A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the new government threat assessment called it a stark appraisal that will be discussed at the White House on Thursday as part of a broader meeting on an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate.
The official and others spoke on condition of anonymity because the secret report remains classified.
Counterterrorism analysts produced the document, titled “Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West.” The document pays special heed to the terror group’s safe haven in Pakistan and makes a range of observations about the threat posed to the United States and its allies, officials said.
Well obviously, it is no longer classified if the AP has it…
Allahpundit has more
If true, this is very disconcerting. Just more evidence that we have to take the gloves off and throw out Political Correctness if we going to win.
It is disconcerting but what is more disconcerting for me is that liberals still do not believe terrorism in general is a threat worthy of fighting. They just do not.
If we do not fight this Islamic extremism we will have to leave not only Iraq but all of the middle east and have a military presence in our cities to keep us safe. That is if the dems let us keep our military. DON’T VOTE DEMOCRAT is my advice to everyone.
How’s that for a free America?
btw…I like these new emoticons…**==**==(*)(*)
Come on guys.
This is a searing admonishment against how the Bush administration has been handling the GWOT, and you folks turn it into an anti-Dem rant?
I agree that we need to take of the kit gloves, but c’mon- Bush has hadled the post invasion occupancy horribly! The PC you mention is his fault. I give creit where credit is due, but he also deserves to at least share the credit for this also.
I’d agree. Some very bad mistakes have been made, and I don’t see much of a willingness to learn from them. That just compiounds the whole problem.
BonBon i like them too :d
=d> ^:)^ <:-p =))
Ted. I wasn’t trying to turn it into an anti-dem rant. I have been doing alot of reading. You know “know thy enemy” type thing. Here’s what I’ve come to see.
First of all I don’t think any of our politicians quite understand exactly what they face in Iraq or any of the middle eastern countries, including President Bush (although I still support him for no other reason than he’s willing to continue the fight.) The Shia have been the religious minority and the Sunni have been the secular ruling class. That was why we originally supported Saddam over the dreadful Ayotollah in Iran to begin with. That being said, they were grateful we took Saddam out but now they want to be the rulers of Islam. We gave them their chance for equality. Since one of the biggest Shia countries is Iran and Iran may have nukes we are in trouble.
The Sunni rulers like those in Saudi Arabia are afraid of the Shia but together they BOTH understand that they hate Western values, in particular the US, Britain and Israel.
US intelligence has revealed that some Sunni and Shia leaders (think Iran, Syria, and Lebanon) have gotten together, made a pact to create chaos in Iraq to get the US out so that Islam can begin it’s takeover. They have basically agreed to fight it out between themselves AFTER the Great Satan (as we are called) and the Little Satan (as Israel is called) are gone.
Now that is just a brief summary of what I’ve learned about our enemies in the middle east but everything that they do and say seems to go with that.
What I see here in the US is compliance from the left with that thought either because they don’t believe or they think that ultimately appeasement will prevail. I continue to support the fight over there rather than here because I really believe it will come if we don’t maintain our vigilance.
Robert….my favorite; (*) I always like to wish on a star.
There are a number of problems in this fight and the politicos from both sides are contributing to them. The Dems are naive in their belief that the Islamofascists will leave us alone if we pull out of Iraq. This is patently wrong based on their own comments. To even advocate pulling out of Iraq before the country is adequately stabilized is to embolden the enemy as it reenforces Osama Bin Laden’s statements that the US no longer has the stomach for a fight. This has proven to be the case in Lebanon after the barracks bombing and in Somalia following the Blackhawk down incident. One of the main reasons why Al Quaeda has been able to regain its strength has been the wonderful propaganda fodder our own politicians and media outlets have been giving them. It’s not hard to recruit soldiers for a battle when the enemy is already declaring that your victory is inevitable as Harry Reid et al have done for months. The continual harping about collateral damage has severely hampered our ability to fight this war as well. One of Murphy’s Laws of Combat is that incoming rounds have right of way. When the enemy is dressing as non combatants and using them as human shields, the prudent response is unfortunately to shoot them all and let Allah sort them out. The incessant (false)claims that we are massacreing civilians wantonly only aid in the enemy’s propoganda campaign.
