Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is wrapping up deliberations on war strategy in Afghanistan and is considering final Pentagon options that include sending about 30,000 more troops, officials said on Saturday. A deployment of that size would be less than the 40,000-troop increase recommended by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, but more than many of Obama's Democratic allies may support. Record combat deaths have eroded U.S. public support for the war, and a decision to expand troop levels could become a political liability for the president ahead of congressional elections next...

Fashionistas defied militant threats to celebrate couture culture in a Taliban-troubled conservative nation plagued with Islamic extremism as the Pakistani fashion fraternity gathered in the country's largest city for Karachi Fashion Week (KFW) that started on Wednesday. Intricate and colourful fabrics lit up the catwalk as bold models shrugged off all security fears as well as local social norms. The fashion week has attracted 35 top Pakistani designers including Deepak Perwani and Maheen Khan, who recently attended Milan Fashion Week. But staging the fashion week in Karachi was not trouble-free. It was postponed by almost a month due to the...

Robert George says Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships. After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that Obama would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to Obama. The situation called...

In the protracted Washington debate over the war in Afghanistan, the most concise analysis so far has come from America’s top soldier: “If we don’t get a level of legitimacy and governance (there), then all the troops in the world aren’t going to make any difference.”Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was speaking two days after Hamid Karzai was declared the winner, by default, in August elections so massively rigged that a U.N.-backed electoral complaints committee threw out about a million Karzai votes. That forced a run-off from which his challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah...

I was wondering - I was born in France - may be in France they had german in the military since they love loosing wars and surrender but I was wondering if we had german in the US Army during world war 2 - did they have german in the english Army? Just saying.. The enemy is within and even our own army does not ahve the courage to acknowledge that THE ENEMY IS WITHIN. FREAKING POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!! I AM SICK OF THAT. And soo soo sad. A 21 year old PRAGNET woman, just coming back from Irak, DIED YESTERDAY...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2009 – Afghan and international forces detained a group of suspected insurgents, including a Taliban leader, in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province yesterday, military officials reported. The Taliban leader is believed to be responsible for financing suicide bombings and planting roadside bombs in the area. He also is linked to Taliban leadership outside of Afghanistan, officials said. The combined force targeted a compound near the village of Spin Kalacheh, southwest of Kandahar City, after intelligence indicated militant activity there. The force searched the compound without incident and detained the five suspects, including the wanted man who identified himself as...

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - More than 25 NATO and Afghan troops were wounded during a search Friday for two missing U.S. paratroopers in western Afghanistan, the NATO-led force said. The Taliban said the missing two missing soldiers were dead and it had recovered their bodies.

ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani army entered the last of three militant strongholds targeted by a major offensive in the northwest on Friday, as gunmen wounded a senior army officer and a soldier in the capital. The operation in South Waziristan, the main Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuary in Pakistan, has sparked a wave of retaliatory attacks that have killed about 300 civilians and security forces in the past month. The shooting in Islamabad was the third such attack in about two weeks. The militants hope the attacks will weaken the army's resolve as it pushes deeper into the isolated, mountainous region...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

AN official Taliban publication warns Australia that it will have to assimilate into a dominant Asia or face the prospect of being overpowered and forced to take population overspill from Asia. The choice is spelled out in the latest issue of the online Taliban monthly magazine, Al Sumud (Steadfastness), whose lead article offers a sweeping view of a post-war order in which a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan becomes a moral pivot for a pan-Asian renaissance that will coincide with the decline of Western power. "The end of European leadership in the world will place the white settler diaspora in Australia before two...

The news of the mass shooting at Fort Hood Thursday hit close to home for some Utahns. One man says his daughter heard the shooter exclaim "Allah Akbar" as he opened fire. We want to stress that no government or military officials are reporting that and there is no way for us to independently confirm that it is true. The family from northern Utah agreed to talk to us, on the condition we not identify them and blur out some photos they've supplied, because they're worried their daughter could get in trouble with her superiors for making public what she...

SNIPPET: "A certain Jihad forum was passing around links to some super kool videos posted on this page O death which is cunningly called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Obviously with a name like that one could easily stay under the radar. So that led me on a trip through Mr Emirate's friends. One of his good buddies, Taliban Mujahideen..."

