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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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

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.

Does anyone on the left understand right and wrong? Do any of them understand that some things humans do are morally reprehensible or is everything relative? If we could find one that understands it, it certainly won’t be Colman McCarthy. We can say this because this week the former Washington Post columnist and current director for the farcical Washington-based “Center for Teaching Peace” said that he “admires” people who “join armies” and, revealing his moral ignorance, he said he even admires those that join the Taliban’s “army.”

In a recent Washington Post piece meant to convince people that the U.S. Army is evil and that ROTC programs should be eliminated from our nation’s universities, McCarthy made the startling admission of his admiration for the Taliban’s murderous minions. And, like most leftists, he tried to dress up his admiration for immoral actions by cloaking it in the left’s favorite vehicle for misdirection: nuance.

Like most leftists McCarthy tries to split hairs saying that he isn’t “anti-soldier” by being anti-U.S. Army. He says he “admires soldiers” but just hates their work. Of course, it isn’t possible to love the troops and hate everything they do, but that is a leftist’s illogic writ large.

McCarthy wants the U.S. Army chased from our nation’s schools and thinks that ROTC is a “warrior ethic” that “taints” a school’s “intellectual purity.” This is amusing since the intellectual purity of our schools was summarily disposed of by the introduction of anti-American leftist ideology by the destructive efforts of folks like John Dewey and Charles Beard who’s efforts started at the end of the 1800s!

In any case, McCarthy treads a fine line trying to justify his “admiration” of the Taliban and his hatred of the U.S. Army. (my bold)

To oppose ROTC, as I have since my college days in the 1960s, when my school enticed too many of my classmates into joining, is not to be anti-soldier. I admire those who join armies, whether America’s or the Taliban’s: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home. In recent years, I’ve had several Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans in my college classes. If only the peace movement were as populated by people of such resolve and daring.

And therein lies his faulty sense of morality. Leaving aside the fact that there is no “Taliban Army” (because “the Taliban” isn’t a “the” but is made up rather of all sorts of different groups loosely affiliated one with the other) this cretin is equating the men and women of the U.S. military to the illiterate, murderous, oppressive members of the Taliban.

McCarthy claims he “admires” the Taliban as much as he does U.S. soldiers but I’d suggest that this is a lie. I’d suggest he actually admires the Taliban’s killers more than he does American soldiers. After all, where are his editorials denouncing the Taliban? On the other hand, this deluded peacenik has an admittedly long history of attacking the U.S. Army and the country it protects.

The moral truth that McCarthy and his fellow left-wingers miss is that some causes that people join simply are not laudable enough to engender admiration no matter how much devotion is lent to the cause. To join the oppressive forces of the Taliban is simply nothing to admire. To become an al Qaeda “soldier of Allah” is a disgrace, not something to admire even if the joiner truly believes in the cause.

In the end, only a leftist can say that a U.S. soldier is just as admirable as a terrorist.

A leader of the Hamas terror group yesterday jumped into the emotional debate on the plan to construct a mosque near Ground Zero — insisting Muslims “have to build” it there.

“We have to build everywhere,” said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and the organization’s chief on the Gaza Strip.

“In every area we have, [as] Muslim[s], we have to pray, and this mosque is the only site of prayer,” he said on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on WABC.

And this is the way that hardcore Islamist spread their version of Islam. You know, the version that Mohammed and the Koran tells them to practice. The type that leads to an Afghan couple being stoned to death over a love affair.

“We have to build the mosque, as you are allowed to build the church and Israelis are building their holy places.”

Hey, Mahmoud, what say we build a church and synagogue in Mecca? Medina? How about allowing some space at the Temple Mount? What’s that? Your answer is “NO!”? Weird.

“First of all, we have to address that we are different as people, as a nation, totally different,” he said.

“We already are living under the tradition of Islam.

“Islam is controlling every source of our life as regard to marriage, divorce, our commercial relationships,” Zahar said.

Sharia law. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a big supporter of Sharia law. Of course, Rauf refused to comment on Hamas stating unequivocally that the mosque (notice, al-Zahar did not say “cultural center”) should be built.

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

At first, the news from Yemen on May 25 sounded like a modest victory in the campaign against terrorists: an airstrike had hit a group suspected of being operatives for Al Qaeda in the remote desert of Marib Province, birthplace of the legendary queen of Sheba.

But the strike, it turned out, had also killed the province’s deputy governor, a respected local leader who Yemeni officials said had been trying to talk Qaeda members into giving up their fight. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accepted responsibility for the death and paid blood money to the offended tribes.

