By DemocracyRules
h/t StrategyPage
Attacks are way down from last year. There are more allied soldiers on the ground, especially U.S. troops. But there are fewer Taliban to be found, and about 60% are from Pakistan. No real Spring Offensive at all. Yipeee!
By DemocracyRules
A Senior al-Qaida commander in the Afghanistan Pakistan area is killed.
Al-Libi was about one tier below Ayman al-Zawahri, possibly among the top five al-Qaida leaders.
US intelligence beleives that al-Libi instigated a bombing at Bagram Air Force Base in Feb 2007 when Dick Cheney was visiting. The VP was unhurt.
Mark Steyn writes on the fictional horrors of war that have captured the imagination, if not the common sense, of the editors of the New York Times (Via Lucianne):
Well, it's in the New York Times: "a series of articles" – that's right, a whole series – "about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home." It's an epidemic, folks. As the Times put it:
"Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: 'Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.' Pierre, S.D.: 'Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.' Colorado Springs: 'Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.'"
Obviously, as America's "newspaper of record," the Times would resent any suggestion that it's anti-military. I'm sure if you were one of these crazed military stalker whackjobs following the reporters home you'd find their cars sporting the patriotic bumper sticker "We Support Our Troops, Even After They've Been Convicted." As usual, the Times stories are written in the fey, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone that's a shoo-in come Pulitzer time:
"Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak."
"Patchwork picture," "quiet phenomenon."… Yes, yes, but exactly how quiet is the phenomenon? How patchy is the picture? The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan either "committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one." The "committed a killing" formulation includes car accidents.
Thus, with declining deaths in the war zones, the media narrative evolves. Old story: "America's soldiers are being cut down by violent irrational insurgents we can never hope to understand." New story: "Americans are being cut down by violent irrational soldiers we can never hope to understand." In the quagmire of these veterans' minds, every leafy Connecticut subdivision is Fallujah and every Dunkin' Donuts clerk an Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
It was the work of minutes for the Powerline Web site's John Hinderaker to discover that the "quiet phenomenon" is entirely unphenomenal: It didn't seem to occur to the Times to check whether the murder rate among recent veterans is higher than that of the general population of young men. It's not.
Au contraire, the columnist Ralph Peters calculated that Iraq and Afghanistan vets are about one-fifth as likely to murder you as the average 18-to-34-year-old American male. Better yet, the blogger Iowahawk meticulously drew his own "patchwork picture" of another "quiet phenomenon": the Denver newspaper columnist arrested for stalking, the Cincinnati TV reporter facing child-molestation charges, the Philadelphia anchorwoman who went on a violent drunken rampage. As Iowahawk's one-man investigative unit wondered:
"Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence that America's newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters?"
Iowahawk's parody is here. It's much more amusing than anything the New York Times sees fit to print.
Update: Bob Owens at Pajamas Media has more.
Earlier:
So once again we have video "from Osama Bin Laden" that consists of old video of Bin Laden only (back to the partially grey beard), spliced with current audio of someone who claims to be Bin Laden.
The incurious, naive print and broadcast media once again uncritically report that Bin Laden is speaking in the "video," with no mention of the suspicious nature of this video or the two most recent Bin Laden videos in which the image of Bin Laden was frozen whenever the video referred to current events and there were multiple unexplained splices:
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden called on Pakistanis to rebel against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a new recording released Thursday, saying his military's siege of a militant mosque stronghold makes him an infidel.
The storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July "demonstrated Musharraf's insistence on continuing his loyalty, submissiveness and aid to America against the Muslims ... and makes armed rebellion against him and removing him obligatory," bin Laden said in the message."So when the capability is there, it is obligatory to rebel against the apostate ruler, as is the case now," he said.
Bin Laden's voice was heard over video showing previously released footage of the terror leader. The video was released Thursday on Islamic militant Web sites and first reported by Laura Mansfield, an American terrorism expert who monitors militant message traffic.
The message, titled "Come to Jihad," was the third from bin Laden this month in a flurry of videos and audiotapes marking the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
As I've mentioned before, it's possible that Bin Laden is not releasing current images of himself in order to conceal his current appearance. In that case, he and Al Qaeda need to be called out on the cowardice of the supposed "Lion" and "Al Qaeda chief" Bin Laden.
The more likely scenario is that Bin Laden is dead -- and what's left of Al Qaeda is cranking out one fake video after another, giving their own pronouncements extra heft by putting them into the mouth of a dead man.
Have the mainstream print and broadcast media analyzed the recent Bin Laden videos? No. Have they interviewed experts on video fakery or experts in voice imitation? No. At most reporters have asked one or two government officials whether the videos are genuine, and have taken at face value their off-handed dismissals or changes of subject. Since when is uncritical acceptance of off-the-cuff reactions of public officials the standard for reliable journalism? Only when it serves someone's political agenda.
The most important political agenda should be the truth.
When it comes to ferreting out secrets of the West's war on terror, including programs to detect terrorists before they strike, the print media are all over it. But Al Qaeda propaganda is passed along unblushingly without so much as an "allegedly" or "claimed" or "purportedly."
Bin Laden video propaganda is poisonous and deadly stuff. That is why it's being created and released. It cannot be allowed to continue unchallenged. If Bin Laden is alive, let him prove it. Until it does, it should be assumed that he is dead and that presumption should be spread around the world.
