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Confederate Yankee

May 08, 2007

Six Arrested in New Jersey Islamic Terror Plot

Six men from New Jersey have been arrested in an alleged terror plot against soldiers at Fort Dix, according investigators.
Investigators said the men planned to use automatic weapons to enter Fort Dix and kill as many soldiers as they could at the N.J. base. Fort Dix was just one of several military and security locations allegedly scouted by this group, authorities said.
[snip]
The six suspects arrested Monday night will face terror conspiracy charges. Three of the men are brothers, all believed to be islamic radicals. Authorities have told Newschannel 4 that some of the men were born in Albania and the former Yugoslavia. Investigators said most of the suspects have spent several years here in the U.S.

According to WPVI, the six men attempted to purchase fully automatic AK-47s from an arms dealer working with the FBI. WABC describes the six men as all being ethnic Albanians. Their immigration status was not clear from news accounts. WCAU notes that the men traveled from South Jersey to the Pocano mountains "to practice firing automatic weapons." If accurate, this means that investigators allowed the men to obtain the fully automatic AK-47s before affecting an arrest. CBS News states that this was a "homegrown" terror plot, and that there were no known ties to any international terror organization, including al Qaeda.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger presents perhaps the most comprehensive account to date, which confirms that the attack busted in the planning stages was an intended act of jihad, that the men were arrested while attempting to purchase the AK-47s from the FBI informant dealer, and that the men did not practice with automatic weapons in the Poconos, but instead, used paintball guns and other "real weapons."

The Star-Ledger also shows that while the men may not have been part of an international terror cell, they were certainly inspired by al Qaeda:

The would-be attackers, ethnic Albanians who had been under surveillance by the FBI for months, practiced by shooting paintball guns and real weapons in a rural area of the Poconos, one source said. They also allegedly watched jihadist videos in which Osama bin Laden urged them toward martyrdom.
"They were prepared to die," said the law enforcement source. "We became increasingly convinced this was for real and these guys were ready to roll."
The FBI had the group under surveillance for more than a year, the source said. The men had scouted out Dover Air Force Base and Fort Monmouth before settling on Fort Dix, a base that is used to mobilize troops to Iraq, said the source.
The men - several of whom were in the same family - had videotaped their practice sessions in the Poconos, the source said. That videotape, in which they railed against America, led to their arrests.
The men made the mistake of bringing it to a retail store, seeking to get a copy burned to a DVD, according to one of the sources. A store employee who later watched the tape called the FBI who began immediately investigating.

The one question I have about the above Star-Ledger account is perhaps a quibble, but something I'd like to have cleared up; did they watch a generally addressed martyrdom video extolling Muslims towards jihad, or as this account states, did they watch a video urging them towards martyrdom? I suspect the former, as if the latter is the case, it would seem to prove a direct al Qaeda link.

Note that the Islamists here were anything but intelligent, bringing their homegrown jihadi video to a retail store to burn it to DVD, where a concerned and alert employee contacted the FBI, which launched the investigation.

I hope President Bush will quietly award a Presidential Medal of Freedom to both the video store employee and the gun dealer for their roles in helping break up this attack in the planning stages.

Update: Heh. Did the tip come from Tony Soprano?

Update: Allah is tracking this story at well over at Hot Air.

Update: CNN reports that one of the suspects was Jordanian and another was Turkish, with the rest being Yugoslavian.

The Washington Post adds that the suspects have lived in the United States for "several years."

CBS3 provides more detail on the suspects:

Sources said the suspects included:
- Three brothers from Yugoslavia who came to the country illegally and were living in Cherry Hill.
- A Yugoslavian native who was living legally in Williamstown.
- A Turkey native who was arrested in the 2100 block of Tremont Street in Philadelphia
- A Jordan National living in Pennsauken who was working as a cab driver. He was taken into custody while in his cab at the Philadelphia International Airport.
Officials said the men attempted to purchase AK-47s from an arms dealer secretly cooperating with law enforcement agents.
Sources said the suspects trained for the plot in an area near Routes 30 and 380 in the Poconos. The suspects apparently had maps and had done surveillance on Fort Dix in preparation for the plot.

If the CBS3 account is correct, at least three of the six plotters were here illegally, and all were here for a least a year, if not several years.

Update: I formally move that we call this the "Duka, Duka, Mohammed Jihad."

Update: A total of ten men were seen on the video that launched the investigation, as reported in this document obtained by The Smoking Gun.

Update: A sampling of liberal blog reaction: The Agonist: "...when are these insignificant cases going to stop being blown out of proportion?" Talking Points Memo: "It's always hard for me to see how these aren't as serious as they appear. But there is a record." Middle Earth Journal: "This will probably turn out to be another José Padilla moment but it will be good for a lot of ape like chest pounding by the wingnut islamophobes." Mahablog: "The basic story is that six Islamic radicals were planning to attack Fort Dix and kill soldiers as part of a jihad against America. This is what the Department of Justice is saying, anyhow, so take that with a grain of salt."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:52 AM | Comments (34) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

May 07, 2007

Kathleen Sebelius' Political Disaster

Our hearts go out to those in Greensburg, Kansas who have lost family members and friends as a result of this natural disaster. If you know of displaced survivors who have yet to contact their loved ones, or wish to contribute to disaster relief, please contact the American Red Cross.

