jihadists

WaPo tells Obama, ‘Taliban has gone from struggling for survival to aiming for control over both Afghanistan and Pakistan’

This morning’s editorial, ‘The Taliban Threat,’ in the Washington Post, must have shocked Vice-President Joe Biden:

“I think the Taliban are, obviously, exceedingly bad people that have done awful things,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said last week. “Their capability is somewhat different, [from al Qaeda] though, on that continuum of transnational threats.”

That analysis — which is being used by many who oppose sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan — made some sense in the first years after Sept. 11, 2001. Now it is badly out of date. Al-Qaeda, though still dangerous, has suffered serious reverses in the past several years, while the Taliban has gone from struggling for survival to aiming for control over both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Though it is not known to be planning attacks against the continental United States, success by the movement in toppling the government of either country would be a catastrophe for the interests of the United States and major allies such as India.

For years the United States has been trying to persuade Pakistan to fully confront the threat of the Taliban, even as its government and army dithered and wavered. Now that the army at last appears prepared to strike at the heart of the movement in Waziristan, the Obama administration is wavering — and considering a strategy that would give up the U.S. attempt to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

After all, VP Biden only suggested that General McChrystal step up attacks in Pakistan on al Qaeda and add Mullah Omar’s shura council in Quetta to the target list, using drone strikes and ground troop raids.

The WaPo’s editors summarized it with this:

Adopting such a strategy would condemn American soldiers to fighting and dying without the chance of winning. But it would also cripple Pakistan’s fight against the jihadists. With the pressure off in Afghanistan, Taliban forces would have a refuge from offensives by Pakistani forces. And those in the Pakistani army and intelligence services who favor striking deals or even alliances with the extremists could once again gain ascendancy. After all, if the United States gives up trying to defeat the Taliban, can it really expect that Pakistan will go on fighting?

When the lights went on inside the chicken hawk house at the Washington Post, somebody was actually at home. An unholy alliance of violent Islamic jihadists — the Taliban, al Qaeda, and senior officials within Pakistan’s government — seek power in Pakistan and control of its 60 nuclear weapons.

Maybe tomorrow the WaPo’s editors will advise President Barack Obama to broker a four-way winning strategy between India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the United States to both end the dispute over Kasmir and destroy this threat to all nations.

AG Holder dodges and double-talks Republican Senators’ questions about Uighur terrorists

Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the Senate today:

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., pressed Holder to say whether he believed he had the authority to release someone with terrorist training into the United States. The attorney general did not directly answer Shelby’s question, but said the government doesn’t have any plans to release terrorists.

“With regard to those who you would describe as terrorists, we would not bring them into this country and release them, anyone we would consider to be a terrorist,” Holder said. [emphasis added mine]

What does the law say? It says those who trained as terrorists or associated with terrorists are inadmissible into the United States. But Attorney General Eric Holder says it is a matter of judgment and we know his recommendation will have great influence on President Obama.

In 1999, then DAG Eric Holder released known terrorists free in the United States, by way of pardon recommendations for FALN terrorists that were approved by President Clinton. Many Members of Congress back then, from both sides of the aisle, indicated those pardons were motivated by politics, to help his boss help his wife get elected to the Senate. This January, AG-nominee Holder admitted he “had made some mistakes” yet he also said those pardons were “reasonable.” We have good reason to question his judgment and motivations.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has twice written Holder and not received an answer.

I again reiterate my questions from last month and ask that I be given the same courtesy and dialogue you provided foreign government officials in Europe last week. Just four years ago, Congress enacted into law a prohibition on the admission of foreign terrorists and trained militants into this country. Accordingly, Congress is entitled to know what legal authority, if any, you believe the administration has to admit into the United States Uighurs and/or any other detainee who participated in terrorist-related activities covered by Section 1182(a)(3)(B). [emphasis added mine]

As you know, the current administration, including President Obama, has repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for legal decisions and authorizations that were made in efforts to defend the national security of this country. It would be both reckless and hypocritical for this administration to follow this criticism by acting in derogation of the law to permit an action that could endanger national security.

Knowing what we know now, the 19 hijackers would not have been legally admitted into the United States on their way to 9/11.

That is the point about the Uighurs. They trained in the same place as al Qaeda for the same purpose and hold the same ideology: Afghanistan, terrorism, and violent jihadism. If Eric Holder will not measure the Uighurs by those facts and standards, there is good cause to question his authority under the law and personal judgment.