As an author, I’m judged by the body of my work. As a man, I hope to be judged by the content of my character. I hope that judgment will include not only how I comport myself and how I treat others, but whom I choose to surround myself with.

One of the greatest pleasures of my adulthood has been the friendships I have forged with some of this nation’s greatest patriots and bravest warriors. John Giduck is one of those outstanding men and it is an honor to call him my friend.

John is a tireless trainer of United States law enforcement, military and intelligence personnel. He lives out of two battered pieces of luggage as he crisscrosses the country throughout the year making sure that those who keep us safe have the absolute best possible training in order to do so. John never says no, and he never lets an agency’s lack of funding determine whether
or not he’ll show up and share his exceptional knowledge of how to save lives. If I were John’s accountant, he would drive me crazy.

But I’m not John’s accountant, I’m his friend.  I wrote the forward to his latest book, “Shooter Down – The Dramatic Untold Story of the Police Response to the Virginia Tech Massacre” and though I have never done the narration for any of my own novels, I agreed to be the reader for the audio version of the exceptional book he wrote with Sergeant Major John Anderson (Special Forces, retired), “The Green Beret in You.” I did so because I knew the VA Tech book would help cops save lives in the future and that the Green Beret book – if every man in this nation committed to reading it – would help save America..

Despite the majority of the world’s Muslims being peaceful and tolerant people, Islamic terrorism is a fact. As of the writing of this article there have been 16,921 deadly attacks committed by Muslims in the name of Islam since 9/11. Not only can we not ignore this, we should not ignore it. Elements (not all) of the left, though, see it a different way. Islamic terrorism is somehow our fault; we the victims are to blame.

Now John Giduck, Sam Kharoba, retired Marine Lt. Col. Joe Bierly, and retired Army Major Richard Hughbank are being singled out and slandered in hopes that they will stop teaching our law enforcement officers how to identify terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks. It is reckless, it is reprehensible, and it should not be tolerated.

As John Giduck’s friend, and as an American who cares about national security and responsible journalism, I wanted to call attention to this situation.

I’ll let another good friend, retired Chester, Pennsylvania Police SWAT Commander Major Joseph M. Bail, Jr. fill you in on the rest.

(more…)

In April, I reported that the New York Times was about to publish a list of covert American operatives providing force protection for our troops in Afghanistan. A month later, the Times admitted that it did in fact have the list, but that they did not intend to publish the names. It was the right thing to do and we commended them for it. We are hoping that they will once again exhibit such sound judgment.

From a source inside the Times, I have just been told that the findings of a confidential Department of Defense investigation have been leaked to a specific NYT reporter (whose name I am withholding).

Since March, I have been writing about the ongoing battle between the CIA and the Department of Defense over the DoD’s use of former Special Operations and former CIA personnel to provide force protection for our troops in the Af/Pak theater. The good news is that the CIA and the DoD have decided to bury the hatchet. The bad news is that they are doing so right in the back of one of America’s most dedicated patriots, Michael Furlong.

Until recently, Furlong helped coordinate the DoD’s force protection efforts in Afghanistan. His efforts, as well as those of the brave men and women working within the force protection program he oversaw, have prevented the deaths of incalculable numbers of American troops. It would seem, though, that Furlong and his team were too good at their jobs.

At great personal risk, they were doing what the CIA claimed couldn’t be done. What’s more, they were doing it more efficiently and for far less cost to the American taxpayer. The turf battle that ensued between Langley and the Pentagon quickly found its way onto the front pages of the New York Times where the Central Intelligence Agency drove most of the narrative, including all sorts of accusations. (more…)

In May, we exclusively broke the story that Taliban leader, Mullah Omar had been taken into the custody of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Since that time, there has been multiple reporting that supports our exclusive, including Colonel Oliver North and Afghan Television.

And while Newsweek nibbled around the edges of the story two weeks after us, they have now come out with a new article stating:

Taliban sources say Pakistan uses catch-and-release tactics to keep insurgent leaders in line. All told, the ISI has picked up some 300 Taliban commanders and officials, the sources say. Before being freed, the detainees are subjected to indoctrination sessions to remind them that they owe their freedom and their absolute loyalty to Pakistan, no matter what. As one example, the sources mention Abdul Qayum Zakir, who spent five years at Guantánamo and is now the group’s top military commander. They say the Pakistanis detained him and about a dozen other Taliban commanders and shadow governors earlier this year, soon after having picked up the insurgency’s No. 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, only to set them free several days later after making sure their priorities meshed with Pakistan’s.

