A few sources this morning are linking the recent massacre of school children in Peshawar with the December 7th handover by the Obama Administration to Pakistan of Latif Mehsud, second in command of the Pakistani Taliban.
According to Reuters, only eight days before the Taliban faction known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) brutally massacred over 130 school children in Peshawar Pakistan on Tuesday, Obama released the terror group’s second in command, Latif Mehsud.
U.S. forces captured Latif Mehsud, the former number two commander in Pakistan’s faction of the Taliban, in October 2013, in an operation that angered then Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
Mehsud, a Pakistani, and his two guards were secretly flown to Pakistan, two senior Pakistani security officials told Reuters. The U.S. military confirmed it transferred three prisoners to Pakistan’s custody on Saturday, but would not reveal their identities.Taliban terrorist-led attack on Pakistan school leaves at least 141 dead, including 132 children
Taliban: “We Slaughtered 100+ Kids Because Their Parents Helped America.†Muslim Terrorists who attacked an army-run school in Peshawar claim it’s retaliation for U.S.-backed efforts to crush a group that’s helped protect al Qaeda.FOX News The horrific attack in Peshawar, carried out by a relatively small number of militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban group, a Pakistani militant group trying to overthrow the government, also sent dozens of wounded flooding into local hospitals as terrified parents searched for their children.
After thousands of American lives had already been sacrificed to capture known terrorists in the Middle East, Mehsud had finally been apprehended by U.S. forces during an operation in October 2013. Up until Sunday, the convicted terrorist had been held in the Afghanistan prison. But according to officials, he was handed over along with two others to security officials in Islamabad.
“TTP senior commander Latif Mehsud who was arrested was handed over to Pakistani authorities along with his guards,†one Pakistani security official said. “They reached Islamabad.â€
Although the Obama administration could try to claim that the release was due to the fact that the United States will no longer be allowed to keep foreign prisoners in Afghanistan when the mission led by the U.S. ends later this month, there were still other viable options available rather than handing these terrorists over to Pakistan.
In an interesting statement, a U.S. embassy spokesperson commented on the release, referring to the convicted terrorists released by Obama as merely “third-country nationals.â€
You know, just normal everyday guys.
“We’re actually just going through and returning all the third-country nationals detained in Afghanistan to resolve that issue,†the spokeswoman said.
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Or was the attack revenge for Meshud not being released?
On Sunday 07 December President Barack Hussein Obama ordered the release of the second in command of the Pakistani Taliban. Latif Mehsud was transferred from a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan to the Pakistani government.
It is unclear if Mehsud was subsequently released from custody by the Pakistanis or is still incarcerated. The Taliban motive for its attack on the school, which was run by the Pakistani military, is yet unclear. It may have been revenge against the Pakistani government, perhaps because Mehsud remains in jail?
Michael Walsh identifies ten things Americans can learn from the Obama Administration’s handling of the Ebola crisis.
1) If a retread party hack like Klain is the best Obama can do, then the Democrat talent pool is incredibly shallow. Naturally, though, Obama wouldn’t think of going outside it.
2) The President considers Ebola a political/messaging problem, not a medical problem. Klain is an an insider process guy, not an expert in the field.
3) The fact that we need a “Czar†to cut across federal agency red-tape and make things happen expeditiously is an indictment of the federal agencies themselves, although no Democrat would ever dare to suggest such a thing. The choice signals that, as Ronald Reagan said, government itself is the problem, not the solution.
4) The reason they won’t dare is that the federal agencies — unelected hives of beetling bureaucrats, scurrying beneath the media surface — are the sources of their power. You don’t alienate or fire your most ardent union voters and financial supporters.
5) This is a government devoted to process, not results. Its most deeply held belief — a by-product of its quasi-Marxist belief in the “labor theory of value†— is that putting in hours and hitting “metrics†is the job itself, not whatever it ostensibly happens to be about; hey, even if you die, they get paid. In this sense, bureaucrats are similar to to the education majors who teach our children in the public schools, with no particular expertise in anything but theory. And the results speak for themselves.
6) With theory ascendant over common sense, the government’s adamant refusal so far to ban travel to and from West Africa and its affected nations proves conclusively that Leftists are perfectly willing to have you die for their ideological beliefs.
7) The longer this goes on, the more the panic will spread — look what happened at the Pentagon earlier today, or on this cruise ship. If you haven’t started to panic yet, then read this.
8) Regarding the open borders and open airports, a larger issue: why is the Left so adamantly opposed to the people’s right to defend themselves? There is nothing “racist†about closing the country to travelers from certain countries in west Africa — heck, the Africans have already done it themselves.
