Sadly, No!

Having apparently forgotten he is supposed to be living in a cave, Mullah Omar has been visiting Pakistan:

Former Taleban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was seen in the Pakistani border town of Quetta last week, according to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Mr Karzai told The Times newspaper he had received information that Mullah Omar was spotted praying in a mosque.

A reminder from the same article that all has turned out extremely well in Afghanistan, please move along and pay no attention to anything else the media might be reporting:

[President Karzai] called on Pakistan’s President Musharraf to prevent hard-line Islamic groups in the city from supporting those responsible for the recent upsurge in violence in Afghanistan, which has left more than 400 people dead in the past four months.

World O’Crap reads the Town Hall columnists for you. He She then summarizes their typically incoherent rants arguments, saving you time and helping to preserve whatever sanity you might have left:

The good news: it’s a light load, due to the weekend. Better news: the pieces are fully of juicy conservative goofiness.

Neil Cavuto

Neil’s business and economics expertise (plus the fact that his friend Tom is uncharacteristically buying nice presents for his family this year) allows Neil to predict that holiday spending will be up 8-9% over last year’s. Of course, if Tom is just having an affair, then forget everything Neil said.

There’s more, so stop by and say hello. [But we must say thanks to Neil’s friend, whose willingness to rack up credit card debt while lacking the financial resources needed to pay it back is what makes this country the greatest country in the world! Thanks Tom!]

The Financial Times has the latest on everybody’s favorite ingrate:

Mr Chalabi chairs the Governing Council’s Higher Committee for
de-Ba’athification. Formed in September, this has expanded its work from
rooting out senior functionaries of the former regime to implementing what
he calls “a programme of economic de-Ba’athification”.

The committee is one of the most powerful in the Governing Council. …

Critics of de-Ba’athification have attacked the programme as revenge-driven.
Iyad Allawi, a fellow member of the Governing Council who has also returned from western exile, has called the plan “dangerous”, and declared he was boycotting Mr Chalabi’s committee.

Mr Chalabi’s opponents worry that his de-Ba’athification committee has few
checks and balances, and that it could be used selectively to favour his
associates and undermine business rivals. He insists, however, that the
motives for de-Ba’athification are a “moral issue”. …

He said the de-Ba’athification committee would also examine the restitution
of an estimated 500,000 properties he said had been confiscated under the
Ba’athist regime. He said the properties included his sister’s house, which
the family has already recovered and in which Mr Chalabi gave the interview.

Under the de-Ba’athification programme an estimated 20,000 suspected senior
Ba’athists, many of them technocrats, have been sacked from the government
machinery.This has been widely criticised as contributing in the atrophy of
the Iraqi state structure.

But Mr Chalabi argued that the policy’s impact had been “very light” and
said a second wave of de-Ba’athification now being finalised by his
committee would be “deliberately harsh”, although not a witch hunt. [Emphasis added]

Given how long he’d been out of the country, we’re surprised Ahmad even managed to find his way to the house.

Thanks to Mrs. Blair for the FT article.

From the center for Excellence in Barbiturates, Rush Limbaugh is outraged:

These prescription drug-type programs and other entitlements like them now take up over 60% of the budget. Something has to be done about it, or your kids and grandkids will have tax rates that they’ll simply refuse to pay.

In FY2002, mandatory spending was 59% of all government spending. By 2013 (prior to this week’s Medicare bill) it was expected to be 58%. Which would put it at the same level it has been through the 1990s. Entitlement spending first broke the 50% barrier in 1983 under big government, fiscally conservative, tax cut and spend Reagan. Think the Medicare changes are expensive? The projected cost of $400 billion amounts to 2.6% of all entitlement spending from 2004 to 2013. [Which doesn’t make it a good bill, but let’s simmer down now, shall we?]

Entitlement spending, should you ever take a look, includes such government giveaways as:

Medicaid $148bn
Supplemental Security Income $31bn
Earned Income and Child Tax Credits $33bn
Food Stamps $22bn
Family Support $26bn
Child Nutrition $10bn
Foster Care $6bn
Social Security $452bn
Medicare $254bn
Unemployment Compensation $51bn
Veterans’ benefits $25bn

All figures for 2002. Total entitlement spending for the year $1,195bn.

Today’s Washington Post reports:

Jailed the night of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the Algerian air force lieutenant with an expired visa has spent the past 26 months in federal prisons, much of that time in solitary confinement — even though the FBI formally concluded in November 2001 that he had no connection to terrorism. …

Two years after the attacks, federal Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr. would examine Benatta’s case and find a study in governmental excess.

Schroeder issued an unsparing report in September, writing that federal prosecutors and FBI and immigration agents engaged in a “sham” to make it appear that Benatta was being held for immigration violations. Prosecutors trampled on legal deadlines intended to protect his constitutional rights and later offered explanations for their maneuvers that “bordered on ridiculousness,” Schroeder wrote. And he found that the government compounded its mistakes by failing to act once it was clear that Benatta was not an accomplice to terrorists.

Well, as long as it all makes Andrew Sullivan, fearless leader of the 101st Keyboarder Brigade feel safer, we say it was well worth it.