If I had my druthers, we’d have gone into Iraq with 500,000 soldiers and run roughshod over the entire country until the enemy was lining up to surrender as they were during Desert Storm. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a possibility seeing as the active duty Army had been reduced from 900,000 to only 500,000 during the Clinton Administration. Not only were the numbers reduced, the Clinton administration put forth a policy that prior service members were not permitted to enlist as a means to keep from having to pay them on a scale commensurate with their experience. I know because I tried to enlist but was turned away. They also eliminated or substantially reduced reenlistment bonuses which resulted in losing many senior NCOs in hard to fill areas such as linguistics. Yes, we probably should’ve gone in with a larger force. Unfortunately that was not an available option. It has been said that we should use more special ops troops. While that sounds good, it is simply not practical because of the stringent standards that special operators have to meet to become special operators. Simply put, if every Tom, Dick and Harry could become spec ops troopers, exactly how special would spec ops be? Additionally it takes under 6 months to train the average infantry soldier, it takes over a year to train most special operations personnel and some as much as two years.
As for Al Quaeda regrouping and training in Pakistan, exactly what does anyone think we can do about it short of bombing the Waziristan region until it glows? We can’t bomb them back to the stone age, it would almost be an improvement for most of the region. Even if we did, we’d effectively be declaring war on Pakistan in the process. That would eliminate any possibility of further assistance from Islamabad. It would probably lead to an overthrow of the Pakistani regime and the radical Islamic regime that replaced Musharrif would begin supply Al Quaeda with even more modern weapons. The RPG is far less reliable or accurate as much of the more modern arms on the market, and let us not forget that Pakistan IS NUCLEAR ARMED. The best that we can hope for is to patrol the area over Waziristan and get lucky enough to find OSB with a satellite or Predator drone and then blow him off the map giving Musharrif full credit and spending the $25,000,000 reward to build a mosque or something for the village where he was eliminated. That would cause a number of things to happen including massive amounts of suspicion among the locals as to who had turned him in. To try and do a snatch operation on OSB at this point in time would be foolhardy at best. He’s too well protected and in an extremely remote and hostile area. We missed our chance to easily scrub the planet of this blight years ago. The stain has now set and we are going to have to resort to some pretty harsh measures to eliminate it. Pakistan doesn’t control Waziristan on anything but paper. With the level of radical Islam in Pakistan that is a situation that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
7- “If I had my druthers, we’d have gone into Iraq with 500,000 soldiers and run roughshod over the entire country until the enemy was lining up to surrender as they were during Desert Storm. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a possibility seeing as the active duty Army had been reduced from 900,000 to only 500,000 during the Clinton Administration.”
You mean at the end of the Cold War, for which was the reason for such a military maintenance in the first place?
No, the lack of troop stength was because Bush let go the generals who spoke up and told him we needed a larger force. So soon after 9/11, the President was not begging for support. A Draft would have been accepted by a large majority and we could have built up our forces to a level needed– but Bush wouldn’t do that, even when we were all roaming around with tiny plastic flags flying from our cars.
Don’t put this on Clinton. Bush failed to LEAD.
But then again, a leader would not have hyped intel and surpressed other, to get us to buy into the war.
Harris Interactive as Bush at 26% approval, Cheney at 21%. Republicans in Congress at 19%, and Dems in Congress at 31%.
The people just aren’t buying anything anymore the President you elected is saying. His polling numbers are at the same level Nixon was at the time of his impeachment.
Klinton was the one who decimated the military. Sorry.
2- “what is more disconcerting for me is that liberals still do not believe terrorism in general is a threat worthy of fighting.”
How different the same information can be perceived by different people…
What I see is that six years of money and human lives were absolutely wasted, because the situation appears figurewise exactly the same as in 2001. If you ask me, somebody did an outstanding shitty job!
PS: =)) =)) =))
10- “How different the same information can be perceived by different people:”
It’s really quit simple, Matthias. Far-right conservatives think any international problem can be corrected with a tough-guy show of force using our military. It’s impossible for them to see that this military solution to terrorism is actually compounding the problem.
Conservatives like to say that if we were to withdraw from Iraq, one of the consequences is that it may become a training ground for al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. Um, hello? It is right now!
:-w
7. We need more troops, huh: http://www.click2houston.com/investigates/10904749/detail.html
=))
I have decided that the only response that I can possibly give to the ones who insist on losing this fight is:
“If you aren’t willing to pay the price of victory, do you intend to pay the price of defeat? If so, exactly what size burka would you like?”