* * *

I wonder just how accurate this headline is: Iraq War Hampers Kansas Cleanup.

The rebuilding effort in tornado-ravaged Greensburg, Kansas, likely will be hampered because some much-needed equipment is in Iraq, said that state’s governor.
Governor Kathleen Sebelius said much of the National Guard equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies is gone. She said not having immediate access to things like tents, trucks and semitrailers will really handicap the rebuilding effort.
The Greensburg administrator estimated that 95 percent of the town of 1500 was destroyed by Friday's tornado.
The Kansas National Guard has about 40 percent of the equipment it is allotted because much of it has been sent to Iraq.

It is true, as Marc Danziger notes, that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said just weeks ago that:

...she fears deployments of Kansas National Guard troops and equipment could hurt the state’s ability to react to disasters on the homefront.

In the same KCBS article cited above, Kansas Rep. Lee Tafanelli (R), a member of the Kansas National Guard, notes that that Kansas Army National Guard still retained 70-80 percent of its manpower.

If the figures provided by the Democratic governor and the Republican State rep and Guardsman are correct, the Army National Guard in Kansas still retains 40%-50% of their heavy equipment and 70%-80% of their manpower, which should be more than adequate to handle geographically narrow and isolated events such as the Greensburg tornado and others that hit Kansas this past Friday.

But please, don't take my word for it. Listen to what the state adjutant general had to say:

"We've been over the town twice now — all of our partners around the state, the experts from cities with technical search-and-rescue," Maj. Gen. Todd Bunting, the state's adjutant general, told CNN Monday morning. "We've done everything we can.
"Some of this rubble is 20, 30 feet deep. That's where we've spent all our efforts, and we'll do it again today."

As Maj. Gen. Bunting notes, they've already been over Greensburg twice, and they are going through the destroyed town of 1,500 again.

While it was no doubt comforting to have the additional manpower and equipment from the National Guard available, it is the state and local emergency personnel with trained search-and-rescue experts that are our best resources for this and similar situations.

Despite an inaccurate claim made by Sebelius on CNN, National Guard soldiers are not first responders, and they never have been. National Guardsmen can only be called to duty in governor-declared states of emergency, or federally, by presidential order.

Our first responders were, and remain, our local and state police, fire, and rescue units. The National Guard is now, and has always been, a reserve force.

Despite the reduction of certain kinds of National Guard equipment in state armories, I suspect that the personnel and equipment that remain at Gov. Sebelius' disposal is more than sufficient to handle the effort at hand. On some level, she seems to agree. Of thousands of National Guardsmen available, she has apparently deployed just 110.

It seems apparent that her anti-war pronouncements and appointments have as much to do with her claims as does any actually shortfall of equipment, and I suspect her words have as much to do with Sebelius' political hopes as it does the reality of Greenburg's battered ground.

Update: Reality bites... for Sebelius, that is:

Pentagon officials are disputing claims that the Iraq war has spread National Guardsmen too thin to respond to a Kansas tornado after the governor and some Democratic lawmakers complained that the Guard are not equipped to help displaced residents.
Kansas has 88 percent of its state Guard forces available, and 83,000 Guardsmen from neighboring states are also on the ready should the state request their assistance, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday, citing National Guard Bureau statistics.
According to Whitman, the Kansas Guard have available 352 Humvees, 94 cargo trucks, 72 dump trucks, 62 five-ton trucks, 13 medium-haul trucks and trailers and 152 2 1/2-ton trucks, a surplus, he noted.

How many of the Kansas National Guard's available 83,000+ men, 393 trucks and 352 Humvees would be required in a town of 1,500?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:30 PM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

IED Explodes, Kills One in... Vegas?

Let hope that what happens here, stays here:

One man was killed and another person escaped injury Monday in an explosion of a small device left atop a vehicle outside a Las Vegas Strip resort, authorities said.
Police said the blast was not a terrorist act, but an apparent murder of a hotel employee.
"We believe the victim of this event was the intended target," said Officer Bill Cassell, a Las Vegas police spokesman, who called the victim an employee of the Luxor hotel-casino. The person who narrowly escaped injury was also a hotel employee, Cassell said.

I'm admittedly late to this story, and rather thankful I am, otherwise, I might have erroneously reported with other media and bloggers the apparent pre-mature detonation of a backpack bomber. I don't hold any of the bloggers commenting on this case responsible for the erroneous reporting, which seems to be a case of the professional media once again trying to rush out a story before actually having the facts of the incident verified.

This was, if the second round of reports is accurate (and the second round of reporting is generally more accurate than the first, if still often imperfect), most likely a targeted assassination, and not a terrorist with a case of premature detonation.

Using explosives is a rather rare method of carrying out an assassination, precisely due to the threat of unwanted collateral damage.

The KTLA account of the detonation linked by Allah is particularly frightening if accurate, in that it describes the device detonating as the apparent target attempted to move it.

