J's Cafe Nette

Archive for April 2nd, 2007

According to this report Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering cutting off funding for the Iraq War if President Bush vetoes the bill that will come out of committee setting a deadline for withdrawal.

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday he will try to cut off funding for the Iraq war if President Bush rejects Congress’ proposal to set a deadline for ending combat.

The move is likely to intensify the Democrats’ rift with the administration, which already contends Democrats are putting troops at risk by setting deadlines.

“It’s time the self-appointed strategists on Capitol Hill understood a very simple concept: You cannot win a war if you tell the enemy you’re going to quit,” Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday at fundraising luncheon for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R, Ala)

Actually, as Tonto and I have discussed, it’s about time Democrats come out and publicly try a clean bill that defunds the war instead of playing footsie the way they have been for the past three months.

I’d be interested to see how far their “mandate” will take them though with only a 2 vote majority in the Senate, with one of them being Lieberman who will never vote to defund, and only a 34 vote majority in the House.

Of course you’ll have some conservative Democrats and some Liberal Republicans crossing party lines to vote with the other side, but I think I can safely say it will not be a veto-proof vote.

Sister Toldjah has a more comprehensive post on this story. It seems Russ Feingold of Campaign Finance Reform fame is sponsoring and Reid is co-sponsoring this bill.

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The old saying is nits make lice. In this case it means the more Al Qaeda leaders we have killed, the more lower-ranked Al Qaeda have been promoted, and they have learned their jobs well.

Some quotes from this New York Times article:

As Al Qaeda rebuilds in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a new generation of leaders has emerged under Osama bin Laden to cement control over the network’s operations, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

The new leaders rose from within the organization after the death or capture of the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leading to surprise and dismay within United States intelligence agencies about the group’s ability to rebound from an American-led offensive.

It has been known that American officials were focusing on a band of Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan’s remote mountains, but a clearer picture is emerging about those who are running the camps and thought to be involved in plotting attacks.

American, European and Pakistani authorities have for months been piecing together a picture of the new leadership, based in part on evidence-gathering during terrorism investigations in the past two years. Particularly important have been interrogations of suspects and material evidence connected to a plot British and American investigators said they averted last summer to destroy multiple commercial airliners after takeoff from London.

Intelligence officials also have learned new information about Al Qaeda’s structure through intercepted communications between operatives in Pakistan’s tribal areas, although officials said the group has a complex network of human couriers to evade electronic eavesdropping.

The investigation into the airline plot has led officials to conclude that an Egyptian paramilitary commander called Abu Ubaidah al-Masri was the Qaeda operative in Pakistan orchestrating the attack, officials said.

Mr. Masri, a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan, is believed to travel frequently over the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was long thought to be in charge of militia operations in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan, but he emerged as one of Al Qaeda’s senior operatives after the death of Abu Hamza Rabia, another Egyptian who was killed by a missile strike in Pakistan in 2005.

The evidence officials said was accumulating about Mr. Masri and a handful of other Qaeda figures has led to a reassessment within the American intelligence community about the strength of the group’s core in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and its role in some of the most significant terrorism plots of the past two years, including the airline plot and the suicide attacks in London in July 2005 that killed 56.

Although the core leadership was weakened in the counterterrorism campaign begun after the Sept. 11 attacks, intelligence officials now believe it was not as crippling as once thought.

This was all reported to the Times by the infamous “anonymous” sources because it wasn’t supposed to be for public consumption.

They climb over the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan to do their planning to have a new caliphate in the world.

Much is still not known about the backgrounds of the new Qaeda leaders; some have adopted noms de guerre. Officials and outside analysts said they tend to be in their mid-30s and have years of battlefield experience fighting in places like Afghanistan and Chechnya. They are more diverse than the earlier group of leaders, which was made up largely of battle-hardened Egyptian operatives. American officials said the new cadre includes several Pakistani and North African operatives.

Experts say they still see Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as largely independent of Al Qaeda’s hub in Pakistan but that they believe the fighting in Iraq will produce future Qaeda leaders.

“The jihadis returning from Iraq are far more capable than the mujahedeen who fought the Soviets ever were,” said Robert Richer, who was associate director of operations in 2004 and 2005 for the C.I.A. “They have been fighting the best military in the world, with the best technology and tactics.”

Officials said other operatives believed to be plotting internationally are Khalid Habib, a Moroccan, and Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi. Mr. Iraqi, a Kurd who served in Saddam Hussein’s army, moved to Afghanistan to fight Soviet occupiers. Officials believe that he was dispatched to Iraq by Mr. bin Laden to deal with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose terrorist group allied with Mr. bin Laden. It took the name Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia before Mr. Zarqawi was killed in an American bombing in June of last year. American officials say they believe that Mr. Iraqi is now back operating inside of Pakistan.

American officials say they still know little about how operatives communicate with Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri.

“There has to be some kind of communication up the line, we just don’t see it,” one senior intelligence official said.

American counterterrorism officials said they did not believe that any one figure had taken over the role once held by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the operations chief who was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and is being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

“To say that Al Qaeda was out of business simply because they have not attacked in the U.S. is whistling past the graveyard,” said Michael Scheuer, a former head of the bin Laden tracking unit at the C.I.A. “Al Qaeda is still humming along, and with a new generation of leaders.”

You can believe me or you can declare we brought this on ourselves by going into Iraq, but the fact remains we have Al Qaeda re-organizing, and it is not just to fight us in Iraq.

