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Obama's 'kill list' revealed: How President uses Al Qaeda 'baseball cards' to decide who will live and who will die ......Full Title Barack Obama has insisted on personally approving a 'kill list' of Al Qaeda terrorists who should be hunted down and executed, according to reports. The U.S. president requests that his advisers draw up 'baseball cards' with pictures and biographies that he pores over to see who should live and who should die. As part of the bizarre ‘nomination’ process he then retires for personal reflection to work out whether or not to order a drone strike to take...

A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down Usama bin Laden was sentenced to 33 years in prison on Wednesday for conspiring against the state, officials said, a verdict that is likely to further strain the country's relationship with Washington. Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed the Al Qaeda chief last May in a unilateral raid. The operation outraged Pakistani officials, who portrayed it as an act of treachery by a supposed ally. Senior U.S. officials...

Just a week ago the establishment media was aflutter with news that a CIA double-agent had thwarted a new type of underwear bomb attack targeting U.S. flights in a plot devised by al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. But as the week progressed, a developing bombshell story got buried under President Obama’s gay marriage announcement. Not only is the supposed CIA asset not a CIA asset at all, but the entire operation was exposed prematurely and the double-agent’s life was immediately threatened by an intelligence leak that very well may have come out of the White House for political gain. As...

The man with the nicotine habit is in his late 50s, with stubble on his face and the dark-suited wardrobe of an undertaker. As chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for the past six years, he has functioned in a funereal capacity for al-Qaeda. Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign and the leader of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In many ways, he has also been the driving force of the Obama administration’s...

Barack Obama is a nice guy who has degrees from prestigious institutions. He speaks well and writes well, but he is nonetheless an idiot because he sees things only through the lens of himself. Where others hold a window into the world, he holds a mirror. His supporters say he plays three-dimensional chess. He cannot even play checkers. Consider his apology to Afghanistan for the accidental burning of a few Korans. Instead of calming thing down, his apology was used by the enemy to rationalize a new wave of violence in Kabul. President Obama thinks that is all A-OK. From...

After several days of unrest in Afghanistan over the burning of Korans removed from detention facilities, President Obama has sent a note of apology to Hamid Karzai. Obama stresses that the destruction was inadvertent, and that those who made the “error� would be held accountable: President Obama sent Afghan President Hamid Karzai a letter on Thursday apologizing for the alleged burning of Korans at a U.S. military base, Karzai’s office confirmed on its website.“I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident,” Obama wrote. “I extend to you and the Afghan people my sincere apologies.”The president concludes the...

An Afghan soldier joined protests on Thursday against the burning of copies of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base and shot dead two foreign troops, western military sources said. The killings came hours after the Taliban urged Afghans to target foreign military bases and kill Westerners in retaliation for the burning of the Korans at Bagram airfield on Tuesday. Eleven people have died in demonstrations across the country since then and 17 people have been wounded. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of several cities, chanting "Death to America!" and smashing cars, buildings and shops. In...

The dramatic rescue of an American aid worker and her Danish colleague in Somalia by Navy commandos was a terrific encore to the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan nine months ago. However, all the White House-driven publicity for both events has helped turn the once-secret SEAL Team 6 into a household term, with likely negative consequences. Although SEAL Team 6 and its official successor, the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, have been around since the 1980s, their missions always were kept secret to shield their members’ identities and protect operational security. Every president since the team’s founding has...

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington— The radar-evading drone that crash-landed over the weekend in Iran was on a mission for the CIA, according to a senior U.S. official, raising fears that the aircraft's sophisticated technology could be exploited by Tehran or shared with other American rivals. It was unclear whether the drone's mission took it over Iran or whether it strayed there accidentally because of technical malfunctions, the official said. Though the drone flight was a CIA operation, U.S. military personnel were involved in flying the aircraft, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the...

Outside the U.S. government, President Obama's order to kill American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without due process has proved controversial, with experts in law and war reaching different conclusions. Inside the Obama Administration, however, disagreement was apparently absent, or so say anonymous sources quoted by the Washington Post. "The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials," the newspaper reported. "The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved...