It could be that the device was command-detonated and that the bomber chose that exact moment to detonate the bomb, but the other possibility is that the bomb had a motion-activated trigger. This means that anyone else who may have attempted to move a device so armed (from a hotel security officer to an opportunistic thief, to a "good Sam") could have been killed.

I've sent in an info request to the ATF Arson and Explosives Division seeking clarification of what kind of trigger they have recovered, but considering that the answer would reveal part of an on-going investigation, I don't anticipate any sort of a response.

Update: Averill P. Graham, US DOJ, writes back this morning to state that the correct way of requesting information is a dead-tree FOIA request. Frankly, I'm not that interested.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:03 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

May 05, 2007

Hack L.A. Times Reporter Smears Thompson

It's rather pathetic how Tina Duant of the Los Angeles Times attempted to label Fred Thompson a racist for playing the role of a white supremacist in a handful of episodes of a crappy television series 19 years ago. The concept of "acting" seems to slip her mind.

The Times has been losing readership and credibility for years for junk articles like this. I'm glad their doing their best to help that trend continue.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

May 04, 2007

Because You Never Know When Global Warming Is Going to Fly Into a Building

A ship of fools, if ever there was one:

Senior House Republicans are complaining about Democrats' plans to divert "scarce" intelligence funds to study global warming.
The House next week will consider the Democrat-crafted Intelligence Authorization bill, which includes a provision directing an assessment of the effects that climate change has on national security.
"Our job is to steal secrets," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
"There are all kinds of people analyzing global warming, the Democrats even have a special committee on this," he told The Washington Times. "There's no value added by the intelligence community here; they have no special expertise, and this takes money and resources away from other threats."
Democrats, who outnumber Republicans on the committee, blocked the minority from stripping the warming language from the bill.
Intelligence panel Chairman Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat, said the climate-change study is one of several shifts his party has made to intelligence policy.
"We're concerned that global warming might impact our ability to maintain national security," he told The Times, describing the idea as "cutting edge."

As Ace notes, Reyes, the chairman of Intelligence Panel, is the man that doesn't know the difference between Shia and Sunni, or or which al Qaeda is, and had no clue at all about the nature of Hezbollah.

Of course, he belong to a Democratic House whose Speaker doesn't even know that al Qaeda is in Iraq, so that bit of incompetence is sadly par for the course.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:29 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Lost War Updates

A. J. Strata reports that al Qaeda in Iraq has lost its second caliphate capital in recent months, first losing their stronghold in Ramadi, and now, their base in the Tahrir neighborhood of Baqouba.

The U.S. military has confirmed that not one, but two senior al Qaeda commanders were killed north of Baghdad earlier this week.

Bill Roggio notes the continued expansion of the Anbar Salvation Council, and notes that one of the original tribes that supported al Qaeda in Iraq has flipped and joined the war against the terrorists. Ten Sunni tribes have turned to war against al Qaeda in the last month alone.

And last but by no means least, Lawrence Kaplan notes what most of us have long known: Congressional Democrats approach the Iraq War from a position of willful ignorance.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:28 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Virus Alert

Vast swathes of the Internet are mysteriously down today, affected by a peculiar virus specifically targeting keyboard drivers at university women's studies programs, academic journals, and certain political Web sites around the world. The virus corrupts specific DLLs and renders keyboards inoperable.

The virus appears to be emanating from a specific CNN.com Web server.

Computer users from these locations loose the ability to use their keyboards after viewing this particular story, where al Qaeda terrorists attempted to turn a all-girls school under construction north of Baghdad into a giant bomb.

The virus, dubbed "Cognitive Diss," does not yet have a patch developed, though antivirus teams are said to be hard at work.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:50 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

France Once Again Threatened By Vague Violence, People

Via Rueters:

On the last day of official campaigning, opinion polls showed Sarkozy enjoyed a commanding lead over Royal, who accused the former interior minister of lying and polarizing France.
"Choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice," Royal told RTL radio.
"It is my responsibility today to alert people to the risk of (his) candidature with regards to the violence and brutality that would be unleashed in the country (if he won)," she said.
Pressed on whether there would be actual violence, Royal said: "I think so, I think so," referring specifically to France's volatile suburbs hit by widespread rioting in 2005.
[snip]
At the start of her campaign, Royal refused to refer to her opponent, but with time running against her she has changed tactics and has relentlessly lambasted him this past week.
On Friday she said he had exacerbated social tensions during his time as interior minister and added that he was unable to enter some neighborhoods for fear of provoking violence. The suburbs were hit by widespread riots in 2005.

Wouldn't it help if we knew which groups Royal thought might riot, and the nature of the social tensions that would cause them to do so?

If they can't confront the problem enough to even mention who was rioting (primarily poorly assimilated North African Muslim youths) and why (economic hopelessness, cultural divides, among others), then they will never solve the underlying problems leading to this kind of behavior.

