Ouch.

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48-hour rule is in effect.

Moscow — Russian special forces may have killed Chechnya’s top terrorism suspect, Doku Umarov, who claimed responsibility for the January bombing at Moscow’s Domododevo airport, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday. There was no official confirmation.

Umarov is believed to have been among 17 suspected terrorists killed Monday in an attack on a terrorist training camp in Ingushetia in the volatile North Caucasus region. But he has been declared dead before.

Islamist leaders and Umarov’s bodyguard were among the dead, said the president of the Republic of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, but the bodies had not yet been identified. Three security force members were also killed in Monday’s attack.

Meanwhile, Russian investigators on Tuesday said they had officially accused Umarov and another suspected Chechen terrorist, Aslan Byutukayev, of organizing the Domodedovo attack.

Umarov, 46, calls himself the ‘emir of the Caucasus.’ In Muslim-dominated Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan, numerous Islamist militant groups have been fighting for an independent ‘emirate’ in the North Caucasus.

Russia’s federal North Caucasus region — which includes the republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria — is a powder keg. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the area has witnessed struggles for independence, conflicts and terrorist attacks.

. . . “‘Thumbs up, America, you can go now, you can act,’ and then we get in the back of the bus and we wait for NATO, we wait for the French to lead us.”

Yeah, a mess.

Get a room.

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) tonight made the following statement regarding the President’s speech on U.S. involvement in Libya:

“I welcome the President’s strong defense of our military action in Libya, and I appreciate that he explained why this intervention was both right and necessary in light of the unprecedented democratic awakening now sweeping the broader Middle East.

“Had we not acted in Libya, Benghazi would have become a scene of mass slaughter and a source of international shame. Libyan refugees would now be streaming into Egypt and Tunisia, destabilizing those critical countries during their already daunting political transitions. If we had allowed Qaddafi to slaughter Arabs and Muslims in Benghazi who were pleading for our rescue, America’s moral standing in the Middle East would have been devastated. The ideology of Al-Qaeda would have grown more appealing in Libya, not less, as violent radicals exploited the resulting chaos and hopelessness. The forces of counterrevolution across the region would have gotten the message that the world would tolerate the violent oppression of peaceful demonstrations for universal rights. This would have been a dramatic setback for the ‘Arab Spring,’ which represents the most consequential geopolitical opportunity in decades.

“I welcome the President’s clarity that the U.S. goal is for Qaddafi to leave power. But an equal amount of clarity is still required on how we will accomplish that goal. U.S. and coalition airpower has decisively reversed Qaddafi’s momentum, but the potential for a long and bloody stalemate is still far too high. That is not in America’s interest. As long as Qaddafi remains in power, he will increasingly pose a threat to the world, and civilians in Libya will not be fully secure. The United States and our allies must continue to take ‘all necessary measures’ to compel Qaddafi to leave power, as called for in UN Security Council Resolution 1973. That means providing material support to opposition forces in Libya while continuing to target Qaddafi’s forces in the field. We are not neutral in the outcome of the fighting in Libya. We have chosen a side against Qaddafi, and now we must help the opposition succeed.

“The mission in Libya is going well, but we have not yet accomplished our goal. I am thankful for our many friends and allies, especially our Arab partners, that are contributing to the mission. However, that is not a substitute for U.S. leadership. If our goal in Libya is worth fighting for, and I believe it is, then the United States must remain strongly engaged to force Qaddafi to leave power.”

No big deal, America has plenty of money, Michael Moore told us so.

(CBS News) — One week after an international military coalition intervened in Libya, the cost to U.S. taxpayers has reached at least $600 million, according figures provided by the Pentagon.

U.S. ships and submarines in the Mediterranean have launched at least 191Tomahawk cruise missiles from their arsenals, costing $268.8 million, the Pentagon said.

U.S. warplanes have dropped 455 precision guided bombs, costing tens of thousands of dollars each.

A downed Air Force F-15E fighter jet will cost more than $60 million to replace.

And operation of ships and aircraft, guzzling ever-more-expensive fuel to maintain their positions off the Libyan coast and in the skies above, could reach millions of dollars a week, experts say.