Some leading Taliban even suspect that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader and symbol of their jihad, may also be in ISI custody. He has appeared in no videos and issued no verifiable audio messages or written statements since he disappeared into the Kandahar mountains on the back of Baradar’s motorcycle in late 2001. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the ISI arrested us all in one day,” says a former cabinet minister. “We are like sheep the Pakistanis can round up whenever they want.

(more…)

*** Updated and clarified

In a recent post, respected milblogger Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal had this to say about Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s status, a story we have been discussing since May:

Mullah Omar is thought to be in a safehouse in Karachi, under the protection of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

This comes more than two months after Mr. Roggio made the following statement on his Twitter account:

Since I have been asked this quite I (sic) bit, there is no indication that Taliban supremo Mullah Omar has been captured.

We believe we have a semantic difference with Roggio: “captured” or “protected,” why hasn’t the U.S. gotten access to Omar?   (more…)

Ah, the lefties think they smell blood in the water and the long knives have come out.  Not only are they attacking Andrew Breitbart, they’re going after past stories on the BIG sites, most notably my piece on the capture of Mullah Omar by the Pakistanis that I posted back in May.

According to blog sites Instaputz and Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, because NATO claims to have intercepted a letter from Omar, it proves Omar is still on the loose!

Really?  That settles it right there?

Let’s set aside for a moment that even Newsweek has reported that the Taliban are in “turmoil” because Mullah Omar has disappeared, and focus on what the Times of India has to say about this recently intercepted letter:

The letter, if genuine, appears to be a departure from an earlier directive that urged [the] Taliban not to harm captives.

“Whenever any official, soldier, contractor or worker of the slave government is captured, these prisoners cannot be attacked or harmed,” said the August 2009 code of conduct, attributed to Omar.

So, based on Bartholomew and Media Matters, who both picked up the meme from something called Instaputz, we’re to believe that Omar is not only free, but that he has done a complete 180 from eleven months ago and now doesn’t care how many Afghans get splashed?  In fact, he’s actively encouraging the Taliban to toss out last summer’s “Code of Conduct” and slaughter them?  I guess with Instaputz, Bartholomew, and Media Matters on the scene, the rest of the milblogging community can finally hang up their cleats.  The cavalry has arrived! (more…)

One month ago we broke the exclusive story of Mullah Omar’s capture.

Additional confirmations have come from The Jawa Report, Oliver North, Milblogger Baba Tim, Blackfive.net, and even The Nation.

Then, two weeks ago, Newsweek published a report that the Taliban is in serious turmoil because Mullah Omar is MIA.

Today, Iranian State Television reports that the Pakistanis are indeed harboring Mullah Omar.

Mullah Abdul Salam Hanafi, a former senior member of the Taliban and governor of central Urozgan Province under the Taliban regime, is quoted as saying:

Pakistani security forces are harboring the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Omar in Karachi.

As the tempo of Omar stories increases, so does the pressure on Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), as well as the Obama administration and the CIA to deal with the Omar issue.

(more…)

On Friday, Newsweek “We Are All Socialists Now” Magazine published an article entitled, “Taliban in Turmoil.”  In it they report:

Dissension has broken out in the top ranks of Afghanistan’s Taliban. The group has muddled along without an operational head since February, when Mullah Mohammed Omar’s second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan… But now a claimant to Baradar’s position has emerged—and at least some senior Taliban chiefs are seriously questioning whether he should have the job.

We reported this a full two weeks ago, but let’s not let that get in the way of our enjoyment of the Newsweek piece.

Gone walkabout: Mullah Omar

The claimant is Mullah Gul Agha Akhund, “an in-law and long term confidant of Mullah Omar’s.”  Apparently, senior officials —including Omar’s top military commander, Abdul Qayum Zakir— are skeptical of Gul Agha’s claim to power.  What’s more, Gul Agha’s claim is sowing doubt and confusion throughout the Taliban’s ranks.

That can’t be good for the bad guys. (more…)

On Tuesday, May 18, in busy rush hour traffic, a suicide bomber drove his Toyota minivan, packed with 1650 lbs. of explosives, alongside a NATO convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan and detonated.  Eighteen people were killed, including five American soldiers and one Canadian.  Forty-seven others were wounded.

According to an NYPD Shield Intelligence brief, it was the deadliest attack on foreign forces operating in Kabul this year. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

2010-05-18-NYPD-SuicideBombingInKabul –

The very next day, an estimated thirty to forty Taliban fighters launched a brazen, pre-dawn assault on U.S.-run Bagram Airbase, thirty miles north of Kabul.  Though sixteen Taliban insurgents (four of whom were intended to be used as suicide bombers) were killed, at the end of the spectacular attack one U.S. contractor had been left dead and nine to twelve service members were wounded.

