Remember when "Operation Infinite Justice" -- the post-9/11 US military build-up -- was quickly  changed  to "Operation Enduring Freedom" because Islam believes only Allah dispenses "infinite justice"?

Well, now that as many 50 Pakistani imams in the Sunni Ittehad Council --  Facebook page here -- have declared jihad on the US, they have also declared that it is haram (forbidden) to call the U.S. a superpower because only Allah deserves the title.

Of course, Pakistan has been fighting a jihad against the American Superdumbpower (is that ok???) for a long time -- even as it has been collecting billions in backsheesh -- US taxpayer dollars. This week, we learned about one skirmish in that jihad -- the deliberate and concerted...

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Five British soldiers shot and killed by a 'rogue' Afghan policeman in Helmand province in November 2009. In all, at least 37 40 Western troops have been killed by Afghan "allies" in the past 22 months.

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London Telegraph: "Commanders ignored warnings that British troops were at risk from attack by Afghan allies: carry a loaded pistol whenever working alongside them, secret Nato report warned"

The report, ordered after a rogue Afghan policeman shot dead five British servicemen, recommended that British troops should be armed with 9mm pistols at all times - even when sleeping - because of the high risk of being attacked.



...

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This week's syndicated column:

Only the U.S. military could build a defensive wall of words -- "dismounted complex blast injury" (DCBI) -- around the bare fact that single, double, triple, even quadruple amputations are up sharply among U.S. forces on foot patrol in Afghanistan. So are associated pelvic, abdominal and genital injuries, according to a newly released report.

But even the antiseptic language of the report is excruciating, as when it calls for "further refinement" of "aggressive pain management at the POI (point of injury)," or highlights the need to train more military urologists in "phallic reconstruction surgery."

It isn't management but prevention that is called for.

These grievous injuries have increased because more U.S. forces are on foot patrol in Afghanistan. More Americans are on foot patrol in Afghanistan...

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My upcoming column this week takes off from a new report on the continuing spike in amputations among US troops in Afghanistan. The AP reports: 

The counterinsurgency tactic that is sending U.S. soldiers out on foot patrols among the Afghan people, rather than riding in armored vehicles, has contributed to a dramatic increase in arm and leg amputations, genital injuries and the loss of multiple limbs following blast injuries.



The number of U.S. troops who had amputations rose sharply from 86 in 2009, to 187 in 2010 and 147 so far this year, military officials said Tuesday, releasing the report on catastrophic wounds.

Of those, the number of troops who lost two or three limbs rose from 23 in 2009 to 72 last year to 77 so far this year. ... The soldier on foot is at greater risk for severe injuries, Tuesday's...

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My title today conjures up all the wrong imagery because "the doors of perception," which comes to us from William Blake, was taken by Aldous Huxley as the title of his book of reflections on mescaline, which was taken by Jim Morrison as the name of his band. My concern with "the doors" is not at all psychodelic, although I suddenly find that this is likely the one opportune moment I will ever have  to drop the fact that in the mid-1950s, Aldous Huxley invited my late father, Elliot West, a Hollywood writer and novelist, to take mescaline with him.

Dad declined, although he did do what he could to help Huxley in his surprising quest to get a television writing job -- surprising as in: The great Aldous Huxley, author of the genius "Brave New World" and crackling novels such as "Point Counter Point," essays, poetry, and even co-credit on the excellent 1940 screenplay of "Pride and Prejudice," can't get a lousy TV job just  by clearing his throat? Apparently not, and my mother still recalls how Huxley broached the subject while examining the cover of an LP (record, kids) of the musical "Kismet" at such close range that it was half an inch from  his eyeballs. Huxley was very nearly blind; hence, his desire for mescaline, a drug said to intensify color and landscape.

...

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From the Guardian, an essay by Naina Patel, a 30-year-old barrister who spent last year bringing law to Afghanistan. Only what kind, pray tell?

During the year, I began to understand how fortunate we are to have only one set of laws in Britain. Afghanistan is really three legal systems within one: the state system, dating back to the reign of King Amanullah, inspired by the codes of Turkey and Egypt; sharia, founded on ancient religious texts and their interpretation; and customary law, such as Pashtunwali, the strict honour code of the Pashtuns. Only the first two of these are explicitly recognised in the country's constitution. Still, the result is a confusing labyrinth of rules and norms, which only heightens the challenge of providing high quality and consistent justice.