Look, I understand the the Obama White House has decided to shift to the extreme Left on policy this month. They want to pander to their base, which has been demoralized in discovering that their agenda has as much chance of passing Congress as … well, as Obama’s tax-hikes bill. But at some point, the pander will devolve into self-parody — and Eric Holder’s promise to really, really close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay qualifies as the tipping point: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Obama administration will do its utmost to close the U.S....

President Obama's "surge" of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan announced in late 2009 was meant to be temporary, and Wednesday night the president is expected to announce that they will return home by around the time voters head to the polls to determine whether he gets another term. In prime-time speech to the nation, Obama is expected to say about 5,000 troops will begin coming home this summer with an additional 5,000 troops by the end of this year, sources told CBS News. And about 20,000 more troops are expected to return to the United States by the end of 2012,...

Secrets: Good news of bin Laden's death may be followed by bad news of Pakistan giving China a peek at our downed helicopter. Will we be threatened by our own technology? They are something out of the latest Batman flick, the modified Black Hawk helicopters that were used in the raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound. With a curious hublike housing around the unusually configured rear-rotor, among other things, it was clearly designed to be as quiet and stealthy as possible. When one of the copters clipped a wall in bin Laden's compound, it had to be destroyed, leaving...

Attorney General vows to close Guantanamo 2:30pm EDT PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday the United States would close the Guantanamo Bay facility holding terrorism suspects in Cuba, despite missing a previous deadline to do so. On an official visit to Paris, Holder stressed what he called unprecedented intelligence-sharing ties between France and the United States against a united enemy, al Qaeda, that he said still held the two countries and its allies in its sights. The recent killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was unlikely to affect the timing of the closure of...

Watching the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound unfold last week from the White House Situation room was interminable, the president revealed to CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview that aired Sunday evening. "It was the longest 40 minutes of my life," Obama told correspondent Steve Kroft during a conversation taped days after bin Laden's death. A photo of the national security team viewing the action remotely has quickly become a touchstone of the May 1 event, but officials have revealed little about what was going on behind the scenes, citing security concerns. Obama described the mood as "very tense,"...

President Obama deserves a great deal of credit for authorizing SEAL Team 6 to take out Osama bin Laden. While some Americans have been outraged by his self-congratulatory pronouncements, most have been so delighted that bin Laden finally got what he deserved that they seem willing not to notice that instead of heaping praise on the men and women of our intelligence services and the military who are the real heroes of this story, Obama acts as if he did everything himself, everything that is except pull the trigger. One can forgive the President for self aggrandizement. Obama is a...

It’s clear that the White House team is thinking very big when it comes to President Obama’s Thursday visit to Ground Zero, his first since taking office. Obama invited former President George W. Bush and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to hear him speak at the former site of the World Trade Center. Bush declined, and Giuliani’s status is unclear, but those are the kinds of guests one would invite for a major political event. Bush has a strong defense for declining. He has kept a low profile since leaving office and largely limited his public events to...

Somewhere, Dick Cheney is smiling. An American president, with incomplete intelligence, invades a foreign — and friendly(!) —power, without its knowledge or consent. Using data gathered from Gitmo detainees subjected to “enhanced interrogation” the president gives the “kill order” for a target in a private residence, one where women and children are known to congregate. And after 22 foreign nationals are captured or killed at the hands of Navy SEALS — without any NATO or U.N. authorization — the president doesn’t apologize for it. He brags about it. Then it’s confirm that he ordered the SEALS to throw the target’s...

Chief of Staff of Donald Rumsfield tweeted OBL has been killed. Perhaps this is Obama's new speech coming soon?

