Keith D. Milby :: blog

Here’s a measure of how President Robert Mugabe is destroying this once lush nation of Zimbabwe:

In a week of surreptitious reporting here (committing journalism can be a criminal offense in Zimbabwe), ordinary people said time and again that life had been better under the old, racist, white regime of what was then called Rhodesia.

via Op-Ed Columnist – Postcard From Zimbabwe – NYTimes.com.

War is a dirty affair where innocents die and evil men sometimes triumph.

The intensity and uncertainly of combat is increasingly caught on camera, as embedded journalists and combatants themselves capture images and video of the brutality. Even in an age where the fake violence of the video game and the cinema have desensitized many of us to imagined carnage, real images of war can still strike us like the bitter steel of a bayonet. This is especially true in circumstances where we are guided by politically motivated players — in not-so-subtle ways — to view a jarring slice of the horror of war presented through a flawed and incomplete prism.

via Pajamas Media » Shame on WikiLeaks: Framing Lawful Engagement as Anti-American Propaganda (Part One).

WikiLeaks has declared that American forces engaged with armed elements of the Mahdi Army during the 2007 surge are guilty of “collateral murder.”

Part of that claim is based upon the fact that two Reuters employees, embedded with a band of armed militants, were destroyed by 30mm cannon fire from Apache helicopters. The Apaches were providing support for ground forces that had been under sporadic rifle and RPG fire throughout the morning. Wikileaks would have us hold the pilots responsible for not discerning the armed militiamen from the identically dressed Reuters employees that so comfortably moved with them.

via Pajamas Media » Shame on WikiLeaks: Framing Lawful Engagement as Anti-American Propaganda (Part Two).

President Obama told U.S. troops in Afghanistan Sunday that America did not ask to be at war there, but he has ratched up the fight to make sure the Taliban and Al Qaeda can not experience a resurgence that would threaten U.S. national security.

In a surprise visit to the country, Obama included a visit to Bagram Airfield to thank the troops for their commitment in a terror fight that has now lasted eight and a half years and is witnessing an escalation of nearly 30,000 more U.S. troops to the country to face down increasingly engaged Taliban fighters.

via FOXNews.com – Obama Thanks U.S. Troops for Sacrifice as Force in Afghanistan Grows.

While the rest of America was stunned to hear that a suburban Pennsylvania woman allegedly used the Internet identity of Jihad Jane and tried to join militant jihadists, for a group of ‘Net vigilantes it was old news.

In fact, at least one of the Web sleuths claims to have alerted the feds to Colleen LaRose’s alleged efforts to raise money and recruit fighters for Islamic terrorists and to carry out her own jihad.

via Internet Monitors Tracked ‘Jihad Jane’ Colleen LaRose for Three Years – ABC News.

RONALD REAGAN liked to say that there was no limit to what a man could accomplish if he didn’t mind who got the credit. The transformation of Iraq from a hellish tyranny into a functioning democracy will be recorded as a signal accomplishment of George W. Bush’s presidency, and he probably doesn’t mind in the least that the Obama administration would like to take the credit.

This week’s parliamentary elections in Iraq brought 12 million voters to the polls – a remarkable 62 percent turnout, notwithstanding a wave of Election Day bombings that killed 38 people.

via Mission accomplished, indeed – The Boston Globe.

The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday, the same day Adam Gadahn appeared in a video urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.

The arrest of Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement’s No. 2 commander.

May this traitor never live another day with peace in his evil heart.

via Officers: Pakistan arrests American-born al-Qaida – Yahoo! News.

President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

The president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some alleged terrorists in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.

via Obama advisers set to recommend military tribunals for alleged 9/11 plotters – washingtonpost.com.

After a lot of huffing and puffing, about the need to add more civil liberties protections to a law already teeming with them, the Democrat-controlled Senate quietly voted to extend the three Patriot Act provisions that would have expired without reauthorization. Although beating back Patriot and its sensible national security provisions has been a rallying cry for the Left, Senate Democrats agreed to a clean reauthorization on a voice-vote. The New York Times managed just a paragraph, culled from the AP wire, to report the extension. Why so quiet? There are a couple of reasons, I suspect, and Michelle Malkin — ever on the case — gives us both of them.

via Shhhhh, Don’t Tell Anyone — The Patriot Act Was Reauthorized – Andy McCarthy – The Corner on National Review Online.

Bush administration lawyers who wrote memos blessing the waterboarding of terrorism suspects and other harsh interrogation tactics “exercised poor judgment” but will not face discipline for their actions, according to Justice Department correspondence sent to lawmakers late Friday.

via Bush lawyers who approved waterboarding to face no discipline – washingtonpost.com.