The Political Conundrum!

Expect to keep hearing the Hamid Karzai spin train every day from now until August 20th. It will get louder and louder as he makes these statements about talks with the Taliban and how he wants rules put on Coalition forces. Under the past administration he would be ignored as he always has, but under this Administration there is no telling what will happen.

He has a history of shooting off his mouth for his own people and of course the media jumps all over it. He is like a guy in a fight that is held back by his friends and as long as his friends are holding him back he talks big smack. He knows that he has no pull and that he can make whatever “demands” he wants but they will fall on deaf ears, except for his own people. The Afghan people have very limited access to outside media outlets so they believe what they hear in country.

Karzai needs to stay quiet, quit talking smack and as I have said in the past, quit being a tool.

 

http://www.examiner.com/a-2138762~Karzai__Afghans_want_rules_for_troops_changed.html?cid=rss-World

The NEFA Foundation has obtained a new communiqué from the Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement in Somalia announcing that " Beginning from the publishing of this announcement, a number of non-governmental organizations and foreign committees currently operating in Somalia have had their offices completely closed permanently because they are considered to be hostile to Islam and Muslims. They are the following: UNDP - the United Nations Development Program; UNDSS - the United Nations Office for Peace and Security; UNPOS - the United Nations Political Office for Somalia. The decision for closure ad expulsion has already been made for these committees after a precise examination of their activities and the true motivations behind their presence in Somalia. Their involvement in activities hostile to Islam and Muslims and their attempts to preclude the formation of an Islamic state in parts of Somalia have already been proven."

An English translation of the communique can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

For more information on Shabaab al-Mujahideen, see my NEFA Foundation report, "Shabaab al-Mujahideen: Migration and Jihad in the Horn of Africa."

A new wave of radical Islamist attacks in Nigeria point to the spread of wahhabist theology in the region and the significant difficulties facing West Africa's perennial hot spot.

As I have noted earlier, in 2003 Osama bin Laden specifically mentioned Nigeria as a target for the spread of al Qaeda, and shortly thereafter there were a series of smaller scale attacks. But the actions of the "Nigeria Taliban" were widely dismissed as simply jihadist "wannabes" that posed no threat.

The truth is that there is a large and radicalized Muslim population in northern Nigeria, where 12 of the states (out of 36 in all) have imposed Sharia law. The radicalization is mixed with a deep sense of historic grievance against the south and the central government, as well as antagonism toward the sizable Christian minority. Not all Muslim in the north are radicalized, nor are all seeking a violent change in the state system.

But those in the lead of the new, self-proclaimed Taliban, are, and want to push sharia law to a more extreme form. As one of the leaders of the current violence states:

"Democracy and the current system of education must be changed otherwise this war that is yet to start would continue for long."

The Islamist fighters are thought to belong to a group known as Boko Haram, which means "western education is sin". My full blog is here.

The Senate will hold hearings on the controversial "don’t ask, don’t tell" law sometime this fall, another step forward for rights groups seeking to overturn the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military.

A senior Qods Force officer who led one of the three commands in Iraq assigned to attack U.S. and Iraqi forces was one of five Iranians released by the U.S. military on July 9.

U.S. military authorities in Afghanistan may hire a private contractor to provide around-the-clock security at dozens of bases and protect vehicle convoys moving throughout the country.

President Hamid Karzai -- acknowledging shaky relations with his international partners in the war on terror -- said he wants new rules governing the conduct of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and would be willing to talk with Taliban leaders who publicly renounce violence.

The U.S. Navy is warning of increased pirate activity off the coast of Somalia due to the advent of weather more favorable to the sea-borne criminals.

 

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpls. Gustavo Amaya (right) and Andrew Ellis, both with 1st Platoon, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, suspect they are being observed by enemy forces during a key leader engagement in the Nawa District of Helmand province, Afghanistan, on July 11, 2009. The Marines are deployed to support NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and will participate in counter insurgency operations. They will train and mentor Afghan National Security Forces to improve security and stability in the country. DoD photo by Lance Cpl. Jeremy Harris, U.S. Marine Corps.

Nearly three months after the initial outbreak of the H1N1 virus in Craven County, another case of the so-called swine flu has been confirmed at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, and a dozen members of the same military unit are isolated from the public.