I think I know who the Times Square Bomber is! (kind of)
So someone left a car bomb in Times Square. The immediate questions that come to mind are who, why, what was its capability, how can such things be prevented from happening again?
Entries Tagged as 'terror & war'
Oliver North’s Vietnam War lesson on the 35th anniversary of the fall of South Vietnam
Retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North offers us a Vietnam War lesson today on the 35th anniversary of the fall of South Vietnam.
The highly decorated Vietnam veteran explains some facts about the war that I fear our children are not being taught in school and he compares Vietnam to our current war in Afghanistan.
You can read his column here.
The Bay of Pigs anniversary: Heroism, shame and comedy
Humberto Fontova, a Cuban-American writer and speaker, has written two interesting pieces on the 49th anniversary of the anti-Castro, anti-Communist Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
Fontova writes about the heroism of the anti-Castro Brigade after they were left on the Cuban beach without the American military support promised by the Kennedy administration, and how Ernesto Che Guevara responded to the anti-Castro assault. The so-called great guerrilla fighter shot himself.
My latest post at my blog, http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com, has links to both of Fontova’s pieces and my interview with Fontova about his book, Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize him.
“Collateral murder” in Baghdad anything but
As Bill Roggio writes in the Weekly Standard, the video released today by Wikileaks along with a claim that the video shows that the U.S. Military “murdered” a Reuters cameraman and other Iraqi “civilians” in Baghdad on July 12, 2007, was anything but collateral murder.
Read Mr. Roggio’s comments and then watch the video carefully.
Ominous showdown transcends the War on Drugs
Houston Chronicle – The choice facing Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joe Dubois and FBI agent Daniel Fuentes was simple: Hold their ground to be riddled with machine-gun fire, or be captured by drug-cartel henchmen who would diabolically interrogate them using pliers, blowtorches or worse.
DEA agent Joe Dubois, in an exclusive interview with the Houston Chronicle, finally shares his story of a hostile showdown with Mexican drug kingpin Osiel Cardenas in 1999. While gathering intelligence just across the border, Dubois and FBI agent Daniel Fuentes refused to surrender after their car was surrounded by three vehicles and a dozen or so gunman with assault rifles. Cardenas himself pounded on the glass of the car and demanded surrender. He even smiled at the FBI badges, and raised an AK-47 to the window. But Dubois stood firm, teaching us a few lessons that transcend the War on Drugs. [Read more →]
Ignorant as an actor: Tom Hanks on the war in the Pacific
I enjoyed the first episode of HBO’s The Pacific, but my enjoyment was somewhat marred by hearing Tom Hanks, one of the miniseries’ producers, state that the war with Japan was based on racism, which he then compared to the current war on terrorism.
Dreamers, schemers and secret agents: The anarchists’ international terror campaign
To those who believe that the ongoing war on terrorism against Islamic fanatics is a war without end or a war that can’t be won, I suggest they read up on the anarchists’ 19th Century international terror campaign.
Weapons of mass disruption: the threat of cyber warfare
The next big war may not involve missiles, bombs or gunfire.
The next war may simply involve a cyber attack that shuts down our national power grids, leaving us with no electricity. no Internet, no clean water, no food supply and no central government.
Filthy flatmates
In a fortnight I move to an undistinguished town in the middle of Germany, to bring enlightenment and English to the uncouth. I’ve been looking at accommodation websites, sifting through the weirdness for acceptable digs. The real difficulty isn’t the flat, it’s the people. Terrible flatmates are an affliction and a curse. I particularly detest slobs. [Read more →]
The strange world of Dr. Anthrax
If you would like to learn more about the strange little man who, according to the FBI, frightened a nation with deadly mailings of anthrax, thesmokinggun.com has published the FBI’s first batch of released documents .
Bye, Bayh and Hello Hillary!
Bodies are hitting the floor with an alarming tempo but are they smote and dead or are they on the deck playing possum? It’s a mixed bag. [Read more →]
One dude’s foreign policy views vis à vis his libertarian moral code
Like many contributors to this site, I find that I align closest with the general co-occurrence of values known to the world as “libertarianism.” But surely many libertarians would disagree with some of the arguments I make, so I’ll just say that I agree with libertarians on many — possibly most — political issues. What follows is my best attempt at establishing a philosophical basis for my political views. This post was partially inspired by Mike McGowan‘s great series of posts entitled “one guy’s thoughts on libertarianism.” [Read more →]
Avatar visits troops in Africa
I keep forgetting that it is winter for most of you… as it is amazing here. However, I am not gloating because I know it will be God-awful come summer. God-awful.