“Each sortie, even if it drops no munitions, is very pricey,” said Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information. “These airplanes cost us tens of thousands of dollars to operate per hour, and the fancier you get in terms of planes, the costs get truly astounding.”

Pathetic.

(NYT) — President Obama had a message for the American people Monday night, an explanation of the government’s intentions in Libya, one that he believed was important enough to request air time from the broadcast networks as well as the cable news networks.

But the Administration also recognized that some networks, like ABC, had important priorities of their own: the programs they had scheduled for prime time Monday — like “Dancing with the Stars,” the second most-watched show on television.

After some friendly negotiations, all parties agreed to a mutually acceptable time: 7:30 Eastern, which meant the speech on the military situation in Libya could be delivered — and analyzed — in time for the fans of “Dancing,” as well as other scheduled network shows, to see the shows they expected to see at their regularly scheduled times.

Ding, ding, ding, round 2:

“The reporter didn’t tell you this, I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this United States. And many of the Muslims — they are not totally dedicated to this country, they are not dedicated to our Constitution. Many of them are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country.”

Via Mediaite

Then what about the atrocities occurring in dozens of other countries? Something tells me he didn’t think this new doctrine of his through very well.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defending the first war launched on his watch, President Barack Obama declared Monday night the United States intervened in Libya to prevent a slaughter of civilians that would have stained the world’s conscience and “been a betrayal of who we are.” Yet he ruled out targeting Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, warning that trying to oust him militarily would be a costly mistake.

Obama announced that NATO would take command over the entire Libya operation on Wednesday, keeping his pledge to get the U.S. out of the lead but offering no estimate on when the conflict might end.

He never described the U.S.-led military campaign as a “war” and gave no details on its costs, but he offered an expansive case for why he believed it was in the national interest of the United States and allies to act.

In blunt terms, Obama said the response had stopped Gadhafi’s advances and halted a slaughter that could have shaken the stability of an entire region.

“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are,” Obama said. “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

Freedom fighters.

Via John Rosenthal:

As I reported on Friday, Libyan rebel commander Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi has admitted to fighting in Afghanistan — namely, on the side of al-Qaeda and the Taliban — and even to recruiting Libyans to join al-Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Hasadi made these admissions in conversation with Roberto Bongiorni of the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. Bongiorni’s report from al-Hasadi’s hometown of Darnah contains another interesting detail: one that suggests just how widespread the participation of the locals in the Afghan and Iraq “jihads” must have been.

Bongiorni describes his arrival in Darnah as follows:

One sees that Darnah is a conservative city from the religious fervor of its inhabitants, from the Islamic manner of dress, from the long beards. “Dear brothers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the announcer on the local radio exhorts. . . , “Now is the time to defend your land!”

Keep reading…

The hundreds of thousands of dead babies Planned Parenthood throws in the trash unavailable for comment.

(Anchorage Daily News) — Conservatives in Congress say they want to wipe out all federal spending for Planned Parenthood because it is a leading abortion provider. Supporters of the organization in Alaska say that will hurt women who go to its clinics for other care including cancer screenings, birth control services, and testing for sexually transmitted disease. . . .

Alaska’s other U.S. senator, Democrat Mark Begich, voted against the House measure. He was one of 20 senators who recently signed a letter to Vice President Joe Biden rejecting what they called ideological House cuts. The elimination of funding to Planned Parenthood in particular won’t solve the nation’s budget problem but will cut off women from essential health services, they wrote.

“More fundamentally, without the care Planned Parenthood provides — without access to Pap smears, pelvic exams and breast exams — women will die,” the senators said.

We don’t want to deport them? That’s news to the majority of Americans who are sick of illegals leaching off the system.

How about wanting Americans to succeed, is that too much to ask from the President of the United States?

Via CNS News

Paranoia rules the day.

(LWJ) — The Taliban have created a group assigned to hunt down tribesman suspected of providing information to the CIA that enables the Predator campaign to target terrorist leaders in Pakistani tribal areas.

The group, known as the Lashkar-e-Khorasan, or Army of the Khorasan, was established in North Waziristan last year by both the Haqqani Network and Taliban forces under the command of Hafiz Gul Bahadar, The Express Tribune reported. The creation of the group was confirmed by Pakistani intelligence officials, tribesmen, and members of the Taliban.

