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There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory. Now, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the escalating insurgency, raising the question of how many more troops it would take to succeed. The commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the extra forces are needed to implement a new strategy that focuses on protecting civilians and depriving the militants of popular...

War Strategy: When Bush and Petraeus proposed the surge in Iraq, Democrats demanded that the general testify before Congress. So why has the Senate blocked a similar invitation to our commander in Afghanistan? Those with memories longer than the 24-hour news cycle recall that in the dark days of the Iraq War, David Petraeus was summoned to Washington to explain the surge strategy that would eventually lead to victory in Iraq. Democrats hoped for a show trial. MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times labeling the commanding general of our efforts in Iraq "General Betray-us." Then...

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's army pushed deeper into a Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border Tuesday, claiming to have killed 42 militants in the latest stage of an offensive against extremists blamed for relentless attacks in recent weeks . In the capital, gunmen attacked a high-ranking Pakistani army officer in the second targeted shooting against top military brass in less than a week, part of a wave of violence sweeping the country in apparent retaliation for the 11-day long offensive in South Waziristan. The army officer, and his mother who was traveling with him, escaped unhurt from the assault in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Deliberations regarding a future strategy for Afghanistan need to include a consideration that the predominantly Afghan, Pashtun-based Taliban may have the capability of infecting other ethnic groups and becoming a greater transnational fundamentalist threat. It is well-known that the Taliban was spawned and gained support among the Pashtuns in the Kandahar area of southern Afghanistan. At that time, the population had grown weary of continuous fighting among mujahedin warlords and the general lawlessness following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Many of the Taliban recruits were young male graduates of the Islamic religious schools,...

"Taliban use kids in combat roles NATO troops wary of firing on children" BY MATTHEW FISHER, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE OCTOBER 26, 2009 SNIPPET: "A 12-year-old boy caught in the act Friday as he put a homemade bomb under a road in the volatile Zhari District grabbed a baby as a human shield to protect himself from attack from the United States helicopter that spotted him." SNIPPPET: "Among them were three blasts in Kandahar in the past few weeks in which as many as 12 Afghan children were blown up as they were being taught how to make or place improvised...

Clip 1) US B-1B Lancer drops a 2000 pound JDAM on Taliban hide-out in Afghanistan in support of British troops. Clip 2) Super high-def Vietnam compilation.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2009 – Afghan and NATO forces have removed dozens of insurgents from fighting in Afghanistan in recent days, including a long-sought-after Taliban commander, military officials reported. Combined Afghan and International Security Assistance Force units killed at least two dozen insurgents during fighting in southern and eastern Afghanistan and detained numerous others. In operations yesterday: -- A combined force killed a dozen enemy militants in Kandahar province in an operation to interdict a Taliban commander and his unit believed to be responsible for attacks in the Arghandab district west of Kandahar City. The force coordinated an air strike...

The crucial Nov. 3 special election in upstate New York features two candidaties -- liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens -- connected to the Working Families Party (WFP) which is the New York political arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). <snip> With both Big Labor and ACORN working to defeat the Conservative -- who is also being attacked by the national GOP Establishment -- Hoffman's campaign is sending out a nationwide call for volunteers to help match the "community organizers" being brought into the 23rd District by his major-party opponents. "We need boots...

Furious Afghans torched an effigy of US President Barack Obama and hurled stones at police today during a mass protest over allegations that Western troops set fire to a copy of the Koran. A crowd of around 1,000 demonstrators, mainly university students, marched through the streets of the capital KabulSNIP The demonstrators, almost all men, chanted: "Death to America, death to Jews and Christians!" as they burned a model of Obama and a United States flag. Some wore black ribbons on their foreheads, calling for a jihad.The BBC has more:SNIPThe US-led Nato force has denied the claims, saying it has...

MSNBC host Chris Matthews may now have the honor of having said the dumbest thing in the history of television. This past Thursday Matthews unfortunately allowed an imbecilic thought to pass from his brain to his mouth on his nationally televised cable news show. Here's the moment of insanity on video: Matthews: "The group in this country that most resembles the Taliban, ironically, is the Religious Right." It is a pet peeve of mine when a cable news host drops a bomb (no Taliban pun intended) of a statement right at the end of a segment and moves on to...