Why is it that the very people who speak out so violently against using military force or even maintaining a strong military are the first to advocate a draft? It is far more practical to maintain a strong military than to draft people whenever a strong military is needed. Let me give some very solid historical information about relying on a draft to supplement an undersized military.
Conscripts are substantially less enthusiastic, and hence less proficient, in their duties than volunteers.If you think the death toll from an all volunteer military is bad, imagine what it would be if 90% of the military were conscripts who don’t want to be there. Conscripts are far more likely to end up getting shot and cause their buddies to be injured as well. The reason why the death toll is as low as it is, (about the same as 5 weeks on Iwo Jima) is because the military is an all volunteer professional force.
Training and equipping a military takes time and money. Prior to WWII, the US had not maintained more than a minimal military. As a result, the military was unprepared for WWII. Supplies, including weapons weren’t available. Soldiers were training with broomsticks and boards instead of rifles. If the military wasn’t adequately equipped before the war started (as Democrats continually claim), exactly how much worse equipped would it have been had it had a sudden in flux of 200,000 to 400,000 conscripts? It would take two to four years to obtain the necessary equipment for a force that large, IF it is EVEN possible to produce the equipment to outfit a force that large in that time. Should those 200,000 to 400,000 service members be sent into combat with outdated or unsafe equipment?
I find it interesting that the same people who insist that a draft of unwilling or undesirable (criminals) individuals will improve a bad situation are people who have never served, nor have any knowledge about the military. These people lack the common sense to realize that they need to heed the advice that “it is better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”
“I have decided that the only response that I can possibly give to the ones who insist on losing this fight is:
“If you aren’t willing to pay the price of victory, do you intend to pay the price of defeat? If so, exactly what size burka would you like?”"
The preceding post is so completely ill informed.
The war in Iraq has increased terrorism worldwide. Check the stats and adjust your idiocy accordingly. We haven’t just “lost,” we’ve made matters infinitely worse.
Time for a new battle plan…
“This is a searing admonishment against how the Bush administration has been handling the GWOT, and you folks turn it into an anti-Dem rant?”
100% CORRECT.
“Why is it that the very people who speak out so violently against using military force or even maintaining a strong military are the first to advocate a draft?”
Easy, FAO. Because when YOUR children, and the children of a wide swath of American society including the elite and the political are faced with putting their lives on the line, people will be a HELL of a lot more concerned about WHERE they are sending their kids and if its absolutley, 100% NECESSARY to do so.
Bring the draft back.
There will be SO MUCH less willingness to go on damned-fool-mistake-wars like this filthy war we have in Iraq thanks to Bush and everysingle schmuck who voted for his dumb ass.
“The war in Iraq has increased terrorism worldwide. Check the stats and adjust your idiocy accordingly. We haven’t just “lost,”we’ve made matters infinitely worse.
Time for a new battle plan…”
100% Correct!!!!
Try reading some history books from before the liberal teachers’ unions took over the education in this country and screwed it up. Facts are facts. Bin Laden has said that he can’t win unless he forces us to give up. I stand by my argument that if you aren’t willing to pay the price for victory, are you willing to pay the price for defeat? YOU CAN NOT NEGOTIATE WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS ALREADY SAID THAT NOTHING LESS THAN YOUR TOTAL DESTRUCTION IS ACCEPTABLE. Who do you want to surrender to? and what terms do you want to get on your knees and beg for? I will happily pay for your one way ticket to Islamabad so that you can hike up to Waziristan and surrender in person to Osama Bin Laden. You can then get on your knees and beg for your life as his minions cut your head off. Have you read the reports of what’s going on in Pakistan? Al Quaeda and the Taliban are trying to take over Pakistan after the Pakistani government agreed to allow them semi autonomous control over Waziristan. They used the negotiated truce as time to rest, train and reequip. Learn something will you, there is no such thing as a negotiated peace with Muslim extremists. Accordng to them, Koran forbids them making peace with non Muslims and that lying to non Muslims isn’t even a sin. You simply can not negotiate with these people. If you haven’t noticed, the greatest killer of Muslims in the world is other Muslims. Honestly it does have historical precedent for the same thing happening during the 30 years war and the reformation in Europe between Christian sects. So I’m not bashing Muslims, I’m bashing radical Islamists.