Let’s see, what else has been happening on this fun extravaganza known as Africa? Oh, ummm, have any of you ever heard of some movie called Avatar? I hear it’s pretty big right now. We don’t get any commercials here and I don’t watch any news so I have no clue what is happening back home. In fact, I hear there is some big event happening next Sunday… some kind of bowl game or something? Anyway, they showed the movie here yesterday and are showing it again tonight. I wasn’t able to see it yesterday as I had two final papers to write… I know… war is hell.
Oh and Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, some older actor guy, and some older producer guy all came here. [Read more →]
Senate approves more sanctions against Iran
Today the US Senate passed a bill which will impose economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The plan is to “target companies that export gasoline to Iran or help expand the country’s oil-refining capacity by, in part, denying them loans and other assistance from U.S. financial institutions.”
I argued in a post I wrote last year for my blog that this is collective punishment, and is therefore immoral and shouldn’t be done. Despite our leaders’ hearts constantly weeping for the Iranian populace — “‘The situation in Iran is terrible and it’s worsening. People are dying in Iran as we speak,’ said Senator John McCain just before the Senate [sanctions] vote” — sanctions lower the standard of living for all Iranian civilians. [Read more →]
You’re a terrorist, a murderer, in prison for life and called a jackal, and you’re concerned about your image now?
I read an interesting piece in the Washington Post about how Ilich Ramirez is suing a documentary film company over the “intellectual property” rights to his name and “biographical image.”
Ramirez, better known as “Carlos the Jackal,” is a former terrorist and murderer who is currently serving a life sentence in Paris, France for killing two French security agents. Ramirez was, and apparently remains, an egomaniac. He was a rich, spoiled child who played at being a terrorist. He enjoyed being in the international spotlight in the 1970s and he didn’t mind having to bomb, shoot and kill people to be there.
Obama’s first year extended the US military consensus, portends more foreign resistance
Steve Chapman — one of my favorite contributors over at reason — wrote a beautifully concise editorial a few weeks ago making the case that Obama’s first year in foreign policy has brought nothing new, despite any conspicuous honors asserting the contrary. One of the most important points Chapman makes is this:
The administration and its opponents both make much of its plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by this summer and to pull the rest out by 2012. What both prefer to forget is that the previous president agreed to the same timetable. Obama’s policy on the war he once opposed is not similar to Bush’s: It is identical.
Death wish: Why are we so in love with the Apocalypse?
It’s impossible to avoid the apocalypse these days. Whether we encounter the End in the form of news reports on Global Warming, or fears of Iran getting the bomb, or plague panics such as H1N1, we seem to be living in a high point of apocalyptic anxiety, with horrible Doomsdays lurking round every corner. And yet, the End has never been so much fun. Roland Emmerich released his latest apocalyptic blockbuster 2012 in November, and since then we have enjoyed Zombieland, The Road, The Book of Eli, Legion and even Al Gore’s dreadful poem read aloud on morning TV in the presence of a fawning sycophant. Much more is to come, and this is to say nothing of video games, books, comics, or half the output of the History Channel. [Read more →]
One tough year for one tough man
The first tumultuous year of the McCain administration has finally concluded. The war hero Senator’s narrow victory over the Clinton/Obama ticket with its litigation and recriminations nearly the equal of Bush v Gore set a difficult tone from the beginning that the Arizona maverick pulled against mightily with America in the middle. [Read more →]
Blood for oil? I’d give mine
I’m an American soldier. I’m willing to die for my country, my fellow countrymen and their interests. But am I willing to die for oil?
You’re damn right I am. [Read more →]
Syria’s foremost Islamic leader calls for protection of Jews, Christians
In Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz today is a story which quotes Syria’s highest Islamic leader.
“If the Prophet Mohammed had asked me to deem Christians or Jews heretics, I would have deemed Mohammed himself a heretic,” Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, the Mufti of Syria, was quoted as telling a delegation of American academics visiting Damascus.
Hassoun, the leader of Syria’s majority Sunni Muslim community, also told the delegates that Islam was a religion of peace, adding: “If Mohammed had commanded us to kill people, I would have told him he was not a prophet.”
Religious wars were the result of politics infiltrating systems of faith, he said[.]
