FRIDAY,  JANUARY 1,  2010

"PEACE" GROUPS AND TERRORISM – AT 7:15 P.M. ET:  This, inevitably, will be a recurring theme among conservatives – at least those conservatives who can make it into the press.  It's about the help given by Western "peace" groups to terrorist movements.  London's Telegraph sums it up superbly.  Don't look for stuff like this in The New York Times.  But it is vital to understand the significance of what is said here:

A major problem in fighting terrorism and insurgency today is the active support certain so-called “peace groups” provide to terrorist and anti-democratic movements, just as they did in the 1970s and 80s.

This problem was highlighted in December, when a former officer of Colombia’s FARC rebels, one of the most vicious and murderous terrorist groups in the world, accused the Peace Brigades International, a human rights group monitoring Colombia’s decades-long civil war, of actively supporting the FARC terrorists. Mary O’Grady tells the story in an article in the Wall Street Journal.

That's the great Mary Anastasia O'Grady, one of the best reporters around. 

This behaviour of Western peace groups follows a familiar pattern. During the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet bloc intelligence agencies were heavily involved in organising and directing the Western European peace movement. After the collapse of the East German regime in 1989, Western scholars were able to examine the files of the Stasi, the East German Intelligence Service, which provided a window into the thinking of many major Western Peace groups and the eagerness with which the peace groups accepted Soviet Bloc support and espoused the Soviet line. Many of the peace groups only protested about NATO policies while ignoring Soviet actions.

That states it superbly.  We saw the reality when European "peace" groups, utterly silent about the placement of Soviet medium-range missiles in Eastern Europe, erupted in protest when President Reagan countered with new missile systems for Western Europe.  Reagan was the "warmonger."

Today, many European and American peace groups are again eager to denounce Western nations while giving a free pass to assorted terrorist groups and dictatorships. They are assisted by a Left-oriented and largely uncritical Western media. The Hamas and Hezbollah campaign against Israel is a good example. When the Israelis respond militarily to rockets fired at Israeli towns, a perfectly appropriate action under international law, many Western and Middle Eastern “peace groups” act as Hamas and Hezbollah mouthpieces and dutifully repeat every claim against Israel without question or verification.

The "uncritical Western media" is the key here.  I recall, vividly, visiting "peace" rallies in New York during the Vietnam War.  The chants were often openly pro-Communist.  Marchers would storm down Fifth Avenue chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh!"  Yet, the press would mechanically report these displays as "anti-war" demonstrations.  They weren't anti-war.  They were only anti- our side of the war.

As in the 1980s, at a time when Western and democratic nations face a threat from terrorists and dictatorships a large part of the “peace community” clearly favours the other side. In our free societies these groups have the right to espouse views inimical to democracy. However, when speech becomes material support for terrorist and insurgent groups, the line has been crossed.

Don't tell that to the ACLU.  During the Vietnam War, Jane Fonda and others clearly crossed a line, but were never prosecuted, a terrible mistake in my view. 

Western nations need to consider much stronger laws to allow seizure of group assets and to allow victims of terrorism to bring civil suits against so-called “peace groups” that promote violence.

That would be tough to do, but at the very least we should demand honest reporting about what some of these groups are up to.  One of the reasons for the success of Fox News is that the audience does get a more accurate picture of these groups, and their supporters, than one would get in the fashion-plate media. 

One problem, of course, is the presence of a man who has hovered above the role of the press for more than a half century.  That man is Senator Joe McCarthy.  Describe any group, accurately, as Marxist, or pro-terrorist, and immediately the charge of "McCarthyism" is hurled, which can essentially end a journalistic career.  It is, of course, not "McCarthyism" to describe a Marxist as a Marxist, but there is still a built-in, Pavlovian response to Marxism by too many reporters.  The subject is simply avoided.  And that is the crime.

January 1, 2010   Permalink

INCREDIBLE – AT 5:58 P.M. ET:  Here we are, in the midst of a crisis involving airline security, and the Obamans stumble again, nominating a guy to head the Transportation Security Administration who has more baggage than a fully loaded 757.  Fox News reports on the latest personnel blunder, in a White House famous for them already:

HONOLULU -- President Obama's pick to lead the Transportation Security Administration has provided Congress inconsistent reports about -- and regrets for -- running background checks on his then-estranged wife's boyfriend two decades ago.

Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent whose nomination has been delayed by Republicans for unrelated concerns, wrote to senators in November to correct what he called a distortion of his record. The delayed nomination has received renewed attention since the failed Christmas Day attack on an airliner bound from Amsterdam to Detroit.

"I am distressed by the inconsistencies between my recollection and the contemporaneous documents, but I assure you that the mistake was inadvertent, and that I have at all times taken full responsibility for what I know to have been a grave error in judgment," he wrote in a letter to Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins.

And...

In an October affidavit for the Senate committee, he initially said he asked a San Diego police employee to run a background check on his then-estranged wife's boyfriend and was censured by his FBI superiors 20 years ago for what he said was an isolated instance.

But a day after the committee approved his nomination and sent it to the full Senate, he wrote to the senators and told them that he was incorrect; he said he twice ran background checks himself.

In the letter correcting the record, Southers also said he downloaded law enforcement records and shared them. He said he forgot the incident in 1987 or 1988.

There is also his dodging of questions about his feelings on unionization of TSA employees, something that could put national security at the mercy of labor unions and their decisions.

At this time in particular, the choice for this sensitive position should be above reproach.  True, the incident in question did occur 20 years ago, but the candidate's deception about it occurred just recently.  I would find it hard to believe that he didn't recall downloading law-enforcement records.

Nomination should be withdrawn, with the president saying that there must be no question about the integrity and competence of the person in charge of transportation security.  Or, Southers should be sent the message that he might withdraw himself, and save the president some embarrassment.

January 1, 2010   Permalink

PAKISTAN'S NEW YEAR – AT 5:35 P.M. ET:  The terrorists never sleep.  Now Pakistan feels the brunt of a holiday bombing, underlying the fact that terror has increased in the last year.  From the Washington Post:

KARACHI, PAKISTAN -- A suicide bomber blew up his sport-utility vehicle in the middle of a village volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan on Friday afternoon, killing 75 people and injuring more than 100 in a community that has repeatedly defied Taliban extremists.

Police speculated that the horrific bombing in the village of Shah Hassan Khel, in the Lakki Marwat district, was an act of reprisal against area leaders who last year formed private militias to oppose the Taliban and recently turned in a group of extremist fighters to the authorities.

The message, of course, is clear:  This is what happens to you if you defy us.  The fact that the victims were Muslims give the lie to "experts" who tell us that if only we would be nicer, all would be okay. 

Several previous attacks were clearly carried out in retaliation against communities and leaders who resisted the Taliban. In November, a bombing in a rural market killed a local mayor who had openly defied the extremists. As more communities begin fighting back, there is concern that reprisal attacks will also increase.

The question is whether the will to resist will be broken by the reprisals. 

The stability of Pakistan is critical to us, especially as Pakistan has a ready stockpile of nuclear weapons. Pakistan is joined with Iran as a major foreign policy issue for the Obama administration in this new year.

January 1, 2010   Permalink

IRAN IN CRISIS – 12:56 P.M. ET:  Iran will probably be Obama's first major foreign-policy crisis of 2010.  The place is erupting.  The latest, from AP:

Iran's opposition leader on Friday pledged to remain defiant in the face of new threats - including calls by hard-liners for his execution - and said he would sacrifice his life in defense of the people's right to protest peacefully against the government.

Mir Hossein Mousavi's remarks come after the worst unrest since the immediate aftermath of the disputed June presidential election. At least eight people died during anti-government protests on Sunday, including Mousavi's nephew.

In one of his strongest statements to date, Mousavi said he was "ready for martyrdom" - the sacrifice of one's life for a higher cause - and lashed out at the bloody crackdown the authorities are waging against the opposition.

He said the government was making more mistakes by resorting to violence and killings, and that it must accept the people's rights to hold peaceful demonstrations.

COMMENT:  With the exception of the bare minimum of pro-democracy statements, the Obamans have greeted the new uprisings with marked indifference, reflecting the general lack of interest in human rights of the "change" agent at the top. 

