The Daily Broadside - 10/13

WHITTLE: “Mirroring” and Compromise (Hat tip: Pi Guy)

On Friday, I interviewed a life-long CIA case officer who has recently joined a flood of life-long intelligence officers who are resigning from the CIA. He resigned because the George Bush’s Global War on Terror has been changed to Barack Obama’s Global War on the CIA. When Eric Holder has been tasked with prosecuting the people who have kept this country and its citizens safe against murderers that do not use armies and bombers and battleships but rather box cutters, airlines and anthrax powder, he eliminated our defense department — which in this war, is the CIA and the other Intelligence services. With one exception, I have not heard of a single case of a US citizen’s rights being infringed by the Patriot Act. The single exception is that of the “US Citizen” who — while technically a citizen — is a Jihadi immigrant who was assembling the materials for a radioactive bomb that would have killed a few hundred thousand of his "fellow citizens."

Russia accuses Georgia of aiding Al-Qaeda: reports

Georgia is training and lending safe passage to Al-Qaeda agents planning terrorist acts in the Russian Caucasus, the head of Russia's FSB secret service charged Tuesday.
"Audio evidence seized from insurgents shows that, together with emissaries of Al-Qaeda, they had contacts with representatives of the Georgian secret services," Alexander Bortnikov said, quoted by Russian news agencies.

Obama approves 13,000 more troops to Afghanistan

In an unannounced move, President Barack Obama is dispatching an additional 13,000 US troops to Afghanistan beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March, The Washington Post reported.
The additional forces are primarily support forces -- such as engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police -- the Post said, bringing the total buildup Obama has approved for the war-torn nation to 34,000.

"Obama authorized the whole thing. The only thing you saw announced in a press release was the 21,000," a defense official familiar with the troop-approval process told the daily.

Hadron Collider physicist Adlene Hicheur charged with terrorism (I know we owe someone a hat tip for this news, but I can't remember who - please tap me on the shoulder and I'll add you.)

A French physicist with the European atomic research centre near Geneva was charged with terrorism offences by a Paris judge last night after investigators said that he offered to work with the North African branch of al-Qaeda.

Adlène Hicheur, 32, who is of Algerian origin, was arrested last week with his younger brother after intelligence agents intercepted his alleged internet contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

The physicist, who works at the giant atomic collider at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), which straddles Swiss and French territory, told the Islamic group that he was interested in committing an attack but had not begun any material preparation, according to police sources. He had acknowledged contacting the militant organisation, they said.

The brother was released last weekend without charge.

Afternoon News Dump 10/8

Official: Obama to Send Enough Troops to Keep Al Qaeda at Bay

The official also added that President Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan's political future, reiterating what the president said in March.

Members of the president's national security team argued that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the U.S., officials told The New York Times. It was unclear if everyone in the war council accepted the premise.

And then there's this. This is just sad.

BREAKING: Congress acts to extend hate crimes to cover gays

WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968.
With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be able to intervene in cases of violence perpetrated against gays.

Note: The debate, for us, is over the merits of hate crimes legislation. We in no way advocate people being attacked over their race, religion, or sexual orientation. We figure that's clear, but it never hurts to say so.

The Daily Broadside 10/8

Holder: Student beating death 'a wake-up call'

Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan were sent by President Barack Obama to Chicago to meet with school officials, parents and students to discuss youth violence after the vicious beating of Derrion Albert on Sept. 24. The fatal attack was captured on a cell phone video, and viewed by millions across the nation.

'Code Pink' rethinks its call for Afghanistan pullout

Code Pink, founded in 2002 to oppose the US invasion of Iraq, is one of the more high-profile women's antiwar groups being forced to rethink its position as Afghan women explain theirs: Without international troops, they say, armed groups could return with a vengeance – and that would leave women most vulnerable.