Meanwhile, those who call themselves journalist still have a lot to prove themselves. Based on their uncritical acceptance thus far of these recent Bin Laden videos known to contain multiple splices without even bothering to interview video forensics experts, the major print and broadcast media are demonstrating naivete to the point of foolishness. They are also demonstrating themselves to be poorly informed and unreliable.
How long can this foolishness go on? Will the uncritical acceptance of fake Bin Laden propaganda videos continue for years, until reporters finally realize that Bin Laden has become implausibly old?
Surely there must be a few mainstream editors and reporters who will take a closer look at the latest Bin Laden videos and raise the question of whether Al Qaeda might be engaging in video fakery to keep its former leader "alive" past his expiration date.
Earlier:
I blogged about the possible fakery in the recent Bin Laden video four days ago on September 9th ("Is the Bin Laden Video a Forgery?") and again two days ago on September 11th ("Both Recent Osama Bin Laden Videos Are Sock Puppet Fakery"), and now it's been confirmed:
On the Friday before the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Osama bin Laden appeared in a new video, his first since prior to the U.S. presidential elections in 2004. In analyzing the video, Neal Krawetz of Hactor Factor, an expert on digital image forensics, said in his latest blogs that the video contained many visual and audio splices, and that all of the modifications were of very low quality.
Most striking is bin Laden's beard, which has been gray in recent images. For this video it is black. "As far as my tools can detect, there has been no image manipulation of the bin Laden portion of the image beyond contrast adjustment. His beard really does appear to be that color." The Washington Post has the full video here.
Krawetz says the inner frame of bin Laden was resaved at least twice, and not at the same time. The images show fine horizontal stripes on bin Laden and a background indicating these came from interlaced video sources. In contrast, the text elements, such as the As-Sahab logo, appear to be from non-interlaced sources.
The September 7 video shows bin Laden dressed in a white hat, white shirt and yellow sweater. Krawetz notes "this is the same clothing he wore in the 2004-10-29 video. In 2004 he had it unzipped, but in 2007 he zipped up the bottom half. Besides the clothing, it appears to be the same background, same lighting, and same desk. Even the camera angle is almost identical." Krawetz also notes that "if you overlay the 2007 video with the 2004 video, his face has not changed in three years--only his beard is darker and the contrast on the picture has been adjusted."
More important though are the edits. At roughly a minute and a half into the video there is a splice; bin Laden shifts from looking at the camera to looking down in less than 1/25th of a second. At 13:13 there is a second, less obvious splice. In all, Krawetz says there are at least six splices in the video. Of these, there are only two live bin Laden segments, the rest of the video composed of still images. The first live section opens the video and ends at 1:56. The second section begins at 12:29 and continues until 14:01. The two live sections appear to be from different recordings "because the desk is closer to the camera in the second section."
Then there are the audio edits. Krawetz says "the new audio has no accompanying 'live' video and consists of multiple audio recordings." References to current events are made only during the still frame sections and after splices within the audio track." And there are so many splices that I cannot help but wonder if someone spliced words and phrases together. I also cannot rule out a vocal imitator during the frozen-frame audio. The only way to prove that the audio is really bin Laden is to see him talking in the video," Krawetz says.
As I wrote on September 11th:
There is no plausible explanation for Bin Laden's video image to be frozen in two separate videos while he is speaking of recent events-- except for video fakery.
I'm more convinced than ever that Bin Laden is dead or that he has dramatically altered his appearance and seeks to avoid detection. Either way, the video images we are seeing are years out of date.
Given the strange references to liberal hot-button issues like global warming in the latest Bin Laden video and other oddities, I think it more likely that Bin Laden is dead and that the "Bin Laden" videos are being entirely ghost-written.
As a practical matter, the West should proceed on the working assumption that Bin Laden is dead unless and until Al Qaeda produces credible video of Bin Laden in which his lips are moving when he speaks of current events.
When we fall for sock puppetry, we are being played for chumps by jihadists. In addition to lending aid and comfort to America's enemies by our naivete, we waste precious, irreplaceable time foolishly debating the wrong questions such as "Why haven't we yet caught Bin Laden?" and whether we should withdraw from Iraq in order to look for Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
If Bin Laden is alive, let Al Qaeda prove it. Their video sock puppetry suggests otherwise. Either they are engaged in an elaborate double hoax to lead the world to believe that Bin Laden is dead when he really is not (a hoax which the world has yet to even recognize), or, more likely, Bin Laden is indeed worm food and the jihadists are working with their dwindling supply of old videotape and one of Bin Laden's many male relatives to record the audio track.
I am surprised that more in the blogosphere, especially on the right, have not yet sounded the alarm about the apparent Bin Laden video fakery. In their defense, it has been a busy news week with General Petraeus's testimony to Congress and the 9/11 anniversary. Further, the conclusion that the videos are fakes is a matter of opinion, although one supported by the evidence in hand.
As we have learned through one media mistake and distortion after another in the war on terror discovered only by the blogosphere, we cannot rely on the Associated Press or Reuters to recognize a fake when it is presented to them. That is our job. I'm calling foul.
Remember, you read it here before you heard it from the AP, Reuters, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, or the New York Times.
Let's see how long it takes them to catch up.
Update: Consider all the foolish stories being uncritically printed and broadcast by the media this week that make no sense in light of this evidence. Journalists are reporting that Osama Bin Laden is "taunting" the U.S. in his latest video.
No, some dweeb with video editing equipment in a back room is "taunting" the U.S., while Bin Laden is mouldering in the grave (or -- remote possibility -- while he is cowering somewhere afraid to make a video that shows his current appearance). That Bin Laden is long dead is far more likely. It's a better fit with the facts and with what we know about human nature and the nature of terrorists.