The Pakistani government continues to maintain that Bahadar and the Haqqani Network are “good Taliban” as they do not attack the Pakistani state, But both groups shelter al Qaeda, as well and Taliban groups that do conduct attacks in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.

The Lashkar-e-Khorasan was first established as a “loose network with members casually going out and trying to find out who is providing information to the US,” but has become an “organized” unit that is “scientifically on the counter-intelligence line,” a Taliban member assocaited with Bahadar’s group told the The Express Tribune.

The group has sought to uncover the network of tribesmen that are thought to be aiding the US Predator campaign that targets leaders and operatives of al Qaeda and allied groups, including the Haqqani Network and Bahadar’s fighters. The Predator campaign has focused on taking out al Qaeda’s external operations network, which is assigned to hitting western targets, as well as terror groups that attack the Afghan and Pakistani states.

The local anti-Taliban spy network is thought to observe the location of meeting and plant tracking chips on compounds and vehicles used by the terror groups. The information is provided to the CIA, which then executes the attacks via unmanned Predator and Reaper strike aircraft. The US has executed 234 strikes total since the program began in 2004; 224 of those strikes have taken place since January 2008 Of the 234 strikes since 2004, 168 have taken place in North Waziristan.

The Lashkar-e-Khorasan not only attempts to root out the spy network, it carries out the executions. Increasingly, the Taliban’s counterintelligence unit has been executing so-called US spies in batches. On March 1, the Taliban executed four more “US spies” in North Waziristan; four more were executed on March 21.

The executions are occasionally carried out in public, in a brutal fashion. On May 21, 2010, the Taliban placed suicide vests on the so-called spies, and detonate them in front of crowds of onlookers.

Keep reading…

And how’s this for quality journalism? — CNN bases an entire story around CAIR and makes no mention of their well-known terror connections and recent testimony by FBI chief Mueller stating they cut off all contact with them over “questionable leadership.”

Washington (CNN) — A leading Muslim advocacy group accused potential presidential candidate Herman Cain of spewing “bigoted speech” Monday following remarks he made at a conservative conference last weekend.

While attending the Conservative Principles Conference last weekend in Iowa, Cain told a reporter — if he became president — he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet or as a federal judge.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) expressed outrage on Monday, saying Cain’s words show how “right wing” conservatives are currently engaging in Muslim bashing.

“Even post 9/11 you didn’t have this level of mainstreaming of anti-Muslim hate as you have now,” said Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director for CAIR.

In criticizing Cain’s comments, Hooper characterized them as going “even beyond the almost routine Muslim-bashing we see coming from the right wing of the political spectrum.”

Hooper was asked to specifically address Cain’s assertion, echoed by other conservatives, that some Muslims are trying to invoke Sharia law into the United States.

“It’s a manufactured controversy,” Hooper said. “There is nothing to it. It would be laughable if it weren’t having such a negative impact on the lives of Muslim Americans.”

Keep reading…

It’s called hypocrisy.

(Daily Caller) — Life ain’t easy for an anti-war liberal.

President Barack Obama launched air attacks against Libya eight years to the day George Bush sent bombs over Baghdad. Back in 2003, the lefty site MoveOn.org “flexed [its muscle with] ‘virtual marches,’ in which tens of thousands of protesters jammed Senate and White House phones, fax machines and e-mail boxes with antiwar messages.” Originally founded to encourage the public to “move on” from Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades, MoveOn.org repositioned itself as a heavyweight in the early 2000s anti-war movement.

This time around? A little less than a week after the attack, MoveOn.org has articles bashing “Out-of-Control Republicans in Wisconsin,” but hardly a mention of the bombing in Libya. Well, there is a post noting that John McCain called Muammar Gaddafi an “interesting man” on Twitter two years ago. So much for moving on.

After Obama addresses the nation tonight about the government’s recent intervention in Libya, perhaps the left can coalesce around a message. It’s hard enough when the administration won’t call the action a “war,” but anti-war groups with a traditionally liberal bent are having a tough time rallying those who so adamantly opposed Republican President Bush’s war.

