President Obama and his various quislings and underlings still cannot bring themselves to say that the USA is under attack by radical Islamists. This is the self-destructive garbage that comes from the Obama administration every day. This is the kind of stuff that makes of us the “weak horse” that Islamists use to justify their attacks on the US.

We have two examples of this today, one from a representative of the Department of Homeland Security and one from Gaffemaster Joe Biden.

First up, our erstwhile VP. Ol’ Slow Joe Biden told Newsweek’s Leslie Gelb that the Taliban isn’t our enemy, either. You know, despite that we invaded Afghanistan to oust them from power, and all.

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests.

Next we have assistant defense secretary for homeland defense Paul Stockton refusing to agree with Rep. Dan Lungren’s (R.-Calif.) characterization of al Qaeda as “radical Islamists.”

YouTube Caption:

Wednesday Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) opened a hearing to examine the emerging threat to the military from homegrown terrorists within the U.S. and named the armed services as the “most sought-after” target for radical Islamist extremist groups.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R.-Calif.) asked Paul Stockton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, whether “we are at war with violent Islamist extremism.

The idiocy from the Obama administration is startling. They won’t even deign to identify the enemy and the enemy IS radical, terrorists driven by a fanatical devotion to Islam. But we can’t even get Obama and his comrades to identify our enemy, an enemy that has no problem announcing their own animus toward the USA.

Suicide bomb and gun attacks have hit central Kabul, with a string of blasts targeting the US embassy and at least one death reported in a suicide attack in the west of the Afghan capital.

Gunmen are holed up in a high-rise building overlooking the city centre, exchanging gunfire with police.

The Taliban say they are behind the attacks. (snip)

Tuesday’s attacks appear to be a complex operation, with a number of suicide bombers targeting Kabul’s upmarket embassy district, while others struck the west of the city, near the parliament. (snip)

Around five attackers are coordinating their operation from the high rise building which is under construction just 300m from the US embassy, correspondents say, with a rocket-propelled grenade apparently overshooting the embassy.

US officials confirmed the attack around the embassy. “There are no casualties at this time among embassy personnel,” said a spokeswoman.

This is the folly of leftists around the world: they think if they are just nice enough, and open a dialogue, they can reason with barbarians. Meanwhile, the barbarians use that time to foment and plan attacks, and have no intention to seek “peace in our time.” These Islamists despise modern culture (though they’re willing to use weapons they couldn’t possibly invent or build), despise Western civilization, and especially despise America for our freedoms and modern lifestyle. They prefer to live like it is 1200 AD, and want to spread their brand of extremist Islam around the world, including notions of women as chattel, stoning women who are involved in adultery, hanging gays, cutting off hands of thieves, and marrying and having sex with children, much as their “prophet” did. Yet, the worldwide left, which always states they are for “civil rights”, gays, women, and such, coddles these same barbarians.

Of course, lefties also refuse to go live in those same areas in order to spread awareness and understanding. Most know they will be treated pretty bad. They’re naive, not complete morons. Well, it could be that they just refuse to give up their fancy dress cocktail parties where they discuss how mean Conservatives are when it comes to these barbarians.

The Telegraph has live updates on the attacks.

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[Givler] The Constitution recognizes the necessity of war, and sets forth the process for declaring it. What it does not recognize is the state of violent un-war that we have come to accept as normal.

Here is a snippet.

Givler describes the Japanese surrender and the Emperor’s message to his people, and compares it to the end of Saddam Hussein. About the people, he says:

We’re of no help to them in making that leap if, while we’re trying to destroy insurgents, we’re building schools and digging wells. We should be doing nothing of the kind. Suffering is what is needed to make the population shift its perspective, and alleviating the suffering at the same time we’re administering it does not help. The Japanese people went from preferring suicide to laying down their arms and accepting occupation because they had suffered grievously first, which made the surrender acceptable and meaningful. If we had been passing out lead suits and airdropping food at the same time we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our message would have been seriously muddled. It’s no different in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else.