But why does it matter?
Let me ask this in return: Should America be sending more troops to hunt for Bin Laden in Afghanistan? Or would that be a colossal waste of time, money, soldiers' lives, energy, and resources -- because Bin Laden is already dead?
Are we better off staying to fight Al Qaeda right where we are in Iraq?
It's rather an important question, wouldn't you say? It's more important than any other lead story you'll find in the print or broadcast media today, isn't it?
And yet we have total silence from the print and broadcast media on this story so far. What's their excuse? They have yet to even recognize that the issue of video fakery exists, let alone report the evidence that confirms these videos are fakes.
Update: A little example of Bin Laden video fakery for your amusement.
__________________________
Western media and pundits who uncritically state that Osama Bin Laden released two videos this week are falling for video sock puppetry. Either Bin Laden is dead or, less likely, he has dramatically altered his appearance and is not releasing any current video images in order to avoid capture.
First we had a video a few days ago supposedly showing Osama Bin Laden alive and well in which, it turns out, the video of Bin Laden is frozen whenever the audio refers to curent events -- but not during portions that refer to events long ago. Ex-Army linguist George Maschke wrote:
Osama Bin Laden's widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and
3658 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.The audio track does appear to be in the voice of a single speaker. What I suspect was done is that an older, unreleased video was dubbed over for this release, with the video frozen when the audio track departed from that of the original video.
Rick Moran took the time to listen to the Bin Laden video and confirmed that it contained the long freeze frame sections identified by George Maschke.
Today we have a second video of Bin Laden featuring one of the vicious 9/11 murderers, and again the video image of Bin Laden is frozen, with dubbed audio. Furthermore, Bin Laden is wearing the exact same attire he was wearing in the video supposedly recorded this year and standing in front of the same backdrop.
Referring to the second video released today, the AP writes:
It begins with an audiotape introduction by bin Laden. While his voice is heard, the video shows a still image of him, raising his finger. In the image, bin Laden has the same dyed-black beard and the same clothes — a white robe and cap and beige cloak — that he had in Saturday's video.
But it was not known if the audiotape was recently made. In the past, al-Qaida has used footage and audio of bin Laden taped long ago for release later.
Here is a still image from today's video, via LauraMansfield.com:
There is no plausible explanation for Bin Laden's video image to be frozen in two separate videos while he is speaking of recent events-- except for video fakery.
I'm more convinced than ever that Bin Laden is dead or that he has dramatically altered his appearance and seeks to avoid detection. Either way, the video images we are seeing are years out of date.
Given the strange references to liberal hot-button issues like global warming in the latest Bin Laden video and other oddities, I think it more likely that Bin Laden is dead and that the "Bin Laden" videos are being entirely ghost-written.
As a practical matter, the West should proceed on the working assumption that Bin Laden is dead unless and until Al Qaeda produces credible video of Bin Laden in which his lips are moving when he speaks of current events.
When we fall for sock puppetry, we are being played for chumps by jihadists. In addition to lending aid and comfort to America's enemies by our naivete, we waste precious, irreplaceable time foolishly debating the wrong questions such as "Why haven't we yet caught Bin Laden?" and whether we should withdraw from Iraq in order to look for Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
If Bin Laden is alive, let Al Qaeda prove it. Their video sock puppetry suggests otherwise. Either they are engaged in an elaborate double hoax to lead the world to believe that Bin Laden is dead when he really is not (a hoax which the world has yet to even recognize), or, more likely, Bin Laden is indeed worm food and the jihadists are working with their dwindling supply of old videotape and one of Bin Laden's many male relatives to record the audio track.
I am surprised that more in the blogosphere, especially on the right, have not yet sounded the alarm about the apparent Bin Laden video fakery. In their defense, it has been a busy news week with General Petraeus's testimony to Congress and the 9/11 anniversary. Further, the conclusion that the videos are fakes is a matter of opinion, although one supported by the evidence in hand.
As we have learned through one media mistake and distortion after another in the war on terror discovered only by the blogosphere, we cannot rely on the Associated Press or Reuters to recognize a fake when it is presented to them. That is our job. I'm calling foul.
Update 1: In this late-breaking story today, the AP begins to acknowledge that the latest Bin Laden videos raise questions about his "health," but the AP avoids the elephant in the room -- the fact that the same videotapes also raise serious questions about whether Bin Laden is alive at all:
Because bin Laden's image moves for only a few minutes in the first tape and not at all in the second, questions are being raised about his health.
Really? You don't say!
Update 2: Former CIA Director James Woolsey also acknowledges that there is something very strange (and sophomoric) about the two recent Bin Laden tapes.
Update 3: Rusty Shackleford at Jawa Report thinks the safer bet (pending more proof) is that Bin Laden is alive but notes that the video altering technology exists to fake the Bin Laden video images we saw this past week.
If your memory of the raw monstrosity of the 9/11 attacks has faded -- or if you were too young or sheltered to fully understand the attack then -- you need to see this slideshow tribute (via Lucianne). It may take minutes to fully load and about 15 minutes to view, but it's worth it.
My daughter was three years old when the attack came. For obvious reasons, I told her almost nothing of it. Someday, my children will need to know the evil that came that day.