The problem...

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This week's syndicated column:

Having passed the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I can now say with certainty that something major was missing from all of the ceremonies, the symbolism and the media coverage. It was something that not only captures the meaning of the attacks themselves, but better defines our response to them than any other single thing. It is the face of the age itself, and it is not Osama bin Laden's.

I refer to the most familiar of the 12 Danish Muhammad cartoons, the one by Kurt Westergaard. I always think of this world-famous drawing as "Bomb-head Muhammad," for the lit bomb that serves as Muhammad's turban. (This is no fantastical image, as we learned last month when Afghan President Hamid Karzai prevailed upon local imams to implore their flocks to stop putting bombs in their turbans after three separate assassinations via turban bombs...

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If a tree falls in a forest  -- no, if a bunch of al Qaeda and Hezbollah "flickers" seize power of the ninth largest oil state with NATO and US support -- will anyone take notice?

Not the New York Times and pals -- until it's too late.

From today's Old, Grey (Blind) Lady, Page One:

"Islamists' Growing Sway Raises Questions for Libya"

TRIPOLI, Libya — In the emerging post-Qaddafi Libya, the most influential politician may well be Ali Sallabi, who has no formal title but commands broad respect as an Islamic scholar and populist orator who was instrumental in leading the mass uprising.

The most powerful military leader is now Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former leader of a hard-line group once believed to be aligned with Al Qaeda.

"Once believed"? What a deceptively fuzzy term to use given that the US State Department, in its 2008 rundown of terrorist organizations, describes a 2007 "merger" between Belhaj's "hard-line group" (the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) and al Qaeda!

...

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News from Vlaams Belang -- and, if Western-style liberty is your bag, it isn't good. A sharia court now presides in beautiful Antwerp. Of course, NATO and the US have enthusiastically supported the ascension of sharia in Libya, so will this news be welcome in the capitals of Europe and the US? The answer is two-fold, It will be welcome because it will be willfully, suicidally misunderstood, as the insipid response of Anwterp's "Alderman for Diversity" (below) attests. The dhimmification of the West is nigh complete. Thanks to resolute parties such as Vlaams Belang, however, resistance continues. The flame of liberty still flickers.

But for how long?

In a press release, the VB lion Filip Dewinter writes:

As we announced yesterday, a sharia court has been established in the north of Antwerp. This ‘court’, located within the so-called ‘Center for Islamic Services’, is an initiative of the extremist Muslim group Sharia4Belgium. The opening of a sharia court in Antwerp...

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The Daily Mail today reports:

Libya's interim leader has said Sharia law will be used as the basis for new legislation as the country removes all traces of the Gaddafi regime.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, making his first public speech in Tripoli in front of 10,000 people, warned against reprisals by rebel forces against elements of the Gaddafi regime.

And he said that 'extremist ideology' would not be tolerated under the new regime.

Under a sharia regime, "extremist ideology" includes freedom of religion, freedom of speech, equal rights for women and non-Muslims -- that kind of thing. The Daily Mail story continues:

The National Transitional Council chairman said: 'We seek a state of law, prosperity and one where sharia is the main source for legislation, and this requires many things and conditions.'...

Back in 2005, it occurred to me that the US "war on terror" was in fact all about "making the world safe for sharia." Our interventions in the Islamic...

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Coming soon to Doha, Qatar: the political offices of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan -- Taliban HQ.

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On September 10, the Islamic jihadists of Afghanistan, commonly known as the Taliban, massively struck at a US military outpost with a truck bomb that left a 20-foot-deep crater, wounding scores of Americans, mainly with concussions.

On September 11, President Barack Hussein Obama read Psalm 46 at Ground Zero: "Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has wrought desolations in the earth." As Robert Spencer pointed out, "The only people who think that 9/11 was an act of the Supreme Being wreaking desolations on the earth are...Islamic jihadists."

On September 12, the Times of London reported...

