A Shooting War With Pakistan? Posted 11/28/2011 06:52 PM ET War On Terror: The latest deadly Afghan border skirmish between U.S.-led troops and Pak

Islamabad is not our friend. Never was and never will be. Military might matters and once again we are fighting with one hand tied behind our back and over our mouth. Thank you politicians. mc


Posted 11/28/2011 06:52 PM ET

War On Terror: The latest deadly Afghan border skirmish between U.S.-led troops and Pakistani troops indicates that the war may be expanding to include our putative ally. But are we prepared?

In what's become a common occurrence, the Pakistani military — in an unprovoked attack — fired on coalition troops based across the border in Afghanistan. We responded by hitting two Pakistani border posts. The airstrikes killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers, sparking anti-American riots and threats of reprisal by Islamabad.

It's hardly the first direct attack on our forces by Pakistan, and the attackers aren't merely a few rogue elements of its military who are sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaida. But attacks have become so frequent that our troops can no longer just duck and cover while pretending Pakistan has our back in this war. We have to return fire to protect the lives of U.S. and NATO soldiers.

So why still coddle Pakistan, diplomatically? Several reasons, not the least of which is Pakistan's arsenal of nuclear weapons and cold war with India. But it's mainly because we need its permission to transport military supplies across its border into landlocked Afghanistan, the terror swamp believed most worthy of draining.

More than 40% of the fuel, food, ammunition,>>>

Suit: Saudi Gov't Sponsored 9/11

This is a 'must read' article from IBD. And yet the Saudi government is our friend and we pay billions of dollars a year for Saudi oil when we have all the oil we need here at home. This Obama Administration is preventing us from drilling and is preventing us from becoming energy independent.

Posted 09/21/2011 06:32 PM ET

Justice: A new 9/11 lawsuit portrays the Saudi government as having more control over al-Qaida charities before the attacks than it (or the U.S.) has admitted. Let's hear the truth.

Lloyds of London seeks $215 million in damages from the kingdom to recover claims it paid 9/11 victims and their families. The suit charges that the Saudi government funded al-Qaida through its banks and charities.

The complaint, filed in U.S. court, states that without official Saudi sponsorship, "al-Qaida would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan and execute the Sept. 11 attacks." In other words, absent Saudi support, the Twin Towers would still be standing — along with nearly 3,000 Americans.

We're impressed by the documentation cited in the 156-page complaint by Cozen O'Conner, a major Washington law firm. It's much more detailed than the lawsuit brought on behalf of 9/11 families, which a federal judge dismissed for lack of evidence. This one might have a shot. It points to new intelligence, including recently leaked diplomatic cables.

Among the findings:

• Senior Saudi officials and Saudi royal family members — including Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif — either served as executives of suspect charities or sat on their boards while the charities were used to launder money to al-Qaida; and they knew of the activities.

• The Saudi charities themselves often provided not only money but employment cover, ID badges and logistical support to al-Qaida operatives.

• For example, the Saudi Joint Relief Committee>>>

With Drones, President Leads War From Behind

What is not to like. At least the Obama Administration has this right. I wonder what memos he is reading to beget this war on terror?

By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON Posted 10/13/2011 06:35 PM ET

We are in a long war against radical Islamic terrorism. The struggle seems almost similar to the on-again/off-again ordeals of the past — like the French-English Hundred Years War of the 14th and 15th centuries, or the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants in the 17th century.

In these kinds of drawn-out conflicts, victory finally goes to the side that responds best to constant new challenges. And we've seen a lot of those since 9/11, when the United States was caught unaware and apparently ill-equipped to face the threat of radical Islamic terrorists hijacking our passenger jets.

But even when we adjusted well to the 9/11 tactics, there were new threats like suicide bombers and roadside improvised explosive devices that seemed to nullify American technology and material advantages.

But now America is once again getting the upper hand in this long war against Middle Eastern terrorists with the use of Predator drone targeted assassinations that the terrorists have not yet an answer to. In systematically deadly fashion, Predators are picking off the top echelon of al-Qaida and its affiliates from the Hindu Kush to Yemen to the Horn of Africa.

Death Without Warning>>>

Launching the Missile That Made History

• OCTOBER 1, 2011

By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS

Outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan, 25 years ago this week, an angry young man named Abdul Wahab Quanat recited his prayers, walked onto a farm field near a Soviet airfield, raised a Stinger missile launcher to his shoulder and shot his way into history.

It was the first time since the Soviet invasion seven years earlier that a mujahedeen fighter had destroyed the most feared weapon in the Soviet arsenal, a Hind attack helicopter. The event panicked the Soviet ranks, changed the course of the war and helped to break up the USSR itself.

Today, Mr. Wahab is general manager of the Afghan central-bank branch near the Khyber Pass, a middle-age man who carries tinted bifocals in his vest pocket and chooses Diet Pepsi over regular. Mr. Wahab and the two other Stinger gunners at the airfield that day—Zalmai and Abdul Ghaffar—have now joined the post-jihad establishment. Mr. Zalmai is sub-governor of Shinwar District, and Mr. Ghaffar is a member of parliament.