The Iranian pro-democracy movement will probably try to force the hand of the president, pressuring him through its own sacrifice to come down hard on the mullah regime.  It is in our interest that the mullahs be overthrown.  The replacement government will probably be far from perfect, but it's likely to be much, much better than what Iran has now.

The president has been out to lunch, and dinner, and a nice breakfast.  It's time for someone to read him the job description.

January 1, 2010   Permalink 

REALLY? – AT 11:15 A.M. ET:  The North Koreans have begun 2010 by asking for better relations with the United States.  That's like the Mafia asking for better relations with the FBI.  The New York Times reports:

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea called on Friday for an end to “the hostile relationship” with the United States, issuing a New Year’s message that highlighted the reclusive country’s attempt to readjust the focus of six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

In an editorial carried by its major state media outlets, North Korea said that its consistent stand was “to establish a lasting peace system on the Korean Peninsula and make it nuclear-free through dialogue and negotiations.” The editorial added that “the fundamental task for ensuring peace and stability” was “to put an end to the hostile relationship” with the United States.

The sequence of easing tension with Washington, establishing a peace regime and then denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula has been shaping up as the North’s policy approach before it re-engages in talks about giving up its nuclear weapons, according to officials and analysts in Seoul.

And...

If peace talks begin, North Korea will likely demand normalized ties, significant food and energy aid and even the pullout of American troops from South Korea as a precondition for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, according to analysts in Seoul.

COMMENT:  What a joke, although it will probably impress the left fringe of the president's party.  The North Koreans are essentially saying that they want to remake the Korean peninsula before engaging in the kind of serious nuclear negotiations that would actually make the remake possible.

This New Year's message was softer than previous ones, but the basic line remained the same.  We have made virtually no progress in our "outreach" to the North Koreans.  Ditto Iran.

January 1, 2010    Permalink

A GOP STRATEGY? – AT 10:54 A.M. ET:  It's only the first of the year, but already the politicians are talking election strategy.  The Politico reports on one possible GOP strategy that looks a little dicey at best:

Republicans hope a push to repeal the Democrats' health care bill will inspire voters to turn out for them in the 2010 elections — even though some of them admit that it has no realistic chance of working.

“We have to repeal very substantial parts of it and that’s not going to be easy,” said Republican Pat Toomey, who's running for the Senate in Pennsylvania. “I’m not sitting here predicting that a president who signs this into law in 2010 is likely to sign a repeal in 2011.”

The repeal-or-bust strategy is designed to give Republican candidates a powerful talking point for the midterms — a way to tap into deep anxiety about the health care plan among the GOP base and independent voters.

Even before a final version of the bill has reached President Barack Obama's desk, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and several House members have promised to introduce legislation repealing it if it resembles the bill that passed the Senate last week.

“The legislation would serve as a rallying call for Americans to once again express their opposition,” said Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who supports a full repeal.

COMMENT:  That strikes me as a semi-good strategy.  As a campaign slogan, it's fine to shout REPEAL!  But Republicans must be conscious of the fact that, despite the administration's plunge in approval ratings, the GOP remains unpopular.  One reason is that it's seen as purely a negative force.  If Republicans want to argue for repeal, a political pipe dream, they have to present an attractive health reform package that will make them the party of optimism and progress – which is exactly how Ronald Reagan ran for president.

January 1, 2010   Permalink

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO 2010 – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  We do hope you have the happiest of new years, and we do appreciate the support our readers have given us as we approach our second anniversary, on January 8th.  We forge ahead, as 2010 will probably be one of the most important years of our time, both politically and internationally.

Question one:  Where is Hillary Clinton?  Nile Gardiner, at Britain's Telegraph, asks that musical question.

The White House should send a search party to track down Hillary Clinton. America’s foreign policy chief has been missing from the world stage for several days, and has become as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel at the height of the French Revolution. I wrote earlier in the year that Clinton had become the invisible Secretary of State, and her current absence certainly reinforces that impression.

One would have thought that with a potential revolution on the streets of Tehran, and with scenes of horrific and savage brutality against protesters by the Iranian regime, that Washington’s official voice on international affairs might at least have expressed an opinion.

And...

