War on Terrorism

Obama outlines counterterrorism policy U.S. drone program Both the military and the CIA use armed drones in surveillance and strike operations around the world. The military uses them routinely in war zones, while the CIA uses unmanned planes in top-secret operations to track and kill insurgents in the border regions of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Estimates from independent groups on U.S. drone strikes and deaths: 1 Primary drones 2 Casualty estimates from drone strikes 3 Number of...Read Full Story

A growing trend of young muslims traveling from the U.S. and Europe to Syria, as well as Africa, to train and fight alongside al-Qaeda is pushing Western intelligence agencies to heighten surveillance at airports, harbors and border crossings amid fears that these trained fighters will return home to launch terror attacks.  Those fears were highlighted Wednesday when two Islamic jihadists slaughtered a British soldier in the streets of London and the recent bombings at the Boston Marathon...Read Full Story

[TheBlaze] Five-term Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the newly appointed chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, believes the greatest threat to national security can come from homegrown radicalization, cyber space and an unsecured border. But there’s another one that some might not recognize. “Many (threats) are coming out of the Middle East but one of the bigger threats I talk about is the narrative being spun out of this administration that the war against Al Qaeda and radical Islam...Read Full Story

It’s hard to be categorically optimistic about anything Barack Obama says since he’s let so many down so much.  But his statements about drone strikes and the war on terror, while not everything one would wish, were a vast improvement over U.S. policy for the past five years in which over 3,000 have been killed, over 400 of which were civilians.  The speech he gave was quite broad and deserves parsing by subject. Obama came about as close to promising the closure of Guantanamo as he’s come in...Read Full Story

Obama on Drone Strikes & Pakistan http://twitter.com/nadeemmalik Thousands of Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives fighting extremists. Today, the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on the path to defeat. In Afghanistan, we will complete our transition to Afghan responsibility for that country’s security. Our troops will come home. Our combat mission will come to an end. Our operation in Pakistan against Osama bin Laden cannot be the norm. The risks in that case were immense...Read Full Story