SandBoxBlogs: Pueblo Chieftain "Double agent hands al-Qaida its 3rd failed bombing"

Here's to the spooks of the CIA.  God bless my America.  Great job!  Well done.

(almost feels like Doolittle's Tokyo Raiders....only using underwear technology instead of air/sea moxy...)

EILEEN SULLIVAN, MATT APUZZO and ADAM GOLDMAN:

"WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past three years, al-Qaida bomb makers in Yemen have developed three fiendishly clever devices in hopes of attacking airplanes in the skies above the United States.

First, there was the underwear bomb that fizzled over Detroit on Christmas 2009. Next, terrorists hid bombs inside printer cartridges and got them on board cargo planes in 2010, only to watch authorities find and defuse them in the nick of time.

Then last month, officials say, al-Qaida completed a sophisticated new, nonmetallic underwear bomb — and unwittingly handed it over to the CIA.

The would-be suicide bomber, the man al-Qaida entrusted with its latest device, actually was a double agent working with the CIA and Saudi intelligence agencies, officials said Tuesday. Instead of sneaking onto a plane in his underwear, he delivered it to the U.S. government and handed al-Qaida its latest setback.

The extraordinary intelligence operation was confirmed by U.S. and Yemeni officials who were briefed on the plot but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it....."

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"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Durango Herald "Taliban attack Pakistan prison, free 380 prisoners"

How can this be?

Our thoughts are with and our hearts go out to 380 American military families who have each lost a soldier to the Taliban.  For every single one of these prisoners of war that have escaped in Pakistan, an American lost their life.

How can this be?  And again, Pakistani government.

Thank you so much for your service and generosity in letting that soldier go.

ISHTIAQ MAHSUD:
"They were carrying modern and heavy weapons," said Zahid Khan. "They fired rockets."

Once inside the building, the attackers headed straight to the area of the prison where death-row prisoners were being kept, he said. They fought with guards for around two hours, setting part of the prison on fire before freeing the 380 inmates, including at least 20 "very dangerous Taliban militants," said Shafique...."

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"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Summit Daily News "Liddick: The shaky moral ground of drone use"

Morgan Liddick:
"The MQ-9 “Reaper” Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicle she uses as a murder weapon is, on the other hand, all too real. With it, its cousin the “Predator,” and the rapidly-proliferating family of unmanned surveillance aircraft, grim fact has caught up with fiction. So this might be a good time to sit down and think things through.

These machines range in size from the Reaper, which can carry over 3,000 pounds of weapons and fly for 36 hours, to battery-powered surveillance drones about the size of a shoebox. They can go into very high-risk environments — think clouds of toxic chemicals or remote forest fires. They don't get bored. With the right set of sensors, they can see better than a human pilot. And properly equipped, they can — and do — kill.

Internationally, this use of the Predator and Reaper shouldn't surprise. Even when nominal US citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki end up on the business end of a Hellfire missile, we should remember that taking up arms for a foreign entity engaged in hostilities against the United States is an expatriating act — particularly when coupled with other actions indicating the unlikelihood of returning to US jurisdiction...."
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"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Colorado Statesman " How long can troops remain loyal to a leader who shows little loyalty towards them? "

Miller Hudson:

"During the Watergate fiasco, one interview stamped itself on my memory. Larry O’Brien was the national chairman of the Democratic Party, and it was his office that was broken into by Richard Nixon’s “plumbers.” O’Brien had a long political career in Massachusetts which concluded with his appointment as the manager for both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaigns. Johnson had rewarded him with an appointment as U. S. Postmaster General. While Nixon’s men scrambled to escape the tightening noose of Congressional investigations and impeachment subpoenas they engaged in an unseemly display of finger pointing as they tried to heave one another beneath a tsunami of criminal indictments.

O’Brien was asked what would have happened if a similar disgrace had unfolded in the Kennedy White House where he served. His reply was enlightening. He said, “Six Irishmen, myself included, would have marched onto Pennsylvania Avenue and thrown ourselves on our swords and that’s the last you would have ever heard about it.” He went on to explain that these willing volunteers would have served out their federal prison sentences in silence, and none would have yammered on or written books about who was responsible, who was to blame. This scenario stands in stark contrast with the criminal scrambling to cover their tracks evidenced by Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Liddy, Dean, Mitchell and others...."

