I like these odds

The war in Afghanistan is going great again after that brief period last week when a case of Bud Light Lime was tactically misappropriated and we had to switch generals. But we are back on mission to protect the freedoms and the liberties from the evil clutches of the Al Qaeda, the terrorists, and the terrorism inside the Afghanistan.

Now perhaps you've read this blog before and have pieced together that Sean and I aren't exactly bullish on the prospects for success on the mission nor do we think the war is a worthwhile use of money. It was probably all the times that we said we aren't bullish on the prospects for success on the mission nor do we think the war is a worthwhile use of money. That probably tipped you off. That was before we knew we had such tactical superiority.

The U.S. has committed nearly 100,000 troops to the mission in Afghanistan. ABC This Week host Jake Tapper asked CIA Director Leon Panetta how big is the al Qaeda threat that the soldiers are combating:

TAPPER: How many Al Qaeda, do you think, are in Afghanistan?

PANETTA: I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaeda is actually relatively small. I think at most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. It’s in that vicinity. There’s no question that the main location of Al Qaeda is in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Hey hey, anywhere from a 2000:1 to a 1000:1 advantage. I like those odds. Makes you wonder why this war makes the Hundred Years War look like a couple of short jaunts in France.

Of course you may be thinking "Why must we have a 1000:1 troop advantage and spend nearly a billion per Al Qaeda per year?" Because we don't want to make the same mistake that every other country that went to war in the Graveyard of Empires made. I haven't researched this one bit, but I'm betting all those countries didn't have a staggeringly overwhelming troop, technology, and money advantage.

So I'm sure we'll be able to get this all under control within another several years... or decades. 50 is a big number.... and it might even be 100! What's your fucking obsession with finding out the length, tactics, and value of endless costly wars? The President doesn't have a crystal ball. Look, it's simple: as soon as we kill everyone that wants us to leave, then we can leave. Not one second before.

Milestones

People, I'd just like to point out that we've now spent over one trillion dollars on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One. Trillion. Dollars. American. Not pesos or rupees or something. American dollars. As an additional milestone, Afghanistan either is or will shortly become the longest war ever fought by this country. Narrowly edging out Vietnam and the combined efforts of World War I and II.

Now some of you might ask what we've gotten for all the time and ridiculous amounts of money we've spent over there. I'll tell you: we got Al Qaeda's #3. Again.

The operational leader for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was killed in an American missile strike in Pakistan’s tribal areas in the last two weeks, according to a statement the group issued late Monday that American officials believe is correct.

Yeah! Seems worth it to me.

I personally am just glad we didn't decide to take that one trillion dollars and spend it on something like universal health care, our infrastructure, our power grid, green technology, technology in general, sciences and education, or otherwise use it to try to improve and better our day to day lives. Nope, bombs and guns and war, for little visible benefit. Much better use of that money.

But we do have to ask: where's our thank-you note from the military industrial complex? We didn't expect flowers or a phone call, but something--something would have been nice. Eh, maybe they're still writing up all the ones from Nam. Maybe next Memorial Day weekend.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.13

Making Health Care Better
The New York Times' David Leonhardt provides us with an exhaustive story on doctors, administrators, and public policy dorks who are doing the hard work of trying to hold down costs and make health care more effective in the current broken system. You may know them by their other title: people who aren't as smart as our elected betters in the Senate. He focuses specifically on the work of Brent James, who probably wakes up every morning, reads about the health care debate, and then has to spend 15 minutes talking himself out of suicide. It's an article that's worth your time.

How the US Funds the Taliban
I bet you're thinking "I'm sure it's just some labyrinthine trail where we find out that things we buy and things we do eventually flow back to the Taliban and terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, meant to teach us a lesson about the complexities of war." Nope! We're just straight up paying them. In cash. Sometimes just to not do anything, sometimes we pay them for protection. Often it's just huge, corrupt payments to Hamid Karzai's family. It's all very sordid and is definitely one of the many, many things your shouldn't think about when we decide to send a bunch more troops over there.

CDC Estimates 22 Million H1N1 Cases In US Between April And October
Oh, you forgot about Porcine AIDS, didn't you? Well it didn't forget about you, infecting maybe as many as 36 million and killing 4,000. Ok, that doesn't sound frightening, but what if I pointed out it was Friday the 13th and said it in a spooooky voice? No? Fuck you anyway, we're all going to die. Might want to think about getting that flu shot.