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If you want to know what anniversary we celebrate (or should) for the 328th time today (and the meaning of the above illustration by Lars Vilks), go to the aptly named Gates of Vienna for the good news.

During a semi-bi-annual clean-up of my study, I came across an undated scrap of Washington Post on which Brookings' Robert Kagan briefly but thoroughly excoriated George Will for advocating US withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. It apparently dates back back two years to columns Will wrote in September 2009.

Nothing could be more "disastrous" than such a "double surrender," Kagan wrote. His reason:

The consequences of such a retreat would be to shift the balance of influence in the region decidedly away from pro-US forces and in the direction of the most radical forces in Tehran, as well as toward al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban, to name just the most prominent beneficiaries.

That's bitterly funny. Two years later, the balance of influence in the region is ever more clearly with these same "radical forces" that our very presence, Kagan wrote, was supposed to counter.

Take Iran. Now revealed (but not by the US Government but by private attorneys in court)...

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This week's syndicated column:

It is something to have gone 10 years without an Islamic attack of similarly gigantic proportions to those of Sept. 11, 2001, but it is not enough. That's because the decade we look back on is marked by a specifically Islamic brand of security from jihad. It was a security bought by the Bush and Obama administrations' policies of appeasement based in apology for, and irrational denial of, Islam's war doctrine, its anti-liberty laws and its non-Western customs. As a result of this policy of appeasement -- submission -- we now stand poised on the brink of a golden age.

Tragically for freedom of speech, conscience and equality before the law, however, it is an Islamic golden age. It's not just the post-9/11 rush into Western society of Islamic tenets and traditions on everything from law to finance to diet that has heralded this golden...

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John Rosenthal provides a cheat sheet on Al Qaeda in Libya -- US-supported Al Qaeda in Libya -- at Hudson New York. It is shocking evidence of how far off course we have drifted since September 11, 2001.

Abdul Hakim Belhadj -- today, "commander of Tripoli"; yesterday, founder of the Al Qaeda affiliate called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) -- wins Quote of the Day (via MEMRI), even if it does date back to the 1990s:

"The LIFG opposes all who advocate democracy or believe that Islam's victory can be achieved by any means other than jihad."

Ah, jihad. That little thing.

Oh, but he renounced such jihadist ways in exchange for his release from Libyan prison last year, did he not?

You bet. But he also renounced violence against Qaddafi -- and that pledge didn't exactly prove to be rock of ages.

Still, Belhadj does seem to have found a new obsession...

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The face of a drug and organ smuggler? Kosovo Prime MInister Hashim Thaci

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An update on this story.

"US prosecutor to probe to probe Kosovo organ trafficking"

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — A U.S. prosecutor will investigate claims that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci allegedly led a criminal network that sold organs of civilian captives during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, the EU's mission in Kosovo said Monday.

John Clint Williamson was named lead prosecutor in a task force set up to investigate allegations raised in a report last year by Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty, the mission said...

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Deputy District Gov. Mohammad Akbar Khan (left) sits with Navy Lt. Asif Balbale (center) and Lt. Cmdr. David Todd in the district governor’s compound in Sangin, Afghanistan, Sept. 3.

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Asif Balbale is a Muslim Navy chaplain and imam. He spent the past month visiting Afghanistan " to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan through religious outreach engagements across Helmand province," the Pentagon reports (gushes) at DVIDS. Sangin -- bloody, Taliban-riddled Sangin -- was his last stop.

Was he there to minister to US Muslims in uniform? Hardly. As Balbale himself notes in this interview, he ministers to US Muslims in uniform  only "sporadically." Instead, this was a dog and pony show for Afghan...

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The English Defense League has released a long, passionate and patriotic statement regarding the arrest of EDL leader Tommy Robinson. It is a testament to the state of crisis ordinary British people endure on the streets of British cities and towns where they are forced by anti-democratic, sheltered elites to live State Islamization. The statement is also an explanation: Tommy Robinson protests; Tommy Robinson inspires protest. Therefore, Tommy Robinson must be jailed.

Here is an excerpt from the post at Gates of Vienna.

In Tower Hamlets Tommy made a very clear statement: “When you let me out of court with any bail conditions that restrict my democratic right to oppose militant Islam, I will break them the minute I walk out of that court room.” The question then becomes: is Tommy Robinson being held captive because he has dared to challenge the authority of the court...