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2009 – Combined Afghan and international forces killed or detained suspected militants in Afghanistan’s Wardak and Khowst provinces yesterday, and officials are investigating whether an International Security Assistance Force rocket attack caused civilian casualties, military officials reported. A combined force targeted a compound near the village of Babur Kheyl in Wardak’s Sayed Abad district after intelligence indicated militant activity there. After entering the compound, the force received hostile fire and returned fire, killing the militants. The patrol searched the compound and detained a group of suspected militants. No civilians were harmed during the operation, officials said. In...

As President Obama decides whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, we should remember that most of the conventional pessimism about Afghanistan is only half-truth. Remember the mantra that the region is the “graveyard of empires,” where Alexander the Great, the British in the 19th century, and the Soviets only three decades ago inevitably met their doom? In fact, Alexander conquered most of Bactria and its environs (which included present-day Afghanistan). After his death, the area that is now Afghanistan became part of the Seleucid Empire. Centuries later, outnumbered British-led troops and civilians were initially ambushed, and suffered many casualties,...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

KABUL, Nov. 4, 2009 – Combined Afghan and international security forces killed or detained several militants and recovered multiple weapons and explosives in operations in Afghanistan yesterday, military officials reported. A combined security force detained a group of suspects in Khowst province, including a Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin militant group commander believed to be responsible for managing a homemade-bomb network and working with Haqqani terrorist network elements in the area. Recent media reports profile the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin as one of the three main militant groups in Afghanistan, officials said. The group keeps a low profile by cooperating with Taliban and Haqqani elements...

Five soldiers have been shot dead by a "rogue" Afghan policeman in an attack at a police checkpoint. Three Grenadier Guards and two Royal Military Police were attacked as they rested inside a compound. The soldiers, who had removed their body armour and helmets, were shot by an Afghan national policeman who then fled. It is not known whether he was a member of the Taliban or being coerced by the insurgents.

The ongoing debate over the way forward in Afghanistan has settled into the “light footprint,” counterterrorism approach, versus the “heavy footprint,” population-centric counterinsurgency approach. Reportedly, what is about to emerge from the Obama administration is a hybrid of the two, with the vast majority of troops providing security in Afghanistan’s major population centers and pulling troops out of less populated rural zones. Drone strikes and periodic raids would be employed to check the Taliban in remote areas. The danger in such an approach is that once rural villages are ceded to insurgent control, they may never be recaptured as the...

KABUL, Nov. 3, 2009 – A combined Afghan and international security force detained several suspected militants today and yesterday in Afghanistan’s Helmand and Kandahar provinces, military officials reported. A combined force detained several suspects in Helmand province today after searching a compound known to be used by a Taliban leader in charge of coordinating attacks and supplying homemade bombs to other militants in the region. The force targeted the compound near Koshtay village in Garmsir district after intelligence indicated militant activity there. The force searched the compound without incident; no shots were fired and no one was injured. Elsewhere, a...

Hamid Karzai Reaches Out To 'Taliban Brothers' In Afghanistan Hamid Karzai offered an olive branch to his "Taliban brothers" in a victory speech a day after he was declared president. Ben Farmer in Kabul 03 Nov 2009 He promised an inclusive government and said he would "eradicate the stain of corruption" as his foreign backers pressured him to clean up his regime. In a televised speech he said: "We call on our Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land". Mr Karzai's previous calls for talks with Mullah Mohammad Omar, former head of the Taliban regime, have so far...

Here is an interesting tidbit of information from the charge sheet against David Coleman Headley, the US jihadi indicted for plotting attacks in Denmark. Headley traveled to North Waziristan and afterward offered his view on the number of al Qaeda and other foreign jihadis in the tribal agencies' largest towns (in response to a think tank survey that said a significant number of people in the northwest approved of the Predator attacks against al Qaeda):

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- The Oct. 9 Congressional Research Office report "Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security and U.S. Policy" says that from 2003-08 the United States spent nearly $10 billion training and equipping the current Afghan National Army force of roughly 90,000 soldiers. That is approximately $110,000 per soldier. In his Aug. 30 report U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal states that the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police are not sufficiently effective to take ownership of Afghanistan's security. One of his four main pillars to accomplish the mission and defeat the insurgency is to increase the size of the...

