Taliban

9/11, Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Pakistan, Taliban, War on Terror

Has al Qaeda won the War on Terror? (plus an update on Afghanistan from Bill Roggio)

by  • 

Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal provided Freedom Radio an update last night on Afghanistan and Pakistan. In part, he said, “The momentum has definitely shifted towards the Taliban and towards al Qaeda, particularly over the last year … the U.S. military, NATO, and Afghan government admit the Taliban openly controls 11 … of the 34 Providences in Afghanistan.”

Roggio recently did the math and found that since January 2008, “74 airstrikes and ground raids the Taliban and al Qaeda’s network in Pakistan’s lawless tribal agency [have killed] 13 senior al Qaeda leaders and one senior Taliban leader [and] sixteen other mid-level al Qaeda and Taliban commanders and operatives.”

General McChrystal was placed in command to fight a counter-insurgency operation there with the mission to protect the civilian populace and train up the Afghanistan army and police. The mission entailed setting the conditions for good governance, the infusion of aide, and the building of needed infrastructure. Yet he does not currently have in country sufficient troops to do all those things. Roggio explains the General’s frustration:

“We will not invade northwest Pakistan. … There is another irony with this. Last year, what were we told? We were told conducting cross-border attacks into Pakistan was illegal, it’s immoral, it’s against international law, [and] what we’re doing is killing civilians. Now the same people who told us that was bad want to ramp up those types of attacks. What am I missing here? It is a convenient way out. They’ve learned that Afghanistan is much harder than they thought. They thought everybody supports Afghanistan, it’s the “good” war … but once they found out how difficult [it is] and what the situation was, now they want to back off.”

Click the speaker to listen to Bill Roggio’s 27-minute interview (Windows Media Audio file – see note below):

Me: Perhaps it is fair to say the previous administration “took its eye off the ball” yet most Americans and the media all but forgot about Afghanistan. Pakistan stood by and watched the Taliban reconstitute and grow to more than 100,000 armed insurgents in its northwest and tribal areas. American intelligence officials have shown the Pakistan government evidence that from 8,000 to 14,000 al Qaeda are operating under protection in those areas and helping to train the Taliban’s fighters. In addition, Pakistan’s ISI watched as a total of 62 terror camps opened and now “15,000 to 20,000 trained militants” are directly aimed at India.

President Barack Obama is at a decision point. With McChrystal’s troop requests and recommendations in hand, he is considering whether to change the mission in Afghanistan back to counter-terrorism. Before he decides, America should ask itself a few questions.

If destroying al Qaeda’s ability to conduct terrorism worldwide, denying them sanctuary anywhere, and bringing justice to the murderers of 2,976 men, women, and children on 9/11 was the right mission back then, is it not the right mission today?

Will we accept the occasional mass-murder of our citizens both home and abroad?

Will we let Israel stand alone as again six million Jews face incineration?

While we have the world’s finest military and troops, have the civilians they defend lost the will to fight?

Has al Qaeda won the War on Terror?

——

Note: A 13 MB mp3 file of the interview is available here to download.

9/11, al Qaeda, Barack Obama, September 11, Suing the Saudis, Taliban, terror financing, War on Terror

9/11 lawsuit against Saudis would open window to Islamic ‘charities’ worldwide

by  • 

The potential loss of tens of billions of dollars in damages is not what the Saudis fear most, should the Supreme Court allow this lawsuit to move forward. Way down in the Washington Times’ article today about the Obama administration irking 9/11 families by asking the Supreme Court to deny their appeal of a ruling barring a lawsuit against Saudi princes was this gem:

“A Justice Department spokesman said the administration held the meetings to hear from family members and declined to discuss details. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said that while he sympathized with the families, the State Department is pursuing a broader strategy, using multiple tools to reach beyond U.S. borders and freeze terrorist assets.”

That was a hard pill for one who had bet on hope:

“I find this reprehensible,” said Kristen Breitweiser, a leader of the Sept. 11 families, whose husband was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. “One would have hoped that the Obama administration would have taken a different stance than the Bush administration, and you wonder what message this sends to victims of terrorism around the world.”

The lawsuit would crack open a window into Islamic “charities” worldwide. Instead, we will continue to turn a blind eye to terror financing. Saturday, the AP reported al Qaeda’s finances are recovering:

“As the Taliban gains power in Afghanistan and Pakistan, its money is coming mostly from extortion, crime and drugs, the AP found in an investigation into the financial network of militants in the region. However, funding for the broader-based al-Qaida appears to be more diverse, including money from new recruits, increasingly large donations from sympathizers and Islamic charities [emphasis added mine], and a cut of profits from honey dealers in Yemen and Pakistan who belong to the same Wahabi sect of Islam.
…
“In three of the last five years, the No. 1 source of money into Pakistan through this hawala system has been the United States, according to the Pakistani security official. He couldn’t say how much of the money went to terrorists and how much was sent from Pakistanis abroad to their families.”

President Barack Obama said this during his June 4 speech in Cairo:

“Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That’s why I’m committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.”

Al Qaeda is banking on that change.