The strike, though, was not the work of Mr. Saleh’s decrepit Soviet-era air force. It was a secret mission by the United States military, according to American officials, at least the fourth such assault on Al Qaeda in the arid mountains and deserts of Yemen since December.

The first three paragraphs were meant simply as a setup to the rest of the article about Obama’s shadow war against Islamic terrorists. Yet, this secret could do irreparable harm to our dealings with Yemen, and put Saleh in deep trouble in a country that is ripe with hard core Islamists. Jane at Armies of Liberation has spent years exposing what goes on with and in Yemen, and paints a very disturbing canvas of the country. The Times exposing secrets like the one above is dangerous. Fortunately, and I will give Obama props for this, Obama has been shown to be extremely unamused by these types of leaks, and goes after them vigorously.

The attack offered a glimpse of the Obama administration’s shadow war against Al Qaeda and its allies. In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.

The White House has intensified the Central Intelligence Agency’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, approved raids against Qaeda operatives in Somalia and launched clandestine operations from Kenya. The administration has worked with European allies to dismantle terrorist groups in North Africa, efforts that include a recent French strike in Algeria. And the Pentagon tapped a network of private contractors to gather intelligence about things like militant hide-outs in Pakistan and the location of an American soldier currently in Taliban hands.

Thus begins the apparent Obama props from the Times. Alas, no. But, hey, thanks for giving the enemy more intel, Fish Wrap! Sure, they might have known some, but, not the extent of the operations which have been mostly kept secret, which also puts the leaders of these countries, who may be cooperating, in danger, especially in Pakistan.

Yet such wars come with many risks: the potential for botched operations that fuel anti-American rage; a blurring of the lines between soldiers and spies that could put troops at risk of being denied Geneva Convention protections; a weakening of the Congressional oversight system put in place to prevent abuses by America’s secret operatives; and a reliance on authoritarian foreign leaders and surrogates with sometimes murky loyalties.

And here is where the Times starts it’s tsk tsk tsk finger shaking at Obama. Their natural tendency to support the “bad American!” syndrome overrides their messianic worship of Obama. Oh, and Fish Wrap? The Islamists have yet to treat those they have captured according to the Geneva Conventions.

“For the first time in our history, an entity has declared a covert war against us,” Adam Smith (D-Wa.) said, referring to Al Qaeda. “And we are using similar elements of American power to respond to that covert war.”

Huh? Covert? 9/11 wasn’t particularly covert. Nor was Bin Laden’s fatwah against the United States. They want everyone to know that they are in a war against not just the USA, but, western civilization.

In pursuing this strategy, the White House is benefiting from a unique political landscape. Republican lawmakers have been unwilling to take Mr. Obama to task for aggressively hunting terrorists, and many Democrats seem eager to embrace any move away from the long, costly wars begun by the Bush administration.

Republicans are not “unwilling”, they are acting as cheerleaders, the same as Conservatives do when it comes to Obama’s increased operations against Islamists. One of the only things we agree with him on.

Then, after a few paragraphs saying how dangerous and bad it can be to work around Congress as well as escalating these types of covert wars, the story moves on into massive details regarding the US strikes against Islamists in Yemen, which includes

The accounts of the American strikes in Yemen, which include many details that have not previously been reported, are based on interviews with American and Yemeni officials who requested anonymity because the military campaign in Yemen is classified, as well as documents from Yemeni investigators.

And now the enemy has more specific knowledge, which can be used to kill Americans. Thanks, Fish Wrap, for once again increasing the danger to real Americans.

The final part, on page 4 of the web article, is the Times’ opinion on the success of the operations, and they are worried about creating more terrorists through these operations, a standard liberal thought. As the saying goes, read the whole traitorous thing.

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

“Australian-born Julian Assange is peddling a range of excuses for having put Afghans in harm’s way.

Assange has been savaged publicly for releasing information that could lead to the death of many people identified in US military logs that range from 2004 to 2009.

Two days after WikiLeaks posted 76,000 of the documents on the internet, a team of reporters from The Times of London pored over the raw material. In a matter of hours they discovered that the names, villages, relatives’ names and even precise GPS locations of Afghans who had co-operated with US-led forces were easy to spot.

If any Afghan informant were killed, Assange retreats to the argument that the harm caused would be outweighed by the importance of publishing the information. So disclosure is justice, apparently, regardless of consequences.