Watch the Full Program Online Warning: Graphic Language and violent imagery Viewer Discretion Advised. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamaswar/view/

Did you hear that Karzai? If you do not do the right thing, Obama might just let the Taliban thugs takeover. Oh, he is already on the way to doing that.... Obama warns Afghan president: Time for new chapter By BEN FELLER WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama greeted Hamid Karzai's election victory with as much admonishment as praise on Monday, pointedly advising America's partner in war he must make more serious efforts to end corruption in Afghanistan's government and prepare his nation to ultimately defend itself.

As Pakistani troops advance through South Waziristan, they are coming across quickly abandoned facilities apparently long used by Islamic terror organizations. South Waziristan, and its pro-Taliban Mehsud tribe, has long been a place where government officials only went with permission of the locals. And the locals apparently believed their own propaganda that government troops would not get far if they tried to invade the area. Army artillery and helicopter gunships, aided by air force fighter-bombers, proved more than a match for the tribal warriors, who soon fled to the safer hills. The Islamic terrorists fled with them, often failing to...

The Pakistani military has launched a large offensive involving 30,000 soldiers into South Waziristan, one of the tribal agencies most hospitable to the Taliban and like-minded terrorists. Following frightening Taliban attacks on the Army headquarters and an air base suspected of storing nuclear weapons, the Pakistani government began a belated but aggressive campaign. In order for the Pakistanis to succeed however, the U.S. must demonstrate a similar determination to rout the Taliban in Afghanistan by launching a comprehensive counter-insurgency campaign.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2009 – Combined Afghan and NATO forces detained several insurgents in operations in southern and eastern Afghanistan in recent days, military officials reported. A combined Afghan-International Security Assistance Force operation detained an insurgent in Kandahar province yesterday while in pursuit of a Taliban district leader and senior commander of a sizable militant element in the area. The force targeted a location outside of the village of Daylanur, north of Kandahar City, after intelligence indicated militant activity. The force used “escalation of force” procedures to stop two motorcycles traveling south toward the city, detained a suspect and seized...

James Galyean is a candidate running for South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District. Prior to that time, Galyean was an Assistant United States Attorney and also has some pretty direct connections to the War on Terror. It was Galyean who helped helped write both the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. As a result, he has a bed of knowledge and massive amounts of contacts that others do not. And his contacts are telling him that, protestations to the contrary from the Pentagon, Barack Obama has every intention of sending GTMO terrorists to the Charleston,...

Pakistani forces say they have seized control of the town of Kaniguram in South Waziristan, one of the Taliban's key regional strongholds. The army said it had full control of the town, the latest capture in an offensive against militants that began in South Waziristan on 17 October. The offensive has sparked a string of suicide bomb attacks. About 35 people were killed in an attack in Rawalpindi and seven were injured on the outskirts of Lahore. Rewards offered Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas, in the capital Islamabad, said that the Kaniguram area had been "completely cleared of terrorists"....

I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late ! ! The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary. My confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting...

When Obama stated that he was going to reach out to the Islamic world, he was not kidding. The weakness of Obama has lead to the Taliban getting stronger. He has even given the Taliban the OK to participate in the future political landscape of Afghanistan. Apparently none of this was enough though, and now Obama is willing to share power in Afghanistan with the Taliban thugs. This is straight out of the Twilight Zone. US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases By Aamir Latif, IOL Correspondent

The Pakistani military has launched a large offensive involving 30,000 soldiers into South Waziristan, one of the tribal agencies most hospitable to the Taliban and like-minded terrorists. Following frightening Taliban attacks on the Army headquarters and an air base suspected of storing nuclear weapons, the Pakistani government began a belated but aggressive campaign. In order for the Pakistanis to succeed however, the U.S. must demonstrate a similar determination to rout the Taliban in Afghanistan by launching a comprehensive counter-insurgency campaign. The U.S. has been secretly helping the Pakistanis carry out their offensive, providing them with intelligence from unmanned aerial vehicles...