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Why is this man being arrested?

After giving this speech  about democratic rights and political freedom in Tower Hamlets, East London, English Defense League leader Tommy Robinson was deprived of both his rights and his freedom by the British state.

He is now on a hunger strike in prison in Bedford -- the "Bedford Lubyanka," as Gates of Vienna is calling it.

Keep an eye on this breaking story at Gates of Vienna, Vlad Tepes, and Here's the Right Side of It.

The Washington Times' Bill Gertz reports (links in the original):

Jihadists among the Libyan rebels revealed plans last week on the Internet to subvert the post-Moammar Gadhafi government and create an Islamist state, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.

U.S. officials said spy agencies are stepping up surveillance of Islamist-oriented elements among Libyan rebels.

Looks as if the  "flickers" have...

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Hard to tell.

So why not teach a class in how to fire rocket propelled grenaades?

This week's syndicated  column:

Beyond the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looms another signal date in the annals of global jihad. That date is Sept. 20, when the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas is expected to petition the United Nations for statehood.

What would a U.N.-ordained Palestinian state have to do with global jihad? Practically everything, because such statehood would mark a major victory in the long war on Israel's existence. And, whether unadmitted or unimagined, it is Israel on which the axis of Islamic jihad turns.

I've never been more convinced of this than after reading four, clarifying pages of Bat Ye'or's new book, "Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate" (Lexington Books). In a first-chapter primer on the relationship between the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, much of which revolves around mutual animus toward Israel, Ye'or revisits the hateful perversion that passes for political normal: the relentless...

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No chemistry here as Mahmoud Jibril of Libya's Transitional National Council posess with Italy's Silvio Berlusconi after receiving Italy's pledge to unfreeze about $500 million -- read: tribute -- held in Italian banks on August. This apparently loveless match took place one day after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy (below). Still, Italy's ENI oil subsequently signed a memo with the NTC to resume oil activity -- activity that was ever so briefly in doubt given Italy's relationship with Qaddafi.

Here's the real thing -- at least on Sarkozy's part. Notice that glow of gleaming Euros about him. Could it be that sweet deal with the rebels...

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France: "I'm shocked, shocked, that blood is being exchanged for oii in Libya."

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Via ANSAmed (with thanks to Baron Bodissey):

PARIS, SEPTEMBER 1 - France reportedly finalised an agreement with the National Transitional Council (NTC) at the beginning of the conflict in Libya on the basis of which the rebels would sign over 35% of Libyan oil to Paris, according to this morning's issue of the French daily Liberation, which noted that Foreign Minister Alain Juppe' ''was not aware'' of the agreement.

Right.

The newspaper has obtained a letter dated April 3 of the NTC and addressed to the Qatari emir, in which the rebels' organisation claims to have signed ''an agreement...

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France's Sarkozy may find it perfectly swell that an "al Qaeda asset," Adbelhakim Belhadj, is commander of rebel forces in Tripoli, a story gradually seeping into MSM consciousness. According to the Asia Times' Pepe Escobar, however, Belhadj, founder and "emir" of the previously (presently?) al-Qaeda-allied Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), is not alone. He is one of many such jihad commanders. Escobar writes:

Hardly by accident, all the top military rebel commanders are LIFG, from Belhaj in Tripoli to one Ismael as-Salabi in Benghazi and one Abdelhakim al-Assadi in Derna, not to mention a key asset, Ali Salabi, sitting at the core of the TNC. It was Salabi who negotiated with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi the "end" of LIFG's jihad, thus assuring the bright future of these born-again "freedom...

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Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the man who twice upheld death sentences in the Bulgarian nurses show trial and is poised to lead post-Qaddafi Libya. But don't worry: The State Department says he's a refomer.

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While making a correction in my column regarding Libyan "rebel" front man Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the former Qaddafi justice minister who now heads Libya's government-in-waiting, the National Transitional Council (NTC), I realized that US and NATO support for this man and the NTC and the "rebels" is actually worse than I previously thought, which was already pretty bad.