We have deserted our friends in one war, and negotiated a truce for another one. The first one lead to the third world seeing us as cowards who run from a fight. You’re probably too young to remember the helicopters flying from the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. I AM NOT. Millions were slaughtered following that debacle. Almost as many were killed following our abandoning the South Vietnamese and Cambodians as were killed in Rwanda when Bill Clinton refused to do anything. The war we negotiated a TRUCE in is still a hot zone with over a division of US soldiers stationed on a DMZ (that’s DeMilitarized Zone for you history education deficient liberals) 53 YEARS after the truce was signed. As of the 80s there were still shots being fired back and forth across the DMZ.
In all honesty, I would love for there to actually be world peace. Unfortunately, that’s simply not going to happen. The longer it takes for the pacifists and anti war sociopaths to realize that as long as we refused to respond to terror attacks, they simply got more lethal and increased Al Quaeda’s reputation and ability. Once an enemy is strengthened adequately, it becomes much more difficult to destroy him. Had we taken Al Quaeda seriously in the early to mid 90s, we wouldn’t have to deal with them now. The more our misguided politicians continue to provide fodder for the Al Quaeda propaganda machine, they will continue to attack us. There are a few things that need to be done including telling Harry Reid, et al to shut the hell up with the political rhetoric and get back to legislating. The Constitution give Congress the ability to defund the military. It DOES NOT give Congress the ability to act as Commander in Chief. The founding fathers KNEW that you couldn’t run a war by committee. For that matter Thomas Jefferson wrote that the surest way to decimate a secret to people you didn’t want to know it was to reveal it to Congrress. Wars have to be run by decisive men with the ability to make tough decisions quickly and stand by them to see them through. For those who haven’t been in them, military staff meetings seldom consist of the CO asking what everyone thinks and then taking a vote on it. It consists of the CO telling his staff what is going to happen, and telling the staff members what each one is doing.
I also still stand behind my statement that if you want to really see body bags fill up, reenstate the draft. Nothing will send a body count up like putting a bunch of poorly trained, poorly equipped, unmotivated people into a combat zone. BTW unlike you spineless twits, I DID VOLUNTEER to go back onto active duty and serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. I even lost 35 lbs so I could pass the physical. The only reason why I wasn’t allowed to enlist was some disqualifying items in my medical history that I couldn’t get a waiver for. Things I wouldn’t have even had on my history if I had some doctors who were a bit less anxious to prescribe drugs for minor things. Paxil for anxiety over a job change in 2001 and hypertension meds over the stress of loosing my job in 2004 prevented me from returning to service. Both conditions were readily treated with diet and exercise, but because I was prescribed meds years ago, I was precluded from rejoining. So don’t try and lecture me about my children having to serve, I encourage EVERY young person to serve. JFK said “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” That folks is patriotism, not this whining and crying crap from the likes of Reid, Pelosi, et al. Their actions are bordering on UNCONSTITUTIONAL. They even KNOW that their actions are bordering on unconstitutional. Why else would they be putting forth a myriad of pointless non binding resolutions?
13- “If you aren’t willing to pay the price of victory, do you intend to pay the price of defeat? If so, exactly what size burka would you like?â€
So utterly hyperbolic that I don’t even think I need to respond to that.
I’m sorry that conservatives fear everything under the sun, be them radical islamics, blacks, liberals, gays, feminists, latinos, etc, but you all do need to get a grip. Really!
As for the draft, it’s a shared-sacrific thing. If the country wants to go to war, then EVERYONE, must have chips in the game. And everyone must know what’s going on. Which means, NOT HIDING CASUALITIES of the war and deny the media to honor the return of our fallen soldiers. This administration has played war on the cheap. They sent our Guard soliders with vietnam era equipment and armour. WTF?
Support the troops? Cowshit. They don’t give a fark.
Wow, for a man like GW Bush who skipped out on Vietnam via enlisting in the Guard and for Dick Cheney with 5 questionable deferments on Vietman, one has to ask? WTF are these two pretend cowboys doing sending sending our National Guard into international combat zones without proper equipment as well as extending tours beyond traditional military policy?