Al-Qa'ida prefers U.S. to stick around
What would you say if I told you that the United States military and political establishment didn't really understand Al Qaeda or it's political and military goals in reference to Afghanistan. Would you say 'no shit' or 'no fucking shit'? Well, anyway, it basically boils down to how they really, really, really, want us to stay and keep sending troops in. Boy, good thing we're not going to do anything stupid like that. By the way, this is also one of the many, many things your shouldn't think about when we decide to send a bunch more troops over there.

China proves to be an aggressive foe in cyberspace
Hey, while the US is spending trillions on not having health care, building super duper fighter planes, missiles, and various things that Michael Bay totally beats off to, you know what China is spending their money on? Well, infrastructure, energy, and wrapping its tentacles around the world. But militarily? Mostly they're watching Hackers over and over again and taking notes. Aaaand they're pretty much countering any intelligence imbalances and could do major damage to us if we ever started a war with them. In fact they're pretty much already running an undeclared war on us. I'm sure this is a problem a few more F-22's that are built the districts of every congressman on an appropriations committee will solve.

I think we can believe them

People, I fell it is my duty to pas on a message from the Taliban. I think that its important given that we aren't exactly thrilled with the war in Afghanistan, Generals are pushing for troop increases and escalation, and soldiers aren't exactly thrilled with the way things are going either. The message is this: except for attacks on soldiers, news reporters, fellow Afghans, and foreign nationals, suicide bombings, car bombings, and various assorted terrorist attacks, a partnership with al Qaeda, and forming an Islamic theocracy that foments extremist attacks through Islamic fundamentalism.....the Taliban claims they pose no threat to the west. Whew, I was worried there for a second.

The Taliban have issued an English-language statement claiming they pose no international threat – a move that will fuel the debate among US and European policymakers over whether the hardline Afghan insurgent group can be split away from the international militants of al-Qaida.
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"We did not have any agenda to harm other countries including Europe nor we have such agenda today," said the statement, which was posted on a known Taliban website. "Still, if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have braced for a prolonged war."

/dusts hands off in a sufficiently reassured manner

Well, I think we can take these fellows at their word. I mean they do have trustworthy faces. Well, I assume they do under their keffiyeh head wraps and balaclavas....and if they would stop the suppressing gunfire so I could peek my head up and get a good look at those faces. One point of contention: we don't want, and never wanted, your country as a colony, we just wanted it as a place that stopped making terrorist attacks against us. You may not notice it having lived there your entire lives, but Afghanistan...is kind of a hellish sandy shithole that no one in their right mind would ever choose to visit, let alone live in.

"Except for all the attacks and hostility we foment against you...we won't attack or foment hostility against you". Fine. Sounds good to me. Whatever we have to believe to get us out of there and from getting into Iraq 2.

Peace at last

We can all rest a little easier now. Al Qaeda, in their infinite mercy, has offered up a truce with the US. Actually, they said the old truce they offered up is still valid. Whew! Sure the conditions are utterly vague and interspersed with new threats of attack, and it is sort of like Japan offering up a truce after the second A-Bomb was dropped on it, but any time a small, disparate group of terrorists who are badly outmatched calls you up to offer a cease fire on their terms, you have to take a look.

Osama bin-Laden's deputy said in a video message released Monday that the al-Qaida leader's offers of a truce with the U.S. and Europe remained on the table, though he ridiculed President Barack Obama as "the new face of the same old crimes."
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In 2004, bin-laden offered a truce to European countries that do not attack Muslims. Two years later, he offered the American people a "long-term truce" without specifying the conditions, though in that same audio recording he also warned that his fighters were preparing new attacks in the United States.
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"Obama is like a wolf whose fangs tear your flesh and whose paws slit your face and then he calls on you to talk about peace," he said.

I have to say, that's a pretty good insult. Lots of werewolf imagery. Better than "house negro" at least. I wonder if they poll tested it? "Hey Zawahiri, we did some polling and the people like the wolf thing. The imagery plays well with stone-throwing dads, soccer imams, weekend jihadists, and flag burners. But you lose the educated types, unclean harlots, imperialist aggressors, and the latte sipping mujaheddin crowd with the flesh ripping and paw slitting." Have AQ ever thought that instead of just conjuring up some bloody animal imagery, they just claim Obama was born in Kenya? It plays well in the South.

I do have it on good authority that Obama is going to answer the message. In fact I hear he's sending in 17,000..uh...diplomats to deliver his retort. Along with a couple thousand missiles that have notes of rejection on them. Hope one is able to be delivered to you personally, Ayman.