I don't refer only to the role Abdul Jalil played in the Bulgarian nurses show trial, which I mistakenly underestimated: I originally wrote that Abdul Jalil sentenced the five nurses and Palestinian medic to death when, in fact, as president of the Tripoli appeals court, he twice upheld their death sentences. Indeed, for these blatant perversions of justice (charges that the nurses had infected hundreds of...

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This week's syndicated column:

Here are three things Americans need to know about the Libyan "rebels" the U.S. government isn't telling us.

One: The inspiration of the Libyan war is as much anti-Western as it is anti-Gadhafi.

The "Day of Rage" that kick-started the Libyan war on Feb. 17 marked the fifth anniversary of violent protests in Benghazi, which included an assault on the Italian consulate during which at least 11 were killed. The 2006 mayhem, as John Rosenthal has reported, during which consulate staff was evacuated after 1,000 to several thousand men tried to storm and burn the building, may be linked to the Italian TV appearance two days earlier of Italian minister Roberto Calderoli. It was then that Calderoli, in defiance of worldwide Islamic rioting against cartoons of Muhammad in a tiny Danish newspaper, revealed he was wearing an undershirt decorated with such a cartoon. In remarks widely reported in Arab media, Calderoli explained that "the gesture was a matter...

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This is a map of known U.S. oil reserves. Oil production in any of these regions require no drone attacks, no NATO bombing raids, and no special forces on the ground. This would save US taxpayers at least $1 billion, the US price tag to date for installing a jihad-heavy government in Libya, the ninth largest oil state in the world.



A crazy policy, an evil policy, or both.

Now the fun begins: The division of (sp)oil among NATO.

Will Italy be the odd-ally out? Reuters featured analysis this week that considered the question.

It's important to remember the insurrection in Libya started in February with a "Day of Rage" commemorating a violent, 2006 protest against freedom of speech in Italy. Specifically, this was a post-Friday-prayers attack on the Italian consulate in Benghazi to protest an Italian minister's defiance...

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In the Iraq War on Defendants, killers go free. Captain John McKenna, left, was shot and killed by an Iraqi sniper while helping mortally wounded Lance Cpl. Michael Glover. The sniper responsible for both of their deaths was recently released by an Iraqi court. Today, the McKenna and Glover families marked their fifth anniversary of their deaths with a memorial in Rockaway.

From the New York Daily News:

The families had been assured that "as long as there is a Marine in Iraq, the sniper will remain in jail." Their already overwhelming loss has been compounded by the failure of the Defense Department to inform them that Muhammad (Big Ears) Awwad Ahmad had been released.

"Not to have called me or notified me," said McKenna's...

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W. C. Fields used aliases -- Mahatma Kane Jeeves, Otis Criblecoblis, and Charles Bogle -- to hide his contributions to screenplays. Now, it seems that Barack H. Obama has used an alias -- Harrison J. Bounel -- to hide ... what?

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As if that three-dollar-bill-phony pdf of a long-form birth certificate weren't alarming enough (browse through this archive and tell me you don't have any questions about its veracity), now it seems that Barack H. Obama, the 44th president of the USA, has an "alias" -- as discovered and documented by debt-collection and "skip-trace expert" Albert Hendershot. And that alias -- Harrison J. Bounel -- is currently being scrubbed from professional databases.

So reports World Net Daily here.

...

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Libyan "rebel" spokesman Mustafa Abdul Jalil: Do you trust this "zabibah"*?

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A FoxNews.com poll on whether readers trust the Libyan "rebels" cues up thus:     

Another Arab country appears to be on the cusp of deposing its leader. The rebel-led Transitional National Council is poised to topple Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Do you think we can we trust the rebels? 

This is an interesting question on more than one level. Given the extent to which Fox News has been depicting the Libyan "rebels" as our horse to ride against Qaddafi to "victory" -- with stories today emphasizing a drop in oil prices due to "rebel" gains and a not-so-subtle plug...

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Drudge is linking to a report that tells us that in Libya's new constitution, Part 1, Article 1, it says:

Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).

What about that "vision" Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman has been hearing from "people across Libya" of a "modern," "secular," "moderate" Libya in the making?