Al Qaeda Makes Afghan Comeback By MATTHEW ROSENBERG And JULIAN E. BARNES ASSOCIATED PRESS In late September, U.S. fighter jets streaked over the cedar-studded slopes of Korengal, the so-called Valley of Death, to strike a target that hadn't been seen for years in Afghanistan: an al Qaeda training camp. Among the dozens of Arabs killed that day, the U.S.-led coalition said, were two senior al Qaeda members, one Saudi and the other Kuwaiti. Another casualty of the bombing, according to Saudi media and jihadi websites, was one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted militants. The men had come to Afghanistan to...

Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission, CBS News has learned. A source says the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Trying Mohammed in a civilian court and closing the Guantanamo prison were once some of the Obama administration's top priorities, but political realities have hamstrung both goals. Holder previously recommended that Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 plotters be tried in New York City...

The White House released a statement from President Obama on the riots in Afghanistan that were prompted by one U.S. church’s decision to burn Islam’s holy book, the Koran. The president’s statement: “Today, the American people honor those who were lost in the attack on the United Nations in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. Once again, we extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were killed, and to the people of the nations that they came from. The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry. However, to attack...

Navy lawyers on Fox. They say Obama is blocking military prosecution of terrorists held at Gitmo by blocking any money needed to proceed and by throwing up roadblocks. Obama has no intention of allowing these murderers to be tried by military commissions. Apparently, he plans to quietly release them at some time. Surprising that military people are saying so in public. Suggests a growing divide between Obama and the military. (As an aside, military is against our actions in Libya but is following orders).

President Obama announced Monday that military trials will resume for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, saying the tribunals are an "important tool in combating international terrorists."

The Obama administration has declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional which translates into: Obama needs a distraction. Now that he is campaigning full time, he’s got no interest in dealing with the crisis in Libya as Crazy Gadaffi prepares to blow up oil pipelines. Nor can he be bothered to comment on the brutal slaughter of four Americans by Somali savages who, apparently, we not persuaded by the administration’s efforts at “negotiations”. Get used to it, America. National security has never been a priority with this president. He won’t suddenly develop any concern for our well being now that...

Vice President Biden said today that the coalition forces in Afghanistan have “largely arrested the Taliban momentum” in key areas there. But he acknowledged that the gains are “fragile and reversible.” Biden’s comments came after a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul. Biden emphasized the U.S. commitment to the Afghan government. “We are not leaving if you don't want us to leave,” he said. The vice president said while there are “many hard days that lie ahead,” there is now a “viable path going forward” to the transition from US forces to Afghan security...

The CIA has recalled it top officer from Pakistan after his cover was blown and his life threatened. The alleged name of the CIA's station chief in Islamabad was revealed by a Pakistani man, Kareem Khan, who has threatened to sue the intelligence agency over the death of his son and brother in a U.S. missile strike. Khan and his lawyers told a news conference in November that they would seek a $500 million payment for his family members' deaths and warned they may sue CIA director Leon Panetta, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and the man they identified as...

KABUL, Afghanistan – Airstrikes and ground operations by NATO and Afghan troops killed dozens of insurgents, including a senior Taliban leader who spearheaded attacks against security forces, the alliance said Thursday as the war in Afghanistan entered its 10th year. Sixteen militants were killed in air raids and ground fighting overnight in the Darqad, Yangi Qala and Khwaja Bahawuddin districts of Takhar province, Gen. Shah Jahan Noori, provincial police chief, told The Associated Press. More than a dozen insurgents were wounded. Northern Takhar has been the scene of escalating military operations in recent days, as NATO and Afghan forces step...

President Barack Obama is letting down his troops and seems not to have the commitment and 'X-factor' to win the war in Afghanistan, Bob Woodward has told The Daily Telegraph. This strong opinion is all the more stinging because it comes not from the US President’s usual vociferous critics but Bob Woodward, the legendary Watergate journalist who is normally scrupulous at keeping his views to himself. “I believe in neutral inquiry,” he tells The Daily Telegraph in an interview. “That is the core job of the journalist.”