Get used to the idea of vague people starting riots for vague reasons in France for many years to come.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:20 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Iraqi EFPS Prove to Be Duds; Iranian EFPs Still Lethal Threat

Several month's ago, Andrew Cockburn attacked President Bush and the United States military in the Los Angeles Times, for the President saying that the EFPs --explosively-formed penetrators--being used successfully against American military forces in Iraq with a great degree of effect came from Iran:

PRESIDENT BUSH HAS now definitively stated that bombs known as explosively formed penetrators — EFPs, which have proved especially deadly for U.S. troops in Iraq — are made in Iran and exported to Iraq. But in November, U.S. troops raiding a Baghdad machine shop came across a pile of copper disks, 5 inches in diameter, stamped out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order. This ominous discovery, unreported until now, makes it clear that Iraqi insurgents have no need to rely on Iran as the source of EFPs.
The truth is that EFPs are simple to make for anyone who knows how to do it. Far from a sophisticated assembly operation that might require state supervision, all that is required is one of those disks, some high-powered explosive (which is easy to procure in Iraq) and a container, such as a piece of pipe. I asked a Pentagon analyst specializing in such devices how much each one would cost to make. "Twenty bucks," he answered after a brief calculation. "Thirty at most."

Cockburn's venom and naked partisanship were obvious. What wasn't so obvious is that Cockburn didn't know what he was talking about.

While crude Iraqi machine shops can manufacture crude components, the EFPs they can manufacture are no serious threat to American armor.

Iraqi fighters have been making their own versions of the weapons, but so far none has been effective against U.S. forces, Odierno said. The Iraqi-made projectiles, using brass and copper melted on stoves, have failed to fully penetrate U.S. armor and are more likely to be used against Iraqi forces, whose vehicles often have thinner armored protection than U.S. vehicles, U.S. military officials said.
"We have not seen a homemade one yet that's executed properly," Odierno said, adding that such weapons are not a major concern "as of yet."

In short, Cockburn's assertion that "EFPs are simple to make for anyone who knows how to do it," betrays his ignorance of the difference between theory and practice. Theoretically, anyone could presumably find plans to build an EFP, but without the right materials, training, and manufacturing equipment, they could not make an EFP with the capability of defeating advanced armor.

It is not as simple to manufacture a competent EFP as Cockburn and others have mislead. Someone should alert the media, but then again, the majority of the media doesn't really care.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Murtha's Mangled Memory

Is anti-war Democrat Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) beginning to show signs of memory loss?

As reported yesterday on the liberal Think Progress, Murtha said the following in an exchange with Chris Matthews in an exchange with Chris Matthews on MCNBC's Hardball (my bold):

MATTHEWS: Do you think he'd actually sign that bill, or he would consider that hobbling him?
MURTHA: Well, I am not sure. He made up his mind so early, I'm not sure he even read the bill. I mean, this is the problem with this spinning that goes on. They bring Petraeus back, purely a political move. Petraeus comes back here, doesn't talk to any of us. He only talks to the news media, and so forth, trying to sell this program. Bush was 64 percent when his mission — mission possible, and today he's 34 percent, so he's just turned the opposite. And this bill's not going to make any difference, just like what we say here makes little difference. What's going to count is what happens on the ground. The Iraqis are going to have to decide it themselves.
MATTHEWS: You know, when you read Petraeus statements to the press corps — and I know you said he didn't talk to Congress, but they put out this statement. I read it in "The Weekly Standard" this week, which does have Petraeus's remarks in there. He does say that we're fighting the central front against al Qaeda in Iraq. Is that true?
MURTHA: That's absolutely not true. That's an exaggeration...
MATTHEWS: That's Petraeus saying that.
MURTHA: That's Petraeus saying it. I just gave those comments to General Pace. I said, General — just 5, 10 minutes ago I gave them to General Pace. I said, General, these comments that General Petraeus made are absolutely inaccurate, according to the intelligence we have. Now, that's the kind of stuff he's saying, and that's why I say it was purely political.
Now, when I say he didn't talk to Congress, he talked to a group of members. He didn't talk to the committees that have jurisdiction over this legislation.
MATTHEWS: Well, why wouldn't he tell the truth? If his troops are over there getting killed — as you point out, we lost 100 guys this month, one of the worst months — worst month of the year — getting killed by Sunni insurgents and by militia people on the Shia side — why is he blaming it on al Qaeda?
MURTHA: Chris...
MATTHEWS: The people who blew up the World Trade Center. Why's he doing that?
MURTHA: This whole — whole war, ever since it diverted the attention away from where al Qaeda started, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the war in Afghanistan, where we should have stayed, ever since that time, they've been trying to tie this into terrorism. All of us know there's terrorism all over the world...
MATTHEWS: But he's not — but Congressman, he's not a PR man. He's not a flack for the White House. He's a general in the field. Why would he be...
MURTHA: Hey, wait a minute.
MATTHEWS: You're saying he's singing the song of the ideologues.
MURTHA: I'm saying — I'm saying he came back here at the White House's request to purely make political statements. That's what I'm saying. There's no question in my mind about it.

Perhaps there should be a few questions in John Murtha's mind, starting with why he would tell easily checked fabrications to Chris Matthews, Pennsylvania voters, and the American people at large.