SNIPPET: "PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Islamist militants blew up a girls school in Pakistan's lawless Khyber tribal district Sunday, destroying the building and wounding four people in neighbouring homes, officials said. Two explosions ripped through the 18-room government high school for girls at Kari Gar village and a boy who watched the premises is missing..." SNIPPET: "Islamist militants, who have carved out a strong presence in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border, have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the northwest of the country in recent years. Nearly 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat valley alone...

<p>An explosion rocked the compound of a four-star hotel just off a main boulevard in Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi on Monday and there were reports of casualties, police said. "According to initial reports the blast took place in the compound of the hotel. Our teams are there, they are updating us on the details," police officer Mohammed Akhlaq told AFP by telephone.</p>

SHERWANGI, Pakistan (AFP) – Hundreds of foreign fighters were on the run in this battle-scarred region near Afghanistan Sunday, the military said, pressing a major offensive into a third week. Between 600 and 800 foreign militants had been in around Kanigurram town but their resistance was broken by heavy bombing from jet fighters, helicopters and artillery, Brigadier Mohammad Ihsan told reporters on a visit to the normally closed conflict area. Commanders have described Kanigurram as a major Tehreek-e-Taliban "operational centre" and base for Uzbek fighters. "They are on the run," Ihsan said. The foreigners were mostly Uzbeks but also Chechens...

The New York Times neglects to inform its readers that an op-ed writer slamming Israel earns a handsome living courtesy of overseas Arab money. Henry Siegman is a self-styled Middle East expert who has a simplistic view of the Middle East: Israel is always at fault. He has called Israel an apartheid state -- but that is only the tip of the iceberg. In Monday's New York Times he characterizes Israelis as being pathological and filled with hostility toward Barack Obama because he wants to bring peace between Israel and the Arab world. Polls show that only 4% of Jewish...

Everything has a fundamental essence, a quality that makes it uniquely itself. Take an orange, for example. It's not only a citrus fruit -- it's an orange-colored citrus fruit. Horticulturists can alter its size, its texture, its sweetness, and even (to a limited extent) its color, but as long as its color is orange, the fruit remains "an orange" because that color is its definition. Change the color, however, and suddenly you have the un-orange, the anti-orange. You have something completely different that no longer contains the essence of the original fruit. Lose the essence and you lose the orange....

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani forces are zeroing in on two major Taliban bases in South Waziristan region as their offensive pushes deeper into militant bastion on the Afghan border, the military said on Sunday. The army launched a major assault in South Waziristan on September 17 to seize control of the lawless land after a string of attacks by militants, including a stunning assault on the army headquarters that killed more than 150 people. The offensive is a major test for the Pakistani government and the military to stem the rising tide of Islamist militancy and is being closely followed...

Under the harsh sunlight, a lone grey donkey sauntered across one end of a silent street; halfway down the far end, a US marine lay in the dirt, exposed and alone — brushing the dust from a pressure plate linked to a massive bomb. A few days ago this town, deep in Taliban territory, was thronged with up to 800 residents and traders. This is Helmand’s biggest drugs market, but today all but a handful of Kuchi, the Afghan nomads, have vanished. Somehow the Taliban knew the marines were coming. Rather than fight openly, they left behind a booby-trapped ghost...

New Delhi - Former US president George W Bush on Saturday warned that the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan must be won else the world would face "serious threats."Addressing a conference in New Delhi, Bush said defeating the radical Islamic groups was necessary to stop a return to "brutal tyranny" in that country. "The mission in Afghanistan has been long and difficult and costly but I believe it is necessary for stability and peace," he told the conference organized by the Hindustan Times. "If the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their extremist allies were allowed to take over Afghanistan...

She isn’t the President’s daughter, they just have the same name. She isn’t Obama’s daughter, they are just the same age. She doesn’t go to Sidwell Friends School, she sits at a little desk in a hut in Kabul. But next year, the Americans will be gone, the Taliban will be back, so she won’t go to school anymore. The mullah will come to look at her. They will give her to one of the old men with a beard, and she will go home with him, home to cook for him, home to wash his clothes and fetch his...