For the next year, we will all be caught up the 2012 elections, but our troops, in reduced numbers, are still searching for IEDs, rebuilding infrastructure, making short peace with villagers, and doing an incredible job of ferreting out the most dangerous of the dangerous in some of the most difficult terrain in the world – still fighting with the right to win forbidden them. I hope you will read the entire article and pass it on to your readers if you are a blogger, or to friends and family.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie’s Notebook

US President Barack Obama used a prime-time address to the nation from the White House today to confirm the withdrawal of about 10,000 troops from Afghanistan this year. Mr Obama said a further 23,000 troops would be brought back to America by mid-2012 – ending the US military “surge” in the war-torn nation.

“After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan Security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support,” he said. “By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.

“We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength. Al-Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11.”

The US currently has about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, so even after all of the surge troops leave, the military will still have nearly 70,000 forces in the country.

Responding to Mr Obama’s address, House Speaker John Boehner said he was pleased the president recognised that success in Afghanistan was paramount.

However, he cautioned, “It is my hope that the president will continue to listen to our commanders on the ground as we move forward. Congress will hold the administration accountable for ensuring that the pace and scope of the drawdown does not undermine the progress we’ve made thus far”.

General David Petraeus and top Pentagon officials had asked for a slower drawdown through the (northern) summer of 2012 to allow them to solidify gains in southern Afghanistan and to mount counter-insurgency operations in eastern districts.

Senator John McCain said Mr Obama’s decision, communicated to senior national security officials yesterday represented an “unnecessary risk” and said Gen Petraeus and Defence Secretary Robert Gates had recommended a “more modest withdrawal”.

More HERE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

President Barack Obama came before the American people tonight to unleash his latest campaign speech disguised as a foreign policy address. It was a presentation that even Politico calls “boring and predictable, balanced to please critics,” and one that “did not change the debate about the war.” But, one thing does seem like news. Obama never used the word victory and he also said we’d negotiate with the Taliban – an enemy he annoyingly insists on calling the Tahleebahn.

One singular theme emerged from this speech. Apparently, to President Obama, “victory” does not mean a win, but it only means a settling with negotiations with our enemies. Very Chamberlainesque, isn’t it?

But there were quite a few odd statements made by the president tonight. One was his claim that Usamma bin Laden was the “only leader al Qaeda has ever known.” This is absurd. There have been dozens of al Qaeda leaders and we killed many of them long before we finally got to bin Laden.

He then went on to say that as we go forward we’d engage in close negotiations with the political leaders in Afghanistan “including the Tahleebahn.” Including our enemies? This is the demeanor of a losing nation, not a nation in victory. It is fitting that Obama did not even use the dreaded “V” word, isn’t it? “Victory” never emerged from his lips.

The president invested a lot of trust in the international community, negotiations, and talk of coalitions. This fits well with Obama’s constant refrain that under his thumb, America leads from the rear. Obama intends to preside over, and indeed has been presiding over, a nation in decline, a nation in retreat from international leadership. This speech tonight propagates that theme well.

Many like to parrot the claim that Afghanistan has never been conquered and Obama obviously ascribes to this base assumption. But as Walid Phares said in his analysis after Obama’s speech, Afghanistan was won by Alexander the Great and has been fully taken over by the Caliphate. It is simply untrue that Afghanistan has never bowed to foreign influence.

In any case Obama was correct to say that the Afghanis themselves are increasingly taking responsibility for their own nation, to be sure. But it should be remembered that Obama torpedoed General Petraeus’ plan to train 400,000 Afghan forces. It should also be noted that none of our commanders are confident that the progress, though there has been much, is anywhere near enough to leave the country on its own.

Naturally, Obama used this occasion to veer off into a campaign speech. Obama called the “one trillion dollars” that these wars have cost a cost that should be turned toward “nation building here at home.” This, of course, is mere campaign-speak. First of all we don’t need to build a nation at home. We have one already. And what is with this business about “jobs,” anyway? He’s been there three years and done precisely zip about jobs yet now he shoehorns the topic into a foreign policy speech? The man has no sense of propriety.

Amusingly, in his campaign speech portion Obama essentially said that we need to live within our means, but this is interesting talk from a man that leads a party that has gone over 780 days without bothering to propose a budget. This is even more interesting talk from a man that proposed two, count ‘em, TWO, failed budget ideas — both of them stuffed full of a bacchanalia of spending and higher taxes.

Once again we have a failed attempt to make policy. Obama’s is a policy of veering wildly from one idea to another without satisfactorily finding a “doctrine” or central theme other than “we lost.”