Yesterday, I sent an email to Baghdad asking about Murtha's pronouncement that Commanding General David Petraeus "doesn't talk to any of us," and his hastily re-calibrated statement, "Now, when I say he didn't talk to Congress, he talked to a group of members. He didn't talk to the committees that have jurisdiction over this legislation."

I also sent along a link to this CNS News article, that cited a "A senior Defense Department official" as saying that not only did General Petraeus conduct conducted two 90-minute, top-secret level operations intelligence briefings for representatives and senators, but that the meetings were among the most heavily attended in recent memory, and that Petraeus personally provided briefings to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Murtha in conference calls.

Col. Steve Boylan, Public Affairs Officer of Multinational Forces-Iraq Commanding General David Petraeus, sent me back the following in response (my bold):

GEN Petraeus briefed the entire House of Representatives in closed session (so it could be classified) and had a good session with them. I was there to see it. The session was chaired by Cong Ike Skelton, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the committee that oversees the Dept of Defense (in place of Speaker Pelosi). Because Speaker Pelosi was unavailable, GEN Petraeus spoke to her (with Cong Murtha on the phone as well) for 30 minutes the day prior. He also briefed the entire Senate in closed session. The turnouts for both sessions were reportedly among the biggest ever seen. In the House it was over 260 members, many of them standing room only as well as many members sitting on the floor. Cong Murtha was present for the House session.

Not only did John Murtha speak with General Petraeus for half an hour the day prior to the closed session, he also attended the closed session as well.

By this account, consistent with the CNS News account, General Petraeus perhaps spent more time discussing the Iraq War with Congressman John Murtha than any other member of the House of Representatives.

We should also take issue with other comments uttered by Murtha, in this exchange with Matthews from the transcript above:

MATTHEWS: You know, when you read Petraeus statements to the press corps — and I know you said he didn't talk to Congress, but they put out this statement. I read it in "The Weekly Standard" this week, which does have Petraeus's remarks in there. He does say that we're fighting the central front against al Qaeda in Iraq. Is that true?
MURTHA: That's absolutely not true. That's an exaggeration...
MATTHEWS: That's Petraeus saying that.
MURTHA: That's Petraeus saying it. I just gave those comments to General Pace. I said, General — just 5, 10 minutes ago I gave them to General Pace. I said, General, these comments that General Petraeus made are absolutely inaccurate, according to the intelligence we have. Now, that's the kind of stuff he's saying, and that's why I say it was purely political.

To that and other comments made by Murtha denying that Iraq is al Qaeda's central front, Col Boylan issued the following:

The assessment that Al Qaeda's central front is Iraq is not just GEN Petraeus'. It is shared by LTG Stan McCrystal, the Commanding General of the Joint Special Operations Command, the organization that most
directly fights Al Qaeda; and, LTG McCrystal spend the vast majority of his time with us in Iraq overseeing that effort. The Director of the CIA shares this assessment too.

Murtha can't remember the meetings he's attended, and somehow has a view of the war that doesn't match up with that of the reality faced by the military commanders most directly involved in fighting the, or that of our nation's intelligence agencies.

Congressman Murtha, it's time to call your physician. Treatment options are available.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:16 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

May 03, 2007

The Republican Debate in Ten Words

Romney looks it.
McCain's blinky.
Rudy flounders.
Where is Fred?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:09 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Army Blog Gag Order Fact Sheet

A reliable source passed along the following:

Fact Sheet
Army Operations Security: Soldier Blogging Unchanged
Summary:

America's Army respects every Soldier's First Amendment rights
while also adhering to Operations Security (OPSEC) considerations to
ensure their safety on the battlefield.
Soldiers and Army family members agree that safety of ourSoldiers are of utmost importance.
Soldiers, Civilians, contractors and Family Members all play an integral role in maintaining Operations Security, just as in previous wars.
Details:

In no way will every blog post/update a Soldier makes on his or
her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate
supervisor and Operations Security (OPSEC) officer. After receiving
guidance and awareness training from the appointed OPSEC officer, that
Soldier blogger is entrusted to practice OPSEC when posting in a public
forum.
Army Regulation 350-1, "Operations Security," was updated April
17, 2007 - but the wording and policies on blogging remain the same from
the July 2005 guidance first put out by the U.S. Army in Iraq for
battlefield blogging. Since not every post/update in a public forum can be monitored, this regulation places trust in the Soldier, Civilian Employee, Family Member and contractor that they will use proper judgment to ensure OPSEC.
Much of the information contained in the 2007 version of AR530-1 already was included in the 2005 version of AR 530-1. For example, Soldiers have been required since 2005 to report to their immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer about their wishes to publish military-related content in public forums.
Army Regulation 530-1 simply lays out measures to help ensure operations security issues are not published in public forums (i.e.,blogs) by Army personnel.
Soldiers do not have to seek permission from a supervisor to send personal E-mails. Personal E-mails are considered private communication. However, AR 530-1 does mention if someone later posts an E-mail in a public forum containing information sensitive to OPSEC considerations, an issue may then arise.
Soldiers may also have a blog without needing to consult with their immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer if the following conditions are met:
The blog's topic is not military-related (i.e., Sgt. Doe
publishes a blog about his favorite basketball team).
The Soldier doesn't represent or act on behalf of the Army in any way.
The Soldier doesn't use government equipment when on his or her personal blog.
Army Family Members are not mandated by commanders to practice OPSEC. Commanders cannot order military Family Members to adhere to OPSEC. AR 530-1 simply says Family Members need to be aware of OPSEC to help safeguard potentially critical and sensitive information. This helps to ensure Soldiers' safety, technologies and present and future operations will not be compromised.
Just as in 2005 and 2006, a Soldier should inform his or her OPSEC officer and immediate supervisor when establishing a blog for two primary reasons:
To provide the command situational awareness.
To allow the OPSEC officer an opportunity to explain to the Soldier matters to be aware of when posting military-related content in a public, global forum.
A Soldier who already has a military-related blog that has not yet consulted with his or her immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer should do so.
Commands have the authority to enact local regulations in addition to what AR 530-1 stipulates on this topic.