As far as I can tell there is no foreign policy leadership at all in Washington at the moment, at a time when the United States is faced with a grave nuclear threat on the horizon from the Iranian dictatorship, and the world is anxiously watching as pro-democracy protesters are being beaten to a pulp and in some cases killed...

...It’s also significant that several of Hillary Clinton’s counterparts in Europe have already been vocal in condemning the actions of the Iranian government, and that includes even the usually meek David Miliband, hardly known for picking a fight with the Mullahs.

Finally...

It’s time for Hillary Clinton to make an appearance and project a strong US voice on the Iranian issue, condemning the sickening violence meted out by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s jackbooted thugs against Iranian protesters, and sending a clear signal that the United States is on the side of those fighting for freedom in Iran. Her striking absence from the world stage is a damning indictment of the lack of American leadership at a time of tremendous upheaval on the streets of Tehran, and when the United States is facing a mounting threat from an increasingly dangerous and hostile Islamist regime.

COMMENT:  It is a bit odd, until one considers Hillary's ambitions.  If she appears in public, she'd have to answer questions about the State Department's role in the airline terror attack.  The US Embassy in Nigeria, which received two visits from the attacker's father warning of his son's radicalism, probably dropped the ball rather badly.

Also, and this must be labeled as speculation, I'm not so sure that Hillary wants to be identified with the administration right now.  She may well see things unraveling.  She may even be planned her exit.  If Obama winds up as a one-term president, deciding not to run again in 2012 rather than face a humiliating defeat, the party almost has to hand the nomination to Hillary on an environmentally safe platter.

January 1, 2010   Permalink

THURSDAY,  DECEMBER 31,  2009

THE BRIT REPORTERS ARE PULLING NO PUNCHES, AGAIN - AT 8:08 P.M. ET:  One of the most interesting media developments of 2009 was the extent to which British reporters took aim at the Obama administration, often beating their American counterparts to the heart of the story.  On New Year's Eve, London's Daily Mail continues the tradition, looking for a good place to put the chopping block in 2010:

Heads are set to roll in the U.S. intelligence community as an angry Barack Obama fends off criticism over the attempted bombing of a passenger plane on Christmas Day.

Publicly the White House is standing by the top spymaster in the U.S., intelligence chief Admiral Dennis Blair.

The four-star admiral, who is responsible for coordinating intelligence gathering between 16 agencies, has the full confidence of the president, aides are insisting.

It's remarkable that Blair has escaped scrutiny by the American press.  Earlier this year he was involved in a huge flap when he tried to name Charles Freeman, an Israel-hating, Chinese-government-loving "scholar" to a key intelligence post.  The move was blocked when Freeman's views came out.  However, the move raised serious questions about Blair's judgment.

But speculation was rife that Blair or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano could be forced to resign after Mr Obama said on Tuesday there had been a systemic failure by the country's security agencies to prevent the botched Christmas Day attack.

Napolitano has been lambasted by Republican critics, and in the media, for initially saying the air security system worked. She quickly back-pedalled, claiming she had meant the system of beefing up measures worked after the incident had occurred.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Napolitano had the president's support, and Obama referred to her in his public comments on Tuesday, supporting her statement that correct actions were taken after the attempted attack.

COMMENT:  At the same time, it's being widely reported that a new bus pulled up to the White House last night, with plenty of room underneath.  The first White House bus had too many people thrown under it by Barack Obama, so a new one had to be ordered.

Both Blair and Napolitano, or either, could wind up looking up at bus axles.  The State Department was also involved in the huge security failure that led to the airliner bombing, but Ms. Hillary knows how to duck, which she's been doing since the incident.

December 31, 2009   Permalink

INCREDIBLE LOSSES - AT 7:09 P.M. ET:  Not to spoil anyone's New Year's Eve, but I wanted you to be aware of the extent of the losses to the U.S. Treasury that Freddie and Fannie have cost us.  This is what happens when normal, common sense rules of finance and lending are not followed, and are replaced by political and social objectives:

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Taxpayer losses from supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will top $400 billion, according to Peter Wallison, a former general counsel at the Treasury who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“The situation is they are losing gobs of money, up to $400 billion in mortgages,” Wallison said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The Treasury Department recognized last week that losses will be more than $400 billion when it raised its limit on federal support for the two government-sponsored enterprises, he said.

And...