For years, the F-16 Fighting Falcons at Sumter's Shaw Air Force Base have trained to search out and destroy enemy missile and anti-aircraft artillery sites. "That's the big war," as Lt. Col. Ken Ekman, a Shaw squadron commander, put it recently. Now, Ekman and his S.C.-based unit - the 79th Fighter Squadron - are here, fighting a small war where they may be called on to fly close-air support for a donkey train carrying election ballots to a mountain village. ***Instead of hunting down enemy missile sites, the pilots use the multi-million-dollar electronic gear aboard their planes to find bombs...

The Pakistani army dealt a psychological blow to the Taliban yesterday after taking the home village of the insurgent leader Hakimullah Mehsud. The seizure of Kotkai after a three-day siege is the second strategic victory for the army in its week-old offensive into the mountainous region of South Waziristan, a stronghold for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants. More than 30,000 troops, backed by helicopters, jet fighters and heavy artillery, are engaged in heavy fighting with 12,000 well-armed insurgents in the treacherous terrain bordering Afghanistan. So far 162 militants and 22 troops have been killed in what the Pakistani army has described...

A rising number of Western recruits, including Americans, are travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train at paramilitary camps...

ISLAMABAD – Soldiers captured the strategically located hometown of Pakistan's Taliban chief Saturday after fierce fighting, officials said, the army's first major prize as it pushes deeper into a militant stronghold along the Afghan border. A suspected U.S. missile killed 22 people elsewhere in the northwest, but apparently missed a top Taliban figure, authorities said. Pakistan's eight-day-old offensive in the Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold of South Waziristan is considered its most critical test yet in the campaign to stop the spread of violent Islamist extremism in this nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied country. The army operation has prompted a wave of retaliatory attacks...

KABUL, Oct. 23, 2009 – A combined Afghan and international security force killed enemy fighters and wounded another yesterday after forcefully entering and searching a series of compounds in Afghanistan’s Wardak province. The compounds were known to be used by a Taliban commander and his group believed to be responsible for several attacks in the area. The combined force initially searched a building in the province’s Chaki Wardak district without incident. But after observing enemy activity in a nearby compound, the force pursued those suspected militants. The militants fired on the combined force as it approached, and the force returned...

Politicians love photo-ops. So when Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) appeared alongside Hamid Karzai as the beleaguered Afghan president announced that he would agree to a runoff election, it was hardly surprising. Kerry was doing what politicians do. Moreover, the senator was in Kabul to supplement the Obama administration's efforts to lean on Karzai to hold another presidential vote, given widespread evidence that the one held in August was rigged. When Karzai claimed victory then, his main opponent, former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, cried foul, a chorus of international criticism arose and an Afghan government infamous for its ineptitude and...

NATO Defense Ministers Endorse Wider Afghan Effort By THOM SHANKER BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — NATO defense ministers gave their broad endorsement Friday to the counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan laid out by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, increasing pressure on the Obama administration and on their own governments to commit more military and civilian resources to the mission. General McChrystal, the senior American and allied commander in Afghanistan, landed here early Friday to brief NATO defense ministers on his strategic review of an eight-year war in which the American-led effort has lost momentum to a tenacious insurgency. The closed-door session — which had...

Far Left crank Chris Matthews attacked Christians on his show yesterday. Matthews said Christians in the United States resemble the Taliban. When was the last time you read about a Christian suicide bomber in America, Chris? Chris forgot about the leftists who were arrested for planning terror attacks on the RNC and the several leftist eco-terror attacks. But, smearing Christianity is an easier argument for Matthews. Poor Chris. He must really be hurting that he wasn’t invited to the White House with fellow network hacks Olbermann and Maddow.