The Taliban took credit once again and claimed that seven suicide bombers had detonated at Bagram’s gates while thirty other fighters slipped inside; a report the U.S. military flatly denies.  But did the U.S. military have advance information that the suicide bombing attacks were imminent?  According to sources in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the answer appears to be yes.

(more…)

Over a month ago, I warned that the New York Times was about to go public with a list of American operatives covertly working in Afghanistan and Pakistan providing Force Protection for our troops.  Yesterday, in a front page article the New York Times admitted that it did in fact have said list in their possession.

The Times is withholding some information about the contractor network, including some of the names of agents working in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due.  For not releasing those names, I commend the New York Times.  Even more heartening is the fact that it appears that the Times is warming to what I have dubbed, the “Petreaus Perspective.”  It is General Petraeus’s unique view of the battlespace melded with a combination of traditional military and outside-the-box approaches to securing victory in Afghanistan.  In short, General Petraeus appreciates that there is a lot more to winning against al-Qaeda and the Taliban than just bombs and bullets.

In that spirit, General Petraeus signed off on a new program in January of 2009.  It comprised  former Central Intelligence Agency employees and former Special Operations personnel willing to risk their lives in Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to secure intelligence that could protect the lives of American and Coalition troops. (more…)

Late this afternoon,  Lt. Colonel Oliver North confirmed that Taliban leader and Osama bin Laden ally, Mullah Mohammed Omar has been captured. The exclusive news of Omar’s capture was broken by Big Government and Big Journalism Monday evening.

According to Colonel North, Omar was picked up in Karachi on March 27th by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) who placed him under house arrest in what they call “community care.”

Per North’s sources, “[Omar] has since been transferred to a secret ISI lock-up under the Pakistani euphemism: “institutional care.”

North goes on to state, “According to several reports, all of this information was confirmed to U.S. officials by a senior Pakistani military officer ‘several weeks ago.’” A fact also broken in Monday’s Big Government exclusive.

Last weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton created a “diplomatic firestorm” when she indicted Pakistani cooperation with the U.S. in the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Said Clinton, “I believe somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is (sic), where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is (sic)…”

North hopes the Secretary was “dissembling,” because intelligence sources here in the U.S. and Afghanistan have informed him that Pakistani officials “know exactly where Mullah Omar is: in the hands of the ISI.” Driving the point home, North added, “This should not be news to the U.S. Secretary of State.”

(more…)

Through key intelligence sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I have just learned that reclusive Taliban leader and top Osama bin Laden ally, Mullah Omar has been taken into custody.

According to the State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program there is a bounty of up to $10 million on Omar for sheltering Osama bin-Laden and his al-Qaeda network in the years prior to the September 11 attacks as well as the period during and immediately thereafter.

At the end of March, US Military Intelligence was informed by US operatives working in the Af/Pak theater on behalf of the D.O.D. that Omar had been detained by Pakistani authorities. One would assume that this would be passed up the chain and that the Secretary of Defense would have been alerted immediately. From what I am hearing, that may not have been the case.

When this explosive information was quietly confirmed to United States Intelligence ten days ago by Pakistani authorities, it appeared to take the Defense Department by surprise. No one, though, is going to be more surprised than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It seems even with confirmation from the Pakistanis themselves, she was never brought up to speed.

(more…)

Since I began blogging about the dysfunctional, bloated bureaucracy at the Central Intelligence Agency, I have been inundated with phone calls and emails encouraging me to keep it up.  Not surprisingly, many of them are from people fed up with the culture at Langley who have moved on to greener pastures.

What has been surprising, though, is the number of people within the Agency itself who have been quietly reaching out to me.  As I have taken pains to point out in the past and will do so here again, it is important for everyone to realize that there are exceptional men and women working at the Central Intelligence Agency.  Unfortunately, they are being very poorly led and very poorly managed.

On Wednesday, April 14, the CIA’s Deputy Director, Stephen Kappes announced his retirement.  The New York Times ran a softball piece on him the next day, but it was Kenneth R. Timmerman of the Washington Times on Sunday, April 18 who drove home many of the real problems surrounding Kappes.

The CIA quietly announced the “resignation” of its deputy director on Wednesday, accompanied by all the accolades normally reserved for a top government official forced to resign in disgrace.

There were many reasons why Stephen R. Kappes needed to resign at age 60, five years before the agency’s mandatory retirement age. Even the CIA’s Greek chorus at The Washington Post and the New York Times have acknowledged that this mandarin had no clothes.