There were other children who learned on September 11, 2001 that something horrible had happened, because their mother or father did not come home and alarms of distress sounded in their homes. One of the mothers who never came home again was Amenia Rasool, a 33-year old accountant with Marsh & McLennan on the 98th floor in the north tower of the World Trade Center. She left early the morning of September 11, 2001 and was never again to hold, kiss, hug, comfort, or laugh with her four young children, Aneesa, Aseefa, Saeed, and Farhaad, ages 8, 6, 3 and 10 months.
The decent people of the world -- I am speaking of you, I trust -- need to help future generations remember and understand the massive scale of human suffering that was caused by a handful of men with dead souls.
Here are some of the things that happened after the 9/11 attacks:
Some in the Muslim world openly celebrated the 9/11 attacks on America, most notably in the Palestinian territory. The civilized world, on the other hand, shared in America's shock and mourning.
Some Muslims almost immediately began to deny, to all who would listen, that Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden had planned and carried out the attacks. These deniers were closed and impervious to facts and evidence. When asked to explain why, for example, Mohammed Atta's father could not explain his son's sudden disappearance on 9/11, they had no answer. Yet they continued with their unfounded, outrageous claims. It was the first of many frustrating divides between ordinary Americans willing to face and acknowledge the truth and others in America and around the world who were hell-bent on concealing the truth at any cost.
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Those who spread such lies ignored -- and many continue to ignore -- all facts, evidence, and logic in an attempt to excuse men who viciously murdered innocent men, women and children in the name of Allah. They go out of their way to excuse Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 hijacker with dead eyes, and 18 other hijackers whose souls were equally dead.
The man at the counter in Portland on 9/11 seemed to know instantly, however, that before him stood one of these "dead souls." He says, "It was just the look on the one man's face, his eyes...everyone in America has seen a picture of this man, but there is more life in that photograph we've all seen than he had in the flesh and blood. He looked like a walking corpse. He looked so angry. And he wouldn't look directly at me."
After 9/11, some well-meaning Americans, including some I count as friends, opposed taking the fight to the enemy in Afghanistan, even though Osama Bin Laden lived there and was being sheltered there by the Taliban. Later, when the war on Iraq began, these individuals shifted their objections to that war -- a more defensible position, at least.
For many Americans who grew up after World War II, the 9/11 attack was a turning point that made them understand, finally, what the American flag meant to earlier generations. They no longer looked at patriotism as an embarrassing relic hauled out for Memorial Day and Veterans Day and then stowed away the rest of the year; we all felt it in our souls for a time. Many Americans put out American flags on our houses and cars in unity and in defiance -- this at a time when the nation still perceived itself as under attack.
The nation and the economy underwent a long period of shock, alarm, worry and mourning. I was among many Americans who found it difficult to focus on work in September 2001. It took a long time for anything to feel normal again. Even driving to work in a downtown office high-rise felt like a risky maneuver for a while. And, indeed, security became very tight at high-rise buildings across America. It was a mournful time, as Ground Zero of the World Trade Center collapse continued to smolder and the search for survivors became the grim search for tiny bits and scraps of DNA.
There was an biological warfare scare -- and well-founded one, for it came with the reality of death -- when someone sent anthrax through the U.S. mail on and after September 18, 2001. At least 22 people developed anthrax infections, and five died. The letters contained messages such as "Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great." The source of the anthrax was never found. Despite the explicit terrorist message, the working assumptions, supported by some evidence, was that the anthrax may have come from a domestic source. However, the investigation was inconclusive and the source of the anthrax was never determined.
Since 9/11, there have been further terrorist attacks, dry runs, copycat incidents, and intercepted or pre-empted terrorist plots.
On December 22, 2001, Richard Reid, an al Qaeda member, attempted to explode American Airlines Flight 63 in mid-air on a flight between Paris and Miami by lighting explosives hidden in his shoes.
Both before and after 9/11, Al Qaeda plotted to crash a plane into the 73-story Library Tower in downtown Los Angeles. At least four hijackers, including a pilot, were enlisted for the attack, but fortunately one of them was captured in early 2002 and identified other members of the plot.
An American, Jose Padilla, was arrested in May 2002 and discovered to have associated with Islamic terrorists, including Al Qaeda, and to have attended a jihadist training camp in Afghanistan. There were early reports that he was believed to have engaged in a plot to explode a "dirty" radioactive bomb in the U.S., but he was convicted on charges of conspiring to fund and support terrorism and to kill people abroad.
Beginning in October 2002, "freelance" American jihadists ("Beltway snipers") John Allen Muhammed and Lee Malvo began killing apparently randomly selected Americans in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area, in sniper attacks. The victims of the shootings that began in October 2002 included men and women at gas stations and a 13-year old boy arriving at school. In all, ten people were killed and others critically injured before the two snipers were apprehended. Among their effects were found several notes and other documents referring to jihad.
In 2006, a plot was uncovered to destroy as many as ten transatlantic aircraft traveling between America and Britain, using liquid explosives.
The history of the Islamist war on America and on all of the West is still being written. The threats from Al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups continue unabated. As Iran advances rapidly toward full nuclear weapons capability -- an advance that the U.N. and European Union have thus far proven themselves unable to stop despite years of attempted threats, sanctions, and bribes -- the threat to the United States and other decent, civilized nations continues to grow.
In retrospect, many Americans now realize that the 9/11 attack was part of a larger war of Islamic terror that began for America in November 1979, when Iranians stormed the American embassy in Iran, taking 63 Americans hostage. The hostages were held for 444 days despite all of President Jimmy Carter's best cajoling, wheedling, a failed rescue attempt, and sanctions, until Ronald Reagan was finally elected president and inaugurated on January 20, 1981 -- at which time the hostages were immediately released.