I STOOD in the bathroom of the Taliban compound and waited for my colleague to appear in the courtyard so we could make our escape. My heart pounded. A three-foot-tall swamp cooler — an antiquated version of an air-conditioner — roared in the yard a few feet in front of me. I feared that the guards who were holding us hostage might wake up and stop us. I feared even more that our captivity would drag on for years.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A mine killed 16 wedding guests in Pakistan's tribal belt on Friday while a suicide bomber targeted an air force base, inflicting another reverse on the military in its war on the Taliban. A car bomb exploded outside a restaurant in the northwestern city of Peshawar, wounding 15 and underlining the threat to civilians in a nation where more than 190 people have died during Taliban-linked attacks in 19 days. The explosion ripped through the wedding party minibus in the Sorandara area of Mohmand, where security forces have been pressing an offensive against Islamist rebels for...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- On May 21, 2002, U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command, said to reporters, "I am pleased that our forces have begun training the Afghan National Army." Franks also stated that training the Afghan army will "certainly be one of our more important projects in the days, weeks (and) months ahead, because the national army of Afghanistan is going to be an essential element of their long-term security." On Sept. 21, 2006, U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, now President Barack Obama's national security adviser, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "By...

The Pakistani Taliban targeted an air base believed to be one of the country’s secret nuclear weapons facilities on Friday among a wave of suicide bombings that killed at least 25 people across the country. The attack on guard post at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra, about 40 miles outside Islamabad, killed eight people and raising fears about the security of the nuclear-armed state’s arsenal. Officials were quick to deny that the facility, the major research centre for the air force, had links to the nuclear programme. However, Pakistan doesn’t specify which sites are involved in the programme and...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday joined the battle between former Vice President Dick Cheney and Obama administration officials over the strategy of the war in Afghanistan. Pelosi chided Cheney for asserting Wednesday that President Obama is "afraid" to make a decision about whether to ramp up war at the request of his military advisers or scale back the effort and focus on going after Al Qaeda in Pakistan, as some of his political advisers are urging. "That's really not a dignified statement," Pelosi said Thursday. "The president has a very difficult decision to make. I don't think that's a...

THE WEEKLY STANDARD just received a statement from Sarah Palin endorsing conservative Doug Hoffman for Congress: The people of the 23rd Congressional District of New York are ready to shake things up, and Doug Hoffman is coming on strong as Election Day approaches! He needs our help now. The votes of every member of Congress affect every American, so it's important for all of us to pay attention to this important Congressional campaign in upstate New York. I am very pleased to announce my support for Doug Hoffman in his fight to be the next Representative from New York's 23rd...

A suspected suicide bomber has killed six people outside Pakistan's main air force maintenance facility. Police said the attack took place near the Kamra aeronautical complex, 60km (35 miles) from the capital, Islamabad. The bomber blew himself up when he was stopped at a checkpoint outside the complex. Among the dead were two security officials. The attack comes as the Pakistani army continues its drive against Taliban bases in South Waziristan. A wave of attacks on Pakistani cities has killed nearly 185 people during the month of October alone. "It was a suicide attack, which killed six people, including four...

Is there no depth MSNBC's Chris Matthews won't sink to? Judging from a truly disgraceful comment he made on Thursday's "Hardball," the answer has got to be a resounding "NO!" -snip-

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2009 – A combined Afghan and international security force detained almost a dozen suspected militants in Afghanistan’s Khowst province today after searching a compound known to be used by a Haqqani terrorist organization commander and his element responsible for bombings and armed attacks in the area. The combined force searched compounds near Peru Kheyl village north of Khowst City after intelligence reports indicated militant activity there. The force detained the suspects, one of whom was identified as the sought-after Haqqani commander. In another operation today, a combined force detained two suspected militants after searching a compound in...

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world. The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned. And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove...

Police in Pakistan say that unknown gunmen shot and killed a senior army officer and his driver in Islamabad. The attack is the second this week in the city and the violence is seen as retaliation for the ongoing military offensive against Taliban extremists in their stronghold of the South Waziristan region, near the Afghan border. Police say the early-morning attack took place in a residential part of the city, where assailants ambushed a military vehicle carrying a senior officer of the Pakistani military. An eyewitness says two men took part in the assault that instantly killed the driver and...

A strong earthquake has shaken buildings in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 and was centered in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. That's according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake was felt in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The Pakistani army's push against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the Mehsud tribal stronghold of South Waziristan has one paramount objective - to destroy the source of militant attacks in the country. The ground offensive that it launched in the region on Saturday is viewed by analysts as its most serious attempt so far to liquidate the militant network there. This conclusion is based on the tactics the army has adopted so far. Unlike previous operations which were invariably half-hearted, haphazard and abortive, it took its time to plan a thorough operation this time. StrongholdThe ground offensive comes after a...