Italian minister Roberto Calderoli shows off a Mohammed cartoon on a T-shirt on Italian TV in 2006. In response, thousands took to the streets in Benghazi, ten people died in the ensuing violence directed at the Italiian embassy, Calderoli resigned, and today, five years later, that Spriti of 2006 has taken Tripoli.

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From the beginnings of fighting in Libya, John Rosenthal has owned the English-language reporting on the "rebels" -- a remarkable feat for an independent journalist competing with Goliath Media.

With anti-Qadaffi forces now in Tripoli, it's worth revisiting what may be Rosenthal's singlemost clarifying report on the jihadists roots of the insurrection, which go back to a violent Benghazi outpouring in 2006 against the West -- against freedom of speech and the Danish Mohammed cartoons. In these Libyan protests, which Rosenthal describes...

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With non-Constitutionally-US-supported anti-Qadaffi forces taking Tripoli today, it looks as if -- to be as delicate as a NATO commander -- the "flickers" of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah have won. In franker words, America's jihadist allies, a significant presence among the Libyan "rebels,"  are now rising to power in Libya. In more startling terms, the same people who fought with al Qaeda against Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan (and committed unreported atrocities in Libya), are now, thanks to the US taxpayer, very likely about to run or at least help run a state with the ninth largest oil reserves in the world.

But don't worry. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman was in Benghazi all weekend, making sure everything works out all right.

To wit(less):

WASHINGTON Aug 22 (Reuters) - Libya has moved beyond a historic tipping...

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GOP field: What do they think about COP Margah?

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This week's syndicated column:

On the Afghan border with Pakistan, in Paktika province, is a tiny, isolated and primitive American outpost called Combat Outpost (COP) Margah. What happened there last fall never penetrated mainstream consciousness, but on Oct. 30, American forces were surprised by a wee-hours attack by hundreds of unusually sophisticated fighters who were "armed to the teeth and shouting 'Allah Akbar.'" Or so David Axe reported, quite vividly, in Wired magazine, the lone outlet to cover the battle.

It took 12 apocalyptic hours, but the insurgents were successfully repelled. Of course, this wasn't the first time this outpost in eastern Afghanistan or its defenders were attacked. Others have even occurred during U.S. missions into town to "show our faces," as one soldier put it,...

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Gen. David Petraeus, June 23, 2011, in confirmation hearings before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee

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In an April 2011 column, I argued that both Barack Obama and the COINdinista Right had good (for them) reasons to perpetuate wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama's reason is obvious. He doesn't want the nation to watch Iraq and Afghanistan falling apart during the 2012 election year. I wrote:

And falling apart -- I call it reverting to type - is the inevitable result of U.S. withdrawal. "Who lost Iraq and Afghanistan?" is not a question Obama wants to answer during the election.

Thus, Obama will slog on with counterinsurgency in stalemate, maintaining his weirdly logical...

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Gen. Petraeus bestowing medals at COP Margah on the Afghan border with Pakistan in October 2010

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Command Outpost (COP) Margah didn't make "the news" back in October 2010 when there was an attack by hundreds of jihadists "armed to the teeth and shouting `Allah akbar' as they stormed the outpost," as Wired rather colorfully reported.

No, not even after Gen. Petraeus called the battle to defend this outpost in Paktika province along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border "one for the history books." Petraeus made that comment when he helicoptered in ten days after the fighting to distribute medals among these valorous soldiers. If the commanding general mentioned what national purpose they had served in successfully defending this tiny outpost on the moon, that didn't get picked up either. But I doubt that he did -- because there isn't any. There were no American deaths at this battle of Margah, which may be what made it so memorable.

Not so at COP Keating in October 2009, when 300 Taliban fighters breached a similarly tiny and isolated outpost near Kamdesh in a furious battle that left five  eight Americans dead. In July 2008, a similar attack on a tiny, isolated and unsupported outpost near Wanat left nine US troops dead. These are some of the unreckoned costs of dysfunctional COIN theory, which the COINdinistas who run the US military relied on to insert these tiny outposts deep in hostile territory like pins on a map. Their mission was to serve as "hearts and minds" welcome wagons. After the men had to circle the wagons to escape with their lives, at least most of them, these outposts were closed. No Big Fish paid any price for what was deemed an intelligence failure; only small fry.