There were multiple terror attacks on America and the West between the 1970s and September 11, 2001. The problem was that each was isolated enough, or distant enough, or untraceable enough -- that each could be dismissed as "not our problem" or "not that big a problem" or an "isolated problem" or a "remote" problem. For example, there was an earlier 1993 bomb attack on the World Trade Center by Islamic terrorists during Bill Clinton's administration. During Clinton's administration, the U.S.S. Cole was also attacked and 17 sailors were killed, in an attack for which Osama Bin Laden took malevolent "credit." There were other bombings as well. An Iraqi plot to assassinate the first President George Bush was also discovered.
America's greatest danger today is its growing complacency and its domestic political myopia. A tentative national consensus is emerging that the time is approaching to withdraw from Iraq and leave that nation to its own defense. Some believe the timetable for such a withdrawal should be measured in decades or years -- others on the vocal left want it measured in months. Out of that sharp divide in public opinion has grown a fervent desire by many -- especially on the left or on the isolationist right and middle -- to forget the dangers America continues to face.
Even words like "terrorist" are now shunned by the leftist media -- ever afraid of giving offense or of reminding anyone of the perils of Islamofascism. The media have referred to Osama Bin Laden, for example, as a "dissident."
Some Americans are myopic enough to weigh every jihadist threat and every American response for its domestic political effect. Some are quick to rationalize and understand the motivations of Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers, and yet they are filled with rage for this man -- a man who feels pain and still strives for what is decent and right, shown here upon having been introduced to a girl, Ashley Faulkner, whose mother was killed in the 9/11 attack:
It is difficult for me to fathom how deeply myopic or empty of humanity a person must be that they can excuse Mohammed Atta and yet condemn George W. Bush.
Either they don't see the difference in the men or they see it but don't care. They don't care that they are choosing to side with men whose hearts smolder with rage like that pit of hell at 9/11 Ground Zero.
In the process, they commit a horrible crime against these:
These are only the victims of the 9/11 attack who did not survive the day. Many thousands more were critically injured, widowed, orphaned, crushed and bereaved.
When you give a pass to the cold, calculating murderers of your own countrymen -- and ooze malice against the decent leaders of your own nation -- what are you?
Appeasement is not an option. Islamic jihadists want nothing less than the destruction of America, Western civilization, Israel, and democracy itself. They sometimes hide their intentions for the benefit of Western ears, but their hatred and jihadist purposes often seep out and are made plain. At that moment, we have a choice to look evil in the face -- or to avert our eyes and pretend it's not there. Too many are opting to look away.
Now, no less than on September 11, 2001, we need strong, persistent action against America's deadly enemies here and abroad. We need courage and determination. We need unity. If some of us forget, we will be forced to learn the lesson again and again.
Update: On the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attack, Michelle Malkin remembers, and again shares the chilling video and 9/11 call of WTC victim Kevin Cosgrove. Ed Morrissey remembers 9/11 too, and invites your memories of that day. Stop the ACLU has moving video and images. Laurie Byrd at Wizbang has a wealth of links. Many people are posting their own memories of 9/11 at James Lilieks' invitation at buzz.mn. The Anchoress remembers it all, and reminds me of Tony Blair's valor in standing by America's side immediately after 9/11. I remember how surprised and moved I was when Britons played the Star Spangled Banner at Buckingham Palace after 9/11. Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has linked to Tilly's Story, a mind-boggling, harrowing personal account from a survivor at the World Trade Center. It's a must-read.
David J. Rusin writes at Pajamas Media that it is important not just to remember 9/11, but to remember our anger, for only then can we maintain the resolve that will still be needed in the years to come:
Anger is frequently portrayed as a negative emotion that debases those who wield it. The counterpoint is offered by Bede Jarrett, a prominent Dominican priest of the early 1900s. “The world needs anger,” he argued. “The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough.” Anger at an injustice spurs people to combat that injustice, as when neighbors unite to drive out drug dealers following the death of a child. Indeed, anger can be both principled and righteous — a force for good in the world.
Are you angry about 9/11 and its aftermath? I am.
I am angry at the carnage of that clear September morning, as 19 soldiers of Allah stole the lives of nearly 3,000 irreplaceable human beings. However, my anger extends far beyond those specific horrors and the terrorists who perpetrated them. Mohamed Atta can never kill again, but the malignant worldview that spawned him continues to target innocents each and every day. That ideology must be the ultimate focus of our anger.
I am angry at the failure of Western elites to robustly acknowledge the true nature of the enemy: a violent, repressive, and expansionist movement grounded in Islam. Rather, we are fed a litany of bromides about the role of poverty and “the religion of peace.” No war has ever been won without knowing the enemy, and this war will not be the first.
I am angry at the deniers who insist that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by President Bush, the CIA, or the Mossad. I am angry at Ward Churchill and his glassy-eyed minions who proclaim that stockbrokers and secretaries got what they deserved on that day.
I am angry that, six years later, lower Manhattan remains scarred by a giant hole in the pavement. This is a national shame. The torpid pace of reconstruction at Ground Zero serves as a microcosm for the hesitancy and half measures that have plagued our approach to this war from the beginning.
I am angry that Osama bin Laden has not yet been granted the martyrdom that he enthusiastically promotes for his underlings. While neutralizing the Al Qaeda leader would by no means end this struggle, it would nonetheless prove remarkably satisfying to see him paraded around in an orange jumpsuit or stretched out on a slab.