The source suggested this was a "climb down" on the part of the Army. I honestly don't know enough about the original set of orders, or how they were enforced within the Army, to comment, but will link those who do when they post.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:15 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Just How Educated Are Our Reporters?

Read this, and you'll be asking that question as well.

It isn't rocket science.

al Qaeda in Iraq is the lead element in a coalition of Sunni insurgent groups that now calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

al Qaeda in particular and the ISI in general are becoming increasingly unpopular even within the Sunni insurgency because of al Qaeda's tactic of using foreign suicide bombers to indiscriminately target Iraqi civilians, Sunni and Shia, and their vastly different goals:

...the insistence that homegrown insurgent groups bow down to the Islamic State was insulting to the Iraqi fighters defending their homeland. The fact that the Islamic State's end goal -- the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in Iraq -- was not the end goal for Iraqi insurgent groups, despite their rhetoric in support of an Islamic state, was another obvious source of contention.
The Islamic State's insistence that Iraqi groups subordinate themselves to its hierarchy and vision only increased after November, leading to a number of documented clashes between the Islamic State and homegrown insurgent groups. When the Islamic State began targeting Iraqi insurgent leaders with attacks and assassinations, the Iraqi groups responded with vigor.

There are essentially two conflicts going on in Iraq.

One is the sectarian "civil war" we've heard so much about in the press, which is largely occurring along Sunni and Shia sectarian lines. Sunni and Shia death squads target the opposite sect. This is going to take a long time to quell, and will take primarily a political/social/cultural solution.

The other is a fight between government and coalition forces and an increasing number of Sunni tribes against a dwindling number of Islamist terrorists, primarily al Qaeda and it's remaining supporters. The solution to this particular problem is decidedly far more military in nature, and if recent trends continue, the solution may be coming sooner rather than later.

You would hope that someone as smart as Dana Milbank could figure this out, and perhaps it is still not too late.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:50 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Insurgency Declares Intent to Disarm

And to think it only took 41 years.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:57 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Murtha Lies, Think Progress Falls For It Hook, Line, and Sinker

From the braintrust at Think Progress:

During an appearance on Hardball, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) slammed the White House for using Petraeus as a political prop. He said the decision to bring Petraeus back to the U.S. for a rare visit last week, days before Congress voted on its Iraq timeline legislation, was "purely a political move," pointing out that Petraeus made numerous media appearances but did not testify before Congress' armed services committees.

And now an injection of reality from CNS News:

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) this week criticized Gen. David Petraeus for not meeting with members of Congress during a recent visit to Washington, D.C., to report on the status of operations in Iraq, but not only did the commander of Multinational Force - Iraq meet with hundreds of lawmakers, he personally briefed Murtha himself.
Murtha told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tuesday, "They bring Petraeus back - purely political move. Petraeus comes back here. He doesn't talk to any of us. He only talks to the news media and so forth trying to sell this program."
But a senior Defense Department official told Cybercast News Service that Petraeus personally briefed Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an April 24 phone conference that lasted 20-30 minutes.
The following day, Petraeus conducted two 90-minute, top-secret level operations intelligence briefings for representatives and senators.
The first, to which all members of the House of Representatives had been invited, was attended by 250 congressmen, and the second was attended by 86 senators. After brief opening statements at the two briefings, Petraeus spent the remaining time answering questions from the congressmen in attendance.
"These were two of the most widely attended operations intelligence briefings in recent memory," the Pentagon official said.

Now, how likely do you think it is that "Nico," Think Progress, or the Congressman himself will admit that he boldly lied to Chris Matthews? Do you think that Think Progress will issue a correction? Do you think Mathews will criticize Murtha for lying to him?

It would be nice, but I wouldn't suggest holding your breath for any of the above to occur.

Update: An attempt to publish the link and an excerpt of the CNS article above to the Think Progress comments thread has apparently failed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:42 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Two Arrested Smuggling Iranian EFPs in Sadr City

Oui?

US forces arrested two Iraqis suspected of smuggling weapons and armour-piercing explosives from Iran in a dawn raid Thursday into Baghdad's Shiite slum Sadr City, the military announced.
The arrests came ahead of a possible first meeting between the foreign ministers of Iran and United States since 1980, at an international conference on the future of Iraq in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
"The individuals targeted during the raid are suspected members of a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq," the military said.
The statement said the network was also training Iraqi militants in Iran.