9) In twice electing Barack Obama president Americans made a choice: professional politicians over men of integrity. Symbolism over substance (hello, Nobel Peace Prize). Potential over accomplishment. Guilt over responsibility.
10) If the naked malevolence of the Leftist project for America isn’t visible to you now, then you’re beyond help.
But hey, not to worry — Kevin Spacey played Ron Klain in a movie. So it’s all good.
Blaming the filmmaker offered liberals the chance to affirm that reactionaries and bigots are the source of much of the world’s troubles. Therefore, jailing Mr. Nakoula was loud validation of the Obama Administration’s progressive, multicultural bona fides, and proof that Obama has zero tolerance for such “hate speech.†That narrative became important for practical reasons as well: did the Administration really wish to defend itself from the charge that it had arrested and jailed Nakoula on a trumped up parole violation when his video had nothing to do with violence in Libya? Moreover, by blaming a filmmaker, the administration de facto conceded that some sort of unjustified provocation had occurred, as if reactionary “hate speech†earns retribution that falls on the innocent.
There is an enormous amount of theorizing about what the “real story†behind Benghazi really is. To me it’s always been obvious. The White House was caught off guard — for reasons stemming both from ideology and incompetence — on September 11, 2012. As they have after virtually every other (jihadist) terrorist attack on Americans, they acted as if it had absolutely nothing to do with them. As with the Times Square bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, and other Islamist assaults, there’s always some other reason for the bloodshed, some attempt to claim, at least for a while, that this was an “isolated incident†with no broader implications for the War on Terror or Obama’s foreign policy. Admittedly, even this White House understood that spinning the Benghazi attack as an isolated incident wasn’t going to work (such intense spinning could risk irreparable scrotal torsion). So they went with the story about the video. …
Of course, the White House and its defenders insist that they really believed the video was to blame. This strikes me as a lie, for the most part, if not initially than certainly over time. But even if that’s true, that’s no exoneration. As I said, there was a mix of incompetence and ideology at work. As an ideological matter, that this White House could convince itself for hours — never mind weeks — that this terror attack was all about the video is incredibly damning, if true. And, as I argue in my column today, the fact that the once-proud champions of civil liberties under George W. Bush were perfectly happy to throw the First Amendment under the bus is even more damning.
Given that the Benghazi attack came during the thick of the presidential election, it’s no surprise that the White House’s political and ideological instincts overpowered everything else. It’s no surprise, either, that the press’s instincts pointed in the same direction. It’s really non-surprises for as far as the eye can see.
Obviously there are still some unknowns worth knowing, and they might be surprising — like the exact details of how and why the response was so non-responsive. Just because the White House and State Department were unprepared shouldn’t mean that the professional military was too. The exact nexus between the political screw-up and the military’s failure to “run to the sound of gunfire†hasn’t been established. Ditto, the question of “What the hell was Barack Obama even doing that night?â€
Traditional Marine white barracks covers left, Obama-proposed new white barracks covers right.
The blood of Marines everywhere must be boiling over the administration’s idea of spending $8 million to change the iconic Marines’ male white barracks cover to a reduced unisex version.
NY Post:
Thanks to a plan by President Obama to create a “unisex†look for the Corps, officials are on the verge of swapping out the Marines’ iconic caps – known as “covers†— with a new version that some have derided as so “girly†that they would make the French blush.
“We don’t even have enough funding to buy bullets, and the DoD is pushing to spend $8 million on covers that look like women’s hats!†one senior Marine source fumed to The Post. “The Marines deserve better. It makes them look ridiculous.â€
The thin new covers have a feminine line that some officials think would make them look just as good on female marines as on males — in keeping with the Obama directive.
“The Marine Corps is being ‘encouraged’ by DoD to standardize on a unisex/universal dress and service cap,†Marine brass noted in an internal memo obtained by The Post.
Male and female Marines currently wear gender-specific caps.
The controversial covers have been dubbed the “Dan Daly†hat, after a World War I sergeant from Long Island who twice won the Medal of Honor.
But some Marines love the old hat, which has been in use since 1922 and think the new hat is a glorified “porter’s cap.†The new Daly model is based on a style the Marines used from 1904 to 1918 – and then jettisoned.
“The Dan Daly cap looks too French, and the last people we want to associate our Marines with would be the French military,†wrote one commenter on the Marine Times Web site.
As of now, the new covers are only in the proposal stage.
Marines have until Friday to cast their votes on whether to adopt them or keep the old hat with modifications. Marine Corps head Gen. James Amos will make the final decision.
