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s I understand it, here’s the Obama/Clinton State Dept’s take on how they will win what we used to call the war on terror:  The problem between the U.S. and the jihadists is that we just haven’t been likable enough. We’ will win over Islam if we spend less on the military and more on fish sticks for orphans.

That was the gist of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith A. McHale’s talk to the Center for a New American Security today.  (I thought the old Bush security was just fine, by the way, since no Americans were killed by jihadists on American soil during his watch, post 9/11.)  Here’s some excerpts:

Whether we are strengthening old alliances, forging new partnerships to meet complex global challenges, engaging with citizens and civil society, or charting new strategies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, our national interests depend on effective engagement and innovative public diplomacy. The stakes could not be higher. We must get this right…This is not a propaganda contest — it is a relationship race. And we have got to get back in the game.

Enhanced public diplomacy is a key component of the President’s new strategy in the region…To achieve the President’s aims, we are launching a multi-faceted strategy to provide platforms for local moderate voices, support democratic institutions and civil society, and position the United States as a long-term partner working to create opportunities and enable the people of the region to chart the futures of their own countries.

We are responding to requests from the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to help meet the needs of their people. Secretary Clinton recently announced more than $100 million in humanitarian support for the people of Pakistan. And Ambassador Holbrooke just announced another $200 million. Since 2002, the United States has provided a total of more than $3.4 billion to alleviate suffering and promote economic growth, education, health, security and good governance in Pakistan. [Oh, wait! You mean Bush tried this to the tun of $3.4 billion and they're still trying to kill us? No matter; just apply the Universal Obama Solution - throw lots of money at it.]

Yet we have a credibility gap with many in the region — some have called it a ‘trust deficit.’ So part of our task is reassuring the people that our aim in the region is to support their own aspirations. We need to do a better job of getting the word out about what we are doing to help Pakistan and Afghanistan become more stable and prosperous, both through the local media and by communicating directly with people.”

It is not about getting the word out, or the trust deficit, but it is most definitely about the aspirations of the people of the region.  A significant percentage of them have a deeply imbedded aspiration to bring pain, suffering and death to the Great Satan, and no amount of communication or prosperity is going to change that.  Only rewriting the Q’ran will change that.

Islam has nurtured radicals since the dawn of the religion, through times of great wealth and times of great poverty alike.  Radical Muslims abound in Lebanon, where Democracy still hangs on. And education? Cairo University, where Obama spoke to the Muslim world last week (except for Iran, of course, where the state didn’t broadcast it), has spawned its share of very well educated Islamo-savages.

McHale concluded her comments with a bizarre historical reference:

A few days after I started at the State Department, I moved into George Marshall’s old office. General Marshall saw a world beyond our shores devastated by war and reeling from economic crisis. He knew that our fates and our fortunes were intertwined and that America had to engage with the world to ensure our future. So he launched one of the most far-reaching engagement efforts in history. And today we are still reaping the rewards of that investment in mutual prosperity and security. From Cairo to Kabul, from quiet villages to crowded cities, America is once again reaching out a hand of friendship and seeking new relationships. We know it is the right thing to do and we know, like General Marshall did, that our future depends on it.

Yeah, but back then Europe was a Christian continent. And the enemy was broken, broke and starving – a point we’ll never get to if the administration can’t even admit that we’re fighting terrorists.  There is a role for public diplomacy – what we used to call foreign aid – but alone, it will have no measurable effect on the level of jihadist violence against us.

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eople who believe in karma and reincarnation better be very careful to live good lives … or they could be reborn in Pakistan. Here’s the latest from that lovely home of 176 million Muslims:

CHAKWAL: At least 24 persons died and 35 were injured at the Imambargah suicide bombing here.

One killer blew himself up with explosives during annual Majlis Aza being held at the Imambargah located in the centre of the town at Mohala Sarpak of City police station area. The blast ripped apart the bodies of the faithful at the Imambargah, leaving a horrific scene of scattered body parts and blood all around the incident site.

