Attack on the US Consulate in Turkey

Despite relocating the consulate to another location and heavily fortifying it, the US Consulate in Istanbul was tested today in a fierce gunbattle:

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on Turkish security guards outside the United States Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday and at least three officers were killed, the governor of Istanbul said.

Governor Muammer Guler, quoted by Reuters, said one of the policemen died at the scene after a 15-minute gun battle.

Three attackers were killed and others were being sought, the semi-official Anatolian news agency said.

Crowds and police milled around the 15-foot high high walls sheltering the American compound and police cordoned off the area. A helicopter was seen hovering above. Television footage showed one body lying on the ground, but news reports from Istanbul said up to six people may have died.

American officials said no employees or officials at the consulate had been killed.

Fundamentalism continues to march through Turkey, and that's another reason why we decry the lack of a functioning State Department.

--WS

Holy Joe Would Love to See the US Attacked, Wouldn't He?

The most blatantly partisan Senator in America thinks that terrorists will attack us in 2009:

In describing the reasons he believes the Republicans' presumptive nominee for president would be better prepared than the Democrats' to lead the nation next January, Sen. Joe Lieberman said that history shows the United States would likely face a terrorist attack in 2009.

"Our enemies will test the new president early," Lieberman, I-Conn., told Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer. "Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."

Lieberman nonetheless distanced himself from remarks by McCain chief strategist Charlie Black, who came under criticism for suggesting in an interview that McCain's election chances would be improved if a terrorist attack occurred before November.

"Sometimes even the best of them say things that are not what they intended to say," Lieberman said. "Certainly the implications there I know were not what Charlie intended. And he apologized for it. Senator McCain said he didn't agree. And, of course, I feel the same way.

"But here's the point. We're in a war against Islamist extremists who attacked us on 9/11. They've been trying to attack us in many, many ways since then."

I personally like that analogy that Lieberman used--when terrorists attacked America in 1993, the Clinton administration caught them, tried them, and punished them. No one lost their fucking minds. We used the rule of law. And Americans didn't have their civil liberties and habeas corpus flushed down the toilet.

When terrorists attacked during the Bush Administration, they ignored the warnings, flipped the fuck out and took all of our civil liberties away, formed the Department of Homeland Security, and have systematically fucked up every single solitary government agency and left us hollowed out militarily by launching the wrong war against the wrong adversary.

So, in a sense--Joe's right. They have been trying to "attack us in many, many ways since then." Only not the ways Joe thinks.

--WS

Failing to Actually Catch Terrorists

The Bush Administration will go down as the worst in history, in many categories, but one of the most important categories will be in "fighting terrorism." No one does it worse, and no one screws it up like they do:

Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.

Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.

Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military.

The collapse of the Cole investigation offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government's failure to bring al-Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets over the past decade.

A week after the Cole bombing, President Bill Clinton vowed to hunt down the plotters and promised, "Justice will prevail." In March 2002, President Bush said his administration was cooperating with Yemen to prevent it from becoming "a haven for terrorists." He added: "Every terrorist must be made to live as an international fugitive with no place to settle or organize, no place to hide, no governments to hide behind and not even a safe place to sleep."

Since then, Yemen has refused to extradite Badawi and an accomplice to the United States, where they have been indicted on murder charges. Other Cole conspirators have been freed after short prison terms. At least two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq.

"After we worked day and night to bring justice to the victims and prove that these Qaeda operatives were responsible, we're back to square one," said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and a lead investigator into the bombing. "Do they have laws over there or not? It's really frustrating what's happening."

We have laws here--we don't follow them, either. How can the United States of America lecture Yemen, or any other country, when we don't believe in the rule of law, we have no honor code, we don't have leaders who tell the truth, we don't reject torture, we don't even have Habeas Corpus anymore. We don't have privacy rights, we don't have oversight and we don't have a Justice Department that will actually investigate anything because of political affiliation, not the law.

Our moral authority has been pissed away. So when you see stories like this, it makes one wonder--how do you continue to support the Bush administration. How do you claim to be in that shrinking percentage of people who approve of the President's job? In short, what delusion makes one a wingnut in the face of the fact that actual terrorists who killed US sailors are running free because we couldn't get a foreign government to give them up?

When do we invade Yemen? Because they held then released terrorists who actually have attacked a US ship, not the theoretical ones that weren't even in Iraq.

Some days we have to bestow a dubious honor

I have not proclaimed an Idiot of the Day from the KC Star editorial page for quite a while. But perusing Unfettered Letters a few minutes ago, I was overcome by the urge to just pummel the living piss out of some shallow-end-of-the-gene-pool chickenhawk from Raytown. She is so far gone that I brought Idiot of the Day out of retirement, just for her. (Dubious honor, toots, dubious honor indeed.)

Seems to me the Democrats are wanting us to fail in Iraq. With all the negative rhetoric coming out of D.C., it would seem they don’t want our military to succeed in this war.

Seems like someone has been swilling the kool-aid. It is not a war any longer, it is an occupation, and there is no viable winning strategy.

Sen. Harry Reid declared we had lost the war and the surge would not work before the troops had been completely deployed in June.

That is because the war games that were conducted before hand said we needed 400,000 going in. A “surge” to previous troop levels represented too little, too late. Especially when you are talking about compromised materiel and manpower, all worn out after four years of desert combat.

Gen. David Petraeus was unanimously approved by the Senate. Many of the Democrats who are anti-war now approved going to war four years ago.

Petraeus is not the great white hope, and in fact, he lacks vital skills necessary to secure the peace in Iraq.

Here is the reality of this war: If we take out the troops too soon, the Iraqi people will suffer more bloodshed than the past four years. Al-Qaida will run rampant in Iraq and beyond its borders.

No, you fucking moron, here is the reality…There was no “al Qaeda” in Iraq before the stupid man in charge decided to launch a splendid vanity war. The Iraqi’s hate all foreign fighters, AQI included, and when we are gone, AQI will either flee or be slaughtered.

Capturing and killing al-Qaida members in Iraq is keeping our country safe.

No, you fucking moron, it is creating more terrorists, not keeping you safe in fucking Raytown!

Go to vetsforfreedom.org for information to truly support our troops and their mission.

Go to VoteVets.org or IAVA.org to counter the spin from the right-wing warmongers.

Here is my question for this cowardly whelp and those like her: Why are you so eager to surrender to terrorists?

That is what you are doing, you know. You insist on being terrified of terrorists, and you give them the victory they desire. When terrorists succeed in terrifying, they are successful.

I’ll be damned! I am not giving over to fear. I will fight to keep my civil liberties, and I will retain my dignity, and I will defy those who want me to be cowering and simpering and pathetic. She and her lot will do enough cowering and trembling for both of us, I’m sure.

I’ll take care of the defiance (and the authentic patriotism) for her and her pathetic ilk.