re: "Darwinian Tourism Still Thrives In Egypt"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report ("Sand people: get it?") accounted for two American tourists who went missing in Egypt.

Money quote(s):

"Many parts of the world are not a safe place for foreigners. We, living in America, tend to take security for granted. Travel the world, enjoy your life. Just use a little common sense."

Many places in the world are no more dangerous than your home town. The dangers in those places, however, will often take forms different from the hazards you routinely avoid in your everyday life.

Of course, some places are way more dangerous than your home town.

Americans planning overseas travel would do well always and everywhere to take a lot at the Country Specific Information that the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs takes such pains to compile and update.

2/3

re: "Buh-Bye CAIR: Congress Formalizes Ban on FBI Dealing with CAIR"

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at The Jawa Report ("Sand People: Get it?") had good news, if true.

Money quote(s):

"(I)t's not just CAIR that the FBI is no longer going to be dealing with, it's also the ISNA and NAIT."

Just off the top of my head, I don't recall if NAIT (whomever they are "when they're at home") as one of the Holy Land Foundation cases' unindicted co-conspirators, but it would be no surprise if they numbered among them.

ISNA and CAIR definitely do.

11/22

re: "No Guns for Illegals"

Mr. E. Blogger at The Jawa Report identified a limitation on the Second Amendment.

Money quote(s):

"The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver has ruled that illegal aliens do not have the right to own firearms under the U.S. Constitution."

His verdict on the subject:

"Seems about right."

5/8

re: "If You're A Terrorist Abroad, the Fact that You're an American is Only Incidental"

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") explained, as you would to a child, what you do to enemies in wartime.

Money quote(s):

"The way you word things matters and I've become more and more annoyed over the past few years as many on the Right have increasingly adopted the phraseology of ardent Leftists. People who only a few years ago were die hard supporters of the war on terrorism today use phrases to make it seem that the same policies carried out under Bush are now leading to jack-booted-thuggery.

....

The particular wording I'm annoyed at today is the description of drone strikes as the "targeted killing of American citizens"."

Read on, MacDuff.

"We're at war. In a war, you kill your enemies. The fact that your enemies who are members or leaders of a foreign terrorist organization operating overseas are American is only incidental to the fact that they are terrorists.

We didn't kill Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan because they were Americans. We killed them because they were terrorists.

This wasn't a case of the President of the United States killing a criminal in lieu of a trial. These were enemy combatants. You kill your enemies, you don't bring them to trial.

The fact that your enemy is an American citizen is irrelevant." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Simple truths. It's troubling that they need to be stated, and re-stated (and re-stated yet again) but that's why they pay us bloggers the big (non-existent) bucks.

(After all, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.)

"The idea that we are going to fly FBI agents to Yemen, read members of al Qaeda their rights, and then bring them to Virginia for a trial is sheer fantasy. It's completely and utterly disconnected to reality.

Yet that is what you are arguing for if you oppose targeted assassinations or military trials. Unless, of course, you are arguing that the US should do nothing about jihadi terrorism, even when that terrorism is directly targeted against the United States.

Before 9/11 the policy of the US was to treat terrorists as criminals. After the USS Cole and African embassy bombings, President Clinton sent in the FBI to investigate.

Yeah, that did a lot of good. 9/11 was an outgrowth of that policy position.

So, if you want to go back to that model then, by all means, keep advocating for an end to drone strikes and military commissions.

And when we're hit on a mass scale like we were on 9/11 again, I'll blame you and your legalistic ideology in regards to notions of civil liberties for the atrocity." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

2/1

re: "NC Democrat Recommends Suspending Next Congressional Election"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") noted a statement by NC Governor Beverly Perdue:

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Money quote(s):

"I was reading an unrelated article where a commenter suggested the possibility that the Obama Administration is deliberately stoking racial and class tensions with the intention of inciting riots and anarchy in the streets. The Administration would then declare Martial Law and use that as a pretense to delay or suspend the 2012 Presidential election.

I laughed at the suggestion. Until I read the article above."

9/27

re: "Obama's Gift To Cameron: Wood Burning Grill"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report ("Sand people: Get it?") noted another deliverable from somebody's protocol shop.