I am angry at the factions that are agitating for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, the central front in this global conflict. Iraqi soil already covers the graves of countless jihadists cut from the same mold as the 9/11 hijackers. We must not forgo the opportunity to eliminate many more of them and inflict upon their movement a strategic defeat.
Finally, I am angry at the self-appointed guardians of civil rights, primarily CAIR and the ACLU, which aim to dismantle virtually every security measure put in place to forestall another mass casualty attack. Their tireless peddling of phantom outrages subjects all of us to greater risk.
Benjamin Franklin noted that “anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.” The atrocities visited upon us six years ago and the feckless response to them provide such a reason. Indeed, anger is not merely appropriate; it is essential if we are to diligently confront the evils of radical Islam. Let us therefore pledge to remember 9/11 — not just today, but every day — and to not simply remember, but to feel angry as well.
Only by looking back in anger can we look forward with resolve.
Ex-Army linguist George Maschke thinks the latest Bin Laden video is a fake. He writes:
Osama Bin Laden's widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and
3658 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.The audio track does appear to be in the voice of a single speaker. What I suspect was done is that an older, unreleased video was dubbed over for this release, with the video frozen when the audio track departed from that of the original video.
If this is true, it is big. It needs more analysis. Anyone?
Update: Rick Moran has taken the time to listen to the Bin Laden video and confirms that it contains the mysterious freeze frame sections identified by George Maschke. I believe it that Maschke may well be right. We need further confirmation, though, that this is not a software anomoly of some kind.
Some leftist blogs are running in circles with this. It's not enough for them to reach the plausible conclusion that the video may be faked. They have to go a big step further off the precipice of common sense and claim that the Bush Administration must have faked the video. Pardon, but your Bush Derangement Syndrome is showing. You're going to need years of therapy to get over it when Bush leaves office, you poor things.
Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice thinks it's likely that the video, fake or not, was released by Al Qaeda (since it if wasn't, Al Qaeda would be denying its authenticity). But Gandelman asks whether the video might contain a coded signal, or whether it's just an attempt to intimidate. I think the coded signal idea is fairly unlikely. There are a lot easier, and more confidential, ways to spread messages than through videos distributed worldwide. Generally, terrorists who are serious about killing as many people as possible do not deliberately telegraph their intentions to the intended victims. The element of surprise is key.
The news is breaking today that a second video is about to be released, and that it was recorded in the same location as the possibly forged Bin Laden video released above. In addition, the video about to be released will contain the suicide statement of one of the 9/11 hijackers. If that is true, and if the video that is released shortly looks like more of the same video we've just seen, with Bin Laden wearing the same clothing and the same beard, that will add further serious doubt to the authenticity of the lastest Bin Laden video. It is not credible that Bin Laden would record nearly identical videos six years apart.
Jawa Report has the first image of the second video. Sure enough, Osama is wearing the exact same outfit as in the supposedly new 2007 video. Sure, that makes total sense. From what we know so far, two videos recorded at the same time are being passed off as having been recorded six years apart.
Once again, the key evidence to look for is new video in which Bin Laden (a) addresses current events and (b) his lips are moving. If we don't see that in the video that is being released now, and if nobody can explain the long freeze in the recent video, I'll be more convinced than ever that Bin Laden is long dead. In that case, we need to broadcast that fact to the world. If the "lion" is dead, we should stop and celebrate our success, acknowledge what we did right, and move on to the next terrorist leader who needs to be brought to justice.
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It's slowly beginning to dawn on the human rights community -- and the jihadists they enable -- that there is indeed a fate worse than Guantanamo. (Via No Pasaran!)
By golly, it turns out that some jihadists released from Guantanamo are treated worse in their home countries than they were treated by the U.S. Some of them now want to go back to Guantanamo!
FORMER DETAINEES ABUSED BACK HOME
'I'd Rather Return to Guantanamo'
When two Tunisian men were sent home after five years in Guantanamo, they thought they would be free. Instead, they faced imprisonment, abuse, threats and solitary confinement. Now they say things were better back in the US prison camp.
Many of the detainees sitting in Guantanamo Bay hail from countries with a terrible record of torturing and abusing prisoners. While they may want to see an end to their ordeal in the US prison camp, they also have reason to dread the treatment they could face back home.According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the US government is not doing enough to ensure that prisoners sent back home are not subjected to ill treatment, despite diplomatic assurances from their home countries. The US is continuing to repatriate prisoners, sending home 16 Saudis on Thursday. But in their haste to reduce the numbers at Guantanamo, it seems they are being less than thorough in ensuring that the former prisoners are not mistreated.
In its "Ill-fated Homecomings" report released on Wednesday, HRW focuses on two Tunisian men, Abdullah al-Hajji Ben Amor and Lofti Lagha, who were released from Guantanamo six weeks ago and are now sitting in jail in Tunisia. The researchers did not have access to the prisoners but spoke to their families and their lawyer, Samir Ben Amor. . . . .
The two men were held at the military camp in Cuba for five years, without being charged with any crimes, and Lagha was never represented by a lawyer during that time. Rather than facing freedom when they finally got home, the two men were taken directly into custody and say they were threatened, abused and put in solitary confinement. They now claim things are so bad that they would rather be back in Guantanamo -- despite Tunisia's pledge to the US that they would be treated humanely.
