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Entries Tagged as 'Terrorism'

Taliban in high-level talks with Karzai government, sources say

October 6th, 2010 · Defense, Homeland Security, National Security, Terrorist Threat, War on Terrorism

By Karen DeYoung, Peter Finn and Craig Whitlock – Wednesday, October 6, 2010; 10:36 AM

Taliban representatives and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai have begun secret, high-level talks over a negotiated end to the war, according to Afghan and Arab sources.

The talks follow inconclusive meetings, hosted by Saudi Arabia, that ended more than a year ago. While emphasizing the preliminary nature of the current discussions, the sources said that for the first time they believe that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mohammad Omar.

“They are very, very serious about finding a way out,” one source close to the talks said of the Taliban.

Although Omar’s representatives have long publicly insisted that negotiations were impossible until all foreign troops withdraw, a position seemingly buoyed by the Taliban’s resilience on the battlefield, sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops on an agreed timeline.

The leadership knows “that they are going to be sidelined,” the source said. “They know that more radical elements are being promoted within their rank and file outside their control. . . . All these things are making them absolutely sure that, regardless of [their success in] the war, they are not in a winning position.”

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Kagan’s recusals take her out of action in half of the Supreme Court’s cases: A Waste of Tax Payer’s Money

October 4th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government, Government Control, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Supreme Court, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By Robert Barnes – Monday, October 4, 2010; 3:05 AM

Elena Kagan begins hearing cases as the Supreme Court’s 112th justice Monday morning. But anyone who wants to see her in action needs to be sharp.

Kagan will hear the first case argued before the court, then slip quietly through the burgundy velvet curtains behind the bench. She’ll be out of the action in all three cases : Tuesday. Her chair will be empty when the court returns next Tuesday and she’ll put in a half-day the next day.

Kagan’s old job as solicitor general – the “10th justice” – is initially making it hard to do her new job as the ninth justice.

Kagan, 50, has recused herself from 25 of the 51 cases the court has accepted so far this term, all as a result of her 14-month tenure as solicitor general, the government’s chief legal representative in the Supreme Court and the nation’s lower appellate courts.

The recusals are one measure of how integral the “SG” is to the court’s workings. Much of the court’s caseload comes from challenges to federal statutes or government policies that the solicitor general must defend. The court also often asks for the government’s view on whether a case is ripe for review.

Kagan is recusing herself from cases in which she had a role in drafting a brief for the Supreme Court, or when she was actively involved in a case in the lower courts. She took herself out of such deliberations when President Obama nominated her last May, so the pace of her recusals should slow as the court over the next few months completes the work of filling the term’s docket.

But initially, Kagan’s absence will affect some important corporate and employment- discrimination cases, as well as a highly anticipated review of one of Arizona’s attempts to crack down on illegal immigrants.

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The Trade and Tax Doomsday Clocks: The worst is yet to come. The clock is ticking.

October 4th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Money Lost, Money Matters, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

Click to enlarge

By Donald L. Luskin

The nearby chart is an update of one I showed on this page in early July. It depicts how the stock market over the last year and a half has followed a path eerily similar to that of 1937. This week corresponds on the chart to mid-August 1937, when the cumulative effects of massive hikes in personal and corporate tax rates, severe monetary tightening, and aggressive business-bashing by the Roosevelt administration tipped the economy into the “depression inside the Depression.” From there, stocks were in for the longest and second-deepest bear market in history.

Thankfully, we’re not repeating all the mistakes of 1937. But Congress and the Obama administration are flirting dangerously with one of them by failing to extend the expiring low tax rates for all Americans. What’s worse, we’re close to repeating the mother of all policy errors, the one made not in 1937 but in 1930—the one that started the Great Depression. We’re on track to resurrect the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

Let’s start with taxes. If today’s low rates expire at year-end per current law, that would at a stroke reduce after-tax income for every working American, the average reduction being 3.3% according to the Tax Policy Center. Do the math: 94% of income goes to consumption, and consumption is 70% of gross domestic product. All else being equal, if the Bush tax cuts don’t get extended, that’s a 2.3% hit to 2011 GDP. That means instant double-dip recession, starting at midnight, Dec. 31.

Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot analyzes a disturbing trend. Also, columnist Kimberley A. Strassel reviews the political prospects for the “moderate” Democrats that voted with Pelosi.

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Mexico’s mayors becoming casualties of drug wars; many towns without leaders

October 4th, 2010 · Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Immigration, Immigration, National Security, War on Terrorism

By Anne-Marie O’Connor and William Booth Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 3, 2010; 4:10 AM

TANCITARO, MEXICO – Gustavo Sanchez worked hard in this Mexican farming town at one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. He was a mayor. Last weekend, Sanchez and a town councilman disappeared. Their bodies were found Monday, the skulls smashed open in the fifth killing of a mayor in six weeks.