Retribution

Well, we've done it. After years of planning, years of searching, billions of dollars, tens of thousands of man hours, the commandeering the most sophisticated equipment in the world, and the solemn pledges of two separate President's to bring him to justice, the United States has finally killed the mastermind of 9/11 Osama bin Laden.........'s son. Well, at least we're pissing him off some.

U.S. officials believe Saad bin Laden — a son of Osama bin Laden — has been killed by an American missile in Pakistan.

Saad bin Laden reportedly spent years under house arrest in Iran before traveling last year to Pakistan, according to former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

It's believed he was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone sometime this year.

That sounds awesome. I want my death to involve the words "Hellfire" and "Predator". With the possible addition of "Bearcat", "Slaughterhouse", "Wall of unholy fire", and the sentence "Through his actions he was able to save both the supermodels and our beloved el Presidente." I'd like to believe that if we aren't at least holding him responsible for killing 3,000 people, we are at least picking off his children. This one was one he's met before too.

The only military question seems to be can you piss of a man who has dozens of children if you only pick them off one at a time? Can you piss off a man more if he's already sworn fiery jihad on your country? After we move off of killing people with the same last name do we move on to killing people that kind of look like bin Laden? The theory being that once we kill enough people with his features and last name, we'll finally be prepared enough to get him. Ah well, if we can't get the big fish at least we can step on a few minnows. If you're interested in the hunt for OBL immediately after 9/11 and why it didn't work, 60 Minutes recently re-aired a report with the man who headed up the team. It doesn't say if they were able to kill any of bin Laden's nieces, nephews, or beloved pets.

YES!!!!

Bill Ayers! Puerto Rican terrorists! He's done it again! What were they thinking? Finally, crazy ads!

I mean sure, the Bill Ayers thing didn't work against Obama and Sotomayor has exactly no connection to him, but I'm sure it'll work this time. I mean just look at that: she supports a terrorist group. Terrorist Puerto Ricans! Surely if you were to rank all the terrorist organizations by their dastardly machinations and bombings it would be Al Qaeda at #1, obviously, but next at #2 would clearly be the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. Educating Puerto Ricans...about terrorism. Defending against the illegal reaches of the oppressive America regime. THEY WILL NEVER BE THE 51st STATE YOU FASCISTS!!!

I'm just sorry they couldn't fit in their crazy claims about Sotomayor stealing all 'yer guns and their attempt to use MLK to bash minorities into this ad.

Who could have foreseen?

For the last few weeks as Dick Cheney has given his numerous "You WANT me on that wall, you NEED me on that wall...when you put your fingers into a pile of GOO that used to be your best friend's face....forget it America, it's Chinatown" speeches he has maintained that not only was this government sanctioned torture vigorous tub time splashing effective, but it saved lives. What lives did it save? Those menaced by the sinister Iraq/al-Qaeda connection.

Finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002, a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday.

The allegation was included in an online broadside aimed at former Vice President Dick Cheney by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. In it, Wilkerson wrote that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002, and then-Vice President Cheney's office kept close tabs on the questioning.

"Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda," Wilkerson wrote in The Washington Note, an online political journal.

My God, you're telling me that they used techniques developed and perfected by the Spanish Inquisition and Khmer Rouge to elicit false confessions....was used to elicit false confessions? Oh me oh my, a plot twist so complex and labyrinthine as to boggle the mind. Who could have foreseen this revelation? Who could have foreseen that Dick Cheney, rascal in chief, was talking utter shit? Someone has told Dick that he wasn't the only person involved with this and that when he starts telling bald faced lies there are other people that exist with different information and little pieces of paper with ink that says the opposite, right?

But there we are. We didn't even get anything good for the complete violation of our laws, international standing, principles, and integrity. Bush and Cheney couldn't even do torture right.

Al Qaeda doesn't like us any more

See those two gentlemen above with the one burning Obama in effigy? Apparently they want America out of Pakistan. I know, we're not even in Pakistan (maybe they want out unmanned drones out of Pakistan) and they've phrased their signs poorly enough to make it seem like they're cheering us on. But even with a new preponderance of professionally made and poorly worded signs, it seems we're no longer belle of the ball any more. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have found another object of their affections: Pakistan. Oh sure, they hate us, but they want to destabilize Pakistan itself even more.

As Taliban militants push deeper into Pakistan’s settled areas, foreign operatives of Al Qaeda who had focused on plotting attacks against the West are seizing on the turmoil to sow chaos in Pakistan and strengthen the hand of the militant Islamist groups there, according to American and Pakistani intelligence officials.

