers of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of clemency, but no such feelings...

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More courage, wisdom and humanity from Geert Wilders in the Israeli paper Yedioth via Gates of Vienna, which has posted the English translation of the Hebrew:

Even a journalist from a friendly country such as Israel does not escape invasive hands of the security guards who protect Geert Wilders. At the entry point to the interview with Holland’s extreme politician, founder and leader of the anti-Islamic “Party for Freedom” [PVV], bodyguards do not hold back, and run extensive security checks. Time and again they recheck my identity, making sure that I possess nothing that could potentially turn into a weapon. Wilders, on the other hand, looks disconnected from the security turmoil around him. It seems that he must be used to it. That’s the way it is if you are one of the most threatened persons in the world.

“To tell the truth, yes, I fear for my life,” he admits. “I am just a man. The danger does not come only from Holland. It is outside too. There are very serious threats from...

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