Global Tidbits

Suicide Bombers Kill Scores of Shiite Worshipers in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

At least 63 people were killed and scores wounded after bombers struck Shiite religious observances on Tuesday in three cities, detonating explosives amid crowds of worshipers in the first such sectarian attacks in a decade of war in Afghanistan...

Western Monitors Criticize Russian Vote That Cost Putin’s Party Seats - NYTimes.com

...Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that they, too, had observed blatant fraud, including the brazen stuffing of ballot boxes. While the monitors declined to draw firm conclusions, it was clear from their report that vote stealing and other alleged malfeasance might have spared the presumed beneficiary, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s United Russia, an even worse blow than it officially received...

Tiny Tax on Financial Trades Gains Advocates - NYTimes.com

They call it the Robin Hood tax — a tiny levy on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the world’s poor.

And like the mythical hero of Sherwood Forest, it is beginning to capture the public’s imagination...

Cooking With Gen. McChrystal

When you realize something you cooked up is not working, how do you get out of the kitchen without taking the blame for the burned cornbread? Unless you have an imaginary friend to blame for your failure, the next best option is get the boss angry and then have him throw you out of the kitchen. That way you get to play the victim and pin your failure on someone else. (And coincidentally, prove your point about the boss being a boob.)

I'm not saying that's what happened here, but I'm sure Gen. McChrystal is familiar with old school transactional analysis and since there are so few thinkers left today (as opposed to reacters -- 'bots of both the Left and Right persuasion), a clever man could easily pull off this ploy with none of the Villagers noticing and few of the general population getting it either.

You might even find a high profile meat puppet. Who knows.

Gates advocated keeping McChrystal, source says - CNN.com: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates backed keeping Gen. Stanley McChrystal on the job because he was vital to the war effort in Afghanistan, but Gates was overruled, a senior Pentagon official told CNN's Barbara Starr..."

Assessing Intel Errors In Afghanistan

Musings on the State of the CIA : NO QUARTER: "...Folks, this is amateur hour. CIA leaders share the part of the blame in my book. They are not demanding a functional, solid cover. They are not setting a high bar for operational tradecraft. It is shoddy and sloppy and, when people die in the line of duty, their deaths end up exposing their surviving colleagues to greater risk. But Presidents also are to blame. Obama’s public statement was a rookie mistake. I don’t think he was intentionally trying to hurt the CIA but his intent does not matter. That damage was done. In fact, the White House has been regularly leaking over the course of the last year about the successes of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. So much for covert and clandestine. This White House knows only politics and personal survival.

Don’t kid yourself that things were better under Bush and Cheney. Those two, but especially Cheney, spent a lot of time browbeating CIA officers for not kow towing to the White House vision of reality. When CIA initially reported there was no basis to the claim that Iraq bought yellowcake uranium and was crafting a bomb the White House insisted the CIA was wrong and told them to keep looking. When Gary Berntsen asked urgently for reinforcements to corner Osama Bin Laden he was denied because the Bush White House was too busy prepping to go to war in Iraq. When the CIA Chief of Station in Iraq warned of an emerging insurgency he was fired after pressure from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who insisted we were only facing a few dead enders. ..."

Another One Bites The Dust

BBC NEWS | Africa | Profile: Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan: "Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a top al-Qaeda suspect, has been on the FBI's wanted list for years.

He was killed in an attack by US forces in southern Somalia on 14 September, a US official says. This has not been officially confirmed by Washington..."

Osama wants us to end the war. Why doesn't he end it? Surrender is an option, mister murder.

Droned Away

Pakistani Taliban leader likely killed by U.S. drone attack - CNN.com: "Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud likely has been killed in a U.S. drone attack, a top Pakistani official said Friday.

Villagers gather at the rubble of houses belonging to supporters of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Villagers gather at the rubble of houses belonging to supporters of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

'The information I have is that Mehsud has been killed, but we are doing ground verification for 100 percent confirmation,' said Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's foreign minister..."