...

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Al-Awlaki: The CIA says studying his case is not "current" enough

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The space constraints of the newspaper column prevented me from listing in my most recent column exactly what topics the CIA did not consider "as current and comprehensive as possible," thereby pulling the plug on last week's scheduled 3-day Homegrown Radicalization conference. Or was it pressure from CAIR?

1) "Homegrown Radicalization and Recruitment" regarding the Lackawanna Six

2) "History of Islamic Extremism in the US"

3) "From Hatred to Harmony," a presentation by a former SkinHead leader and Neo-Nazi recruiter

4) "White Supremacy and Anti-Government Extremism"

5)  Al Qaeda's Inspire Magazine

6) "Violent Islamic Extremist Doctrines"

7) "Radicalization in the Mlitary"

8) "Domestic Jihadists in the National Capitol Region"

9)...

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This week's syndicated column:

This week, a three-day conference hosted by the CIA on "homegrown radicalization" was supposed to have taken place at CIA headquarters. It did not. The conference was abruptly canceled -- or, softening the blow, "postponed." Question: Did pressure from what we might (and should) call a certain "homegrown radical" group -- the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) -- make this happen?

Here is what we know.

On Monday, July 18, CAIR issued a press release headlined: "CAIR Asks CIA to Drop Islamophobic Trainer." It revealed that CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad wrote a letter to now-former CIA director Leon Panetta to that effect. The rest of the release is more opaque. In referencing an NPR report that slammed one counterterrorism trainer by name, former FBI agent John Guandolo, for "allegedly...

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I am posting the following AP story about an outrageous incident in its entirety (from Marine Times) because the AP link via Google, here:



Official: Afghan police clash with NATO troops ‎ The Associated Press - 1 day ago KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Firefights broke out between NATO forces and Afghan police in two parts of Afghanistan overnight, with four Afghan officers ...





-- no longer leads to the same story anymore. Does someone not want us to know something??



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"Afghan police, NATO troops clash; 4 police dead"



By Mirwais Khan - The Associated Press Posted : Wednesday Aug 10, 2011 7:33:52 EDT

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Firefights broke out between NATO forces and Afghan police in two parts of Afghanistan overnight, with four Afghan officers killed...

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Times of London photo: Admiral William McRaven on Nanawate Day, 2010

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From the St Pete Times:

Just days after 30 U.S. troops, including 22 Navy SEALs, died when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan, Adm. William McRaven took the helm of U.S. Special Operations Command in a somber ceremony at MacDill Air Force Base.

McRaven, 55, who oversaw and helped plan the mission that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan earlier this year, replaces Adm. Eric Olson, 59, who is retiring after serving four years as SOCom's chief.

McRaven, McRaven ... that names rings a bell.

Oh yeah.

Admiral McRaven is the US Navy admiral who, along with US Army  Brigadier General Kurt Fuller,...

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Birmingham, England

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I've been keeping watch on the fiery vortex of British rioting at View from the Right, where Lawrence Auster is tracking events with a close and critical eye on the reportorial blind spot on race that has marked most if not all of the news coverage.  (He has also been noting similar blind spots in Stateside reporting on this summer's spate of "flash mobs" in which the unifying theme of the flash-mobbers' race is omitted as a matter of course. The stories themselves, even the widespread black-on-white violence at last month's Wisconsin State Fair, have failed to penetrate the national MSM.) 

Such omissions, seemingly designed not-to-make-things-worse, are an affront to reality. In London, rioting mobs in London and other British cities seem to be notably or even predominantly black -- or so we gather from opaque...

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The Afghanistan blame game begins with Time magazine putting it out there, albeit gently:

The influx of troops, requested by General Stanley McChrystal, approved by President Barack Obama and overseen by General David Petraeus, brought stability to some areas in the south. And that is part of the narrative Petraeus, who has given up command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan to become head of the CIA, wants as his legacy. But the surge — and other initiatives of the general — have not been the unalloyed successes they have been made out to be. Indeed, the downing of a U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Wardak province on Saturday, resulting in the single deadliest day for American troops in Afghanistan, shows how fragile the situation is.

Not to mention reversible.

