Posted on 09/21/2008 11:14:25 PM PDT by MikeFrancesa.com
Friday, The Times' Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes reported that the United States has escalated its war against Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies by "deploying Predator aircraft equipped with sophisticated new surveillance systems that were instrumental in crippling the insurgency in Iraq."
It's a story whose significance may extend well beyond the benighted hills and valleys of Pakistan's violent Pashtun hinterlands and onto the hustings of our current presidential campaign. Coupled with Thursday's report in the New York Times that President Bush has signed a secret order permitting Afghanistan-based U.S. special operations forces to cross into Pakistan without Islamabad's permission, the odds of an "October surprise" that could influence the general election have risen appreciably.
U.S. officials also told The Times that the new surveillance systems allow the operators of the unmanned Predators to locate and identify individual human targets "even when they are inside buildings. ... The technology gives remote pilots a means beyond images from the Predator's lens of confirming a target's identity and precise location."
The Times' story confirms the most sensational revelation contained in Bob Woodward's new book, "The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2007," which was published this week. Woodward revealed the technology's existence but, heeding requests from intelligence officials, declined to describe its operations except to say that it had allowed U.S. forces to locate and kill decisive numbers of senior Al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi insurgents. In what may be the book's most controversial claim, Woodward argues that the secret technology and the so-called Anbar Awakening -- in which counterinsurgency techniques developed by the Marines won over tribal leaders in that crucial Sunni-dominated province -- had as much or more to do with stabilizing Iraq as the "surge" in U.S. troop numbers.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
So the NY Slimes reports that Bush has signed a “secret order” ...
There go the Slimes again .. giving out secrets to the enemy!
Article headline : “An Afghan ‘October surprise’?”
oops .. it was the LA Slimes.
No difference, really!
its not the lstimes that disgust me, but i bet sitting members of congress, no doubt democrats with top secret positions that are leaking this to the media
Nice blabbermouthing, LA Times.
When, oh when, will this evil rag finally close its doors forever?
So Valerie Plame was no issue then.
There are no Al Qaeda in Iraq...Rove must have had them bussed from the REAL WAR front
Utter hogwash and basement liberal science fiction fantasy. Look who the "source" is. And, let's not forget the un-named "US officials".
Predator drones? Sure. Looking through rooftops and identifying living humans with enough certainty to pull the trigger? Don't make me laugh.
I know that DARPA is always way ahead of the technological edge in military weapons development, but do you honestly believe that any of those folks would trust a "US official" with that knowledge?
This is 100% the case. The surge was a public relations coup that bought time for other factors to win the war. No serious military commander would have you believe that adding 30k troops to a 25 million population was going to dent the violence. It was a minor factor that certainly helped, but without the other factors, would not have produced the results we see today.
Much to the chagrin of the LAT and the rest of the MSM, this story broke too late to be of any use to the insurgency in Iraq.
And despite their fear mongering, this doesn't make an October Surprise from Al-Qa'ida more likely. It makes it less likely. We're crushing them in Waziristan. They're moving into the Pakistan cities and attacking hotels and troops, but this increased proximity is driving them into range of the Pakistani military and intelligence services.
So, laugh all you want, LA Times, but your side is sliding towards a lonely defeat.
You need to put the actual title in the title.
I loved their food and family loved their sports section, but finally this year we pulled the plug. Die, L.A. Slimes, die.
nice tagline.
The Times has been had.
And it was filmed in L.A.
And the L.A. Times prints this story.
I feel a Conspiracy coming on. My leg is tingling like Obama’s mouth when he sees a TelePrompter.
From open sources, I have some idea of what the system and methods are. The insurgents are screwed. Even if they knew, they would have a hard time adapting.
Amen. It's more than slightly possible that some folks in the White House gave Blabbermouth Bob some "hush-hush info" about our alien technology spy plane to protect some less-sophisticated, but more reliable sources, like informants on the ground, electronic eavesdropping and/or Special Operations personnel.
Well, at least they didn't spill the beans about the secret Halliburton camps in the US...Oh, wait a minute...uhmm, there are no secret camps in the US...yeah, that's the ticket...there are no secret camps...
He’s already dead, Jim.
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