Hillary Clinton faced anger during her visit to Pakistan after she attacked the failure of the government to tackle al-Qaeda. The US Secretary of State also faced angry questions about America's use of drone attacks inside Pakistan as she ended her three-day visit on Friday. Mrs Clinton was earlier forced to soften her criticism of Islamabad for its failure to capture of kill al-Qaeda's leaders.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been meeting tribal leaders in north-west Pakistan on the last day of a testing visit to the country. During her three-day trip Mrs Clinton hoped to strengthen ties between the US and Pakistan and tried to address a rising tide of anti-American feeling. In an interview with the BBC she urged Pakistanis to "realise the connection" between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But her arrival was overshadowed by a deadly bombing in the city of Peshawar. More than 100 people died when a car bomb exploded in a busy market on Wednesday. The BBC's...

Note: The following text is a quote: Combined Force Detains Suspected Militants American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2009 – Afghan and international security forces detained several suspected militants in Afghanistan’s Paktia and Helmland provinces today and yesterday, military officials reported. A combined force detained a group of suspected militants in Paktia province today after searching buildings known to be used by a Haqqani network leader responsible for the financing and supply of terrorist camps in the Khowst-Gardez Pass area. The security force targeted the buildings near Kandaw Kalay village after intelligence indicated militant activity. The joint force detained...

It's been another dreadful week in the war of civilizations. On Sunday, 153 people were killed and more than 500 wounded in back-to-back car bombings in Baghdad. On Tuesday in Kabul, five UN staffers and three Afghans were killed in an attack on a UN guesthouse. And on Wednesday in Pakistan, 100 people - mostly women and children - were killed and 160 wounded in a shopping district bombing in Peshawar. The week also saw 24 American service personnel killed in Afghanistan, making 58 fatalities for the month - the deadliest since 9/11. This is a war of civilizations in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Matthew P. Hoh is a former U.S. Marine Corps captain and, until recently, the U.S. Department of State senior civilian representative in Zabul province, Afghanistan. His recent resignation was based not on "how we are pursuing this war" but "why and to what end." As resignation letters go, Hoh's was a masterpiece. In my opinion, many of his observations ring true, but one could offer alternative interpretations. Terrorism directed against the United States and Western countries originates primarily from sanctuaries in failed, unstable or rogue states. That is, nations that either cannot constrain them or...

SHAWANGAI, Pakistan -- An alleged member of the Hamburg, Germany, terror cell linked to the Sept. 11 attacks is believed to be among al Qaeda leaders helping the Taliban fight Pakistani forces in South Waziristan, Pakistani authorities said Thursday. A German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, a close associate of Sept. 11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta in the 2001 attacks, was among documents recovered this week by Pakistani troops from an abandoned militant compound in Shawangai. The mountain village in South Waziristan was used as an al Qaeda and Taliban command base until as recently as this week, a military...

Leadership: As the fire grows in Afghanistan and U.S. troops suffer their worst casualties since Fallujah, the commander in chief remains AWOL on his intentions, delaying the tough decisions. Is he opting for defeat? Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned in August that time was short to win this war. Now October is ending as the deadliest month in the Afghan war. With 55 dead since August, McChrystal's warning now stings. Even so, each day brings a new excuse from the White House for delaying a decision on troop reinforcements McChrystal has sought. The goal posts move almost daily. This...

She isn’t the President’s daughter, they just have the same name. She isn’t Obama’s daughter, they are just the same age. She doesn’t go to Sidwell Friends School, she sits at a little desk in a hut in Kabul. But next year, the Americans will be gone, the Taliban will be back, so she won’t go to school anymore. The mullah will come to look at her. They will give her to one of the old men with a beard, and she will go home with him, home to cook for him, home to wash his clothes and fetch his...

"The Taliban's brazen attack on U.N. election workers undermines the U.N.'s ability to help steer Afghanistan through a runoff election in only 10 days. Although the U.N. insists it will not be deterred by the assault, another big attack could derail its limited ability to assure a credible vote and remain in the country."