According to supporters at city hall, Sanchez was honest and brave. Less than a year ago, the 36-year-old schoolteacher and martial-arts instructor agreed to lead this prosperous western community after the previous mayor abruptly quit, citing threats by drug traffickers, and took the entire town council with him.

Sanchez’s short political career ended on the side of a muddy, lonely road, his handsome, mustachioed face unrecognizable. His mutilated colleague Rafael Equihua lay dead beside him.

At least 11 mayors have been killed this year across Mexico, as a spooky sense of permanent siege takes hold in the many communities where rival mafias fight for control of local drug sales, marijuana and poppy fields, methamphetamine labs and billion-dollar smuggling routes to the United States.

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Iraq breaks record for longest time with no government

October 3rd, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Selling Out the US, Treason

By Leila Fadel  Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 1, 2010; 1:41 AM

BAGHDAD – Iraq on Friday will surpass the previous record for the country that has gone the longest between holding a parliamentary election and forming a government, experts say.

The Netherlands had held that unfortunate honor after a series of failed attempts left the country without an elected government for 207 days in 1977, according to Christopher J. Anderson, director of the Institute for European Studies at Cornell University.

Iraqis have now spent 208 days with no new government and, while the Dutch weathered their storm, Iraq’s weak institutions may not hold up against mounting pressure and a steady level of violence.

As politicians jockey for positions and broker deals in backroom meetings, many Iraqis now say they wonder why they risked their lives to vote on March 7. U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that the lack of an elected government has limited Iraq’s ability to make national decisions and could eventually eat away at hard-earned security gains. The most optimistic of Iraqi politicians expect the process to take at least another month, if not much longer.

“There is no difference with the Iraqi case, except that the Netherlands had strong, functioning institutions and a caretaker government that continued to govern,” said Joost Hiltermann, a Dutch national and an expert on Iraq at the International Crisis Group. “Iraq has very weak institutions and a caretaker government that can do very little. This makes for a potentially highly unstable and precarious situation.”

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New focus on Europeans who have traveled to Pakistan to train at militant camps

September 30th, 2010 · Defense, Homeland Security, National Security, War on Terrorism

By Peter Finn and Greg Miller Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 30, 2010; 12:16 AM

The detention in Afghanistan of a German citizen of Afghan descent – reportedly a source of information about potential terrorist plots against targets in Europe and possibly the United States – has renewed focus on a stream of Europeans who have traveled to Pakistan in recent years for training at militant camps.

Just as American officials have been sounding an alarm about the radicalization of U.S. citizens involved in plots against the homeland, European Union officials have warned that a new generation of Western citizens, including whole families, have traveled to Pakistan and that some appear determined to return home to carry out terrorist attacks.

“A not insignificant number of radicalized E.U. nationals and residents are traveling to conflict areas or attending terrorist training camps and returning to Europe,” said Gilles de Kerchove, the E.U.’s counterterrorism coordinator, in a report to be released Friday.

In part to disrupt possible plots against Europe, the CIA this month escalated its drone campaign in the North and South Waziristan regions of Pakistan, where many of the expatriate militants are thought to be based. U.S. officials declined to discuss whether information provided by Ahmed Siddiqui, the German in custody at the U.S. air base at Bagram, has heightened concern about attacks.

There was, however, a heavy police presence in parts of London on Wednesday, including around Buckingham Place and Trafalgar Square. Victoria Station was briefly evacuated. In Paris on Tuesday, the Eiffel Tower was evacuated for the second time in two weeks.

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Pakistan blocks NATO’s Afghan-bound supply trucks after airstrike kills 3

September 30th, 2010 · Defense, National Security, War on Terrorism

By Karin Brulliard  Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 30, 2010; 12:49 PM

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – Pakistani officials said Thursday that NATO supply trucks had been blocked from entering Afghanistan at a key border post in response to an early morning NATO airstrike that they said killed three Pakistani border security soldiers.

According to a Pakistani military statement, the attack occurred at 5:25 a.m. at the Mandata Kandaho border post about 600 feet inside Upper Khurram agency, a region in Pakistan’s tribal belt that borders Afghanistan’s Khost province. After the helicopters “engaged through cannon fire” with the post, the six soldiers stationed there fired warning shots with their rifles, and the helicopters responded with two missiles that destroyed the post, according to the Pakistani account.