Welcome to Hotel Ashcroft
You can be exonerated anytime you want, but you can never leave

Meanwhile, in a country far far away:

Washington, 28 November 2003 (RFE/RL) — Statistics released by the White House today show that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan doubled between the year 2002 and 2003, rising to a level 36 times higher than during the last year of the Taliban’s rule.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said the area planted with poppies — used to make heroin — is now 61,000 hectares compared to just 1,685 hectares in 2001.

The poor security situation in many Afghan regions was blamed for the lack of drug-control enforcement. The agency’s director, John Walters, said profits from drug production are “putting money in the pocket of terrorists.”

Well, that sounds fucking awesome — pass the poppy and the terrorist funding please!

As the process of moving the old shit will take a few days, for those who just can’t wait, you can read through our greatest hits right here in our geeklog archives…

This time, we’re not kidding! Welcome to the new Sadly, No! The old entries will be added soon, and new crap will follow.

Was this meant to be funny ironic, or funny ha ha? The Taipei Times reports:

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday that violence in Iraq would diminish with the return of power to Iraqis, as leaders of the Shiite Muslim majority criticized the pace of the transition.

Straw, whose visit to Baghdad was unannounced for security reasons, said he did not wish to play down the scale of the unrest that has plagued Iraq since the British and US spring invasion, and sharply increased during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan that ended this week.

[Emphasis added]

As Google News delivered another daily summary of Afghanistan news to our inbox, we wondered if Andrew “Liberation has worked in Afghanistan” Sullivan knows of this wonderful service. Perhaps it is not stupidity but mere ignorance that explains why he doesn’t see that the Taliban are still out there, and that beyond Kabul things have not worked out according to plan. We’re busy today, but if someone can email him and ask, that would be great. And now, another Afghanistan roundup:

On The Job With A Taliban Recruiter
Abdul is unflagging in his rounds because he has an almost missionary zeal: to find recruits for jihad – or holy war -waged by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Himself blinded in one eye from action in Afghanistan, Abdul tells prospective recruits: “You might fight at the front line, or you might stand guard at night. You can cook for other Islamic warriors, or you can be a male nurse. Or you can give the fighters money or grain – everything is welcome because the jihad has started.”

On Abdul’s most recent foray into Afghanistan he was accompanied by 14 youths from the remote Pakistani tribal areas in Killa Abdullah district in northern Balochistan province, whom he had rallied to the cause to fight against the “foreign invaders”. Since his return he has another six lined up, all of whom are ready to cross the porous border. He took the last batch to a post in Zabul province, but he has no idea where the fresh recruits will go.

“I have already sent a message to Taliban commanders to seek instructions,” Abdul says, “We will go wherever our services are needed.” In recent months the Taliban have become more brazen and open in their operations, and they are known to be within relatively easy contact by wireless sets or by satellite phones. “The Taliban also have radios and regularly listens to the BBC’s Pashtu service to keep themselves abreast of the situation in the Muslim world, especially in Iraq.”

Afghan optimism blooms

A consortium of a dozen aid groups, including CARE, conducted the survey from April to June. Workers visited eight areas of the country that they considered safe and interviewed 1,479 people individually and 375 others in group discussions.

“There were a large number of areas in the south and southeast that we were not able to go to because we feared for the security of either the staff or the communities,” O’Brien said.

Hillary to spend Thanksgiving in Afghanistan

[Insert your own comments here boys and girls!]

Pakistan tries again to shutter terror groups

Thousands of Islamic militants like Ejaz have changed their cellphones and shifted to mosques and remote locations to evade another government crackdown on groups responsible for violence in Pakistan, Kashmir, and Aghanistan. This latest round targeted six organizations, including several banned last year only to reemerge under new names – demonstrating the ability of the militants to stay several steps ahead of Islamabad.

Turkish Engineer Still Captive in Afghanistan; Rescue Efforts Fall Short

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai announced that an operation, in the works for nearly for a month, to rescue kidnapped Turkish engineer Hasan Onal had been postponed at the last moment.

As a move to secure a delay and the life of Onal, the offer of money to the Taliban was effective. [Mission accomplished then?!?]

Taliban call for Afghan election boycott

Kabul: Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban have called for a boycott of next year’s presidential election and a holy war against US troops while also threatening attacks on those working with foreigners or in the Afghan police and army. …
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the killing of a French UN worker and for a bomb blast Saturday night near Kabul’s Intercontinental hotel, which is popular with foreigners. The explosion shattered windows but did not cause any casualties.

NATO’s ’embarrassing’ Afghan gaps

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) — NATO Secretary-General George Robertson will press alliance nations next week to fill “embarrassing” gaps in resources available to the 5,700-strong peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, diplomats said on Wednesday.

They said the so-far fruitless search for allies willing to provide helicopters and intelligence officers in Kabul was starting to undermine the credibility of NATO’s ambition to expand its mission beyond the capital.

“We still haven’t got the faintest idea how we will meet the shortfalls,” said one diplomat. “There’s an embarrassment factor coming in now.”

Emphasis added in all cases. Happy thanksgiving everyone!