In a chronicle of the WikiLeaks saga, The Columbia Journalism Review says reporters from The Guardian and Der Spiegel specifically encouraged Assange “to be careful about the lethal harm that could come to people identified in the logs if he released certain documents unredacted”. He did not follow this advice.

Much more HERE

Ian Gilmour was a very notable and privileged Englishman. Most of the Royal family came to his wedding. He was also once Lord Privy Seal of England in Margaret Thatcher’s government. He was not however of her faction in the Conservative party and there is much that he said that I disagree with.

He did however write a book Inside Right which presented extensive and persuasive arguments from history in favor of the view that Conservatives have always been “trimmers” — people who try to find a middle way in difficult matters — so it seems clear that Assange is not of a conservative persuasion

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

The body of a second Navy sailor, Jarod Newlove, has been recovered in Afghanistan.

The two men are believed to have driven into a hostile area after visiting a local market in Logar. The Taliban said one man was dead, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley’s body was found this week. McNeley was from Wheatridge, Colorado, 30-years-old and the father of two small children.

It was believed Newlove was captured and held by the terrorists for a prisoner exchange. More as details become available.

General McChrystal gave a Rolling Stone Magazine freelancer unprecedented access to the every day life of fighting the war in Afghanistan. Apparently, the writer ‘came, saw, listened and wrote’ and  McChrystal is now the target of Obama’s wrath for some very cheeky and disrespectful remarks he and his top senior aides made. McChrystal will face his Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at a meeting of the administration’s monthly Security Team meeting – today. The Rolling Stone piece apparently says General McChrystal voted for Barack Obama. See an important update below.

The writer of the Rolling Stone piece, Michael Hastings, accompanied McChrystal to an out-post in the Kandahar area of Afghanistan. A 23-year-old soldier had just died as he entered a booby-trapped home.
Unit Commanders sought permission to blow-up the property, and that permission was denied:

One soldier at the outpost showed Hastings, who was traveling with the general, a written directive instructing troops to “patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will have to defend yourself with lethal force.

During a tense meeting with Ingram’s platoon, one sergeant tells McChrystal: “Sir, some of the guys here, sir, think we’re losing, sir.”

This from Washington Post writers Londono and Shear (linked above):

McChrystal has championed a counterinsurgency strategy that prioritizes protecting the population as a means to marginalize and ultimately defeat the insurgency. Because new rules sharply restrict the circumstances under which air strikes and other lethal operation that have resulted in civilian casualties can be conducted, some soldiers say the strategy has left them more exposed.

So as  McChrystal let loose, and let fly, we know our troops are not fighting a war, rather they are commanded to “win the hearts and minds of the locals” and they are dying at an astonishing rate. Is this the way McChrystal wants to fight this war, or is this his best effort considering restriction placed on him by the Obama administration?

We ask what McChrystal was thinking when jokes were made about Joe Biden (who is uniquely qualified to be joked about), when he said meeting with Obama was “disappointing,” the President of the United States was “unprepared,” and is quoted saying National Security Adviser Jim Jones is a “clown,” “stuck in 1985.”

We are told McChrystal is “uniquely qualified” to lead our troops in that mean country, but is Barack Obama “uniquely qualified” to command McChrystal?

The article, titled “The Runaway General,” appears in the magazine later this week. It contains a number of jabs by McChrystal and his staff aimed not only at the President but at Vice President Biden, special envoy Richard Holbrooke, Karl Eikenberry, the ambassador to Afghanistan, and others.

McChrystal described his first meeting with Obama as disappointing and said that Obama was unprepared for the meeting. National Security Advisor Jim Jones is described by a McChrystal aide as a “clown” stuck in 1985. Others aides joked about Biden’s last name as sounding like “Bite me” since Biden opposed the surge

The media is calling for his head. Senator John Kerry, just minutes ago said nothing is more important than our mission in Afghanistan, and he advises everyone to stay cool and calm for at least a couple of days. In other words, he seems not to recommend an immediate firing. He is not alone in his opinion.

In a day and time when 17 Afghanistan pilots can be brought to the U.S. and allowed to disappear into the heart of America, and the administrative arm of the U.S. Air Force sees it as an “immigration” problem, I think we have a huge problem. Winning the hearts and minds of Muslims in a Muslim country centuries behind the rest of the world, who hang 7-year-old-boys is not going to happen. What was and is Stanley McChrystal thinking?