ReBushing Afghanistan

Letters: Failed strategy in Afghanistan | World news | The Guardian

...When will the Obama administration stop transplanting the Bush administration's failed methods from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan (US begins major offensive against Taliban, 1 July)? The strategy is the same one Rumsfeld used in Iraq in 2004-06. Cities like Samarra and Falluja were repeatedly assaulted with artillery, helicopters and air strikes, resulting in heavy civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees...

Anxiety

Today my son trooped aboard a jet and disappeared into the sky, destinied for the war. I never wanted him anywhere near the fighting but he said "Dad, that's where the mission is."

And now that's where he is.

I never wanted any American in the Iraq war; I was deadset against it long before all the braying jackasses decided it was a bad idea. If the politicians all had "some skin in the game," then maybe they would give more careful consideration of American blood in foreign adventures.

Please give me and my boy a hopeful prayer and let him and all our sons and daughters return home safely, for they were not the cause of these wars and they should not have to bear the burdens for other people's flawed egos and poor judgment.

God save us all and bless the real patriots.

An Ungentle Reminder

Taliban seizes bus, executes 2 dozen passengers, Afghan officials say - Los Angeles Times: "KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- Taliban militants seized a bus in volatile southern Afghanistan and executed at least two dozen passengers, beheading some of them, officials said Sunday.

The attack took place in Kandahar province, which was the home base of the fundamentalist Islamic movement before it was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001. The incident illustrated the extreme danger of travel in the Afghan countryside, even along main roads such as the one where the bus was commandeered. Many of the passengers were women and children..."

From The Mighty Nice Of Them Department

Ban on Sex for Soldiers in Afghanistan Lifted ... Sort Of

"Stars and Stripes | Drew Brown | May 15, 2008

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Single soldiers and civilians working for the U.S. military in Afghanistan can now have sex legally. Sort of.

A new order signed by Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, has lifted a ban on sexual relations between unmarried men and women in the combat zone..."

Taliban Faltering In Pakistan

Bin Laden, Taliban, al-Qaida support plummets in Pakistan - AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

"In 2004, the BBC released a powerful series called The Power of Nightmares, The Rise of the Politics of Fear. It is about the parallel rise of radical Islam and the radical neocon right since the 1950s. (View online here.) One issue that the three part documentary covered was the rise and then hard fall of radicals in places such as Algeria. Indiscriminate killing and a steady blood bath in the name of the cause has lowered support for the movement time after time. The documentary is well worth viewing.

The poll suggests Pakistanis are looking to peaceful opposition groups after months of political turmoil and a wave of suicide attacks.

In the latest bloodshed, a bomber blew himself up at an opposition rally in the northwestern town of Charsadda on Saturday, killing 27 people and injuring 50.

According to the poll results only 24 percent of Pakistanis approved of bin Laden when the survey was conducted last month, compared with 46 percent during a similar survey in August.

Backing for al-Qaida, whose senior leaders are believed to be hiding along the Pakistani-Afghan border, fell to 18 percent from 33 percent."

One Down, ???? To Go

via Reuters:

"U.S. kills top Taliban leader

A side gunner on a Chinook 47 looks out over Helmand, Afghanistan in this file picture. U.S. forces said on Saturday they had killed the Taliban's military chief in southern Afghanistan, where the insurgency is at its bloodiest, a man in the top four of the group's leadership and with links to Osama bin Laden. (REUTERS/POOL/David Swanson)

By Terry Friel | December 23, 2006

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. forces said on Saturday they had killed the Taliban's military chief in southern Afghanistan, who had close links to Osama bin Laden and was heir to the rebel leadership.

Akhtar Mohammad Osmani was the most senior leader killed yet and was targeted in a region where the insurgency is at its bloodiest, a military spokesman said. The Taliban denied he was dead.

Osmani and two other guerillas were killed in an air strike on their car on an isolated desert road on Tuesday, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition force, Colonel Tom Collins, said in Kabul. . ."