Obama and the Demofiends are about to jettison another erstwhile ally to the winds of cowardice and political expediency. I lived through the last such betrayal when a hugely Democratic Congress cut off funds to help Saigon defend itself against the onrushing Vietcong and North Vietnamese regulars. The end came swifty, with the nightly news full of footage (black and white film was used in those days) of helicopters fleeing the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy as our rats evacuated the sinking ship of freedom along the South China Sea.
This time the Fiends will betray Hamid Karzai, his capital of Kabul and the entire people of Afghanistan as they refuse to pay the price for freedom, in that country and on our shores, where Osama bin Laden and company will soon reappear. (Certainly, Osama wouldn’t set foot here except as conquering hero, but his minions will be back once Afghanistan is secure in Taliban/al Qaede hands.)
This time, you can be sure there won’t be any Boat People, but there will be ships and airlines ferrying our troops and our allies’ troops back home.
I imagine Obama will set up some kind of face-saving surrender, such as supposedly "training" and equipping Afghani forces to defend the country as we systematically pull our troops out. Then we’ll leave behind a contingent of "advisors" that can be rapidly evacuated as the Taliban descend on Kabul.
This time, however, there will be no dramatic television footage. The evacuation will take place stealthily, under the cover of darkness, and Western journalists will be in tow.
Look for this to happen sometime after the 2010 election unless (a huge unless) the Republicans reseize control of at least one house of Congress.
In other words, the Fall of Saigon Redux is dead certain to happen.
Posted by farleft | Posted on 03-06-2008
Category : Liberal Antidote
Tags: al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabia
By George Friedman
Courtesy of Stratford
The Saudis are hosting an interfaith conference June 4. Four hundred Islamic scholars from around the world will be there, with one day devoted to interfaith issues. Saudi King Abdullah will open the conference, over which Saudi Shura Council head Saleh bin Huma will preside. This is clearly intended to be a major event, not minimized by the fact that Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s most influential leader — who heads Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body that elects and can remove the Supreme Leader — will be attending as well. Rafsanjani was specifically invited by the Saudi ambassador to Iran last Wednesday with the following message: “King Abdullah believes you have a great stature in the Islamic world … and he has assigned me the duty of inviting you to the conference.” We would not have expected to see a meeting on interfaith dialogue eve n a year ago.
For its part, al Qaeda condemned the conference. Its spokesman, Abu Yahya al-Libi, said of Abdullah via videotape that “He who is called the defender of monotheism by sycophantic clerics is raising the flag of brotherhood between religions … and thinks he has found the wisdom to stop wars and prevent the causes of enmity between religions and peoples.” He went on to say “By God, if you don’t resist heroically against this wanton tyrant … the day will come when church bells will ring in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.” In the past, the Saudis have been very careful not to push al Qaeda, or the kingdom’s own conservatives, too far.
Posted by farleft | Posted on 22-05-2008
Category : Liberal Antidote
Tags: al Qaeda, Islamists, jihad, Morocco, terrorism
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting
Moroccan security services recently dismantled an 11-member militant jihadist network that operated in the cities of Fez and Nador, the official Moroccan government news agency Maghreb Arabe Press (MAP) reported May 19.
According to the report, the network was involved in recruiting young men to fight in Iraq and had also allegedly sent recruits to train in camps run by al Qaeda’s franchise, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in neighboring Algeria.
The recent crackdown follows a string of similar arrests in Morocco in the wake of the Casablanca suicide attacks in 2003. These countermeasures, including an arrest in February of 35 alleged militants with ties to AQIM, have thrown jihadist militants in Morocco off balance. The arrests also underscore the difficulty jihadists face when recruiting in a country where infiltration efforts by the local security service are aggressive.
By George Friedman
Courtesy of Stratfor
Five years have now passed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney, in Iraq with Sen. John McCain — the presumptive Republican nominee for president — summarized the five years by saying, “If you reflect back on those five years, it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor. We’ve come a long way in five years, and it’s been well worth the effort.” Democratic presidential aspirant Sen. Hillary Clinton called the war a failure.
It is the role of political leaders to make such declarations, not ours. Nevertheless, after five years, it is a moment to reflect less on where we are and more on where we are going. As we have argued in the past, the actual distinctions between McCain’s position at one end (reduce forces in Iraq only as conditions permit) and Barack Obama’s position (reduce them over 16 months unless al Qaeda is shown to be in Iraq) are in practice much less distinct than either believes. Rhetoric aside — and this is a political season — there is in fact a general, but hardly universal, belief that goes as follows: The invasion of Iraq probably was a mistake, and certainly its execution was disastrous. But a unilateral and precipitous withdrawal by the United States at this point would not be in anyone’s interest. The debate is over whether the invasion was a mistake in the first place, while the divisions over ongoing policy are much less real than apparent.
Posted by farleft | Posted on 28-02-2008
Category : Liberal Antidote
Tags: al Qaeda, Islamists, jihadists
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting
As Stratfor has observed for some years now, the global response to the 9/11 attacks has resulted in the transformation of the jihadist threat. Whereas six and a half years ago, the threat came from “al Qaeda the organization,” today it emanates from “al Qaeda the movement.” In other words, jihadism has devolved into a broader global phenomenon loosely guided by the original al Qaeda core group’s theology and operational philosophy. We refer to the people involved in the widespread movement as grassroots operatives.
In analyzing this metamorphosis over the years, we have noted the strengths of the grassroots jihadist movement, such as the fact that this model, by its very nature, is difficult for intelligence and law enforcement agencies to quantify and combat. We also have said it has a broader operational and geographic reach than the core al Qaeda group, and we have discussed its weaknesses; mainly that this larger group of dispersed actors lacks the operational depth and expertise of the core group. This means the grassroots movement poses a wider, though less severe, threat — one that, to borrow an expression, is a mile wide and an inch deep. In the big picture, the movement does not pose the imminent strategic threat that the core al Qaeda group once did.
Posted by farleft | Posted on 26-02-2008
Category : Liberal Antidote
Tags: Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Musharraf, Taliban
By George Friedman
Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting
There has been tremendous controversy over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which consistently has been contrasted with Afghanistan. Many of those who opposed the Iraq war have supported the war in Afghanistan; indeed, they have argued that among the problems with Iraq is that it diverts resources from Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been seen as an obvious haven for terrorism.
This has meant the war in Afghanistan often has been perceived as having a direct effect on al Qaeda and on the ability of radical Islamists to threaten the United States, while Iraq has been seen as unrelated to the main war. Supporters of the war in Iraq support the war in Afghanistan. Opponents of the war in Iraq also support Afghanistan. If there is a good war in our time, Afghanistan is it.
Posted by farleft | Posted on 19-12-2007
Category : Liberal Antidote
Tags: al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting
On Dec. 16, al Qaeda’s As-Sahab media branch released a 97-minute video message from al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. In the message, titled "A Review of Events," al-Zawahiri readdressed a number of his favorite topics at length.
This video appeared just two days after As-Sahab released a 20-minute al-Zawahiri message titled "Annapolis — The Treason." In that message, al-Zawahiri speaks on audio tape while a still photograph of him is displayed over a montage of photos from the peace conference in Annapolis, Md. As the title implies, al-Zawahiri criticizes the conference.
Although the Dec. 14 release appeared first, it obviously was recorded after the Dec. 16 video. Given the content of the Dec. 14 message, it most likely was recorded shortly after the Nov. 27 Annapolis conference and before the Dec. 11 twin bombings in Algeria. The two latest releases are interrelated, however, given that the still photo of al-Zawahiri used in the Dec. 14 message appears to have been captured from the video released two days later.