Eyewitnesses said that following a Majlis, the faithful had crowded the main gate of the Imambargah, while those entering into the Imambargah were being frisked, when a youth 16/17 year old during checking blew himself up, which resulted in on the spot death of 20 persons, while the other four succumbed to their injuries in hospital. Four children were also included among the dead, they said. (Int’l News, Pakistan)

Imagine, if you can, weekly killings of dozens of people as Baptists and Methodists take turns exploding their youth in each other’s churches. Of, for that matter, French existentialists and modernists taking turns with the exploding vests.

But that just doesn’t happen. This was just another Shi’a-Sunni tit-for-tat.  This was Islam, the only religion that fosters uncontrolled hatred both within and without. Yet they call themselves the religion of peace, and they make themselves the one religion that cannot be criticized.  This is the one religion that needs criticism and lots of it, and its efforts to squelch the human expression of concern about what’s going on in Islam will only nurture and feed its evil side.

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ere’s a headline you don’t see every day:

 Gunmen shoot Sri Lanka cricketers

But it’s not really surprising, given that the cricketers were on their way to Gaddafi Stadium.  In Pakistan.  Two plus two equals Islamist terrorists bent on jihad, and indeed the attack this morning on the Sri Lankan team, which was touring Pakistan after India’s team pulled out for security reasons, had the look and feel of the Mumbai attacks.  BBC:

Pakistani officials said about 12 gunmen were involved and grenades and rocket launchers have been recovered.

Officials said the incident bore similarities to deadly attacks in Mumbai in India last November.

Reports suggest 10 to 12 gunmen ambushed the team coach and its accompanying police detail on the Liberty Square roundabout in the heart of Lahore, as the convoy was on the way to the Gaddafi stadium for a Test match.

No terrorists were apprehended.  Five Pakistani police officers and the bus driver – who the cricketers described as heroic, saving their lives by continuing to drive under the hail of lethal bullets - were killed.  Ten Sri Lankan team members and coaches were injured, two seriously enough to be hospitalized.

One Pakistani official sought to shift blame away from Islamist jihadists, claiming without evidence that India was behind the attacks, in retaliation for the Mumbai attacks.  No word on why the Indians would have been so stupid as to kill Sri Lankan cricketers instead of Pakistani jihadists.

Inone of the greater understatements of the jihadist war against civilization, International Cricket Council president David Morgan said it would be “very difficult for international cricket to be hosted in Pakistan for quite some time to come.”  Indeed, it will be very difficult for the international community to consider Pakistan to be a country in control of itself for some time to come.

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hat’s interesting about the dossier India presented to Pakistan today outlining evidence of Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai terror attack isn’t so much what the dossier contains, but its distribution list.

The dossier’s contents have not yet been released, but news reports say it contains the confession of lone terror force survivor Ajmal Amir Kasab, records of GPS and satellite phones used by the attackers and transcripts of conversations between the attackers and their handlers in Pakistan.

Its distribution includes Islamabad, of course, but much, much more:

Stepping up the diplomatic offensive, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee said he has written to his counterparts around the world and that countries are being briefed separately giving details of the Mumbai attacks and its links in Pakistan.  …

“It is my hope that the world will unite to achieve the goal of eliminating the threat of such terrorism,” Mukherjee said.

The External Affairs Ministry will be briefing all heads of missions based in Delhi, with the briefings to be concluded by Tuesday, and Indian ambassadors and high commissioners will be doing the same in their host countries around the world.

Seeing the reprehensible world response to Israel’s measured response to terrorist aggression against it, India’s diplomatic initiatives look quite savvy.  Pakistan is no Israel in the world’s perception – which as a powerful proof of how wrong the world’s perception of Israel is – but India’s diplomatic push assures that when Islamabad responds, world leaders will be able to measure that response against the dossier’s contents and judge accordingly.

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ot surprisingly, when I think of what I’m thankful for at this time of year, family rises to the top. I felt it this morning when I had a long conversation with my Inside-the-Beltway mom and we talked for a half hour, artfully skirting our differences and thoroughly enjoying our telephonic time together. And I’m thinking it now as our house hums with feast-making activities.

And while my relations with my father were strained for years and stay so – to my shame and regret – as he slips deeper into the fog of Alzheimers, I also remembered him with great thanks in my heart today, thanks to a flood of memories unleashed by the Mumbai terror disaster.