Tofu, exactly who controlled the White House during the 8 years prior to 2001? Who proposes the military budget? Who controlled the Congress during the 30 years prior to 1994 when the Republicans took over the House of Representatives? Who cut the military budgets virtually every year they were in control of the White House? You seem to think that there is a huge warehouse store ( I don’t see a Warmart listed in any phone directory.) where the Pentagon just pulls up a truck and has the store load up 200,000 bullet proof vests, 10,000 up armored Hummvees, 10,000,000 rounds of M16 ammo, etc etc etc. It takes time and MONEY to build, equip, and train an army. When a war has started (and according to the 9/11 commission, this war started long before 9/11, just far too many of us just weren’t paying attention.) you can’t hold your hand up and call a time out like you do in a baseball game. National Guard troops are the red headed step children of the military. I don’t think it’s right, it just happens to be the case. There is only so much money to go around, and the front line troops get the new stuff first. As I have said multiple times, when I was on active duty, we were still using steel helmets and didn’t have body armor despite the higher priority units being on their second or third issue of the equipment we hadn’t received our first issue of. For that matter, the National Guard is at least partially the responsibility of the states. Look at Texas, they are paying their National Guardsmen to actually GUARD the border.
The draft is NOT about shared sacrifice, and to use it as such shows the stupidity of those advocating it. Fighting a war is no time to be playing stupid social engineering experiments. Drafting people simply puts good people at unnecessary risk.
“As for the draft, it’s a shared-sacrific thing.”
Bullshit.
Like the people who sponsor the draft, it is nothing more than a political ploy- a scare tactic engineered to assist in further the fear mongering the Dems are sucessfully pulling off in the media. It is a tactic used to try to manuever the Dems towards a more solid position of power.
Don’t fucking sit there and tell me it’s about “shared-sacrifice” thing.
With people in the US who hold these views it’s a sure bet that we will lose this fight against Islamists. They are here and waiting to step up and take over. Sure I know there are those that don’t believe and that’s cool; think what you will. But as Dennis Miller says after the magnitude of the attack of 9/11 his disbelief that there are still people who don’t believe will have to experience another attack. That is the sad part.
What will that attack be? Homicide bombers on city buses nationwide? Dirty bombs set off in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Washington? Planes shot down from woods and fields behind the runways of major airports? We may have to institute the draft as we will be fighting them in our city streets. Get out of Iraq and bring the battle to our front doors. This is what liberals want and it may well be what they get. I for one have accepted that liberals do not care for our country. They would rather give it away than defend it. It’s a shame but it’s the truth.
FAO…I guess it boils down to are there more of us than them. Liberals don’t care and it’s up to the rest of us to defend all.
Toasted….fyi…Dick Cheney has a heart condition he’s had for life. He was disqualified. As for Bush, he served. Get over it.
21= “National Guard troops are the red headed step children of the military. I don’t think it’s right, it just happens to be the case. There is only so much money to go around, and the front line troops get the new stuff first. As I have said multiple times, when I was on active duty, we were still using steel helmets and didn’t have body armor despite the higher priority units being on their second or third issue of the equipment we hadn’t received our first issue of.”
That’s BS. If you were deployed as a combat soldier, you should have had current state-of-the-art gear. If you didn’t, you should have been screaming for it. In major wars, the USA has been able to quickly re-tool our economy to a war footing. With Iraq? Never happened. Bush just told our citizens to STFU and go shopping. Don’t blame Clinton- Bush and Cheney rushed us into a non-essential conflict in Iraq.
22- None of Cheney’s deferments were for ‘heart’ reasons. Get over your revisionist history. (i.e. lies)
Well, Tofu, You and I agree that being a front line soldier without proper equipment sucks. Unfortunately, there is only so much money to go around and GOD knows it’s SO MUCH more important to fund all of those wonderful liberal social science experiments, aka social welfare programs than to buy proper equipment for our soldiers. Hmmm Let’s see, Midnight basketball for people who should be home in bed, or improved body armor for soldiers in a combat role? Which shall it be?
As for screaming bloody murder for it, I did one better. I found ways to get everything I could through backdoor channels. I was almost a regular fixture at the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office on Ft Carson. My Bn CO nicknamed me “Lt Scrounge” because of how proficient I became at finding “unavailable” supplies. I actually carried an address book with the name and phone number for every Supply and Motor Sergeant in the 4th Infantry Division in my bdu pants’ cargo pocket. There are few things as unnerving as trying to leave a Bn Staff meeting and having the Bn Operations Officer (a Major) grab you by the shoulder and say “Lt, the CO wants to talk to you.” There are few things in life as amusing as seeing a Captain (who outranks you) sheepishly telling you that the Bn Executive Officer ( a Major) sent him down to find you and could you come back to the Bn Motor Office because they need your help. That was terribly funny.