One indication came April 19, when a truck parked inside a Qaeda compound in South Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal areas, erupted in a fireball when it was struck by a C.I.A. missile. American intelligence officials say that the truck had been loaded with high explosives, apparently to be used as a bomb, and that while its ultimate target remains unclear, the bomb would have been more devastating than the suicide bombing that killed more than 50 people at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September.

Al Qaeda’s leaders — a predominantly Arab group of Egyptians, Saudis and Yemenis, as well as other nationalities like Uzbeks — for years have nurtured ties to Pakistani militant groups like the Taliban operating in the mountains of Pakistan. The foreign operatives have historically set their sights on targets loftier than those selected by the local militant groups, aiming for spectacular attacks against the West, but they may see new opportunity in the recent violence.

Opportunity in violence. I'm betting that's one of the motivational posters hanging around the cubicles at al Qadea's corporate offices. This is all kind of funny. For decades, Pakistan has supported and nurtured groups like the Taliban (thanks ISI) and done absolutely nothing to go after al Qadea forces in their borders. Wait, they did take billions of dollars in free money and weapons. They did do that. Now those same two groups are trying to destabilize Pakistan. What's so funny is.........oh fuck, Pakistan has a bunch of nukes. It would probably be better if we didn't let al Qaeda or the Taliban take over there.

Maybe we ought to scale up those drone attacks. Can never have too many drone attacks against al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Unless President Zardari demands that we stop them in order to save his ass politically or demands that we give him his own Predator fleet which he swears he'll only use on the terrorists. For now he's only demanding the latter. Yeah.....no. As much as I'd like to see Zardari have half the Pakistani drone fleet stolen by al Qaeda and the other half used to stir shit up in Kashmir with India, I say let's keep that technology to ourselves. I just don't trust them to understand our technology when they don't understand our usage of the word "go".

Torture in pursuit of a fantasy

As disturbing as the revelations of torture were, on at least some level if you stood back, squinted, ignored the consequences, ignored the law, ignored the damage to our country at home and abroad, and just didn't concentrate too much on the guilt or innocence or level of knowledge that the detainees you tortured had, you could at least say "Well, they at least were trying to protect the country after 9/11 from threats they saw as imminent." Yeah......not so much.

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.

The use of abusive interrogation — widely considered torture — as part of Bush's quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them.
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"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

Ahh, Ahmed Chalabi, how could you have steered us wrong? If you can't trust a man who made his living off of getting government money for telling the US what it wanted to hear about Iraq and funneling funds through his phony "Iraqi National Congress" after he made his living defrauding and failing a bank, who can you trust?

Kind of makes you all warm and fuzzy inside to learn that stress positions, bug caskets, extreme temperature variations, sleep deprivation, walling, and waterboarding were all done in our name on the premise that the Bush Administration really wanted someone, anyone, to tell them what they wished was true. What's it say that multiple rounds of torture on multiple detainees still couldn't get one of them to even make up a story? I guess this stuff is what Cheney is referring too when he says the Bush Administration doesn't "got much to apologize for."

Pictures of the day

The photos that got Britain's most senior counterterrorism officer fired. What did he do? He walked around holding a top secret document outlining a planned raid on al Qaeda bombing suspects in full view of photographers with telephoto lenses.

Police were forced to carry out raids on addresses in the north-west of England in broad daylight yesterday, earlier than planned, after Quick, the Metropolitan police's assistant commissioner, was photographed carrying sensitive documents as he arrived for a meeting in Downing Street.

A white document marked "secret", which carried details of the operation being planned by MI5 and several police forces, was clearly visible to press photographers equipped with telephoto lenses.

Prime minister Gordon Brown today said the police services, who arrested 12 men, had been investigating a "major terrorist plot". Speaking in Carlisle, he said: "Our first concern is always the safety of the public. It is right that we took the urgent action that we did over the course of yesterday. I have spoken to Bob Quick this morning and thanked him for his years of service. He has apologised for what went wrong yesterday.

Killer Whales: True Americans

It seems we have a new ally in the ongoing war against the Islamofowlist menace: Killer Whales.


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Be sure to watch the whole carcass-disassembling clip so as not to miss the confused trainer running back and forth with a bloody wing as though she forgot which trashcan is meant for tattered hunks of bird.

h/t KSK

The Islamofowlist menace returns

We warned you, now we unleash hell on you.