During my brief unhappy stint working for my Dad’s import/export company, he gave me a gift of a lifetime: A business trip around the globe, visiting his suppliers in Tokyo, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Portugal and England. That was over 25 years ago and the thousands of memories and images are with me still … as is the recognition that Dad refused to allow me to visit one country he did business with:  Pakistan.

There wasn’t anything in particular going on in Pakistan at the time; just its normal nastiness. It is not a coincident that of all the countries I could have visited, it was the only Islamic one I was cautioned away from. It may not be PC, but it’s undeniable: The Islamic religion does not foster friendly, high-functioning nations.

India has the great misfortune of having a long, negative history with Islam, and Mumbai has the added misfortune of being close to Pakistan and more accessible than Delhi, due to its seaside location – definitely not something to be thankful for. The Times of India is pretty straightforward in its low opinion of its neighbor to the west:

Strategic gurus and security analysts in the US and from across the world are examining Pakistan’s role in terrorism following yet another terror episode in India ending with fingers pointed at its widely-reviled neighbour.

“Widely reviled” would be edited by worrisome editors here in the States, but it’s much more straightforward at the copy desk of the Times of India – as it was with India’s “normally cautious and restrained” prime minister, Manmohan Singh, who bluntly said the attackers were “based across the border,” an obvious reference to Pakistan. Singh’s comments, according to the India Times, has triggered yet another Indian investigation into Islamabad’s role in using terror tactics against India.

This attack was different in many ways from the other recent terror attacks by Islamists in India, none more important to us than the so-called Deccan Mujaheddin’s deliberate targeting of American and British citizens. This was not the normal “I’m ticked over Kashmir” or “I want India to be an Islamic nation” motivations of the jihadists – this was a message to Barack Obama that continued access to Afghanistan via Pakistan is not going unnoticed by the Islamists.

So, what is there to be thankful for in this? First, of course, for the exquisite beauty of our Christian faith, and for the promise of salvation and the peace during crisis it offers all, so unlike vicious Islam. Then, for the valor and power of our military, which will protect us. For the geographic separation we enjoy still, even post-9/11, offering us more protection than countries like India have. And, as awful as the attack was, we can be thankful that the terrorists’ wildest vision of chaos and carnage was not fully realized in Mumbai, and that there are many more survivors than they hoped.

Finally, I’m thankful I smell the turkey cooking, I hear the laughter of daughters in the kitchen, that friends are on their way over, that our afternoon and evening will be full of friends, food and peace, and that you, dear reader, are well.

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The latest news tonight from The Times of India has six foreigners dead among the 101 killed by the Mumbai terrorists, and up to 40 Brits and other foreign nationals as hostages. Faced with this,

President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday condemned the Mumbai attacks and said the United States must work to strengthen ties with India and other nations to “root out and destroy terrorist networks.”

“These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism,” Obama’s chief national security spokesperson, Brooke Anderson, said in a statement.

“The United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks.”

I’m all for closer ties with India; it’s a must-do.  The problem is, these attacks could well pit India against Pakistan – that’s clearly a strong possibility for the ultimate rationale behind the attacks.  India uncovers ties between the terrorists and Pakistan’s closet jihadist intelligence agency behind the attacks, things heat up, more evidence, more attacks, more heat.

And so it may quickly come down to India and Pakistan looking to Obama and asking, “Who’s side are you on?”

If Obama wants to keep his one macho card, his one rattling saber, his commitment to more war in Afghanistan, he’s going to have to go with Pakistan.  No Pakistan, no route for materiel to Afghanistan.  So working to strengthen ties with India is a nice idea but a dangerous bit of wording that won’t fly far in Islamabad.

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ood old Yankee know-how has been on display in Waziristan lately, as drone-fired missiles are slamming into rat-filled hovels. The latest report claims 20 “militants” – al-Qaeda and taliban terrorists – were killed.

A fine thing indeed, but what’s with this paragraph?

One attack in Mohammadkhel village about 28 miles west of Miran Shah, the region’s main town, killed about 19 people, most of them alleged militants but also including about a half-dozen foreigners, the officials said, citing agents in the field.

You mean the foreigners weren’t also terrorists? Were they perhaps European tourists on an eco-tour? Hollywood stars and Parisian fashion models on a round-the-world Smug Quest?

