al qaeda

$8.7 Billion of $9.1 Billion Unaccounted For

Speaks for itself: http://tinyurl.com/USmoneymissing

General McChrystal Out – General Petraeus In

Congrats Patraeus! Now I think we might just have a shot of serious impact!

I agree with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham -the switch of hands of Commanding Officer  in Afghanistan is the perfect time to reevaluate our strategy in AfPak and ’start over’.

We all know we won’t ever ‘win’ this war – this isn’t even a war really anymore. This is just an endless battle. If it were really a war -it would insinuate there could realistically and viably be a side that wins.

But in this fight – no side does. The Taliban and Al Qaeda extremist are never going to wipe us all out…and the USA is never going to wipe them all out.

It’s an idealistic strategy that doesn’t even rank in worthiness for the time to do the probable/possible test. It’s quite clear to see the answer anyway.

But – if we are going to pretend this is war – and we are going to have US Military engaged in battle overseas- now more than ever, we need to give a Serious Sustainable Kick in the Butt to these terrorists!!

Now more so than ever  - McChrystal doing the fine job of making some of the top  US  leaders & US Government look even more like a bunch of jokes (more so than what maybe we all have our personal opinions on anyway). We are now even more the laughing stock to the Taliban and Al Qaeda members…I can only imagine how long and how loud they were laughing when they heard McChrystal’s daring words.

At this point it is crucial, McChrystal’s stupidity or not. It’s been 9 years now and we haven’t made really an ounce of progress. We can’t keep doing this as we approach our 10th year at war. We need to send Petraeus overseas with a serious and dynamite blow-you-up plan to really shake these Taliban out of their hiding cells!!!

He needs to arrive with explosive umph and such power, that the fear we are trying to put upon these terrorists actually works for a change – and not only works – but works instantly – completely taking them off guard!

His presence needs to shake the ground so hard they fall to their feet and say ‘uncle’. He needs to whip massive transformation across the remote training camps, hiding villages and roadside bombs and stop at nothing – going full force 24/7- until our US military is actually the dominant fighter -not the tail chaser we have been for 9 years (not their fault, they are following orders).  General Petraeus needs to do a complete 180 of how things are done there if he wants to bring himself and our soldiers home alive, early and victorious.

We now have an open window of opportunity to seriously shake things up & make significant progress – as our soldiers will be lead by one of the best. So we should take complete advantage of this in every way we can. If anyone can do this – General David Petraeus can! But don’t send Petraeus over without a new strategy, without a new plan. It’s pointless if you do.

Maybe McCrystal committed professional suicide for a reason. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.

He obviously did this purposefully. No one of his experience, age, stature, ranking is that stupid to make mistake after mistake after mistake in what you say to a magazine reporter. It was too instant and too easy for it to be a mistake. To me, this was akin to having drinks with Bin Laden himself. Mocking the US to the enemy.  No General is that careless – drinks or no drinks.

Makes ya wonder if McChrystal’s a double agent. Not too far fetched — there was so much disloyalty not only to those specific individuals he mocked, but to the US in general, to the US Military in general. I wonder if he realizes the actual reprecussion his words had in more ways than one.

Either way, McChrystal, Petraeus, Snoopy – this is AfPak fight is still what I call an mission impossible – and it really doesn’t make a difference who is Commanding General.

Obama’s Speech: “Buck stops with me”

I am finally happy with President Obama again.

He gave an incredible and powerful speech yesterday afternoon (1/7/10) on his assessment of the attempted Christmas 2009 airline bombing in Detroit, MI, after having read the two final reviews he requested Thursday from his national security team.

The Presidential Directives he issued to address the gaps that allowed this 23 year-old Nigeiran, Umar Abdulmatullab, to get on the Northwest aircraft with explosives were impressive as well.

The PD’s address airport security and screening, but more importantly, they address the systematic and human failures that occurred that prevented them from connecting and assessing the intelligence we already had that could have kept Umar from boarding the plane altogether (his name should have been on the no-fly list, etc.).

He also made it very clear that as long as he is President, the Al Qaeda terrorists will not be given any victory, big or small.

I believe this event was a wake up call.

I believe the folks in our government agencies will be humbled by this event and realize even with what they had been doing, the terrorists outsmarted us again.

Perhaps now they are at the point where they just won’t tolerate that (humiliation) anymore. They might even step up a bit and act as they did right after 9/11  - not slack one bit, make smarter decisions, and do things outside of what their job requires sometimes for the sake of our national security.

Ex: When a father comes in to an Embassy and turns on his son, reporting him to authorities, that the official listening does more than just enter the person’s name into the TIDE system. (This is his own father, not just a jealous friend). They pick up a phone and call everyone and anyone they can think of until someone answers and takes immediate action to find that extremist person. If at the least, all his Visas/Passports should have been immediately checked to make sure they were valid and current and with what countries. It would have been discovered his U.S. was overdue.

I think this also made the global population more viligiant again (like after 9/11) to pick up on spotty behavior and alert authorities – just as what happened at Newark, NJ airport last Wednesday, when someone reported a person not going through security and the airport shutting Terminal C down.

And for all this,  I do think we have less a chance of an attack happening on our US soil than we did before Christmas 2009.

Obama seemed a lot stronger yesterday than I have seen him in a while. Lately, he had had been buckling to the idiosyncrosies of the Republican and opposition people on many issues.

Perhaps this was a wake up call for him as well – to get back to being the strong leader he was when he first stepped into the Presidency, this month last year.