Islamofascism: A panel of national security experts concludes that Shariah law is a totalitarian ideology that is being used by advocates of tolerance to undermine the security of the United States. Challenging the prevailing political correctness regarding tolerance, outreach and endless apologies to the Muslim world for defending ourselves against terrorism, the 177-page report by the Center for Security Policy, "Shariah: The New Threat To America," objectively analyzes the assault on the West by Islamofascism and warns of the grave threat posed by those who seek to use Shariah law to undermine America's legal system, Constitution, national security and way...

Obama’s remarks on 9/11 were about what you would expect from a president who ridiculed his countrymen for overreacting to the most lethal terrorist attack on our soil and who can’t manage to utter the worlds “Islamic fundamentalists” or “jihadists.” Really, let’s not dwell on the bad stuff, he tells us. “On this day, it’s perhaps natural to focus on the images of that awful morning — images seared into our souls. It’s tempting to dwell on the final moments of the loved ones whose lives were taken so cruelly.” Yes, it is tempting — because that is what the...

JERUSALEM – The Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations have "legitimate claims" that are being "weakened" by the violence the terror groups carry out, Sen. Barack Obama stated in an interview today with the New York Times. Speaking with columnist David Brooks, Obama said the U.S. needs a foreign policy that "looks at the root causes of problems and dangers." The presidential candidate compared Hezbollah to Hamas, stating they both need to be compelled to understand that "they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims."

A roadside bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan has killed four US soldiers, Nato said. AFP quoted spokesman James Judge as saying that a home-made bomb, one of the main weapons of the Taliban, was used in the attack. The attack comes a day after seven US soldiers were killed in two bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan. The deaths add to the rising trend of casualties for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). June and July were the worst months for foreign troop deaths since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Nearly 50 Americans have died in August alone....

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Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were secretly moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003, years earlier than has been disclosed, then were whisked back into overseas prisons before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers, The Associated Press has learned. The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those...

<p>KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A senior U.S. military official and Afghan officials say the body of a second U.S. sailor who went missing in a dangerous part of eastern Afghanistan has been recovered.</p> <p>The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information, says the family of Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove — a 25-year-old from the Seattle area — has been notified of his death.</p>

KABUL, Afghanistan – Three U.S. service members were killed in blasts in Afghanistan, bringing the toll for July to at least 63 and making it the deadliest month for American forces in the nearly 9-year-war.

Terrorism: The administration says it was surprised and angry at the Lockerbie bomber's "compassionate" release. Now a letter reveals that it actually lobbied for it. Was this malicious intent or mere incompetence? Last week, at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama was asked what he thought about a possible Senate investigation into the "Lockerbie bomber stuff" — namely that British Petroleum, among its other sins, lobbied the British government to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in order to win oil contracts from the Libyan government. Obama replied: "I think all of us...

Border: A Hezbollah-like car bomb explodes in a border town as a congresswoman asks Homeland Security about links between the terrorist group and Mexican drug cartels. This is more than an immigration problem. Car bombs are a terrorist specialty and not a drug cartel modus operandi. The heavily armed cartels are more into shootings and kidnappings. So the car bomb that exploded Thursday in Ciudad Juarez, near a federal police headquarters, killing four, was either a change in tactics for the cartels or a sign of teaming up with a terrorist group, one of which could be Iran-linked Hezbollah. Officials...

We need "a warrior," not "a flower child." The anguished mother of an American soldier killed in Afghanistan said this about President Obama. She objects to the rules of engagement, which she feels caused her son's death. The recent Rolling Stone piece on the former Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, showed widespread troop disapproval of these rules, designed to minimize civilian casualties but which increase the danger to coalition soldiers in the field. But this is the mind-set of Obama. As a candidate for president, Obama criticized President George W. Bush for "wrongly" taking the nation to war in Iraq...

All that mattered Wednesday was the mission. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal deserved to be fired for the contemptuous remarks that he and members of his staff made to a reporter about President Obama and his national security team. But Obama would have been justified in sticking with McChrystal if, in the president's estimation, firing General Loose Lips would have done significant harm to the mission -- achieving our nation's goals in Afghanistan. Fortunately, Obama struck on a way to do what's best for the United States -- reaffirm the primacy of civilian command over the military -- without compromising the...