More likely they were jihadis from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, or Euro-Muslims on the only real kind of tour that reaches those parts, jihad madrassa tours. A half-dozen foreigners? A half dozen more dead terrorists, most likely.

Since this is evidence of stepped-up efforts to win the war in Afghanistan by taking  out the terrorist dregs that dragged that sorry butts back to the mountains after we took out most of their compadres in Iraq, one would think that Barack “The Kabul Kid” Obama will be singing the praises of the attack.  Bets anyone?  Anyone think he’ll actually praise a successful military action?

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et’s revisit those terrible, terrible roots of terrorism, shall we? You know, the aching poverty and heavy burden of being a pathetic post-colonial backwater suffering because of globalization. To help us understand this horrible situation, here’s a bit of bio on a recently arrested terrorist:

She is one of three children of a British- trained Pakistani doctor. She moved to the US from Pakistan in 1990 to live with her brother, an architect, and study. After completing her neuroscience doctoral thesis she married a Pakistani anaesthesiologist and lived in a flat in Boston.

Poor baby, so mistreated by the West. No wonder she, one Aafia Siddiqui:

• Was questioned by the FBI after here husband allegedly purchased night-vision goggles and body armour on the internet. Within months the couple moved back to Pakistan but soon separated.
• Married Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar alBaluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a cousin of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York.
• Was arrested in Afghanistan when she was seen acting suspiciously outside a provincial governor’s compound, identifying herself as a boy – but besides being wrong on that, they found in her possession numerous documents about “the creation of explosives, chemical weapons and other weapons, descriptions of U.S. landmarks in the US, documents about US military assets and excerpts from The Anarchist Arsenal.
• Grabbed an M16 while being held for interrogation and fired two shots at an Army captain. (She missed when a translator pushed the rifle away.)

All this info from Times of London; read the whole article, complete with the lame defense being set up to make her a heroic martyr of US mistreatment.

Included on the list of targets carried by our long-suffering Ms. Siddiqui was the USDA’s Plum Island Animal Disease Center, which the feds want to use as a biological terrorism research center. Put that together with a neuroscience doctorate and you realize that the terrorists who will hurt is us are not theflea-bitten, uneducated, suffering terrorists, but those that were once a part of us.

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Super Nan Readies For Denver Showdown

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est you think this week’s Democratic convention in Denver will be just a showcase for the pontificating and grandstanding leaders of the party that knows what’s good for us even if we don’t, Nancy Pelosi stands ready to set you straight. This is no small deal.

“We’ve got a planet to save. Nothing less is at stake other than civilization as we know it today.” (source)

Thank God we’ve got a proven, capable Dem savior like Barack Obama to get us through the fight with the super-nemesis, Maverick Man.

And Joe Biden? The perfect sidekick for The Mighty O and Super Nan, sez Madam Speaker:

“Joe Biden is the all-American boy.”

I’m sure he looks great in tights, too.

hat-tip: Urgent Agenda Continue Reading »

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ast night I headlined a report of a missile attack in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area, saying it sounded like the sort of operation designed to take out Taliban leadership.

We have a confirmation of sorts … from the Taliban:

A missile apparently fired at a religious seminary in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal region early Monday killed seven people, a local Taliban leader said.

The pre-dawn attack was carried out at a ‘madrassa’ at the border region of Azam Warsak at 3 a.m., Maulavi Nazeer said.

The missile attack also injured three others, he said.

Locals said that the missiles struck seminary belong to a local cleric Maulana Jalail, who is considered to be linked with Taliban.

Locals believe that the missiles were fired from Afghanistan to hit a house in the Pakistani area near the border with Afghanistan.

The army spokesman confirmed the incident but did not say if it was missile strike or a bomb blast.

He said the coalition forces exchange intelligence with Pakistani forces before their actions. (Global Security/IRNA)

Al Jazeera adds:

Residents said the house where the missiles struck belonged to local tribesman Malik Salat and that suspected pro-Taliban fighters used to stay there.

Several villagers said they heard jets approaching from Afghanistan before the strike.

Still waiting for something official … and that’s interesting. In some earlier attacks, there were immediate outraged charges of civilian deaths and mutterings from the DoD about investigations. Reaction to this attack is muted … as if we hit what we wanted to hit.

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