They nurse a gauzy nostalgia for the joys of being young jihadists. "Those were good, exciting times," Mr. Wahab says. "Now I'm a banker. It's boring."

The Soviet invasion touched off three decades of violent>>>

The Next 9/11 — A Nuclear One?

Remember--it is not a question of if but when. Be Prepared. Always.

osted 09/09/2011 06:43 PM ET

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National Security: The Sept. 11 commission stated that our biggest failure was one of imagination. Imagine an Iranian nuclear device detonating high over the American heartland. They're working on it.

On the same day the 9/11 Commission issued its report, another commission issued a report on a threat that could change our world and way of life in ways we can scarcely imagine. It is a real and credible threat, and it is largely being ignored.

The threat is a phenomenon known as electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, and demonstrates why the issue of homeland security extends beyond the need for body scanners or taking our shoes off at the airport. It's why ignoring Iran is dangerous and why a robust national missile defense should be of the highest priority.

This threat to our national security was the subject of study by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, established by unanimous consent of the House and Senate. Released on the same day as the 9/11 Commission report, few paid attention.

It is a scenario worthy of Hollywood, but it is a frighteningly real possibility. A solitary ballistic missile, perhaps an ICBM launched by a decaying North Korean regime or an Iranian mullah, or a terrorist Scud launched from a ship off the Atlantic Coast carrying the first Islamic nuke, detonates its warhead 25 to 300 miles above the U.S. mainland.

Nobody is harmed or killed immediately by the blast. But life in America, the world's only superpower and largest economy, comes to a screeching halt as a country dependent on 21st-century technology regresses almost a century instantaneously.

The radiation from such a high-altitude nuclear blast>>>

Unanswered: What Was Saudis' Role?

Why do we continue to treat the Saudis' as our friends? Oh, I know--they have the oil! And we are blocked from drilling for our own oil by the Obama administration's failed energy policies. The Obama administration would rather 'go green' than save our country. When is enough enough?

Posted 09/09/2011 06:43 PM ET

9/11: A new report revealing the hijackers met in Florida with a well-connected Saudi family who fled to Riyadh just days before the attacks raises fresh concerns about the Saudis' role in the plot.

The Saudi hijackers who entered the country from San Diego also met with Saudi handlers. So now we know al-Qaida had Saudi help from coast to coast. According to the Miami Herald, investigators believe the wealthy family at a minimum knew of their guests' evil plans, and possibly aided them.

Just two weeks before 9/11, and after meetings and calls with ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers, the Saudi nationals abandoned three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway of their Sarasota home. In their haste to leave the country, they also left behind opulent furniture. A safe, however, was cleaned out. They also took a computer.

Their Sarasota home was owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi financier. He'd been on an FBI watch list for terror-fundraising. The FBI, however, never briefed the 9/11 Commission about his and the other Saudi occupants' connections to the hijackers. Congress also was left in the dark about the house search.

It's one of many mysteries surrounding the Saudis and 9/11. Other questions still unanswered after 10 years:

• Why was the section of Congress' >>>

Can Israel Survive Next War?

Peace through strength is the only way to go!

By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON Posted 09/22/2011 05:53 PM ET

Will Israel survive? That question hasn't really been asked since 1967. Then, a far weaker Israel was surrounded on all sides by Arab dictatorships that were equipped with sophisticated weapons from their nuclear patron, the Soviet Union. But now things are far worse for the Jewish state.

Egyptian mobs just tried to storm the Israeli embassy in Cairo and kill any Israelis they could get their hands on. Whatever Egyptian government emerges, it will be more Islamist than before — and may renounce the peace accords with Israel.

One thing unites Syrian and Libyan dissidents: They seem to hate Israel as much as the murderous dictators whom they have been trying to throw out.

The so-called "Arab Spring" was supposed to usher in Arab self-introspection about why intolerant strongmen keep sprouting up in the Middle East. Post-revolutionary critics could freely examine self-inflicted Arab wounds, such as tribalism, religious intolerance, authoritarianism, endemic corruption, closed economies and gender apartheid.

But so far, "revolutionaries" sound a lot more like reactionaries. They are more often retreating to the tired conspiracies that the Israelis and Americans pushed onto innocent Arab publics homegrown corrupt madmen such as Bashar Assad, Muammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak.

In 1967, the more powerful periphery of the Middle East — the Shah's Iran, Kemalist Turkey, a military-run Pakistan and the Gulf monarchies — was mostly uninvolved in the Israel-Arab frontline fighting. Not now:

A soon-to-be-nuclear Iran serially promises to destroy Israel.

The Erdogan government in Turkey brags about its Ottoman Islamist past — and wants to provoke Israel into an eastern Mediterranean shooting war.

Pakistan is the world's leading host>>>