So what do you think? Will McChrystal be fired or only humiliated? Who knows, maybe McChrystal will quit. I think he is beyond frustrated. Any real soldier would be.

Update 6-22-12:55 a.m. EDT:

Generals run war according to the Rules of Engagement (ROE) written for a specific engagement. So if things are not going swell in Afghanistan, who wrote the rules of engagement? It appears that McChrystal and the Pentagon came up with winning the hearts and minds of the people, perhaps after Obama made it clear that that was his goal.

U.S. forces have been told to exercise extreme caution before ordering airstrikes.

By exercising so much restraint, the U.S. military may sacrifice a key firepower advantage on the battlefield and expose ground troops to more risk, some officers and analysts say.

“There is a tradeoff,” said Col. Gian Gentile, a former battalion commander in Iraq who has publicly criticized counterinsurgency doctrine. “You reduce civilian casualties, but you potentially increase your own casualties.”

Doug Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and military historian, says the emphasis on having conventional forces trying to win over the population is futile.

“You surrender whatever military advantage you have by compelling the U.S. conventional soldier or Marine to fight on terms that favor the enemy, not the American soldier or Marine,” Macgregor said.

From George Will June 20, 2010, tells of Officers requesting permission to hit a location, and that permission being denied – Americans died:

“There were villagers laughing at the U.S. casualties” and “two suspicious individuals were seen fleeing the scene and entering a home.”

U.S. forces “are no longer allowed to search homes without Afghan National Security Forces personnel present.” But when his unit asked Afghan police to search the house, the police refused on the grounds that the people in the house “are good people.”

Another example from Will, when a unit asked for artillery fire on an enemy position and that request was denied, they asked for permission for a “smoke mission,” firing an “illumination round” that shows an enemy position.

This request was granted — but because of fear of collateral damage, the round was deliberately fired one kilometer off the requested site, making “the smoke mission useless and leaving us to fend for ourselves.”

Sweetness and Light posts the entire Rolling Stone article. The following seems to shed a lot of light on the “rules of engagement:

From the start, McChrystal was determined to place his personal stamp on Afghanistan, to use it as a laboratory for a controversial military strategy known as counterinsurgency. COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the military’s preference for high tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation’s government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve.

The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps. In 2006, after Gen. David Petraeus beta-tested the theory during his “surge” in Iraq, it quickly gained a hardcore following of think-tankers, journalists, military officers and civilian officials. Nicknamed “COIN-dinistas” for their cultish zeal, this influential cadre believed the doctrine would be the perfect solution for Afghanistan. All they needed was a general with enough charisma and political savvy to implement it. As McChrystal leaned on Obama to ramp up the war, he did it with the same fearlessness he used to track down terrorists in Iraq: Figure out how your enemy operates, be faster and more ruthless than everybody else, then take the f**kers out.

And this look at McChrystal’s viewpoint in September 2009:

“What I’m really telling people is the greatest risk we can accept is to lose the support of the people here,” Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview aired Sunday night.

“If the people are against us, we cannot be successful. If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can’t be successful and our casualties will go up dramatically.”

So the question is, how’s that working out for you, General? We know how it’s working out for the troops.

[edited]

Former Weather Underground leaders William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, as well as Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, helped organize the Free Gaza Movement, which launched the six-ship flotilla from Turkey to Israel that ended in a violent clash with Israeli Defense Forces, BigGovernment.com reported.

Other misdeeds by Ayers and Dohrn include leading the Maoist terrorist cult the Weather Underground; publicly advising people to kill the rich and their own parents; instigating riots; participating in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters, the Capitol building, and the Pentagon; killing police officers; inventing the “fork salute” in honor of the Charles Manson killings; plotting to set off a nail bomb at an officers dance at Fort Dix; boasting in the September 11, 2001 New York Times of having no regrets about acts of terrorism; and worst of all, using their own living room to launch the political career of Barack Hussein Obama.

Jodie Evans of Code Pink has a rap sheet that includes smuggling $600,000 to terrorists fighting American troops in Fallujah and serving as one of Obama’s top fundraisers. She now seems to hold the position of the Taliban’s ambassador to Washington.

Readers will recall that Ayers, Dohrn, and Evans have teamed up on behalf of Hamas before. Assisting the bloodthirsty terrorist outfit in its campaign to annihilate Israel appears to be their follow-up to the disastrously successful Manchurian Moonbat project.

That these vermin have placed one of their own in the White House means it is not a good time to be Israeli — or American.

On a tip from Byron.