An Irish Muslim convert was arrested in Dublin Thursday over his reported death threats against President Barack Obama, police said.

Khalid Kelly, a 44-year-old dubbed “Taliban Terry” by Dubliners, was arrested at his Dublin residence on suspicion of threatening to kill the U.S. leader, officers said. He could be held for up to three days before being charged or released.

He is Ireland’s most outspoken supporter of al-Qaida and its slain founder, Osama bin Laden.

The moron actually told The Dublin Times in a recent interview that he wants Obama dead, and that he would “do something” if he could disguise himself. But, then, how much brain power does it take to go from discussing Allah as “the most beneficent most merciful” to killing kids while yelling “Allahu Akbar”?

Speaking of killing, we also have this story about the RoP in Pakistan

A pair of suicide bombers attacked recruits leaving a paramilitary training center in Pakistan on Friday, killing 80 people in a strike that the Pakistani Taliban claimed it carried out to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The blasts in the northwest were a reminder of the savagery of al-Qaida-linked militants in Pakistan. They occurred even as the country faces international suspicion that elements within its security forces may have been harboring bin Laden, who was killed in a raid in Abbottabad, about a three hours’ drive from the scene of the bombing.

“We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident,” Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, told The Associated Press in a phone call.

Interesting that many are saying that the Taliban is no threat, that we should negotiate with these fundamentalist Islamists, who have used violence many times (granted, they aren’t exporting their violence and attacking Americans throughout the Mideast or here in the USA.) Also interesting in that you have Allah on Allah violence, ie, one group of Muslims killing another group of Muslims because another Muslim* Obama ordered the killing of Osama Bin Crab Food.

The Pakistani Taliban, close allies of al-Qaida, are fighting to bring down the nuclear-armed state and impose their vision of Islamist rule. They launched their war in earnest in 2007, after security forces cleared militant gunmen from a radical mosque in the capital, killing about 100 people.

So, which are they? Meaningless in terms of the War On Terror, meaning we should now leave Afghanistan and let them run wild, or partners with AQ, a violent international Islamist terrorist organization?

*that was simply a joke, don’t freak

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

So much for campaigning against Jimmy Carter.

In the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death, Republicans are adjusting to a new political reality: with the bin Laden trump card now in President Barack Obama’s possession, it’s looking increasingly likely the 2012 campaign will ride on a single number—the national unemployment rate.

Anyone remember mentioning Carter’s failed hostage rescue as a comparison to Obama, except as an afterthought? Yeah, me neither. The comparisons mostly revolve around rising gas prices, rising food prices, rising consumer goods prices, a stagnant economy, pervasive high unemployment, reckless spending, low consumer confidence, and tone deafness to the wishes of the American public. Oh, and a terrible foreign policy, which reduces the role of America in international politics.

The same hail of bullets that tore through the terrorist leader’s compound appears to have cut through the GOP’s desired narrative for the presidential election, at least temporarily dispelling the image of Obama as a weak-kneed pushover. And that leaves the economy as the president’s single major point of vulnerability.

Wait, I thought it was the unemployment rate? Much like Obama himself, Alexander Burns is jumping all over the place. But, Burns is right in that this is temporary, unless the economy shores itself up by next summer. And, isn’t that whole “hail of bullets…cut through the GOP’s desired narrative” rather violent rhetoric, which could lead to assaults against Republicans?

Anyhow, much of the rest of the article is about how Republicans are suddenly no longer able to take the national security banner because Obama gave an order and watched for 40 minutes

“People like to see a pattern of sustained leadership,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, head of the American Action Forum and a former adviser to John McCain. “Remember, for every one of these [victories], he’s got, ‘Explain the Libya flip-flop.’ It’s not like he’s nailed down the foreign policy profile and owned that completely.”

Still, Holtz-Eakin said, the bin Laden killing is likely to stand out as a monumental achievement for Obama in an election focused “primarily on his record as a steward of the economy.”