The U.S. seized the two mortgage financiers in 2008 as the government struggled to prevent a meltdown of the financial system. The debt of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks grew an average of $184 billion annually from 1998 to 2008, helping fuel a bubble that drove home prices up by 107 percent between 2000 and mid-2006, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller home-price index.

COMMENT:  High home prices may be temporarily exhilarating for some people for a time, but ultimately, if prices get too high, communities are destroyed, the most creative people are driven out, and the future is severely compromised.  It's happened in New York City and in communities around New York, and it's one of the reasons why New York State is losing its most productive population. 

I gently point out that Fannie and Freddie are Democratic Party pets.  Haven't heard any apologies yet.

December 31, 2009   Permalink

ESCALATION IN TEHRAN – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  New opposition demonstrations are planned, and a general strike has been called for early January.  The regime is responding, as Reuters reports:

An Iranian opposition website said on Thursday the government was moving troops and armored military vehicles to the capital on the day supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi planned to hold a rally.

"Hundreds of military forces and tens of armoured vehicles ... are moving towards Tehran. Some of the vehicles are used for suppressing street riots," the Jaras website said.

The use of military vehicles is an ominous sign.  The situation in Iran is escalating.  No one knows exactly where the tipping point is, but it took many months of street demonstrations and confrontations to bring down the Shah in the late 70s. 

And President Obama's "deadline" for the regime to show progress in talks over its nuclear program expires midnight tonight.  There are press reports that the United States is trying to organize new sanctions, but it's difficult to find anyone who believes that genuinely tough sanctions will be agreed upon by the "international community," especially by Russia and China.  Even if some new sanctions are imposed, they're unlikely to sway the regime.

It appears that only regime change has the potential to ease Western concern about the Iranian nuclear program.  That may be a gift of the Iranian people to Obama in 2010.  It's undeserved, but we hope he gets it, just the same.  That will depend on the success of the democracy movement, which is getting far too little outside support.

December 31, 2009   Permalink

FINAL RAS FOR 2009 – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen has just published his final tracker for 2009.  They will not want to give this to the president just before a big Hawaiian dinner:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18 (see trends). Twenty-nine percent (29%) now say the country is heading in the right direction.

Happy New Year, Mr. President.

Overall, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. At the time of his Inauguration, the President’s approval rating was at 61%.

Fifty-three percent (53%) now disapprove.

COMMENT:   It's been pointed out before that no president in modern history has suffered the loss of support that Mr. Obamas has.  What is troubling to Obama supporters is that there doesn't seem to be anything on the horizon to reverse the trend. 

I noted a couple of days ago that the president doesn't seem to like his job very much.  These numbers will not help the alienation.  The notion of a one-term presidency, which would have seemed a joke a year ago, is starting to seem a possibility.  That is speculation, of course, but it's so much fun. 

The eager footsteps the president hears behind him belong to the secretary of state. 

December 31, 2009   Permalink

THE OBAMA RECORD – TROUBLING - AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  We've seen no finer observer of Barack Obama's foreign policy than Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins, whose work is a refreshing contrast to the ideological mush that often comes out of the academic world these days.  Ajami, writing in The Wall Street Journal, has Mr. Obama for lunch:

With year one drawing to a close, the truth of the Obama presidency is laid bare: retrenchment abroad, and redistribution and the intrusive regulatory state at home. This is the genuine calling of Barack Obama, and of the "progressives" holding him to account. The false dichotomy has taken hold—either we care for our own, or we go abroad in search of monsters to destroy or of broken nations to build. The decision to withdraw missile defense for Poland and the Czech Republic was of a piece with that retreat in American power.

If Ajami were a theater critic, the Obama Revue would have already closed.

In the absence of an overriding commitment to the defense of American primacy in the world, the Obama administration "cheats." It will not quit the war in Afghanistan but doesn't fully embrace it as its cause. It prosecutes the war but with Republican support—the diehards in liberal ranks and the isolationists are in no mood for bonding with Afghans. (Harry Reid's last major foreign policy pronouncement was his assertion, three years ago, that the war in Iraq was lost.)

No punches are pulled here.  This is the most clear-eyed critique of Obama's foreign adventures that I've read.