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"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Union Leader "For what, all these wars?"

An outstanding piece from Pat Buchanan.  A must read.  (Click title for full column)

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBox Comments: Stars and Stripes "Seoul holds military drills despite NKorea threat "

Hyung-Jin Kim:
"SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea conducted live-fire military drills near its disputed sea boundary with North Korea on Monday despite Pyongyang's threat to respond with a "merciless" attack.

North Korea did not carry out the threat as it focuses on internal stability two months after the death of longtime leader Kim Jong Il and prepares for nuclear disarmament talks with the United States later this week. But with American forces scheduled to conduct additional military exercises with ally South Korea over the next few months, tensions are expected to remain high in the region.

Washington and North Korea's neighbors are closely watching how new leader Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Il's son, navigates strained ties with rival South Korea, the planned U.S.-South Korean military drills and a long-running standoff over the country's nuclear weapons programs.

South Korea's drills took place Monday in an area of the Yellow Sea that was the target of a North Korean artillery attack in 2010 that killed four South Koreans and raised fears of a wider conflict. North Korea didn't threaten similar South Korean firing drills in the area in January, but called the latest exercise a "premeditated military provocation" and warned it would retaliate for what it considered an attack on its territory...."  (Read more?  Click title)

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBox Comments: Stars and Stripes "Marines to wind down Afghan combat in 2012 "

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. Marines will march out of Afghanistan by the thousands next year, winding down combat in the Taliban heartland and testing the U.S. view that Afghan forces are capable of leading the fight against a battered but not yet beaten insurgency in the country's southwestern reaches, American military officers say.

At the same time, U.S. reinforcements will go to eastern Afghanistan in a bid to reverse recent gains by insurgents targeting Kabul, the capital.

Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an Associated Press interview that the number of Marines in Helmand province will drop "markedly" in 2012, and the role of those who stay will shift from countering the insurgency to training and advising Afghan security forces.

The change suggests an early exit from Afghanistan for the Marine Corps even as the prospects for solidifying their recent successes are uncertain...."

(Robert Burns)

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SandBox Comments: KJCT News 8 "Operation Interdependence Keeping Troops Connected To Home"

Great video.  Be sure to watch...click title.

 

"With Veterans Day coming up, Dixie decided it's the perfect time to learn all about Operation Interdependence.


If you're a bit confused as to what OI is all about, boomer Karon Carley, unpaid CEO and national president and area manager of this civilian-to-military delivery program tells us how it touches the lives of our troops all over the world.


"We send boxes every-single month to the troops," she explained. "Every one of our boxes has fifty quart bags, and inside every quart bag there must be a note from home."


The bags contain a variety of factory-sealed items, for example, beef jerky, eye drops, candy, gum, anything that will fit inside a quart bag.


Carley's passion for helping troops started at a very young age and continues today.


"When I was about eighteen and newly out of high school, I had a friend who was stationed in Germany," she recalled. "And he wrote to me and he said, "It is so dreary over here." He said, "I'm not getting any notes from home besides you.""


Started right after 9/11, this all-volunteer organization depends on donations, grants, and community generosity to keep it going, and has no intention of stopping...."

SandBox Comments: Aspen Daily News: "The day that never ends"

Richard Cohen is one of SandBox Nanny's favorite reads.

It's pretty rare for him to put out anything that has little to no merit.

This piece today is one of those rare times that he has tossed up little to no substance.

There is only one mistake made in going to war  with any country or organization  after 9/11. 


And that mistake, was to call the war everything but what it is.

We are at war with radical terrorism. A plague that unfortunately, permeates every country in the world.

SandBox Nanny will agree with Cohen on one point today.

That point is until the day comes when all peoples, but especially media and journalists, get off the spin, the merit less blame and apathy toward what we are really up against in a global war, it will be a war without end.

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