From the Armed Forces Journal:

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

This makes my day.

(H/T Breitbart TV)

Source: CBS
President Obama called Pakistani President Zardari to offer condolences, but not an apology for the NATO strike that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers. Rebecca Jarvis talks to CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate for insight.

The guy who tried to blow up an airplane over Detroit with a bomb in his underwear made a court appearance yesterday. He called America a “cancer” and called for its destruction.

Source: CBS
Federal agents say they’ve stopped a U.S. citizen from Massachusetts who was planning drone attacks against key targets in Washington. Bob Orr reports the alleged terror plot was over before it began.

This is the most disturbing documentary regarding the events surrounding 9/11 I have ever seen. It’s a FRONTLINE investigation called “The Man Who Knew.” It’s about FBI agent John O’Neill who became obsessed with Al Qaeda after the 1992 World Trade Center bombing. He was convinced the WTC bombing was by no means an isolated incident.  He warned of a shadowy network of Islamic radicals headed by Osama bin Laden that was intent on doing us harm. His aggressive pursuit of the matter rubbed many people at FBI HQ the wrong way. They undermined him at every turn. After the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, he was on the ground heading up the investigation. He began to make headway with Yemeni officials and felt he was right on the verge of exposing something big. It was at that moment that petty bureaucratic turf wars, partisan politics, and FBI incompetence pulled the rug out from under John O’Neill. He was called home from Yemen and not allowed to return.

Before being called home, John O’Neill had been focused like a laser on buttering up the Yemeni intelligence service to give him access to the interrogations of a USS Cole bombing suspect. He had spent several months building a relationship with Yemen’s intelligence chief. He felt the man trusted him and was confident he would soon get access to the Cole suspect. Unfortunately, the FBI saw to it he never got that chance.

It turns out O’Neill really was on the verge of discovering something big. The USS Cole suspect told Yemeni intelligence about two men being trained at US flight schools. Their names were Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi and they coming in and out of the US at will on legal visas. This was the information John O’Neill never got the opportunity to hear about because the FBI was more concerned with turf battles and politics.

Those two men piloted flight 77 on Sept 11, 2001 that crashed into the Pentagon.

After being forced out of the FBI, John O’Neill became head of security for the World Trade Center. On Sept. 10, 2001 he warned friends and colleagues that an attack on America would happen soon. He said based on what he was hearing coming out of Afghanistan (the assassination of Northern Alliance commander and US ally Ahmad Shah Massoud) and other nuggets of intel something big was coming.

John O’Neill died the very next day in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Huma Abedin

Suffice it to say asking that question will be labeled “racist” and “Islamophobic” by the hard left, but I don’t really give a damn. Anthony Weiner is married to a woman named Huma Abedin. She’s Hillary Clinton’s top aide and a practicing Muslim. She was born in Michigan, but raised in Saudi Arabia. She speaks fluent Arabic. Her mother is a professor at Dar Al-Hekma College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

According to Pajamas Media, Huma’s mom is more than a professor. She’s also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Al-Liwa Al-Arabi (translated here) claims to have leaked an extensive list, partially published by Al-Jazeera and several other major Arab newspapers, that includes Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin, in the Brotherhood’s secret women’s division — known as the Muslim Sisterhood or International Women’s Organization (IWO).

It seems her brother is in on the act as well:

Also confirmed by Arab sources is that Huma Abedin has a brother who works at Oxford University named Hassan Abedin. Oxford, which has long been infiltrated by Islamists who founded the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), has Huma’s brother listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members on the Board — including al-Qaeda associate Omar Naseef and the notorious Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. Both have been listed as OCIS trustees. Naseef continues to serve as Board chairman.

Huma should not be held responsible for what other members of her family are involved in, but the public has a right to know about it. She works directly for the US Secretary of State and was until today married to a US Congressman. She likely has a top secret security clearance. If she has Islamic militants in her family — it could be a problem. A very big problem.

My favorite military analyst, Ralph Peters, was fired up last night on O’Reilly. He says Pakistan’s decision to arrest the 5 men who helped us locate Osama bin Laden should be the last straw. We should stop pretending Pakistan is an ally. We should cut off all funds to that country. He told O’Reilly that any member of Congress who votes to keep funding Pakistan will have blood on his/her hands.

Watch the whole thing. It’s a great segment.

(H/T Right Scoop via Conurls)

Here’s a Discovery Channel special about the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. This tells the most complete story to date about exactly how the mission came to be and what went down.

Back in January I said this man should be the next president of Afghanistan. Karzai is a joke. He’s two-faced and corrupt. This man is not. His name is Amrullah Saleh and he was the head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service until he quit in disgust over Karzai’s corruption. He was considered by the US to be among the most effective members of the Karzai government and remains one of our closest allies. Saleh is not a person who would ever play footsie with the Taliban or harbor Al Qaeda. He’s been fighting them all his life. This is the guy we need.