Within hours, the border crossing at Torkham had been ordered closed by federal officials, and NATO supply trucks were idling there, according to transporters stuck at the pass and officials in the region, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The pass, which lies north of Peshawar, is the most important entry point for coalition forces’ fuel and supplies, most of which come into Pakistan through the southern port of Karachi.

“We will have to see whether we are allies or enemies,” Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said of the border incident, without mentioning the blockade.

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Pentagon officials say their spending is bloated

September 30th, 2010 · Deception, Defense, Economy, Obama Nominees, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, War on Terrorism

By Walter H. Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 28, 2010; 9:18 PM

Top Defense Department officials told Congress Tuesday that Pentagon overspending must be curtailed in order to maintain the current size and strength of the armed forces.

Explaining the reasons for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’s ambitious program to reduce costs, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “headquarters and support bureaucracies, military and civilian alike . . . have swelled to cumbersome proportions, grown over-reliant on contractors and become accustomed to operating with little consideration of costs.”

To decrease what Lynn described as the “department’s massive overhead costs and structure,” he said that task forces are at work to find $100 billion in cuts over the next five years by “targeting unnecessary excess and duplication in the defense enterprise.” Reaching that goal would enable the money to be spent on warfighter needs and reduce funding increases, he said.

Expanding on statements by Gates, Lynn said contractors had grown to 39 percent of the Pentagon workforce from 26 percent since 2001 because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the availability of supplemental funding. “Many of these recently outsourced service support and advisory contractors are actually carrying out functions that should be performed by government employees,” he said.

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Good intentions aside, should the Pentagon fund cancer research?

September 28th, 2010 · Accountability, Corruption, Deception, Defense, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, National Security, Non-Transparency, Tax Dollars, Taxes, War on Terrorism

By Walter Pincus – Monday, September 27, 2010; 7:53 PM

Top Pentagon officials are to appear before the Senate and House Armed Services committees Tuesday and Wednesday to support Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates‘ ambitious effort to reduce Defense Department overhead by $100 billion in the next five years and to eliminate redundant spending.

Although members of Congress generally welcomed Gates’ approach, the few who faced immediate reductions that affected their constituencies were less supportive. For example, Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) has called for Gates to provide “full justification” for the plan to eliminate the Joint Forces Command located in the Norfolk area.

The Pentagon has described the command, established to encourage collaboration in training and deployment among the services, as becoming “over time an unneeded extra layer and step in the force management process.”

Two Joint Forces Command programs over the past two weeks raise questions about its unique relevance. In mid-September it sponsored, along with the National Defense University, a two-day conference entitled “Rise and Fragmentation of Great Powers,” held at Old Dominion University. Analysts and academics talked about Russia in particular.

Last week at Camp Pendleton, Calif., it sponsored, along with the Office of Naval Research, an interactive training tool called “Future Immersive Training Environment.” There, Marines spent time with actors and others in realistic war scenarios replicating what they may face in Afghanistan.

I won’t mention the approximately $500 million spent annually on military bands.

But there are even more controversial budget-cutting targets within the Defense Department’s $700 billion budget if Gates really meant what he said when he indicated that even spending on health issues would be reviewed. For example, he might take a look at the roughly $200 million the Defense Department spends each year on cancer research through programs run primarily by contractors.

I am not against cancer research – far from it. But I raise the Pentagon’s cancer-research program because it is a textbook illustration of how money over the years for worthwhile and some not-so-worthwhile government undertakings have been funded through the Pentagon because it is so easy to get Congress to approve money in the defense budget. Be honest: Items get approved in the name of defense that would never make it if found in the budgets of other departments.

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2 dozen FBI agents cheated on counterterrorism test, Justice Dept. finds

September 28th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Homeland Security, National Security, War on Terrorism

By Jeff Stein Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 27, 2010; 10:19 PM

The Justice Department said Monday that it found almost two dozen FBI agents, including supervisors, had cheated on an exam to test their knowledge of new counterterrorism procedures. It suggested that the scandal might eventually spread far beyond the few offices it investigated.

“We believe the extent of the cheating related to this test was greater than the cases we detailed in this report,” Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reported.

The open-book test was administered to about 20,000 employees to make sure they understood the 2008 Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, promulgated as a result of new rules implemented after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Twenty-two agents “cheated or acted improperly in some manner related to the exam,” Fine’s office said after an investigation of four field offices, one resident agency and two headquarters components.

He added that “the amount of cheating that we identified in our limited interviews cannot be extrapolated to the entire population of FBI test-takers,” but he urged the FBI to investigate further.

The probe began last September when the bureau heard that three top managers from its Washington Field Office took the exam together and that field-office lawyers were present during the test-taking. Other allegations of misconduct and irregularities, Fine said, began to turn up.

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