October 20, 2009, 0:00 p.m. What Is Victory?If defeating the Taliban is not our goal, what is? By Andrew C. McCarthy Rarely has there been such a dramatic disconnect between rhetoric and reality. On Afghanistan, the national-security Right talks about “victory,� concerned Democrats talk about “success,� and Obama allies such as Sen. John Kerry talk about the “fulfillment of our mission.� They aren’t talking about the same thing. The somnolent press is content to court, rather than clarify, this confusion, but that’s no reason for the rest of us to go along for the ride.   What is “victory�...

On July 25, Najibullah Zazi, a lanky man in his mid-twenties, walked into the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The visit was captured on a store video camera. Wearing a baseball cap and pushing a shopping cart, Zazi appeared to be just another suburban guy.Of course, not many suburban guys buy six bottles of Clairoxide hair bleach, as Zazi did on this shopping trip--or return a month later to buy a dozen bottles of "Ms. K Liquid," a peroxide-based product. Aware that these were hardly the typical purchases of a heavily bearded, dark-haired young...

KABUL, Oct. 20, 2009 – Afghan and international security forces killed militants, detained several suspects and seized weapons today in Afghanistan, military officials reported. A combined force killed enemy militants and detained suspected militants after searching two compounds known to be used by a Taliban commander and his element in Wardak province’s Jaghatu district. The suspects are believed to be responsible for guiding and directing other militant elements to conduct attacks in the area. During the search, enemy militants displayed hostile intent outside of the compounds. The force used precision aerial fire to kill several armed militants posing a threat...

by thelastcrusade.org Muslims in Somalia now demand that women shake their breasts when they appear in public, so that inspectors may determine if they are wearing "un-Islamic" bras. The orders have been carried out at gunpoint by a group called Al Shabaab, who control of the streets of Mogadishu. If the women display an un-natural firmness, the inspectors feel their breasts to determine if the uplift is produced with the assistance of a bra. Often younger women must reveal their mammary glands to prove that they have not been corrupted by Western culture. The Daily Mail (London) reports that...

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) - The United States cannot wait for problems surrounding the legitimacy of the Afghan government to be resolved before making a decision on troops, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said. Gates, speaking to reporters on board a plane traveling to Tokyo, described the situation in Afghanistan as an evolutionary process that would not improve dramatically overnight, regardless of what course is taken following the country's flawed August election. "I see this as a process, not something that's going to happen all of the sudden," Gates said. "I believe that the president will have...

After Obama took office, it became necessary to define a war-fighting strategy in Afghanistan. The most likely model was based on the one used in Iraq by Gen. David Petraeus, now head of U.S. Central Command, whose area of responsibility covers both Afghanistan and Iraq. Making sense of the arguments over Afghanistan requires an understanding of how the Iraq war is read by the strategists fighting it, since a great deal of proposed Afghan strategy involves transferring lessons learned from Iraq....

Outside View: Afghanistan’s center of gravity WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Numbering more than 25 million, Pashtuns are the largest tribal group in the world. They are also by far the dominant ethnic group in the Taliban. The center of gravity of the war in Afghanistan is the confluence of the Taliban's Islamic radicalism and traditional Pashtun culture. In their brilliantly written article, "No Sign until the Burst of Fire -- Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier," Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason emphasize that the key to addressing the current instability and radicalization on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border...

New York Times reporter David Rohde writes about his kidnapping by the Haqqani Network and seven-month captivity. Rohde tells us three things that longtime readers of The Long War Journal and more recently Threat Matrix already know: 1) The Haqqani Network is intricately linked with al Qaeda. 2) The Haqqanis and the wider Taliban movement seek to impose a global Caliphate. 3) The Haqqani Network and other Taliban groups are in full control of North and South Waziristan. Rohde observes: Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not...