The CENTCOM release this story was based upon is here.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:04 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Pressure

The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq has been killed:

US and Iraqi forces have killed the head of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella group of Sunni insurgents which includes Al-Qaeda, Iraq's deputy interior minister said Thursday.
Minister Hussein Ali Kamal said the insurgent leader known as Omar al-Baghdadi was killed in western Baghdad. "His body is under the control of the interior ministry. His body has been identified," he told AFP.
Separately, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver said the military would hold a news conference later on Thursday to announce a "recent success against a senior leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Unlike the claimed but unconfirmed killing of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who was reportedly killed earlier this week in a firefight with one of a number of Sunni tribal militias formerly aligned with al Qaeda, who have now joined with Coalition forces, al-Baghdadi's body has been claimed and apparently identified.

For the roundup of this story, go to Pajamas Media.

al-Baghdadi's death is properly categorized as a "big fish;" al-Masri, as Dan Riehl noted, once declared allegiance to al-Baghdadi.

This news comes as Evan Kohlmann notes that the al Qaeda coalition continues to fracture:

In the wake of the recent and very public rift between the Sunni Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI) and Al-Qaida's "Islamic State", yet more cracks are suddenly beginning to show in the unified jihadist coalition that Al-Qaida has been trying to assemble in Sunni regions of Iraq. Today, the IAI--along with factions from at least two other predominant Sunni militant groups, the Mujahideen Army and the notorious Ansar al-Sunnah Army--have officially announced the formation of their own separate political coalition: "The Reformation and Jihad Front" (RJF). This new front would seem to be a direct challenge to the authority of Al-Qaida's "Islamic State" and is said to enjoy support from Sunni Islamist circles (like Ansar al-Sunnah) which have, in the past, worked closely with Al-Qaida.

Kohlmann goes on to note that while the RJF is no ally of American nor Iraqi democracy, it poses a significant political threat to the future of al Qaeda in Iraq, perhaps even more significant than the formation of the Anbar Salvation Council.

Marc Lynch notes of the RJF that:

While the language is typically religious, the focus is exclusively Iraqi, and says nothing about wider global jihad.

As a result, the group should have more appeal to the various Sunni insurgent factions that are more nationalistic in their goals, and thus lessen support for al Qaeda in Iraq.

"Divide and conquer" was the original aim al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency, as they hoped to capture popular Iraqi support and use that support against the Iraqi government and the Coalition. It will be very interesting to see how the media decides to note the now obvious fact that it is al Qaeda and it's aligned Sunni groups that are fracturing, factionalizing, and turning on one another.

Update: A "Twofer?" Over at Hot Air, Bryan is running with a Washington Post article where General William Caldwell has confirmed that Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, al-Qaida’s information minister, has been killed, a fact confirmed by DNA tests on the body:

Caldwell said the U.S. does not have the bodies of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, or Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, and doesn't know of "anybody that does."
He said the military had conducted numerous operations against al-Qaida in Iraq in the last six days.
Al-Jubouri was killed while trying to resist detention in an operation about four miles west of the Taji air base north of Baghdad early Tuesday, and the body was initially identified by photos, then confirmed by DNA testing Wednesday, he said.

Meanwhile, Bryan notes that Iraqi media sites such as Aswat al Iraq are still claiming al-Baghdadi's death, and even purport to have video of the body.

Who is right?

IraqSlogger isn't sure, but states that CNN is claiming that al-Baghdadi and Al-Jubouri may very well be the same person. I couldn't find that claim at CNN, so the statement only adds to the confusion.

The overall facts remain the same, regardless of which al Qaeda leader specifically died: al Qaeda in Iraq is being hunted, cornered, and killed or captured, and the pace of such operations seems to be increasing.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:37 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

May 02, 2007

Silencing the Milbloggers

Over the weekend, milblogger Jim ("Uncle Jimbo") Hanson was asked on CNN:

Let me ask you quickly, Jim, there's been a lot made of the media improvements by the insurgents, that they're doing a great job of getting their message out. What are we going to see from our military as we move forward against that press machine, when they try to balance it?

The military's response, written by an Army Major, borders on incompetence.

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.
Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.
The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

I certainly understand the military's concerns about operational security, but this order takes us precisely in the wrong direction.

We need a greater flow of information, more firsthand accounts from our frontline soldiers, explaining to us in stark, sometimes vulgar language the exact nature of the war and the enemy we are fighting.

Military blogs, or milblogs, are the only way for frontline soldier to directly relate their experiences to the American public without the filters placed upon them by either the media or their military commanders.

Blog entries from Neil Prakash who formerly wrote at Armor Geddon, provided an irresistible, riveting account of the Battle of Fallujah from the viewpoint of a tank commander involved in the brutal house-to-house fighting. Prakash won a Silver Star during the battle he chronicled, and in writing about his experiences, provided a vivid window into the war that no reporter could emulate, a perspective that no dry MNF-I press release could convey.

