The Political Conundrum!

The CIA has begun waging an aggressive offensive inside Pakistan's tribal areas to kill Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, the New York Daily News reported today. The effort has picked up steam in recent weeks - which is obvious to anyone reading wire service reports of missile blasts from unmanned drones in the remote, mountainous badlands along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Osama Bin Laden's old Pashtun pal Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj, the Taliban's military masterminds and close allies of Al Qaeda, are among the top targets, U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism sources told me.

The CIA declined to comment on the operations. A plan for cross-border strikes by special operations forces was authorized by President Bush months ago, according to the Associated Press, but it has become increasingly public as targets became available - and were quickly attacked - in late summer.

However, CIA Director Michael Hayden may have hinted at the new effort - which is unhindered compared to the geopolitical red tape of just a year ago - in a message he sent to agency employees today to mark the September 11 anniversary.

"To see America under attack, as it was then, is something none of us can ever forget," Hayden wrote in the statement, according to a source. "There can be no finer way to honor the victims of 9/11 than to continue working with that full dedication to protect our country and uphold its values of freedom and decency in the world."

Earlier this week, I published an op-ed in the Daily Standard about the August deal between Washington and Libya that paved the way for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Tripoli on September 5 and the normalization of bilateral ties.

The US-Libyan agreement establishes a mechanism to compensate the Lockerbie and La Belle disco victims of Libyan state-sponsored-terrorism. It also includes a provision to compensate the Libyan victims of the US counterstrike on Libya (codenamed El Dorado Canyon) in response to the La Belle disco attack.

It’s a remarkable agreement. As I noted in the Daily Standard piece:

On the face of it, the quid pro quo implicitly equates the intentional targeting of civilians (i.e., terrorism) with unintentional collateral damage incurred during a legal act of self defense. The administration's embrace of moral equivalency to seal the deal is stunning. In a surreal twist of events, Libyan leader Muamar Qaddhafi--who ordered the attack on the La Belle--could be eligible for compensation for the death of his adopted daughter, who was said to have been killed in the U.S. counterstrike.

The deal conflates the victims of terrorism and counterterrorism operations. Making matters worse, there’s been surprisingly little coverage of the egregious details of the agreement in the press. While the victims of Libyan terrorism are no doubt entitled to compensation, the Administration's deal comes at a high moral and political cost.

On June 3, I posted about Google's hypocrisy in taking down a YouTube clip in Thailand because it "offended" the King, while continuing to enable terrorist organizations to post videos inciting violence. In May, Sen. Joseph Lieberman had urged Google to remove Internet videos produced by terrorist organizations, such as Al-Qaeda, from YouTube subsidiary. "Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training. YouTube also, unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive, and amplified voice, despite military setbacks or successful operations by the law enforcement and intelligence communities." At that point, Google would not tighten its guidelines, citing free speech concerns. I commented that Google was risking litigation in the event of an attack by terrorists with a YouTube presence.

Today, Sen. Lieberman released a victorious press release, announcing Google's decision to strengthen the standards for videos on YouTube to bar those that incite violence. According to his release, the revised guidelines bar "predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, intimidation, invading privacy, revealing other people's personal information, and inciting others to commit violent acts..."

Congratulations to Sen. Lieberman for his perseverance and to Google for changing its policies.

I have spent the last several months co-producing a documentary for "Dateline NBC," along with Richard Greenberg of NBC News, on the 2006 Airline terror plot, widely considered Al Qaeda's most ambitious plot since 9/11. The program will air this coming Monday the 15th on NBC at 10pm Eastern.

The plan, authorities alleged, was to explode up to seven airliners en route from Heathrow airport to North American cities. Based on interviews with key officials from the US, Britain, and Pakistan, the documentary will shed significant new light on the genesis of the plot and the unprecedented international investigation that thwarted it. Please tune in!