Abdullah al-Hajji left Tunisia in 1990 and had no idea that he had been convicted in absentia in 1995 of being a member of a foreign terrorist organization. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and sent to Guantanamo Bay.
According to HRW, when he landed back in Tunisia in June he was held at the Ministry of the Interior for two days, where he was slapped and told his wife and daughters would be raped. He was shaken repeatedly to keep from sleeping and told to sign a paper he couldn't read because he needs new glasses. He was then sent to the same military court that had convicted him in absentia, told he would face a new trial on Sept. 26, and then thrown into solitary confinement for six weeks. He told his lawyer that, if he had been told of the conviction, he would have objected to returning to Tunisia.
The "solution" pushed by Human Rights Watch is not to admit that perhaps Gitmo isn't so bad after all -- at least compared to Tunisia and many other nations -- but instead to again raise the bar by demanding that the U.S. guarantee the safety of the enemy combatants even after their release.
But wouldn't that be rather . . . imperialist? Just how far should the U.S. go in sticking its nose into the internal affairs of Tunisia or Saudi Arabia -- hmmmm?
And why on earth should enemy combatants be given immunity from crimes committed in their home countries, anyway? This is not Wheel of Fortune. The prizes upon release from Guantanamo do not include lifetime immunity from prosecution anywhere on planet Earth.
If Tunisia has a human rights problem, then maybe it's time to stop the endless whining about Gitmo and instead to acknowledge the excellent job the United States has done in its detention of enemy combatants. When jihadists are begging to be let back into Guantanamo, that tells you all you really need to know.
A video of Osama bin Laden will supposedly be released soon. JawaReport has the latest, including a link to the audio already released. I'm with Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who writes: "I remain 97.33% convinced that bin Laden’s been dead for a long time."
Based on a comparison of old and "new" video of Bin Laden posted at Allahpundit, Bin Laden must have access to Grecian Formula in his cave (his beard is now black and trimmed) but he seems to be wearing the same outfit and possibly standing in front of the same backdrop as in 2004. (The color of the backdrop is similar but the texture may be different.) The identical or virtually identical outfits are rather odd.
We'll have to see how convincing the new video is, and whether it shows Bin Laden referring to current events. The change in the beard by itself doesn't convince me of anything. That would be too easy to fake.
Update 1: Red Alerts notes (via Gateway Pundit) that several jihadists with websites seem to be engaging in odd, possibly worrisome behavior, including posting a jihadist suicide note and signing off to "move to another country."
Update 2: An interesting hypothesis: If the beard is a fake put on for purposes of the video, Bin Laden may be living beardless in a part of the world where many men do not have beards.
Update 3: The tape appears to refer to recent events, such as election outcomes in the U.S. and France. Let the possibility prompt all decent, civilized nations to redouble their resolve to bring this murderer's mangy hide to justice.
From Gateway Pundit, news of a hit song from Pakistan, about saying no to terrorism!
Listen to Yeh Hum Naheen: Say No to Terrorism.
It's beautiful.
Read more about the song at Gateway Pundit.
At National Review Online, James S. Robbins takes Obama to school over his recent pseudo-tough-guy threat to invade Pakistan.
The lesson?
Call it Discretion 101.
Note: The following is a guest post by DemocracyRules.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Islamists dispute almost everything about this statement, and they do not believe that people have an inalienable right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. To them, innocents can be killed, liberty threatens Allah’s will, and the pursuit of happiness distracts from carrying out one’s duties to Allah.
Thus, Islamists are locked in a knock-down drag-out fight with the fundamental political philosophy of Western democracy. They are not just fighting us as a people, they are at war with our very thoughts, our understanding of freedom and liberty, and how we turn those thoughts into action. Their minds are so profoundly different from ours that they want to kill us, it is impossible to make us agree with the Islamist philosophy of life. Our ways are not ‘natural’.
The Founding Fathers thought our ways are perfectly natural, these truths are self-evident, they are inalienable, and created by God. They thought this because they are based on Natural Law, which is based on nature itself. Natural laws come from nature, they just grow out of the process of being alive as a human on planet Earth. For example, if you don’t tie up your boat, it will drift away. Human nature determines other laws, such as the Golden Rule, which grows out of peoples’ social nature and the desire to live in peace. The theory of Natural Law suggests that if you let humans just live on their own somewhere, isolated from the rest of the world, they will develop certain laws that are similar to ours.
The Founding Fathers’ ideas about Natural Law came from the Enlightenment. Hobbs described nine natural laws, and reading them helps clarify why Islamists hate them:
FROM Wikipedia: "As used by Thomas Hobbes in his treatises Leviathan and De Cive, natural law is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may best be preserved.
There are nine Laws. The first two are expounded in chapter XIV ('of the first and second natural laws; and of contracts'); the others in chapter XV ('of other laws of nature').
(1) His first Law of nature is that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war."
RIGHT away with law number one we are in trouble with with Islamists. I certainly agree with Hobbs that this is a natural law, in the sense that an isolated human community would endeavor to live in peace because without peace they could not prosper or have offspring.
Islamists do not crave peace, they prefer war (jihad). Why? I think the answer is that Islamists take their philosophy from the Koran, which originated in a world of nomadic tribalism. Law number one makes good sense if the people are farmers, but not if they are nomads. Farmers need to live in peace with each other because they own a piece of land, it is their property with well demarcated boundaries, and since they are dedicated to the land as their source of livelihood, it makes sense that they would make peace with their neighbors.