“I don’t expect much, to be honest with you,” Eric Garris, founder and managing editor of AntiWar.com, told The Daily Caller. AntiWar.com was established during Bill Clinton’s intervention in Bosnia. The group’s an old hand at nonpartisan anti-war objections. Garris predicted only “small demonstrations” against the recent Libyan conflict and said it would only be included as an “add-on” to demonstrations against the anniversary of Bush’s war.

The past week seems to have borne out that prediction. With rallies already scheduled, the anti-war group Code Pink included the Libya intervention as part of its protest message. Although it was originally an “add on,” Code Pink’s co-founder, Medea Benjamin, said the group tried to make Libya the focus. The turnout, however, wasn’t great.

“We got maybe 2,000 people out at the most,” Benjamin told TheDC. “We used be be able to mobilize tens of thousands of people. And it’s just . . . we don’t have the same numbers anymore.”

Keep reading…

This is a few days old but a reader just emailed it to us, definitely worth a post for the sheer lunacy of it and the fact that the left would actually go along with it.

And in America, we are much behind that. In America, 20 years ago, President Bush, father, raised the idea of a free trade area from Alaska to “Fire Land” (Tierra del Fuego) generating a lot of enthusiasm in the region, but it never came true, never materialized.  And in our view, that will call for a new international order that will replace that which emerged in Bretton Woods after the Second World War, and to be appropriate and adaptive to the needs and challenges of the 21st century, where the only constant thing we have is change.

And he’s running point for every single American who wants to see Obama’s.

Lots beneath the fold:

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Yeah, I’ll pass.

Via Weekly Standard:

The New York Times has launched its new online subscription plan today. And Lisa Belkin of the Times parenting blog, Motherlode, is dutifully advertising the great opportunity readers have to pay for online content in her post today.

A number of you have written to ask my personal opinion of digital subscriptions. Like everyone else, I wish there were a way to pay the hefty cost of producing this remarkable newspaper with online advertising alone. But I also understand what it takes — what it costs — to create this breathtaking entity every day. And I don’t use that word lightly. What The Times has created online, what we assume we can access with a few keystrokes, takes my breath away. I have come to accept as a given that I can enter this site and the world will be explained to me, in real time, and in intricate detail. I am willing to pay for that.

Only $8.75 per week to have the New York Times staff “explain the world” to me. Yes, I can see how that thought would take one’s breath away.

How many times have we seen this scenario? Muslims responding to perceived slights with murder and mayhem.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) — Two believers killed, churches attacked, copies of the Bible burned: the Christian community in Pakistan is once again the victim of violence by Islamic fundamentalists, who have targeted places of worship in the country. The extremist violence was triggered by the insane act — repeatedly condemned by Christians in Pakistan and India — of the pastor Wayne Sapp, who last March 20, in Florida burned a Koran under the supervision of the evangelical preacher Terry Jones.

The escalating violence has raised alarm over the fate of Asia Bibi, a symbol of the abuses committed in the name of the blasphemy law. The bishop of Islamabad / Rawalpindi defines the US pastor a “fanatic” who encourages followers to a “violent ideology”, the consequences of which have an impact “on innocent Christians” across the world.

On March 25, a mob of Islamic extremists attacked a Pentecostal church in Hyderabad, killing two Christians and burning some copies of the Bible. Eyewitnesses said that the fundamentalists stormed the place of worship looking to set it on fire, but a group of believers defended the church. Security forces have fled the scene, leaving those present at the mercy of the crowd. The attackers hurled anti-Christian slogans and a feeling of anger toward the religious minority has spread. in the city.

The pastor of the church reports that “despite the condemnation of the burning of the Koran” the community “has come under attack because they think that we are linked to the Americans.” He emphasizes that “we are Pakistanis, who were born in this land and we do not have any kind of relationship with the United States.” “What fault did those two innocent people have — he ends — who were not Americans, but only Pakistani Christians?”.

In a second incident, the Full Gospel Assembly Church, in the Badami Bagh area of Lahore, was attacked. Again fundamentalists burned the church, threw copies of the Bible into the street and accused the Christians of blasphemy, claiming they found pieces of the Koran, not far from the church. During the attack some security guards were injured.