EDITORIAL: Obama's elusive 'safe schools czar'

Kevin Jennings hasn't come clean. There are still many unanswered questions about how he handled a high-school sophomore who he said confessed to a homosexual relationship with an older man.
On Friday, Brewster came forward and gave a statement to Media Matters, a group with clear partisan ties to Democrats, in which the former student corrected Mr. Jennings' statement of his age and denied any sexual relationship. That, CNN and the Obama administration claim, is the end of the controversy.

Large blast strikes in center of Afghan capital

The center of the explosion appeared to be just outside the Indian embassy, which was hit by a devastating suicide blast more than a year ago. Two sport utility vehicles nearby were badly damaged. One of them was labeled as a U.N. vehicle.

UPDATE (by JCM): H/T ęschew_σbfuscation
The Power of Payback
Victor Davis Hanson

Nemesis Everywhere

I have believed in the power of the goddess Nemesis (“dispenser of dues”) ever since I was introduced to the concept as a teenager studying classics, especially in the texts of Hesiod, Herodotus, and Sophocles.

Hot Topic of the Day: Obama's Afghanistan Problem

Richard Cohen/WaPo: Does Obama Have the Backbone?

But the ultimate in realism is for the president to gauge himself and who he is: Does he have the stomach and commitment for what is likely to continue to be an unpopular war? Will he send additional troops, but hedge by not sending enough -- so that the dying will be in vain? What does he believe, and will he ask Americans to die for it? Only he knows the answers to these questions. But based on his zigzagging so far and the suggestion from the Copenhagen trip that the somber seriousness of the presidency has yet to sink in, we have reason to wonder.

Afternoon News Dump

Obama to brave lawmakers' ire on Afghanistan

US President Barack Obama will confront a building political storm over Afghanistan on Tuesday, as he talks through his dilemma over future war strategy with leading figures in Congress.

Obama is under intense pressure to offer lawmakers of both parties more detail on his evolving internal review of Afghanistan policy, as debate heats up on the unpopular war following a spike in US troop deaths.

Jokes, apologies from David Letterman on his show

Letterman arrived on stage Monday to applause and cheers from his studio audience. After drinking it in, he grinned sheepishly and inquired, with a mock stammer, "Did your, did your weekend just fly by?"

After pausing for the audience's sympathetic laughter, he went on: "I mean, I'll be honest with you folks—right now, I would give anything to be hiking on the Appalachian Trail."

Michelle Malkin: Protests against military recruiters at schools nationwide

The anti-military zealots have never relented. Tomorrow, a recruiter-bashing organization called “We Are Not Your Soldiers” is holding a national protest on the anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. Schoolchildren are being encouraged to distribute letters “to all high school teachers you know.” When protesting, they are also being instructed “to assure the media are present.” They’ve set up a Facebook page. And, unsurprisingly, the driving force behind “We Are Not Your Soldiers” is the anti-American Communist-founded World Can’t Wait.

The Hill: Pelosi says new tax is 'on the table'

A new value-added tax (VAT) is "on the table" to help the U.S. address its fiscal liabilities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday night.

Pelosi, appearing on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show" asserted that "it's fair to look at" the VAT as part of an overhaul of the nation's tax code.

Afternoon News Dump - Monday 10/5

Barack Obama angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

You Can't Say That: At the UN, the Obama administration backs limits on free speech.

The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends.

And (Via HotAir) from the Who Says There's No Good News? file:

ACORN Losing Funding From Big Foundations

MICHAEL YON: The Greatest Afghan War - MICHAEL MOORE: Capitalism Did Nothing For Me

Yon in the Washington Times today:

We are losing popular support. Confidence in the Afghan and coalition governments is plummeting. Loss of human terrain is evident. Conditions are building for an avalanche. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the military commander in Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates are aware of the rumbling, and so today we are bound by rules of engagement that appear insensible.

Moore, from CNS News (hat tip Jorline):

Documentary film director Michael Moore, who has become a millionaire thanks to the profits from his movies, told CNSNews.com that “capitalism did nothing” for him.