Continue reading "THE ISLAMISTS' FUTILE WAR ON HUMAN NATURE" »
Here's what passes for the conventional wisdom on Iraq: The war was badly planned and therefore is failing miserably. As a result, America's only option is to fold up the entire operation and slink away, leaving the Iraqis to whatever bloodbath awaits them. We've reached the point of no return; the war is irretrievably lost; and no amount of rethinking or redoubling of effort will make any difference.
Meanwhile, Al Qaeda's early losses in the war on terror, including the deaths of major leaders such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and possibly Osama Bin Ladin himself, are completely irrelevant, since Al Qaeda is "evolving" constantly and is planning mass casualty attacks on the U.S.:
Al Qaeda terrorists are rebuilding their capabilities and continuing to plan mass-casualty attacks inside the United States, according to an intelligence assessment made public yesterday.
"We assess [al Qaeda] has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including a safe haven in ... Pakistan [tribal areas], operational lieutenants and its top leadership," according to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a consensus analysis of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
"Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here," the report stated.
Retired Vice Adm. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence whose office produced the NIE, said the United States will face a "persistent and evolving terrorist threat" in the next three years.
The seven-page public summary of the classified report said the United States is in a "heightened threat environment."
"They're working as hard as they can in positioning trained operatives here in the United States," Mr. McConnell said. "They have recruitment programs to bring recruits into [the tribal] region of Pakistan [who] could come to the United States, fit into the population and then use some of the training that they receive in the Pakistani area for explosives and so on."
Is the contrast between the defeatism of the media in viewing America's chances in the Iraq war and the endless optimism for Al Qaeda's chances stark enough for you?
Al Qaeda remains a threat because it is "continuing to plan" further attacks and "will intensify its efforts" and its members are "working as hard as they can."
But when it comes to the Iraq war, working harder, intensifying efforts, rethinking, and continuing to plan are off the table for the United States. The only option we have is to rip our leaders from limb to limb, metaphorically speaking, for having started the war. Since things look bleak now, they're going to stay that way no matter what America does, and its only option is to turn tail and run.
Don't tell me we've tried long enough and hard enough in Iraq and there's no point in continuing any longer. Nonsense. Al Qaeda's attacks on the U.S. predate the Iraq war, but nobody seems to be pulling out a stopwatch and insisting that Al Qaeda's chances of striking a mortal blow at the U.S. or the West are forever lost.
What a fitting metaphor is Harry Reid's surrender slumberthon in the Senate tonight. Harry Reid knows how to lose a war he has already declared lost. The solution is quite simple: Lie down, accept defeat, and make no effort to prevail.
In the real world, the margin between victory and defeat is rarely great, but the outcome matters a great deal. The margin of victory usually turns on one thing: motivation. If we are motivated to win; if we are determined; if we are constantly "rebuilding our capabilities" and "continuing to plan" and "intensifying our efforts and "working as hard as we can," then there are very few forces on earth that can stand in our way.
By the same token, if we are frequently announcing that we've already lost and that our cause is hopeless, and holding slumberthons to protest our own nation's continued effort to prevail, then we certainly can bring about our own defeat.
Update: Today brings a stunningly important speech from Senator John McCain (via Captain's Quarters):
Mr. President, we have nearly finished this little exhibition, which was staged, I assume, for the benefit of a briefly amused press corps and in deference to political activists opposed to the war who have come to expect from Congress such gestures, empty though they may be, as proof that the majority in the Senate has heard their demands for action to end the war in Iraq. The outcome of this debate, the vote we are about to take, has never been in doubt to a single member of this body. And to state the obvious, nothing we have done for the last twenty-four hours will have changed any facts on the ground in Iraq or made the outcome of the war any more or less important to the security of our country. The stakes in this war remain as high today as they were yesterday; the consequences of an American defeat are just as grave; the costs of success just as dear. No battle will have been won or lost, no enemy will have been captured or killed, no ground will have been taken or surrendered, no soldier will have survived or been wounded, died or come home because we spent an entire night delivering our poll-tested message points, spinning our soundbites, arguing with each other, and substituting our amateur theatrics for statesmanship. All we have achieved are remarkably similar newspaper accounts of our inflated sense of the drama of this display and our own temporary physical fatigue. Tomorrow the press will move on to other things and we will be better rested. But nothing else will have changed.
In Iraq, American soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are still fighting bravely and tenaciously in battles that are as dangerous, difficult and consequential as the great battles of our armed forces’ storied past. Our enemies will still be intent on defeating us, and using our defeat to encourage their followers in the jihad they wage against us, a war which will become a greater threat to us should we quit the central battlefield in defeat. The Middle East will still be a tinderbox, which our defeat could ignite in a regional war that will imperil our vital interests at risk there and draw us into a longer and far more costly war. The prospect of genocide in Iraq, in which we will be morally complicit, is still as real a consequence of our withdrawal today as it was yesterday.
During our extended debate over the last few days, I have heard senators repeat certain arguments over and over again. My friends on the other side of this argument accuse those of us who oppose this amendment with advocating “staying the course,” which is intended to suggest that we are intent on continuing the mistakes that have put the outcome of the war in doubt. Yet we all know that with the arrival of General Petraeus we have changed course. We are now fighting a counterinsurgency strategy, which some of us have argued we should have been following from the beginning, and which makes the most effective use of our strength and does not strengthen the tactics of our enemy. This new battle plan is succeeding where our previous tactics have failed, although the outcome remains far from certain. The tactics proposed in the amendment offered by my friends, Senators Levin a
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