Money quote(s):

"Its actually a pretty nice gift, if you ask me. It's American made, grilling is an American past time, and it commemorates a service for our Troops. I'm actually impressed with the thought that went into the gift."

Concur. Much improved over previous efforts.


3/14

re: "Random CT Lesson from Norway #2: Carry Weapons"

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") discerned a counter-terrorism lesson from Norway's recent experience.

Money quote(s):

"The jihadis exploit our Constitution against us. So it's no surprise that a right-wing psychopath would exploit lefty anti-gun hysteria to further his irrational and evil plans"

It's basic Sun Tzu, after all, to avoid strength and attack weakness. And having a disarmed populace (including police) has to go into the "Weakness" column.

"We have much more gun violence here, but an atrocity of this scale is unthinkable in the US. Even if there were no feckless and unarmed police around had this asshole tried this anywhere in my neck of the woods he would have found a well armed citizenry ready to protect themselves and their children."

Just so.

7/25

re: "WTF? State Apologizes to Dead Terrorist's Family (Updated)"

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at The Jawa Report ("Sand people. Get it?") reacted strongly (and negatively) to reports of an official apology.

Money quote(s):

"I'm not sure if I should be laughing at this or getting really, really pissed off.

On the one hand, we pay the State Department to lie. And, if saying you're sorry for killing a terrorist isn't a lie, then I don't know what is!"

Khan wasn't the intended target, apparently, in this; Anwar Al-Alaki (sp?) was.

So perhaps we were apologizing for poor marksmanship?

(Actually not.)

"Please tell me this is part of some larger duplicity which leads to the entire Kahn (sic) family being deported and/or indicted?

I've always had a rather low opinion of State. But after this, I'm left to wonder which side of the War on Terror they're really pulling for?"

Trust me; the people at State who are aware we're in a war at all (and there are many, perhaps even a majority) are pulling for our side. Fact is, State folks have been some of the primary targets for the other side for several decades now.

It's still true that more U.S. ambassadors have been killed in the line of duty since WW2 than general officers and admirals combined.


10/7

re: "Southern Sudan - From Murderer's Stomping Ground To Productive Member of Society"

Ronin at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") drew a conclusion.

Money quote(s):

"Give people reprieve from oppression and they can contribute to solutions instead of problems."

The people and government of South Sudan, having benefited from the humanitarian and diplomatic efforts of both individual nations and international organizations in being admitted into the world community of nations, are eager to take up their roles as a responsible member thereof.

Good on them!

8/15

re: "Homegrown Terrorists Love al Qaeda, But Not As Much As You'd Think "

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at The Jawa Report ("Sand people. Get it?") commented on a piece at by J.M. Berger at The Atlantic.

Money quote(s):

"From an academic point of view the distinction between targeting civilians and those in the military is important."

In the realm of warfare, the distinction is critical, since targeting civilians can be a war crime.

(Note: Combatants who do not wear uniforms are not necessarily civilians, which also touches on the subject of war crimes.)

"Perhaps the distinction is important only because the most apt description of these 'homegrown terrorists' has fallen out of use, mostly for PC reasons.

In the past we didn't call them terrorists, we just called them traitors." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

One popular terrorist activity of the 1970s was the hijacking of passenger aircraft. This is still termed, occasionally, "air piracy."

Let's go down that road. If terrorist hijackers are air pirates, perhaps other terrorist activities are better classified as modern-day versions of the age-old phenomena of piracy, banditry, and brigandage?

The common thread here? Terrorists, by their acts and their nature, place themselves outside the normal course and protection of civilized law, as pirates, bandits, and brigands always have done.

They should be dealt with accordingly.

7/19

re: "Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad Charged with Murder not Terrorism"

Howie at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") had a Carlos Bledsoe update.

Money quote(s):

"Personally I ask why he was not declared an enemy of the state under the laws of war and shot as an irregular partisan under Geneva"


7/12

re: "Canada Bans Veil from Citizenship Oath Ceremony"

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") reports a common-sense data point from The Great White North.

Money quote(s):

"(B)efore we get the usual "stop all Muslim immigration", let me ask you what we should do with the thousands of Muslims who fought alongside us in Iraq and Afghanistan who's families are threatened in their home countries?

