Grim milestone reached in Afghanistan US troop deaths reach 1,000 since the war began in 2001

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN—The United States incurred 1,000 US troop deaths when a suicide car bomber rammed into a NATO convey. Commander of U.S. and NATO forces, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said about the Afghan war, “nobody is winning” in a Newshour interview on PBS.

In a nutshell, the war is in a stalemate, as the Taliban has been regaining ground since the end of 2008 and counterinsurgency groups have risen with it. More perturbing is Hamid Karzai’s corruption and until just recently, no pressure has been brought to bear by the administration—that has begun to change since the two failed terror bombings in the US—and of course, its poppy production continues.

Afghanistan is a sorted affair, there is no real functioning government, only a post-warlord ruled geography with an uneducated, unskilled, and poverty stricken population that is subject to the whims of the Taliban seesaw—a population that does not seek to be liberated because history has taught them nothing else.

And therein lays the fundamental problem as General McChrystal sees it, “Our success is very dependent upon the [Afghan] people believing in the future. What they have to believe is that the government we are working towards is better than what an alternative would be."

-- Killswitch Politick

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Where oh where has our little Pakistani Taliban gone? We’ve haven’t seen Faisal Shahzad since his arrest, but the administration has changed its public stance

NYC, NY—Oh where can Faisal Shahzad be? In a Wall Street Journal OpEd, authors Dana Perino and Bill Burck ask that same question. Conspicuous by its absences are any court appearances by the Pakistani Taliban.

On May 9^th, Attorney General Eric Holder said, "We need to give serious consideration to at least modifying the public safety exception [to Miranda]" and grant law enforcement officials "necessary flexibility". Is this an admission that Mirandizing the Fruit of Kaboom Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in less than an hour was a mistake?

It well may be, but the fact that Mr. Shahzad has not been in a courthouse seems to indicate that his cooperation is leading to more arrests and possibly to disrupting other terror plots. Moreover, it appears the administration's new vigor for terror prosecution means what they’ve come to learn cannot be ignored and therefore, quick and decisive action must be taken.

There have already been a number of detainments and arrests in relation to Shahzad’s attempted Times Square bombing, not to mention a realigned military commitment to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps the divorce of campaign rhetoric has finally come to fruition in an administration that thought words and appeasement would be enough to fight terrorism.

-- Killswitch Politick

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Terrorism in a post-terrorism administration meets Faisal Shahzad The War on Terror by any other name continues

NYC, NY—Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani born naturalized American citizen attempted to bomb NYC’s Times Square on May 3, 2010 using an SUV packed with explosives. The 30 year-old had returned from a trip to Pakistan in February.

The administration is lauding itself for the capture of Mr. Shahzad, but it wasn’t law enforcement or military personnel that made him; a Times Square vendor, Duane Jackson did that when he noticed the driverless Nissan Pathfinder idling.

The motives (according to multiple news copy) of the suspect are still “unknown” but perhaps we here at KP can give them a clue: terrorism.

Regardless of Shahzad’s “motives” his intent was terrorism—pure and simple. The interesting dichotomy is the campaign promises of President Obama to restore America’s standing in the world and to approach international affairs differently from his predecessor. Yet despite the many apologies and hand-wringing the president has done, the US remains a target (see the Christmas Day bomber and the Fort Hood massacre).

Which only goes to prove one simple fact, America is Judeo-Christian nation as endorsed by the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, and any number of writings by the Founding Fathers. Radical Islam is diametrically opposed to Judaism and Christianity—it does not have a problem with Shintoism or Buddhism or any number of religions—so as long as we remain a Judeo-Christian nation, radical Islamist will hate us.

-- Killswitch Politick

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The US at war on its southern border While Arizona’s new immigration law sparks debate, the war has been raging for years

PHOENIX, AZ—Rancher Robert Krentz was murdered on his own property March 27^th, his untimely death perhaps the catalyst for a public frothing at the federal government’s porous border issue; Mr. Krentz is not the only American casualty in a war that has been largely ceded.

Border states are the most affected by illegal’s consumption of emergency care and social assistance programs. Many hospitals have scuttled in the wake of rendering unpaid services and public assistance monies have been siphoned off directly away from US citizens.

For those familiar with KP’s format, this section typically addresses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan along with foreign affairs, but this piece is not about foreign affairs or the US relation with Mexico, it is about fighting a war against illegal immigration. And make no mistake about it, illegal immigration has become a war—a war the US (regardless of its White House occupant) simply does not want to fight for fear of alienating Hispanic voting blocks.

But the problem of illegal immigration has reached critical mass, with too few border patrol and heavily armed drug cartels, too little fence and too many flagrant mule operations, the time for action has come.

Arizona’s new law should be an abject lesson in the despair border states have long faced without adequate fencing and without adequate enforcement of Article IV of the US Constitution.

-- Killswitch Politick

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