Bird Strike Is New Suspect in Helicopter Crash

Federal investigators increasingly suspect that a collision with a bird led to the crash last month of a widely used Sikorsky helicopter model that killed eight people in the Gulf of Mexico, according to industry officials and safety experts.

The Jan. 4 crash of the Sikorsky S-76C chopper, manufactured by a unit of United Technologies Corp., initially had stumped crash investigators, who had previously ruled out engine, transmission, electrical or hydraulic failures. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is heading the probe, also said the chopper didn't run out of fuel, hit some other aircraft or suffer a problem with its rotors. Now, investigators think a bird strike destroyed the windshield, which somehow resulted in nearly turning off the engines.

Is this going to be the new thing now? We had one famous plane crash as a result of a bird blitzkrieg and now every time a bird hits a kite we're going to hear about it? Birds hit 7,439 aircraft a year, mostly resulting in aborted takeoffs or emergency landings. I know, since 1988 birds have murdered 219 people in 200 air crashes, but it's not a menace to the airways quite yet. Is this the media's new Summer of the Shark? The late Winter of the Bird!

Relax and breathe, the birds aren't organizing. We went over this, they're controlled by al Qaeda. We can stop this with a simple billion dollar, multi-year conflict somewhere in the Middle East. Regain the skies!

Barry v. Osama

Osama bin Laden decided to pop back up today with a message for the world and our new President. It was a tape of his congratulations to his Muslim brother and a signal to ease tensions in the Middle East. Just kidding, it was all about the Jews! OBL is, surprisingly, not a fan of this Gaza conflict. He called for a jihad against Israel, which was surprising because I thought one had already been called years ago. Maybe this is a new one, or maybe in all the hubbub of 9/11 and Iraq, Israel just slipped al Qaeda's mind. It happens. He also vowed to open new fronts on the war on terror against the US.

"We are on the way to opening new fronts," he said, urging Muslims to "join hands with the mujahedeen to continue the jihad against the enemy, to continue bleeding them on these two fronts and on the others that are open to you."

"The question is, can America continue the war against us for several more decades? The reports and signs show us otherwise," he said. He said Bush had left his successor "with a heavy inheritance," forcing Obama to choose between withdrawing from the wars or continuing.

"If he withdraws from the war, it is a military defeat. If he continues, he drowns in economic crisis," bin Laden said.

I'm not so sure I buy Osama's financial analysis. We can give almost a trillion to banks but ten billion a month is causing us financial trouble? Did insurgents unleash credit swap markets on us? Come on now, claiming credit for our economic failures? That's just being dishonest. Well, unless Phil Gramm was a cell leader. Also big congrats to George Bush, I didn't think you were going to get a big FACE~! from your greatest failure, but OBL did not disappoint. Have I thanked you for pulling troops out of Tora Bora to go to Iraq? No?

But I'm more outraged by his continual use of audio tapes. We're in a Blu-Ray world Osama, Hamas has its own YouTube and you're still pressing record on your boombox. Get with the program Osama, get a blog, a YouTube channel, and a Flickr account and start hammering out some hate and/or satirical news pieces. How are you going to speak to the kids if you can't poke them on Facebook? Then you can challenge the new guy. It's just hard to take you seriously at this point. Web 2.0, look into it.

Quote of the day

Our Boy Emperor versus the tragic legacy of his inept foreign policy ideas.

BUSH: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take–

RADDATZ: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

BUSH: Yeah, that’s right. So what?

These al Qaeda types might not be nice people

In what I'm sure came as a huge shock to Barack Obama, al Qaeda are out in full force calling him racial epithets. I'm sure it's surprising because for the past year he's faced a constant barrage of accusations that not only is he a Muslim, but he wants to negotiate with terrorists, and is al Qaeda's preferred candidate. How shocking to find out they aren't fans.

The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies. Ayman al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites, that Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.
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Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as "house negroes."

The message also includes old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their white masters' house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticize black leaders he accused of not standing up to whites.

First off, I love the fact that they included their own translation so we knew exactly how racist they were getting. Secondly, I like the fact that they had to give a long history of America's racial conflicts and civil rights leaders (with video clips) so their supporters would have the proper context for their "We hate the negro" screed. They also seem to transplant all their Bush hate and criticisms onto Obama. I TOTALLY didn't expect that! You know, I wasn't certain before, but...yeah...now I'm pretty sure al Qaeda are a bunch of dicks. At least they're trying to match our casual racism towards them with some directed back. We needed the racism to get mixed in with the religious and culture hate. Like peanut butter and chocolate coming together in a delicious hateful snack.