Category: Pakistan

‘USA! USA! USA!’ (I’m Just Saying That Because It Bothers Liberals So Much)

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It is unfortunately predictable that the success of the U.S. effort that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan would result in finger-pointing, one-upsmanship and needless politicization. For example, Nate Silver at the New York Times:

To state the obvious, this is good news for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. I can’t imagine a single, atomized piece of news, foreign or domestic, that would be better for the President.
Although the Republican candidates had not seemed especially interested in making an issue out of national security — perhaps because Mr. Obama’s foreign policy has been fairly hawkish and not clearly differentiated from theirs — it at the very least neuters the issue for them. It presumably will become a significant talking point for the President — the sort of thing that swing voters will be reminded of in a commercial on the eve of the 2012 elections.
The news will also, almost certainly, trigger a significant improvement in Mr. Obama’s approval rating.

All of which is inarguably true, but it does seem a rather narrow way of looking at an event of such magnitude. Meanwhile, on MSNBC this morning, Joe Scarborough implied that Democrats didn’t want bin Laden dead, praising Obama for “courage and leadership [in] saying no to his own base” and “going against his own ideological leanings.” Here’s video:

The folks at Think Progress are offended. But indeed it appears that there are liberals so clueless that they didn’t find bin Laden’s death a cause for celebration. Continue reading ‘USA! USA! USA!’ (I’m Just Saying That Because It Bothers Liberals So Much) →

How Smitty Killed Osama bin Laden

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By now, you’ve seen the headlines at Memeorandum:

Osama bin Laden Killed by U.S. Strike

Bin Laden Is Dead, Obama Says 

Sources: Al-Qaida head bin Laden dead 

BREAKING: BIN LADEN DEAD

Osama Bin Ladin Loses Popularity
and 30cc of Brain and Skull But
Mostly 30cc of Brain and Skull

Everyone was suspicious last year when Admiral Smith got his orders to deploy to Afghanistan. Why was this middle-aged naval reserve officer from Virginia being sent halfway around the world?

The cover story that he would be providing IT services for troops based in Kandahar and Bagram was plausible.

But of course, it would be. Nudge, nudge.

However, those of us who know Smitty to be a natural-born killer were deeply suspicious. Continue reading How Smitty Killed Osama bin Laden →

Obligatory Osama Post

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by Smitty

Expressed in image form, I’m weighing in somewhere around here:
One suspects that this is The Real Deal. The political cost of Type II error, which would come in the form of a valid “Neener, neener, neener” tape from bin Laden, would be in the catastrophic range.
This is good news, obviously. Let us rejoice for the Commander in Chief. Bad onya to any conservatives who refuse to take a break from the Politics In Everything stance and give a little hurrah for the POTUS. Or at least be gracious like Gov. Sarah Palin. If he gets the blame for all that goes wrong, it’s unjust to deny him credit when something goes right. Oh, and a giant thumbs up to those bad mike foxtrots that conducted the operation, whatever form it took.
Osama is strategically significant. He hasn’t mattered much tactically since Tora Bora. His demise may open up a few more policy options for the administration. Denying him a 9/11 10th Anniversary gloat also falls in the ‘kinda nice’ category. Closure for the victims of 9/11 is great thing.
I sincerely hope that the Administration is deft in building upon this to improve the situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the broader region. Heaven knows a little letup is long overdue.
Again, props to the POTUS!
Actual news coverage available at Hot Air.
W’s reaction here.
And check Great Satan’s Girlfriend.
A word of caution: anyone who thinks this means the whole struggle is over is self-identifying as a rube.

‘It’s a Beautiful Story. And It’s a Lie.’

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A soi-dissant philanthropist is exposed as a liar:

Some of the most inspiring and dramatic stories in the best-selling book, “Three Cups of Tea,” by Greg Mortenson, are not true, multiple sources tell “60 Minutes” . . .
The stories in “Three Cups of Tea” have become the source of inspirational speeches Mortenson is paid to make and the partial basis for donations of nearly $60 million to the charity he founded. . . . Mortenson’s charity, Central Asia Institute, has spent more money in the U.S. talking about education in Pakistan and Afghanistan than actually building and supporting schools there . . .
The heart of Mortenson’s “Three Cups of Tea” is the story of a failed attempt in 1993 to climb the world’s second-highest peak, K2.
On the way down, Mortenson says, he got lost and stumbled, alone and exhausted, into a remote mountain village in Pakistan named Korphe.
According to the book’s narrative, the villagers cared for him and he promised to return to build a school there. In a remote village in Pakistan, “60 Minutes” found Mortenson’s porters on that failed expedition. They say Mortenson didn’t get lost and stumble into Korphe on his way down from K2. He visited the village a year later.
That’s what famous author and mountaineer Jon Krakauer, a former donor to Mortenson’s charity, says he found out, too. “It’s a beautiful story. And it’s a lie,” says Krakauer. “I have spoken to one of his [Mortenson’s] companions, a close friend, who hiked out from K2 with him and this companion said, ‘Greg never heard of Korphe until a year later,'” Krakauer tells Kroft.

Read the whole thing. After 9/11, Mortenson shared his “philanthropic” opinion of the War on Terror:

“I’ve learned that terror doesn’t happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren’t being offered a bright enough future that they had a reason to choose life over death.”

Which is utterly misguided: Osama bin Laden is from one of the richest non-royal families in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed Atta was from an affluent Egyptian family and had a college degree in architecture. But one finds this Mortenson quote all over the Internet, because liberals desperately want to believe that poverty causes terrorism. If this were true, supposedly, we could “fight terrorism” by sending money and Peace Corps volunteers to the Third World, just as liberals believe we can “fight crime” at home with welfare, summer jobs programs, etc.