According to the memo obtained by The Post, requiring all troops to use the Daly cover will cost $8,221,958. Going with the traditional cap will save $284,043, because the current female caps are more expensive.
“Why are we even focused on this while we are laying troops off for no budget?†another Marine Times commenter asked.
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Some images of Marines in 1900s China, wearing the old-style cover, which was blue, not white.
20. Crucial USDA Websites Taken Down – “The U.S. Department of Agriculture has turned off its entire website in response to the government shutdown, leaving farmers, reporters and others with no way to access any of the agency’s information online. …
The Obama Administration sent the National Park Service out to shut down McLean, Virginia’s 1771 Claude Moore Colonial Farm, a privately funded and operated park, which is federally-owned, but which has received no federal monies since 1980 and which is not actually costing the federal government a dime.
The first casualty of this arbitrary action was the McLean Chamber of Commerce who were having a large annual event at the Pavilions on Tuesday evening. The NPS sent the Park Police over to remove the Pavilions staff and Chamber volunteers from the property while they were trying to set up for their event. Fortunately, the Chamber has friends and they were able to move to another location and salvage what was left of their party. You do have to wonder about the wisdom of an organization that would use staff they don’t have the money to pay to evict visitors from a park site that operates without costing them any money.
Every appeal our Board of Directors made to the NPS administration was denied. They feel that as “landlord†they have absolute control of their property. The NPS is quoted today in the Washington Post saying “The monuments are closed because, during a shutdown, there is no money to pay the rangers who staff themâ€, said the Park Service spokeswoman, Carol Bradley Johnson.†And the agency is worried about the security of the memorials and the safety of visitors at unstaffed sites. “It is not something we enjoy doing,†Johnson said. “But it’s important that we protect and preserve our monuments for future generations.â€
We have operated the Farm successfully for 32 years after the NPS cut the Farm from its budget in 1980 and are fully staffed and prepared to open today. But there are barricades at the Pavilions and entrance to the Farm. And if you were to park on the grass and visit on your own, you run the risk of being arrested. Of course, that will cost the NPS staff salaries to police the Farm against intruders while leaving it open will cost them nothing. …
In all the years I have worked with the National Park Service, first as a volunteer for 6 years in Richmond where I grew up, then as an NPS employee at the for 8 very long years and now enjoyably as managing director for the last 32 years – I have never worked with a more arrogant, arbitrary and vindictive group representing the NPS.
The Obama Administration’s rationale for wanting to bomb Syria makes little sense and their arguments are failing to win the American public’s support. Can it be that the Administration finds itself forced to rely on such bad arguments because identifying what is really going on would be completely unacceptable?
A number of commentators are suggesting that the truth of the matter is: the Obama Administration is following the same course as the Bush Administration and essentially hiring out American military power to the Saudis, who are in reality the fons et origo of Sunni extremism and jihadism.
There is underway a struggle over Syria between Shia Iran’s Hezbollah and the Sunni Saudis’ al Qaeda, and we are about to sell our services as Air Force for al Qaeda in some kind of backroom deal which probably won’t do much good for Europe or America, but which will probably make some American politicians very, very rich.
“Could it be because Qatar is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas in the world and Assad won’t let them build a natural gas pipeline through Syria? Of course. Qatar wants to install a puppet regime in Syria that will allow them to build a pipeline which will enable them to sell lots and lots of natural gas to Europe.â€
Well, it turns out that Saudi Arabia intends to install their own puppet government in Syria which will allow the Saudis to control the flow of energy through the region. On the other side, Russia very much prefers the Assad regime for a whole bunch of reasons. One of those reasons is that Assad is helping to block the flow of natural gas out of the Persian Gulf into Europe, thus ensuring higher profits for Gazprom.
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There is no possible doubt of the basic fact that the Obama Administration wants to agree to sell American military services as mercenaries to the Saudis (and their Sunni allies). Just the other day, Secretary of State John Kerry explained that our Arab friends have offered to pick up the tab for all our military activities against Syria.
Secretary of State John Kerry said at Wednesday’s hearing that Arab counties have offered to pay for the entirety of unseating President Bashar al-Assad if the United States took the lead militarily.
“With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assess, the answer is profoundly yes,†Kerry said. “They have. That offer is on the table.â€
Asked by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) about how much those countries would contribute, Kerry said they have offered to pay for all of a full invasion.
“In fact, some of them have said that if the United States is prepared to go do the whole thing the way we’ve done it previously in other places, they’ll carry that cost,†Kerry said. “That’s how dedicated they are at this. That’s not in the cards, and nobody’s talking about it, but they’re talking in serious ways about getting this done.