In retrospect, that patina of cosmopolitanism in President Obama's background concealed the isolationism of the liberal coalition that brought him to power. The tide had turned in the congressional elections of 2006. American liberalism was done with its own antecedents—the outlook of Woodrow Wilson and FDR and Harry Truman and John Kennedy. It wasn't quite "Come home, America," but close to it.

People around the world were fooled.

The joke is on the enthralled crowds in Cairo, Ankara, Berlin and Oslo. The new American president they had fallen for had no genuine calling or attachments abroad. In their enthusiasm for Mr. Obama, and their eagerness to proclaim themselves at one with the postracial meaning of his election, they had missed his aloofness from the genuine struggles in the foreign world.

It was easy, that delirium with Mr. Obama: It made no moral demands on those eager to partake of it. It was also false, in many lands.

Finally...

But to go by the utterances of the Obama administration and its devotees, one would have thought that our enemies were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, not the preachers and masterminds of terror. The president and his lieutenants spent more time denigrating "rendition" and the Patriot Act than they did tracking down the terror trail and the latest front it had opened at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. Our own leaders spoke poorly of our prerogatives and ways, and they were heard the world over.

Under Mr. Obama, we have pulled back from the foreign world. We're smaller for accepting that false choice between burdens at home and burdens abroad, and the world beyond our shores is more hazardous and cynical for our retrenchment and our self-flagellation.

Great piece.  If you have time today, read the rest.  Jack Kennedy was able to right his ship of state in his second year.  We have asked this before:  Is Obama capable of doing a Kennedy?  And does he want to? 

Only the president's Oslo speech gave me encouragement.  His performance since has not.

December 31, 2009   Permalink

CUBA SI, OBAMA NO – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  One of the major stories of 2009 has been the stunning collapse of President Obama's "outreach" policy.  Obama reaches out, no one reaches back.  Now add Cuba to the list of nations – or regimes – where love has not made a difference.  Again, from The New York Times: 

When President Obama came to office, the unflattering billboards of George W. Bush, including one outside the United States Interests Section of him scowling alongside Hitler, came down and the anti-American vitriol softened...

...But the tenor here has changed considerably, and Mr. Obama, whose election was broadly celebrated by Cuba’s racially diverse population, is now being portrayed by this nation’s leaders as an imperialistic, warmongering Cuba hater.

And that is major heartbreak for Obama's base, the left wing of the Democratic Party, which always had a soft spot in its collective, or collectivist, heart for Fidel and his guys.

In one of his recent written commentaries in the state press, Fidel Castro, who has not appeared in public in nearly three years, wrote that Mr. Obama’s “friendly smile and African-American face” masked his sinister intentions to control Latin America.

Well, the good news is that there's someone who believes Barack Obama may be capable of controlling something.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla also recently accused Mr. Obama of behaving like an “imperial chief” at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, displaying “arrogant” behavior aimed at quashing developing countries.

I assume the president is shown these comments, and possibly realizes how foolish some of his "outreach" has been.  The bottom line is that dictatorships are not interested in any foreign leader who challenges them in any way.  They will grasp the outstretched hand only when nothing has to be given back.

December 31, 2009   Permalink

MORE ON AFGHAN ATTACK – AT 8:10 A.M. ET:  It seems that the CIA bore the brunt of the suicide bombing in Afghanistan, suffering its worst losses in many years.  From The New York Times:

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest and an Afghan National Army uniform killed at least eight American civilians, most of them C.I.A. officers, at a remote base in southeastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, according to NATO officials and former American intelligence officials.

The bomber who struck the base in Khost Province was wearing an Afghan National Army uniform, said two NATO sources on Thursday. Both of them asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack.

COMMENT:  There will be as many questions asked about this attack as about the airline bombing.  How did this man get onto the base and so close to CIA operatives?  Was he targeting the CIA, or was it only coincidental that those killed worked for, or allegedly worked for, the agency? 

Four Canadian soldiers were killed in another attack.  Canada is withdrawing from Afghanistan, and the deaths of four Canadian soldiers will do nothing to encourage other NATO nations to fill the gap. 

Our foreign enemies have gotten more, not less, aggressive in 2009.  I wonder why.

December 31,  2009   Permalink