CNN Video of Hasan This Yesterday Morning

13 dead, 30 others in stable condition. Heard this morning two of the dead were civilians. Also this from the AP (and commenters in the thread), “Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire, the base commander said Friday”

Nidal Hasan: Ft. Hood Shooter Participated in Homeland Security Disaster Preparation

The gunman who killed 12 people today at Ft. Hood appears, based on current media reports, to be Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan who was listed as a participant in a Homeland Security Policy Institute’s presidential transition task force last year.

The task force was not officially affiliated with the White House. It was a project of the Homeland Security Policy Institute, an independent thinktank housed at George Washington University, aimed at drafting policy recommendations for the incoming Obama administration.

'ALLAHU AKBAR'
WHY DID HE DO IT?
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan...
Was about to be deployed to Iraq, was 'upset about it'...
Gunman Made 'Outlandish' Comments Condemning Foreign Policy...
Strange behavior that morning...
'Emotional carnage'...
Dramatic photos from the scene...
Obama's Frightening Insensitivity Following Shooting...

The military general credited with capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says he has spoken with President Obama only once since taking command in Afghanistan.

“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC [video teleconference],” Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.

“That is correct,” the general replied.

This revelation comes amid the explosive publication of an classified report written by the general that said the war in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure” if more troops are not added next year. Yet, the debate over health care reform continues to dominate Washington’s political discussions. On Monday, the White House announced President Obama would travel to Denmark to lobby the International Olympic Committee to select his hometown of Chicago for the 2016 summer games.

Former U.S. Ambassador for the United Nations John R. Bolton said the lack of communication with the general was indicative of Mr. Obama’s misplaced priorities.

We have been laughing on our back channel at BLACKFIVE about the Biden plan to have our secret squirrels locate al Qaeda and then let our magic ninjas swoop in and take them out. The idea is ludicrous for many reasons, but mostly because we don’t have the will to do the dirty trickery necessary to pull it off.

Ever since we eviscerated the CIA in the Carter era and destroyed any ability to do human intelligence we have relied on electronic intercepts and satellite imagery for our weak and generally wrong “intelligence”. While those tools can be useful, absent a humint capability, they are woefully inadequate. So the idea that we could rely on them is a joke I ‘m surprised they have the stones to make. Targeted strikes by UAVs in Pakistan have been successful, but expanding that into a theater-wide, pipehitter free fire zone is not gonna happen.

If I thought for a minute that they were serious about actually resourcing this and providing the networks of spies, warlords, assassins, and shady characters with satchels of cash it would take to make it work, I might could get behind it. But does anyone see the Obama administration, which right now is thinking about prosecuting the CIA for being mean to terrorists, doing any of that? All right, get up off the floor.

Biden’s plan is a way to cut and run, while maintaining that you are doing neither. That is why it is becoming increasingly likely. I think the more we say Biden plan though, the more damage we do to it’s viability. Seriously, just say it out loud…Biden plan. It makes my brain cry out in pain.

Let me know your thoughts on this.  My first reaction to this was:

It is not just Iran that we are ignoring, but every credible threat as well as potential threat.  It is as if the policy is to ignore it in the hopes that it will just go away, kind of like bin laden, al qaeda, etc.,  in the 90’s.  We all know how well that worked out!

“He is trying to fix the financial markets but does not have an assistant treasury secretary for financial markets. He is spending more money on transportation than anyone since Dwight D. Eisenhower but does not have his own inspector general watching how the dollars are used. He is fighting two wars but does not have an Army secretary.

He sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Africa to talk about international development but does not have anyone running the Agency for International Development. He has invited major powers to a summit on nuclear nonproliferation but does not have an assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation. He has vowed to improve government efficiency but does not have the chief performance officer he promised.

‘If you’re running G.M. without half your senior executives in place, are you worried? I’d say your stockholders would be going nuts,’ said Terry Sullivan, a professor at the University of North Carolina and executive director of the White House Transition Project, which tracks appointments.”

The assessments about troop needs came as the top American commander in the region, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been working to complete a major war strategy review, and as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, described a worsening situation in Afghanistan despite the recent addition of 17,000 U.S. troops ordered by the Obama administration and the extra security efforts surrounding the presidential election.

A credible election result is important for the country and for U.S. President Barack Obama, who has made stabilizing Afghanistan a top foreign policy priority.

Obama already plans to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 68,000 by year’s end, more than double the 32,000 the United States had there at the end of 2008.

Mullen declined to comment on U.S. media reports that McChyrstal might recommend additional increases of 15,000, 25,000 or 45,000 troops.

He said the United States faced a multi-year effort to establish security and enable Afghan forces to maintain it.

“I don’t see this as a mission of endless drift. I think we know what to do, we’ve learned a lot of lessons from Iraq, focusing on the Afghan people,” Mullen said.

Asked about an exit strategy, Mullen said: “I’ve said from a military perspective I believe we’ve got to start to turn this thing around from a security standpoint in the next 12 to 18 months.”

“And I think after that we’d have a better view of how long it’s going to take and what we need to do.”

Flashback 2007:

Kansas Rep. Nancy Boyda is defending her decision to step out of a hearing room last week while a retired Army general testified about U.S. progress in Iraq.

But Republicans on Monday accused Boyda of refusing to listen to the positive aspects of the Bush administration’s new Iraq strategy.

Boyda, a freshman Democrat from Topeka, said she left the House Armed Services Committee hearing on Friday for about 10 minutes during the testimony of retired Gen. Jack Keane.

“There was only so much that you could take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while,” Boyda said after she returned, according to a transcript of the hearing. “So I think I am back and maybe can articulate some things – after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.”

Keane had testified that since the troop surge began, U.S. forces “are on the offensive and we have the momentum.” He also said that security has improved in every neighborhood and district in and around Baghdad, and that “cafes, pool halls, coffee houses that I visited are full of people.”

When Boyda returned to the hearing, she ridiculed Keane’s description of Iraq “as in some way or another that it’s a place that I might take the family for a vacation – things are going so well – those kinds of comments will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country instead of saying, ‘Here’s the reality of the problem.’”

Where is she now?

Why, she’s at the Pentagon as a new assistant deputy secretary of defense!

Former U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda has started a new job at the Pentagon.

Boyda was sworn in Monday as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for manpower and personnel issues.

Dubbed Operation Khanjar, or “Strike of the Sword,” the military push was described by officials as the largest and fastest-moving of the war’s new phase. British forces last week led similar missions to fight and clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar provinces.

“Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces,” Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.

Southern Afghanistan is a Taliban stronghold but also a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.

The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year’s end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008, but still half of much as are now in Iraq.

A couple of surprising words were missing from President Barack Obama’s 55-minute news conference on Wednesday: “Iraq” — and “Afghanistan.”

Also MIA: “Korea,” “Pakistan,” “soldiers,” “surge” and “war” — as well as the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

The omissions were partly a result of the short attention span of the press, which did not ask about those topics after the president did not mention them in his opening statement.

But the silence on those subjects also provides a striking illustration of one of the singular differences between Obama and his predecessor.