Look, I’m not going to take anything away from Obama giving the “GO!” order: it was a big decision, and he made the right call. Yet, it’s not just the Libyan issue, which has mostly disappeared from the news (cause it makes Obama look bad): it’s how long it took him to get involved in the Egypt issue, it’s ignoring the Green uprising in Iran, watching hundreds of protesters being killed in Syria, attempting to prosecute KSM and other terrorists in civilian court near the former site of the WTC, ticking off our allies and pandering to enemy nations, and, for Left side voters, failing to close Guantanamo Bay, targeted killings, still in Iraq, escalating the Afghanistan war, renditions, and all the other things Bush did that Obama still does. But, yes, it will mostly be about the economy….well, for voters in the know: Obama supporters would still vote for him if the unemployment rate was 15% and inflation was going through the roof. Because he gives good speeches or something.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

The kindness of a civilization originating from Christian thinking indulges them for the moment but if ever they start to do serious harm they will be squashed, as bin Laden eventually was.

It’s a pity he was not taken alive, though. Crushing his balls to squeeze information out of him could have been very productive. Just the threat would probably have made him very talkative.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

GENERALLY I HAVE A PHOTO WITH MY ARTICLES. THIS TIME I LEAVE THIS LINK SO THAT YOU CAN SEE WHAT WESTBORO IS ALL ABOUT.

First, I’m not mentioning the name of the Marine who died on the same page with Jonathan Phelps’ name. Second I have thought about whether giving Phelps a forum here is a good idea, but he seems to be callingFox News and The Hayride News and Commentary, the source for the Fox story, liars. And then there’s this, The Hayride apparently got their story from “an Ole Miss sports message board,” so…. Finally, since this is the Internet, I must acknowledge that it’s possible this comment was left by someone other than Jonathan Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church – a joke or a prank, perhaps?

The story was that some unnamed members of Westboro Baptist went to Brandon for the Marine’s funeral service. The town of Brandon, Mississippi was ready for them. If true, what Rankin County Mississippi did is the stuff of legends, especially considering the heartbreak Westboro has brought to the families of our Warriors. Phelps says the story is “fiction,” they were not in Brandon. At least now Rankin County won’t have to worry about a First Amendment lawsuit from this bunch of haters.

Jonathan Phelps left the following comment at STACLU:

Dear Friends:

Just when we thought there was no completely new and original way to get the whole nation talking about the faithful ministry of WBC, you found one. You are AWESOME!

Never mind that the story was complete fiction (since we never have and never would waste time driving that far when a plane and rental car is far more efficient), you got people to get an accurate picture of the face of a doomed nation that will no longer endure sound Bible doctrine and therefore God sends them a spirit of lawlessness as divine judgment.

You saved us funds to attend funerals for soldiers and others in Nebraska, Iowa, and Oklahoma, while still guaranteeing that our core message (God is bringing this evil nation into judgment in an open and notorious manner,  chiefly by slaughtering their young and their soldiers, because you have turned the country over to the sodomites) has reached a huge audience AGAIN!

Thank you for your faithlessness and your rage against God (that He turns as a testimony for us). If we weren’t busy planning funeral pickets for the latest GodSmack victims, we would send a representative to come and give you a BIG hug!

These words we preach are going to be heard in the ears of 310 million american brutes, by hook or crook, and you are powerless to stop them.  That’s how God rolls.

Jonathan Phelps on behalf of Westboro Baptist Church

Mr. Phelps has been busy tonight. He’s left the same comment on several other posts around the InterTubes.  My friend Lobo, an administrator here at Stop the ACLU, left the following comment for Jonathan Phelps:

Jonathan,

The US Supreme Court in Lawrence vs Texas turned this country over to the sodomites. Did you picket them?

Several of the states’ Federal, Supreme and Appellate courts have turned their states over to sodomites. Are you picketing them?

State legislatures? No? US Congress? No?

Are you picketing any schools?

How about the many ‘gay pride parades’ from NY to Chicago to San Fransicko?

It’s not about sodomites or even a country turned over to sodomites…it’s about money. It’s about a family of scammers playing the ‘taxpayer lotto.’

You’re not going after the target rich environment because there isn’t enough money in it. The money is in the government awards for failing to protect and serve.

You and your family are not against sodomites, Jonathan. You, and your “church” depend on them to make your living.

You and yours won’t go after that which you rail against when you can go after the dead and poke people’s emotion, hoping to turn it into cash.

Dry bones, Jonathan, dry bones!

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie’s Notebook

U.S. Marines - Members of 266 Rein and HMLA 169

U.S. Marines in Afghanistan: Britney Spears Hold it Against Me (video)

Thanks to Fox News and  PopEater