Here is the NBC Press Release:

CHRIS HANSEN REPORTS ON THE ALLEGED PLOT AND THE INVESTIGATION INTO WHAT AUTHORITIES SAY COULD HAVE BEEN THE WORST TERRORIST ATTACK SINCE SEPT. 11

"Inside the Cell" to Air on Monday, Sept. 15 at 10 PM on "Dateline"

(New York) - Sept. 11, 2008 - A jury in Britain delivered a verdict this week in the case authorities say could have been one of the biggest terrorist attacks since Sept. 11. Three men were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, but, the jury was deadlocked on the more specific charge - the alleged plot to blow up planes. The verdict surprised a lot of people and left many to question: What exactly were those men planning? And how close did they come to success?

Now, in an in-depth report, "Dateline's" Chris Hansen reports from the streets of London on the alleged plot, the men being accused of the crimes and the international investigation that stopped it. The hour-long broadcast, airing on Monday, Sept. 15 (10:00-11:00 PM/ET), includes interviews with senior government officials from the United States and Great Britain who reveal details about the investigation from the inside not previously reported, explores the potential threat to aviation and takes a unique look at one man who reveals how al Qaeda nearly recruited him, and who makes it his mission to stop others from being recruited by terrorist groups.

When asked if he thinks a British citizen or citizens will launch an attack on the United States from the UK, Andy Hayman, who was the top Scotland Yard official overseeing counterterrorism at the time, says to Hansen: "Well, this particular plot gives you an insight to that. If we've got one plot that's been hatched with that ingredient, and it's unsuccessful, I would assume that objective still remains in place."

Richard Greenberg is producer of "Inside the Cell"; Paul Cruickshank is co-producer.

David Corvo is the executive producer of "Dateline NBC."

Militants killed two U.S. soldiers eastern Afghanistan on the anniversary of 9/11, making 2008 the deadliest year yet for American forces in the country that sheltered al-Qaida while it plotted the terror attacks on New York and Washington.

U.S. military personnel lifted blue shrouds from 184 benches honoring those who died when American Airlines Flight 77 rammed the Pentagon in 2001. The memorial on the Pentagon's west wall "is a testament to those who were taken from us and the memories that will live on," President George Bush said.

According to an international poll, there is still broad scepticism that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001. Majorities in only nine of 17 countries said they believed that al-Qaeda was behind the attacks, the Maryland-based WorldPublicOpinion.org reported.

A pregnant soldier's unit at Fort Bragg didn't follow procedures for keeping track of newly arrived personnel, the Army said in a report Thursday on the disappearance of the woman, whose body was found this summer at an off-base motel.

New data from a public health registry that tracks the health effects of 9/11 suggest that as many as 70,000 people may have developed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the terrorist attacks.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has sounded the alarm on Afghanistan, correctly pointing out that the danger of losing there is real and the hour is late.

It is fitting, on this day, to remember that our collective inability to get Afghanistan right once before helped give our enemies the opportunity to plan and execute the 9/11 attacks that are being remembered today.

What is striking about the published reports of Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates is the absence of any discussion of one of the driving forces of the Taliban's mounting success: its access to tens of millions of dollars in opium and poppy money. The UN conservatively estimates the Taliban makes between $50 million and $70 million a year from the drug trade.

Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room! Here is the prototype of future terrorist and insurgent movements deriving its income from non-state sources, and combating that figures into the policy at best in a marginal way.

In the 1980s the mujahadeen relied on U.S., Saudi and Pakistani aid, and became, over time, a largely state-sponsored, though non-state, actor. Now there is far less state sponsorship (with the exception of Pakistan's ISI), and the revenue is derived from criminal activity, an MO we will see more and more frequently in coming years.

The other multiple issues listed by Mullen are correct. There is a severe shortage of manpower and airlift capability. There is a terribly disjointed chain of command among the NATO forces and between NATO and the U.S. forces. The intelligence sharing infrastructure hardly exists. All of these are crippling weaknesses, and weaknesses that simply adding more troops will not resolve. My full blog is here.