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It only took us 8 1/2 years... good stuff nonetheless
By MARK MAZZETTI and DEXTER FILKINS
Score one for the good guys...
NY TimesWASHINGTON — The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.
The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder, and was a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.
It was unclear whether he was talking, but the officials said his capture had provided a window into the Taliban and could lead to other senior officials. Most immediately, they hope he will provide the whereabouts of Mullah Omar, the one-eyed cleric who is the group’s spiritual leader.
Disclosure of Mullah Baradar’s capture came as American and Afghan forces were in the midst of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan.
His capture could cripple the Taliban’s military operations, at least in the short term, said Bruce O. Riedel, a C.I.A. veteran who last spring led the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review.
Details of the raid remain murky, but officials said that it had been carried out by Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and that C.I.A. operatives had accompanied the Pakistanis.
The New York Times learned of the operation on Thursday, but delayed reporting it at the request of White House officials, who contended that making it public would end a hugely successful intelligence-gathering effort. The officials said that the group’s leaders had been unaware of Mullah Baradar’s capture and that if it became public they might cover their tracks and become more careful about communicating with each other.
As long as were there, why not fight the good fight?
Baradar is essentially the man in charge of the Taliban. Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the former Taliban regime's foreign minister, told Newsweek last summer that "Mullah Omar has put Baradar in charge. It is Mullah Omar's idea and his policy to stay quiet in a safe place, because he has a high price on his head, while Baradar leads."
It only took us 8 1/2 years... good stuff nonetheless
Obama has also had great success on the intelligence front, despite Cheney and GOP spin..
Washington MonthlyFor all the baseless whining about how the Obama administration handled the Abdulmutallab case, it appears increasingly obvious that the White House's approach was not only correct, but is paying dividends that benefit all of us. Eli Lake has this important report.
U.S. and allied counterterrorism authorities have launched a global manhunt for English-speaking terrorists trained in Yemen who are planning attacks on the United States, based on intelligence provided by the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing after he began cooperating.
U.S. officials told The Washington Times that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, facing charges as a would-be suicide bomber, revealed during recent cooperation with the FBI that he met with other English speakers at a terrorist training camp in Yemen. Three U.S. intelligence officials, including one senior official, disclosed on the condition of anonymity some details of the additional bomb plots. <...>
Information about the bomb plots was shared with the FBI after Mr. Abdulmutallab's family traveled from Nigeria to help coax the former student into cooperating, after a period of about five weeks when he refused to help authorities.
Let's be really clear about this. Republican criticism hasn't just strayed badly from reality in the Abdulmutallab case; the more important takeaway is that if U.S. policy followed Republican talking points, we'd be less safe as a nation right now.
On the surface, one of the key GOP attacks is the notion that making Abdulmutallab aware of his rights meant that we were denied important intelligence about possible terrorist threats. It should be painfully obvious that Republicans have no idea what they're talking about -- Abdulmutallab has provided critically important information since getting a lawyer and being Mirandized.
But we can also go one step further and realize the depths of Republicans' misguided ideas here. If, for example, we'd locked up Abdulmutallab in a military prison and/or denied him Miranda rights, he wouldn't be cooperating right now.
This war could have and should have been won years ago, but the Bush/Cheney junta weren't interested in fighting terrorists....they had oil that needed manipulation...
Did they read him his Miranda Rights?
He's in Pakistani custody. I don't know if Pakistan reads out rights to their detainees, but since we're talking about the ISI and not the regular system of justice there, I tend to doubt it.
Whenever we're done interrogating him, he'll either enter the Pakistani justice system or be "disappeared" from it most likely.
I suppose Pakistan could turn him over to us like they've done with others. In that case he'd probably fall into the legal black hole of presidentially specified indefinite detention, where again, the ordinary rules don't apply.
Had he been apprehended in the US, he probably would have them read, just like everyone under Bush read them to everyone apprehended during his term without exception.
But of course you whined about it then too, right?
Right?
the only success this operation had comes from making concessions to the pakistani government in expanding their influence over Afghanistan and isolating the Indian RAW activities, it's no success it's desperate concession, without the Pakistani's ISI cooperation the CIA couldn't have done , they are merely pros utes whoring themselves in foreign countries, lets face that fact, surprise how the shift in USA dirty politics isn't even mentioned.
What are you talking about?
USA latest policies have basically sidetrack their allies India in Afghanistan, it basically means that they are placing Pakistan in position to influence Afghanistan in the future, with the return of the Taliban in joint government with the Afghan administration, and eradicating their once CIA mossad backed RAW into nothing more than sideshow, the Indians were involve with this triad of mossad cia and mi6 to try to destabilize Baluchistan, which have failed miserably and blow back in their face culminating in the 8 CIA agents killed in Khorst. What this basically means is that the USA have conceded that their previous policies have failed, that they need Pakistan to go after the Afghan Taliban, which Pakistan is unwilling to do previously, and that also means sidelining the Indians, betraying them, pushing the Indians more and more towards the Russians and no longer trusting the USA especially after that David Headley incident. What this basically means that everything the USA have tried has failed, not surprising considering that most fantastical ideas over the past decade was in part formulated by a 2 times college dropout and 5 times war avoiding vice president, and an almost similarly pathetic President. To sum it up Afghanistan is a mess, Iraq was already a lost cause, they need to make consessions if they are going to even hope to salvage Afghanistan, bottomline no Taliban no pipeline, no Pakistani help no pipeline, no Iranian help no pipeline.
What are you talking about?
Oh, the pipeline thing.
Always a classic.
well they have to have something to show for it after wasting trillions of dollars on two winless war, and making Iran a superpower in the region, they have to at least have their pipeline to prove to Europe that hey we got you an alternative route to your gas supplies that don't go through Russia, only catch it have to go through Pakistan, a pretty western weary state, and for a good reason.
Also, the *false flag* motif: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7026599.ece
"have something to show for it after wasting trillions of dollars on two winless war"
The $Ts are "something" itself. Grabbing carbon resources is sorta irrelevant now. The momentum of war in unstoppable.
MIC enriched at very high profit margins with NO accounting or control by DoD or State Dept.
I hope they don't turn him over to us. He doesn't deserve our legal protections.
But they did under Bush?
Do I understand this correctly?
Obama + war = good ?
Bush + war = bad ?
No, you didn't.
This is how it works:
Bush + miranda rights = good
Obama + miranda rights = bad
See if you can find a Youtube of that...
Google "war in Afghanistan", then Google "war in Iraq".
Take Tylenol for any headaches, Mydol for any cramps.
It's nearly 8:30 on the west coast. Surely FOX and Fiends would have dispensed the right wing counter spin by now? After all, if Obama does anything, anytime, anywhere - there must be a way to spin it in the most negative possible light.
Me no have cable. What's the bad word?
where's the youtube, D?
I do find it funny that the Fox and Friends show is a 3 hr Obama trashing.. like clockwork.. The blonde today was desperate to get a guest to say something bad about Obama..you could see her frustration in trying to get the guy to say something negative about the President.. It was funny..
Good job now lets keep him away from Mr Holder.
Aren't you just describing rendition?
Maybe. I don't know. It's all pretty speculative at this point. I don't know what will happen, and the specifics of the detention are unclear. We do know it was a CIA-ISI joint op. Beyond that, not so much.
KSM, I think, was similarly detained before being bound over to us.
He was captured in Pakistan, so no.
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