Re: Re: Re: Former Sailor

Being suspicious of someone who had legally changed his name to "Hassan, the Father of Jihaad" would be profiling, and that's just wrong.

Re: "Former Sailor"

A good question from The Counterterrorism Blog:

Abujihaad allegedly communicated with Ahmad while he was an enlisted Navy man with a "Secret" security clearance after the September 11 attacks. This raises questions in my mind whether the U.S. armed forces have sufficiently reviewed and revised their procedures for granting and renewing security clearances for active duty personnel.
***
Political correctness is the enemy here.

Vietnam Today

via Reuters and Human Rights Watch (Yes mom...I washed after linking to Human Rights Watch)

(New York, March 9, 2007) The Vietnamese government, emboldened by international recognition after joining the World Trade Organization and hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, is flouting its international commitments on human rights by launching one of the worst crackdowns on peaceful dissidents in 20 years, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch sharply condemned the recent arrests of two outspoken human rights lawyers and a dissident Catholic priest.

So much for the theory that things worked out for the Vietnamese in the end.

Re: Dawn

Here's a one-question, history quiz (or perhaps 'reminder' is a better term): Many have criticized the government of Iraq for failing to secure Baghdad. How long has that government been in power?

Update: Condemned to the Navy

The Navy says thanks, but no thanks:

Navy rejects pair who had offer of reduced sentences to enlist

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has turned down two 19-year-old men who pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges after a Pennsylvania judge offered to drop probation from their sentence to help them enlist.

Chris Jabco and Eric Smith faced probation, community service and restitution in connection with the shooting of a cow considered a family pet by its owners.

A real - not false dawn?

I don't want to get too far ahead - but when I doubt my instincts (wrong now and then.....) on Iraq, I often turn to Mohammed and Omar at Iraq the Model. Mohammed has a bit on OpinionJournal that needs to be read.

We need a couple of months, at least, until we start talking trendlines - and there are the known unknowns and unknown unknowns out there - but if you are looking for something to urge you on - those things are starting to be seen in Baghdad.

Checkpoints are not seen as scary threats to the innocent. They look more professional and impartial as they include members of the police, army, multinational forces and even traffic cops with laptops verifying registration papers. We've lost the fear that checkpoints might be traps set by death squads; they search everyone, even official convoys and ambulances.

We feel safer about moving in the city now, and politicians who used to hide behind the walls of the Green Zone are venturing out. Watching Mr. Maliki walking on Palestine Street in central Baghdad gave a positive impression that the state, and not the gangs, owns the streets.

It is true that not all of Baghdad has seen the same amount of progress, but we realize that patience is necessary. People do not complain about delays at checkpoints but instead say they'd like to see stricter inspection.

Military-wise, the results are not humble either; hundreds of militants have been killed, more hundreds arrested, and dozens of weapons caches discovered and destroyed. The frequency of attacks has declined drastically, and the terrifying scene of bullet-riddled bodies has become a rarer incident.

Our people want to see this effort succeed. We know it's not going to be an easy fight. Rescuing all of Baghdad's districts from the grip of militants and terrorists will require sacrifice and hard work. We hope the troops and the governments in Baghdad and America do not lose their resolve.

Please step away from the crack pipe

via Reuters

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday proposed legislation that would bring American combat troops out of Iraq by August 2008 at the latest.

Shouldn't we be focusing on getting out of another quagmire first?

via the Scotsman

BELGRADE (Reuters) - "We've got to get you out of here," President George W. Bush told the U.S. Army commander in Kosovo in 2001.

Six years on, U.S. peacekeepers are still in place and a summit of Serb and Kosovo Albanian leaders in Vienna on Saturday will lead to no instant exit from the southern Serbian province.

We still have forces in Western Europe after 60 years. Many will say the purpose of those forces was to oppose the Soviet menace...but another purpose was to keep the endlessly warring tribes of Europe from starting yet another major conflict that the US would get sucked into.

Once the horrific violence in Iraq is finally brought under control...some sort of stabilization force is going to be needed for a long time. Talk of zeroing out the forces in 18 months is well beyond unrealistic.

22 years, today.

22 years ago today, I enlisted into the ILARNG as an infantryman in the CSC 2/130th. It's been an experience ever since...

A Post

...on Ramadi (and other things) from a milblogger who was recently there. Lots of good stuff in his archives, too - an Iraq tour blogged in full. And unless I'm mistaken, he's half of a husband/wife team too. Here's the other half.

(Thanks to my own better half, who's long overdue return to blogging has re-opened my door to such fine folks.)

Ooops:

Federal agents seized four F-14 Tomcat fighters in San Bernardino County on Tuesday — three from airplane museums — after investigators determined that the jets were not demilitarized and were improperly sold or transferred to private companies, including the producer of the TV show "JAG," authorities said.

Re: Overlooked

I also noticed the other day that Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins SAIS was asked to be Sec'y Rice's counselor over at State. Cohen's got a son in the Marines, a book (Supreme Command) that was very good, and was a vocal critic in 2005-2006 of administration actions.

Re: Former "Sailor"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "abu" denotes "father of", making Hassan the "father of jihaad".

Since he's "also known as Paul R. Hall" I'm going to guess he changed his name for some reason. I'm sure it won't hurt his defense (especially if he can actually have young Jihaad in the court room), but he may have chosen poorly.

He may have chosen his friends poorly, too:

Overlooked

Yesterday:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, as the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq. President Bush nominated Crocker to succeed the current ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, in a shuffle of advisers announced in January ahead of his latest Iraq strategy.

Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives have tentatively settled on a timetable and conditions for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, which they hope to attach to a $100 billion Iraq war spending bill, senior lawmakers said on Wednesday. The lawmakers said they hoped to win approval of the plan by the House Appropriations Committee next week.

Former "Sailor" Arrested On Terrorism Charges

An on-going terrorism investigation has apparently netted a former surface Sailor:

A former Navy sailor was arrested on terrorism charges Wednesday for alleging mishandling classified information that ended up in the hands of a suspected terrorism financier.
Hassan Abujihaad, 31, of Phoenix, was arrested in a case that began in Connecticut and has stretched across the country and into Europe and the Middle East...
...Abujihaad, a former enlisted man, exchanged e-mails with Ahmad while on active duty on the USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, in 2000 and 2001, according to an affidavit released Wednesday. He allegedly purchased videos promoting violent jihad.
The documents retrieved from Ahmad show drawings of Navy battle groups and discuss upcoming missions. They also say the battle group could be attacked using small weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades. The ships were never attacked.