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As we mourn the loss of 30 US servicemen in Afghanistan today, among them members of beloved SEAL Team Six, the nature of the mission that they have been on, and that all of their fellow forces in the ISAF coalition have been on for nearly a decade, must come into focus if The Madness is ever to be brought to a stop.

To that end, I note another story of loss, this one from a Guardian report on yet another inquest into the death of yet another British marine. These uniquely British proceeedings prove to be a mainstay of detailed information on the proceedings of the war that are otherwise unavailable to us.

Corporal Stephen Curley, 26, died instantly when a roadside bomb detonated by a 14-year-old boy in Helmand last May.

His patrol's mission?

"The fatal patrol was organised as part of an effort to reassure local people concerned about their safety."

So, the COIN-bots strike again, seeking to win Afghan hearts and minds, but only losing Western lives. Will they...

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Gates of Vienna carries a chilling  update from the erudite and prolific Norwegian blogger Fjordman, some of whose vast body of work was cut and pasted into mass murderer Breivik's so-called manifesto. In the wake of a frenzy in Norway to identify the anonymous Fjordman, which has closely resembled a witch hunt, the 36-year-writer quite literally knocked on police doors of his own free will even though he knew that would end his anonymity. His account of what happened next follows:



I am shocked by the hostile treatment I received at the hands of the police.

Lars Hedegaard heard my story and commented that he had never known of any witness who has been treated in this manner in any Western country, except for totalitarian...

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Marine BG John Toolan: More stuff for Afghans ... or else.

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At the very end of this story lies the money quote on the thunking bankruptcy, military and political, of the American strategy in Afghanistan. It is the bankruptcy of Petraeus-McChrystal-Bush-Obama-Petraeus "population-centric COIN," as Brig. Gen. Lewis Craparotta of Task Force Leatherneck still calls it, and no, it hasn't been phased out.

From this week's Signon San Diego story:

The Camp Pendleton Marines fighting in Sangin from the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment repelled insurgent attempts to retake the town, Craparotta said, and they expanded west, east, and north toward the Kajaki dam. The dam is a strategic target of the insurgents because it supplies electricity to Helmand and Kandahar, and controls flooding in an area known as Afghanistan’s bread basket.

“We have gotten a little more breathing room for the population,” Craparotta said.



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This week's syndicated column:

They are the forgotten warriors of the Iraq War, the men whose lives and families and careers blew up in "murder" charges on a vicious battlefield, the pieces coming down in Fort Leavenworth's military prison where the men now serve long sentences. Together, they make up the Leavenworth 10, not always at Leavenworth and not always 10, a group of cold-luck cases still working their way up the ladder of appeals and the clemency process, their families hoping to free them before many more years go by.

They all got bad news recently when word came that the Army Court of Appeals denied Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, 28, a new trial despite the introduction of exculpatory evidence originally withheld by the prosecution. Behenna faces 13 more years of a 15-year sentence for the unpremeditated 2008 "murder" of an insurgent who killed two of his men in post-surge Iraq, an al-Qaida terrorist for whom the Army would issue a kill/capture order before realizing he was already dead.

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Photo from his Facebook page.

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A court in Jordan has  convicted  the mentor of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The Daily Star reports:

The Palestinian-born Isam Mohammad Taher al-Barqawi, better known as Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, was found guilty of “plotting terrorism” and recruiting militants in Jordan to join the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was tried in a military court with three other Jordanian Palestinians.

Maqdisi, whom Zarqawi praised in Internet writings, shouted at the judges as the ruling was handed down.

“You are convicting us of wrongdoing for something that our religion condones, which is standing by fellow Muslims against...

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In the wake of the arrest of the AWOL Pfc. Naseer J. Abdo for plotting to attack Ft. Hood a la Maj. Nidal Hasan, a San Antonio paper ran a story headlined: "Trust is a casualty after Abdo's arrest" -- as if it weren't already after the Hasan massacre. Anway, the quotation of the day comes from a female soldier who didn't want to be identified. Here is why:

“I believe it is more important to protect our armed forces than to potentially offend someone,” she added, declining to be identified for fear of retribution by her superiors.

Can we earmark those debt-ceiling defense cuts to make sure these "superiors" are fired?