At the time, Armor Geddon was perhaps one of the finest of milblogs, and did more to provide a real reflection of the conditions on the ground than any news anchor or wire service report. Armor Geddon became one of the first and most prominent casualties of the OpSec war. Prakash's blog fell silent on October 4, 2005.

One can only imagine what he could have accomplished in communicating the war effort since that time, had the military not decided to silence his voice.

Armor Geddon is just one of a galaxy of milblogs that could envelop the media organizations of the world, organizations that rely upon stringers, bureau reporters, and multiple layers of editors to provide a sterile, detached view of the war and the men fighting it.

Milblogs can and should be among our strongest assets is a war that is as much about perception as execution. Thousands of military bloggers, describing everything from excruciating boredom, to the rush of surviving the shot that just cracks past, milbloggers can serve not only as our first line defenders, but our first line of information.

If we want to win a war that is as much about information as it is about actual counterinsurgency, few can win the American public better than the American soldier or Marine communicating directly to the American people from their hearts.

I hope Army brass realizes this mistake before their concerns over operational security loses the war by not communicating "why we fight" to the American people.

Update: It's purely speculation, of course, but a couple of veterans in emails to Michelle Malkin have raised the possibilty that the new regulations were put in place as a response to harsh criticism of Harry Reid's "war is lost" comments.

The timeline--the order was issued April 19, well in advance of that particular defeatist comment--is wrong on the facts, but it raises an interesting possibility in principle: is it possible that Democratic pressure may be behind the Army's gag order?

Sure, Wonkette and others are quick to jump the gun and predictably "blame Bush" for the order, but like others buying that particular storyline, they obviously don't read milblogs.

Military bloggers are certainly not all fans of George W. Bush, but one thing is for certain, and that is that the overwhelming majority of them are strongly against the "retreat in defeat" plans that Democrats have been pushing since before the 2006 elections.

Who really has more to lose from a vocal military blogosphere? Is it the President, who has supported the military and their shared mission and still fights for it, or the Democrats, who seek to undermine every soldier's sacrifice and the Iraqi lives they are trying to protect?

NOTE: Any no, I don't personally think Democrats are behind this.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:21 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Does Digg Founder Kevin Rose Weigh the Same as a Duck?

At social networking news aggregator Digg, someone posted the code to hack encrypted HD-DVDs.

Digg removed the links to the original hack, only to see hundreds of other Diggers repost the hack. Negative reaction by the Digg community eventually crashed the site.

Bryan Preston expressed sympathy for Rose's delimma at Hot Air:

My sympathies lie with Kevin on this. He’s being accused of censorship, a charge that really only ought to be leveled at the government and only when censorship is actually occurring, when all he’s doing is abiding by intellectual property law. The HD-DVD encryption code is a piece of property. Rose couldn’t let Digg become the place where the HD-DVD code got out. Doing so might destroy him and the site he founded and thereby the community that’s rioting against him now.

Later in the day, bowing to community pressure, Digg founder Kevin Rose gave in:

...now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

I feel a certain degree of sympathy for Rose as well, but find his decision to allow his company to be run by the will of an angry mob to be more than little disconcerting.

That approach didn't work too well in Salem several centuries ago, or for Radika Singh last week.

Kevin Rose may have just set himself up to be burned.

(For those that missed the duck reference in the title, click here and scroll)

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:33 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Al Qaeda Leaders Declare Iraq War Lost

The Air Force officer running Mind in the Qatar has discovered that because of their string of recent and on-going defeats, al Qaeda Sheikh Reidari has called upon bin Laden remove their terrorists from Iraq:

Following the deaths of both Abu Musab Al-zaqawi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the decimation of the ranks of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the growing unpopularity of foreign insurgents among Iraqis, some senior terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda have called upon Usama Bin Laden to withdraw all of his troops from Iraq by October.
The war in Iraq "is lost" and Al Qaeda attacks are failing to bring an Islamic state to the country, spokesman of the Salafist Group for Preching and Combat, Harry Sheikh Reidari, said Thursday. "I believe ... that this war is lost, and continuing attacks are not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme blows to our network in Iraq recently," Reidari told journalists. "Iraq has diverted resources from our greater 'War on Freedom'. It would be best if we withdrew, leaving only a small force to train Iraqi jihadists, and redeployed our other forces to Afghanistan to continue with a Holy War that everyone can support."

Other al Qaeda leaders, such as Abu Jonjalali al-Murthab, Rhadami Hillab Clintonijhad, and Waleed Jo Bidenami echoed Reidari's call. Mohammed Dheniz Khalidinich even called for Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's second-in-command, to be ousted:

Additionally, leading Abu Sayyaf Group terrorist Mohammed Dheniz Khalidinich changed that Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri "purposely manipulated information to deceive the al Qaeda rank and file..." Khalidinich said al-Zawahiri did so "by fabricating the idea the U.S. military forces would fold and run once our jihad against them in Iraq got bloody. But today they are still resisting us and sending even more troops to do so. It is clear now that al-Zawahiri knew that this reaction only would happen with a Democratic American President, and he should have known that Bush would not retreat this way. For this failure, he should be removed from al-Qaeda's leadership."

Somehow, this seems errily familiar...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:34 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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