Should we just hang them out to dry? Or might it not be a good idea to help them immigrate to the US, where they might be able to continue to help us?

As one Iraq vet once told me about a Muslim who he helped immigrate to the US, "He risked his life for me. What have you ever done?""

12/12

re: "Sandcrawler PSA: Jawa Report Official 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Editorial Post"

Howie at The Jawa Report remembered another infamous date.

Money quote(s):

"(T)o all my countrymen who lost their lives 10 years ago, we remember you and we made damned sure that payback was a motherf*cker."

9/11

re: "RAF Trainer Is Muslim Convert"

Mr. E. Blogger at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") spotlighted an interesting British character.

Money quote(s):

"A Royal Air Force training college dean, Dr. Joel Hayward, is a Muslim convert who has criticized NATO efforts in Libya, likened Winston Churchill to Mohammad, asserted that fewer Jews were killed by the Nazis than generally thought and said Holocaust gas chambers were British propaganda.

Needless to say, Hayward engenders concern and suspicion on the part of RAF colleagues. He has been dubbed the "Air Force Ayatollah." "

Likening "Winston Churchill to Mohammad"?

(In "a nice way," one presumes.)

"Dr. Hayward reminds me of the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Army Major Nidal Hasan."

There are some particulars in the Jawa Report post excerpted from the Mail (U.K.) article that make this less implausible than it might otherwise seem.

(8/9)

re: "No Sh*t? US State Dept. Issues Travel Warning to .... Pakistan"

Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report ("Jawas? You know, sandpeople.") re-posted the entire Travel Warning, but asks:

"(W)hat I really think is on all our minds is this question: What kind of idiot takes a vacation to Pakistan, anyway?" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Just to be clear, can you imagine the kerfuffle if State didn't issue a Travel Warning for Pakistan?

re: "War Crime! Taliban: Yes, We Murdered Brit. Scott McLaren (bumped)"

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") enjoys moral clarity.

Money quote(s):

"Can you imagine the reaction from the European and American Left had this been a Taliban insurgent who was murdered at the hands of our soldiers? Not only would there be widespread protest, but our military would do the right thing and treat those responsible as criminals." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Our "right thing" and their (the Taliban's) "right thing" are two different.... things. Ours is based on a centuries of law of warfare which had quite different aims than that based on the koran.

"(T)here is a difference between us and them. We're the good guys. They are simply evil." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

&

"They captured him alive and murdered him in cold blood.

I get the arguments for abandoning Afghanistan based on the notion that the country and its people are just so backwards that there is nothing that really can be done. I also get the argument that if we don't send at least another 100k troops more than Obama's "surge" then there's really no point. I think these are legitimate arguments."

re: "Ministry of Irony: President Obama Stiff Brits' Green Fines"

Howie at The Jawa Report ("Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.") quotes a news story citing the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

By the way, Pres. Obama is correct in this instance.

re: "The Problem is Not the War Powers Act"

Howie at The Jawa Report ("sand people; get it?") does some crystal-ball gazing.

Money quote(s):

"Gadhafi is making Obama and NATO look like a bunch of damned fools."

&

"The Libyan rebels are obviously melting away, waiting on NATO to do the dying for them. At this rate this will go on forever. And I'm getting damn tired of figuring out how to spell Momar's name every day.

So its all that and the War Powers Act. Without the congress Gadhafi can hang like a millstone around Obama's neck through Nov. 2012."

re: "President Sued For War Crime"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report ("you know, sand people") has some breaking news.

Money quote(s):

"No, the loony democrats are not suing George W. Bush for going into Iraq to kill Islamic terrorists (at least, not yet). Republican Bipartisan lawmakers are suing President Obama for illegally going to war against Libya"

I suppose they've got standing, after all, given what the Constitution actually says. It'll be quite interesting to see how this plays out in the courts.

re: "DHS's Communications Chief: "I Swear To F--king God I Am Going To F--king Decapitate" ICE Press Shop Staff"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report points out a clear failure to communicate.

Money quote(s):

"Apparently, communication is his f--king expertise.

DHS's Napolitano must be so proud."