The moral of the story, of course: If it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably not true. But there’s always someone clever enough to cash in by telling liberals what they want to hear.

Which brings us to the Question of the Day: “Liberals pride themselves on being tolerant. Are they really just suckers?” I think we all know the answer to that question, but the liberal author, Sally Kohn, goes on to make reference to the “pathetic self-loathing” of liberals.

Really, did she have to remind us of “Conscious Men“?

Pakistani Official Who Opposed Sharia Law Killed by His Own Bodyguard

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Not an encouraging development:

The governor of Pakistan’s most populous province was gunned down Tuesday at an upscale marketplace in Islamabad by a member of an elite police security contingent, officials said. The brazen killing threw an already teetering U.S.-backed government into even greater turmoil.
Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province and an avowed opponent of religious extremism, was shot to death at an open-air shopping center that is frequented by foreigners and the Pakistani elite. He was a prominent political ally of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Aaron Goldstein at The American Spectator:

Taseer’s assassination comes scarcely 48 hours after the liberal, secularist MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) withdrew from the coalition government led by the Pakistan’s People Party (PPP).
Taseer was part of the PPP . . .
The PPP is trying to form an alliance with the main opposition party led by former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. . . .
[W]hat happens in Pakistan has a direct bearing on the War in Afghanistan as well as on the broader War on Terror . . . Let’s also not forget they have nuclear weapons. As we all know, nukes and a jihadist ideology mixed together does not bode well.

UPDATE: Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch:

Why we don’t see more Islamic reformers, chapter 489. Taseer dared to oppose the blasphemy law that Muslims in Pakistan have used for years now to victimize Christians, and so he has been murdered.

UPDATE II: The BBC has video and reports:

Many were angered by [Tajeer’s] defence of a Christian woman sentenced to death. . . .
Mr Taseer made headlines recently by appealing for the pardon of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Friends of the governor say he knew he was risking his life by speaking out.

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs:

Consistent with Islam’s 1,400 year history, the moderate, reasoned voices are eliminated. Always. Moderates have no theological leg to stand on in Islam. Period.

This is exactly the problem, isn’t it? Anyone who takes the sacred texts of Islam seriously can see that Islam commands death for both Salmaan Taseer and Asia Bibi. And thus there is a Darwinian effect in Islamic socieities as the unbelievers and the moderates are slaughtered, those who perpetrate jihadist violence are celebrated as heroes, and doubters are intimidated into silence.

Yet anyone in the West who points out these disturbing truths about Islamic culture is denounced as an intolerant bigot, as if Islam’s peaceful critics were more dangerous than Islam’s murderously faithful practicioners.

UPDATE III: Reliapundit:

Is Pakistan collapsing in front of our eyes? Yes!

Now a Memeorandum thread, with further reports from the Associated Press and the New York Times.

Report: ‘Issues of Culture, Ethnicity and Identity’ Raised in U.K. Rape-Gang Case

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A report on the sexual exploitation of British girls as young as 12 by a gang led by two 28-year-old Muslim men found that cultural issues were “a critical factor in making [the victims] easy targets for abusers.”

Official agencies “missed opportunities” to protect two victims of the gang, according to the newly released report by the Derbyshire Safeguarding Children Board (PDF).

England was shocked this week by the news — made public after the conclusion of three trials in which nine men were convicted — that at least 27 girls in Derbyshire had fallen prey to the gang led by Abid ­Saddique and Mohammed Liaqat, “each British-born and of Pakistani origin with an arranged marriage,” according to the U.K. Daily Mail. Authorities say the gang may have had dozens more victims.

Saddique and Liaqat cruised the streets in a BMW looking for young girls, sometimes approaching them near schools or shops. The men would use cell-phone calls and text messages to “groom” the girls, then ply them with alcohol and drugs and invite them to parties where they would be sexually assaulted. One girl said she was gang-raped by eight men. Continue reading Report: ‘Issues of Culture, Ethnicity and Identity’ Raised in U.K. Rape-Gang Case →

18 Taliban Killed by AOSHQ Jokes, Hellfire Missiles From Predator Drones

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But mainly the Hellfire missiles:

Two U.S. drone attacks killed 18 militants in Pakistan on Saturday, intelligence officials said, after recent NATO incursions raised tensions with an ally critical to Washington’s war effort in Afghanistan.
The United States has escalated pilotless drone aircraft missile strikes against al Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan’s northwest, with 21 attacks in September alone, the highest number in a single month on record.

Thanks for loaning me the joke, Ace. I’d let you borrow one of mine, but I’m not one of those people “known primarily for their funny work.”

Speaking of AOSHQ, Drew M. brings us this final score:

Network Running Jews 1
Rick Sanchez 0

And a reminder to our Zionist Media Overlords: I’m available.

Hellfire Missile 1, Shaikh Sa’id al-Masri 0

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ABC’s Jake Tapper reports another U.S. victory:

US officials tell ABC News that al Qaeda’s No. 3 — Mustafa Ahmed Muhammad Uthman Abu al-Yazid, known as Shaikh Sa’id al-Masri and Mustafa Abu al-Yazid – has been killed. Al Qaeda released a eulogy of Shaikh Sa’id tonight, officials said. . . .
US officials believed him to have been killed about a week ago in Pakistan. . . .
“Al-Masri was the group’s chief operating officer,” the official said, “with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning.  He was also the organization’s prime conduit to Bin Ladin and Zawahiri.  He was key to al-Qaeda’s command and control.”   . . .
An Egyptian, Shaikh Sa’id was formerly the chief financial officer of al Qaeda. The Sept. 11 Commission said that internally he argued against the 9/11 attacks “because he feared the U.S. response to an attack.”

Kinda prophetic, considering how things turned out for him.