The deaths of another four NATO troops in an accident in Afghanistan made June the deadliest single month for US-led foreign forces in the nearly nine-year conflict, according to an AFP tally Thursday. The grim landmark followed the sacking of NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, which was greeted with dismay in Kabul where Afghan officials and foreign diplomats praised his bold efforts to reshape the war. The four troops died as a result of a vehicle accident in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force said in a statement that gave no further details. The...

The White House is reviewing a list of possible replacements for Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who admitted to top Obama administration officials that he "compromised the mission" by making disparaging comments in a Rolling Stone interview. The White House has asked the Pentagon for a list of possible replacements, even though administration officials insist a decision on whether McChrystal will keep his job will not come until after he has made his case to the president in their face-to-face meeting. Possible successors that administration officials are reviewing include Gen. James Mattis, U.S. Joint Forces Command chief; Lt. Gen. John Allen ,...

An Afghanistan strategy session is under way at the White House as scheduled without word from President Barack Obama about the fate of war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is under fire for blistering remarks in a magazine. McChrystal came to the White House for a 30-minute face-to-face with Obama over his remarks and then left. He was not seen returning for the bigger war meeting, as he had been expected to. Obama was expected to make an announcement on McChrystal's future later Wednesday, but there was no word from presidential aides on when that would happen. With the White...

Within 24 hours of the leak of the Afghanistan assessment to The Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal's team fired its second shot across the bow of the Obama administration. According to McClatchy, military officers close to General McChrystal said he is prepared to resign if he isn't given sufficient resources (read "troops") to implement a change of direction in Afghanistan: Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, not submit his request for...

Riding shotgun in an armored vehicle as it passed through the heat and confusion of southern Afghanistan this month, an Army sergeant spoke into his headset, summarizing a sentiment often heard in the field this year. “I wish we had generals who remembered what it was like when they were down in a platoon,” he said to a reporter in the back. “Either they never have been in real fighting, or they forgot what it’s like.” The sergeant was speaking of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and the circle of counterinsurgents who since last year have been running the Afghan war,...

Stan McChrystal came out of the military's Special Ops with an unwavering faith in his specialness that went against the strict code of fellow snake-eaters. The "black ops" types hardly ever talk, much less brag, about what they do and how they do it. But Gen. McChrystal went on "60 Minutes" to display his warrior-monk ethos, show off his Spartan living quarters and jog around the camp in the predawn darkness while lesser mortals of the "regular" Army slept. And what Special Ops commandos really don't do is this - provide color commentary on the failings of the regulars, and...

Breaking: General Stanley McChrystal tenders his resignation A senior Capitol Hill source tells me that General Stanley McChrystal had tendered his resignation to President Barack Obama and that the White House is actively discussing a replacement who could be quickly confirmed by the Senate. The source said that among the names being touted as possible successors are General James Mattis, the outgoing head of the US Joint Forces Command and due to retire after being passed over as US Marine Corps commander, and Lieutenant General William Caldwell, commander of Nato’s Training Mission in Afghanistan. Of course, offering to resign...

Leadership: Our commander in chief was to miss the wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to go on vacation. Other presidents have missed it, but never at wartime. All presidents deserve a vacation, and no president is ever off the clock. But we are at war, and Memorial Day at Arlington has special significance even in peacetime. Those who defend President Obama's decision to take time off were not so understanding whenever President George W. Bush spent time at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Obama was to be in his old Chicago-area stomping grounds, and those who attacked Bush for taking...

Attorney General Eric Holder was having a bad day. He was sitting at one of those tables before a congressional panel, looking up at his inquisitors. One of them tossed what should have been a softball. Were the three terrorist attacks that have taken place since Obama’s inauguration motivated by “radical Islam?” Holder lapsed into two minutes of agonizing, anal-retentive quibbling. Was it radical Islam? Well, it was a “variety of reasons.” Could one of those reasons be radical Islam? “I don’t want to say anything negative about a religion …” And back and forth, until the questioner, Republican Rep....