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has pledged to finish the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and end the war in Iraq ‘responsibly’. His acceptance speech on Thursday focused mainly on domestic issues like health care but Senator Obama did mention the two international issues that worry the Americans most: the war in Iraq and the situation along the Afghan border. “I will end this war in Iraq responsibly and finish the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan,” he declared. The situation in Fata, along with the war in Iraq, has become an election...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Pakistan's army, in the midst of a major new offensive against Taliban militants, has struck deals to keep two powerful, anti-U.S. tribal chiefs from joining the battle against the government, officials said Monday

The revenue comes from foreign donations, drug money, "protection" money and criminal activity like smuggling and kidnapping. And as officials note, the money goes a long way. "The insurgency is a relatively cheap war for the Taliban to fight," an August report out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said, noting that money buys "a lot" of rifles, explosives, grenade launchers and foot soldiers known as "$10 Taliban" since that's their day's pay. The Taliban do have a system for incentive pay, as the soldiers get bonuses -- double or triple pay -- for planting improvised explosive devices. And they...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2009 – Afghan and international security forces killed multiple militants and detained several suspects in operations in Afghanistan over the past four days, military officials reported. A combined security force in Khowst detained several suspected militants today after searching a compound in the province’s Sabari district, north of Khowst City. Intelligence reports indicated militant activity there. The compound is known to be used by a Haqqani terrorist network facilitator and his element, believed to be responsible for funding and supplying weapons and homemade bomb materials to other militant elements in the region. The force searched the compound...

Alaska-based paratroopers are making considerable progress in counter-insurgency efforts aimed at protecting civilians in Afghanistan and developing the local economy in the three provinces in which they operate, their commander says. In the seventh month of their one-year deployment, the soldiers of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) of the 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, have cut civilian casualties from attacks by the Taliban and other insurgents by nearly 50 percent, said Col. Michael Howard. At the same time, despite an overall rise in U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan over the last year, the number of soldiers killed...

"Transcript: Message from the "Emir" of the "German Taliban Mujahideen" Abu Ishaq al-Muhajir" By Evan Kohlmann SNIPPET: "The NEFA Foundation has obtained a new document from the designated terrorist organization known as the “Islamic Jihad Union” (IJU), offering a message from the “German Taliban Mujahideen.”" T

Big News in the Overseas Contingency Operation (Formerly known as the War on Terror)You might not have heard about it as most "reporters" seem more interested in the Balloon Boy hoax in Colorado! Pakistan Launches Full-Scale Offensive 30,000 Troops Deploy In Militant Stronghold By Karin Brulliard Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, October 18, 2009 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 17 -- The Pakistani military launched a major ground offensive Saturday in the insurgent haven of South Waziristan, starting a much-awaited fight that could define the nation's increasingly bloody domestic struggle against Islamist extremism. ... After months of targeting South Waziristan with aerial...

Some things you may not know about Palin: What A Fisherman Says About Sarah Palin by Dewie Whetsell, Alaskan Fisherman As posted in comments on Greta Van Susteren’s article referencing the MoveOn.org ad about Sarah Palin. The last 45 of my 66 years I’ve spent in a commercial fishing town in Alaska. I understand Alaska politics but never understood national politics well until this last year. Here’s the breaking point: Neither side of the Palin controversy gets it. It’s not about persona, style, rhetoric, it’s about doing things. Even Palin supporters never mention the things that I’m about to mention...

Conflicting reports emerge a day after thousands of soldiers launched an offensive against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in South Waziristan. 'We have not been weakened,' a Taliban spokesman says.Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan - On the second day of Pakistan's major offensive to uproot the Taliban from tribal areas along the Afghan border, the military claimed to have killed 60 militants, while the Taliban countered that it had fended off the troops' initial surge. Wildly differing interpretations of progress being made on both sides are expected to continue as the military pushes forward with its most crucial ground operation so...

House Armed Services Cmte. Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) considers General McChrystal’s assessment on the situation in Afghanistan and his request for 40,000 additional troops. Witnesses testify on three strategy options: a counterterrorism approach, a focused train and equip effort, and a population-centric counterinsurgency approach. Washington, DC : 2 hr. 43 min.

snip Also problematic is the resolution’s attempt to make the restriction of free speech a human right. In fact, it is free speech that constitutes a human right and not its restriction. Ideologies, ideas and religions do not, and should not be afforded “human rights." They should be fair game for criticism, analysis, open debate and discussion. Religions and ideologies cannot be “defamed." Once ideologies are afforded protection from criticism, it is in direct contradiction to individual human rights.snip