My gosh, the Congress has made it clear they plan to put a withdrawal timeline on the Iraqi war. If they only wanted to get us in Iraq it would seem reasonable they would wait us out and then disband.

What they want is complete Muslim control over all the Middle East and the return of the Ottoman Empire, then the entire world to be under Muslim control.

Even if we convert the best we can hope for is to be their dhimmies, or slaves. If we don’t convert we can say good-bye to our heads.

Whether or not the people who want us out of Iraq realize it, these people are on a quest and it only ends when we are all under their control.

They want us all to live in the sixth century with them, with their barbaric laws.

Islam is not a religion of peace and whether we withdraw from Iraq or not we will be fighting them until the Second Coming. I am convinced of that more and more every day.

Don’t blame us. We didn’t bomb buildings on 9/11 with no provocation. And besides, our Congress is trying to get us out of Iraq. Then the Muslims will all love us and we can roast marshmallows together around the campfire as we sing Kumbaya.

I’m too old to be affected a lot by this, but I look at my grandchildren and I wonder.

We in America have never known a life where we are silenced and where women are chattel. We may within the next generation if we are not successful now.

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My husband saw the orthopedic doctor today and has been released. He was told to take the rest of his anti-biotic pills and to make an appointment to see him if anything changes.

Things look normal and I am sooo thankful we went to the ER as soon as we noticed the problem.

Thank you all for your prayers.

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From The Religion of Peace comes a link to this story of a woman who was in the subway the day the Muslims attacked it with a bomb.

Then it happened. I have no memory of the actual blast, just the feeling I was falling into blackness. My body was tumbling in slow motion while thousands of tiny thoughts raced around in my mind.

I was certain I was having a heart attack. My fellow passengers were screaming at me, horrified I was dying. Something dreadful had happened.

I could hear someone saying: ‘Stay calm.’ Still the screaming continued. What had happened? Where did the train go?

A man reached down. I could see his arms coming towards me. I stretched out to him.

‘I need to stand up. Please help me up.’

The man bent down. I was slipping away. I couldn’t feel my legs.

The blackness lifted, replaced by shades of grey. A security or emergency light in the tunnel shone through what had been carriage windows, lighting my legs.

They resembled an anatomical drawing. I could see muscle, tendons, bone. And attached to these were my feet – still perfect, but dangling, as though they had been left hanging by a thread.

My dear God, my legs are gone.

Please go read the rest of the story of this courageous woman here.

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This Washington Post article describes what the emboldened Democrats intend to do to harrass President Bush after the Easter recess (in addition to what they have already done.)

Here are some quotes:

Even as their confrontation with President Bush over Iraq escalates, emboldened congressional Democrats are challenging the White House on a range of issues — such as unionization of airport security workers and the loosening of presidential secrecy orders — with even more dramatic showdowns coming soon.

For his part, Bush, who also finds himself under assault for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, the conduct of the Iraq war and alleged abuses in government surveillance by the FBI, is holding firm. Though he has vetoed only one piece of legislation since taking office, he has vowed to veto 16 bills that have passed either the House or the Senate in the three months since Democrats took control of Congress.

Despite the threats, Democratic lawmakers expect to open new fronts against the president when they return from their spring recess, including politically risky efforts to quickly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act.

“I suppose there’s always a risk of going too far,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), “but the risk of not going is far greater.”

Yes, Mr. Hoyer, there is a great risk of going too far and we have seen in the recent past the American people are above-all fair-minded unless all the fair-minded ones have died and we are left with the radicals who think child-like behavior is acceptable.

Why do you think the public rallied around Clinton if not for their sense of protecting the underdog and the one who has been fairly or unfairly badgered?

Democratic leaders appear to believe there is hardly any territory they cannot stray onto, a development that has Republican political operatives gleeful and some Democrats worried. Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, warned of a “political price” at the polls: “If they let their constituents and their ideology drive them past the point where the American people are comfortable, they will find how quickly the voters will react.”

Leon E. Panetta, who was a top White House aide when President Bill Clinton pulled himself off the mat through repeated confrontations with Congress, sees the same risk. He urged Democrats to stick to their turf on such issues as immigration, health care and popular social programs, and to prove they can govern.

“That’s where their strength is,” Panetta said. “If they go into total confrontation mode on these other things, where they just pass bills and the president vetoes them, that’s a recipe for losing seats in the next election.”

But even conservative Democrats insist their party is in no danger of overreaching its mandate from the November elections.

Panetta is right. And where is this “mandate” they claim? They have a two-seat majority in the Senate, one of which is Independent Joseph Lieberman who usually votes with the Republicans on issues of National Security.

The United States House of Representatives has 231 Democrats, 201 Republicans and two vacancies, one due to a death.

With such slim majorities, where is the mandate?

I just spoke to my congressman’s office to get the makeup of the House and asked the aide where the mandate is? She asked what I meant and I told her I keep hearing the Democrats talk of the mandate they got in November. I reminded her Nixon claimed a mandate and had won by a landslide but the Democrats denied he had a mandate.

Her answer was not one House Democrat lost the election in November and this is how they claim their mandate. I disagree. The numbers are too close and the partisianship is too great and too hateful, and I want adults in charge.

Is that too much to ask?

The Captain is also blogging on this story in a much better way than I can.

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