In his piece, Timmerman cited Kappes’s “long record of failure as an operations chief,” how he “played politics with intelligence,” and how he had taken the CIA out of the spy business and transformed it into a “liaison service” by outsourcing the recruitment of agents and clandestine intelligence sources (once the Agency’s bread and butter) to other “friendly” intelligence services.  One can’t help but ask – what good is a spy agency that doesn’t even do its own spying? (more…)

In a follow-up to my story this morning and my ongoing series about the CIA’s vicious war on the Department of Defense that is partly being waged in the pages of the nation’s major newspapers, the Washington Post is reporting that the CIA’s Deputy Director, Stephen Kappes will “retire” and be replaced by career Agency man Michael Morell.

While I have been averse to mentioning Kappes by name, when I was informed last night that the CIA had leaked to the New York Times the names of Americans covertly providing Force Protection to our troops in Afghanistan and that the Times was going to run with those names, I couldn’t hold back any longer.

As the Agency has blindly followed what has become known as the “Kappes Doctrine” it has made mistake after mistake after mistake; all underscored by the horrible F.O.B. Chapman attack, one of its most deadly.  Something tells me that there won’t be anyone baking any cakes for Mr. Kappes’ sendoff.

There are lots and lots of problems at the Central Intelligence Agency and Kappes’ fingerprints are all over them.  He had become toxic not only for the CIA, but for the Obama Administration, which explains why, after my piece ran this morning, the bus was warmed up and Kappes was told to lie down in front of it.  Ask anyone in the intelligence world – there are no such things as coincidences.

The situation at Langley needs to change.  Getting rid of Kappes is a good start, but there’s a lot more people among the Agency’s dysfunctional leadership and its cover-your-ass management who need to make up their minds about whether they are going to be defined by getting promoted or by doing their jobs and keeping America safe.

Let’s hope that Kappes’ replacement, Michael Morell, learns from his predecessor’s mistakes.

I have just received word that the New York Times is preparing to go public with a list of names of Americans covertly working in Afghanistan providing force protection for our troops, as well as the rest of our Coalition Forces. If the Times actually sees this through, the red ink they are drowning in will be nothing compared to the blood their entire organization will be covered with. Make no mistake, the Times is about to cause casualty rates in Afghanistan to skyrocket. Each and every American should be outraged.

As chronicled here, here, here, and here the Central Intelligence Agency via the New York Times has been waging a nasty proxy war against the Department of Defense over its use of former military and intelligence personnel to do what the CIA is both incapable and unwilling to do: gather the much needed intelligence that keeps our troops safe.

According to Washington Post columnist, David Ignatius, “[T]he U.S. military has long been unhappy about the quality of CIA intelligence in Afghanistan,” and the senior military intelligence officer in Afghanistan, Maj Gen Michael T. Flynn went so far as to publish a stunning report calling for “sweeping changes to the way the intelligence community thinks about itself.” (more…)

Of late, the left is full of brilliant ideas on how we should fight terrorism, er whoops, I mean “man caused disasters” or do we refer to it as countering violent extremism this week?  (I can’t seem to keep it straight.)

From Matthew Modine, who believes we should simply sit down and talk with terrorists to Barack Obama who hopes to defeat Islamic radicalism by not mentioning Islamic radicalism, there doesn’t seem to be any issue liberals can’t solve by simply waving a magic wand and applying their considerable genius.

Would that this dangerous method of thinking existed only in the realm of politics and Hollywood liberalism.  Unfortunately, an even deadlier mindset exists at the Central Intelligence Agency.

As I have chronicled over the past several weeks, an impotent CIA, which better resembles a pack of jilted, jealous teen-aged girls has been waging a despicable proxy war against the Department of Defense for hiring former military and intelligence personnel to do the job the CIA is incapable of doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  In the process, there have been terrible character assassinations and the leaking of classified information.

Leading the charge on behalf of the CIA is the “venerable” New York Times, which seems ever-ready to broadcast sensitive operational details to our enemies that put American lives at risk.  In fact, the New York Times appears to be the “paper of record” anytime “patriots” at the Central Intelligence Agency want to leak material which is damaging to America and helpful to those bent on destroying her. (more…)

On Wednesday, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr reported on multiple, highly sensitive documents that had been “provided” to CNN and which detail valuable, strategic intelligence gathered by the Department of Defense in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It should come as no surprise that Starr made sure to highlight all of the juicy details.  She not only revealed U.S. knowledge of a covert meeting between Hamid Karzai’s brother and Mullah Baradar (a top Taliban leader who was later arrested in Pakistan), as well as a secret audio message played to Taliban commanders from reclusive Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, but she went on to inform the entire world that the United States has a safe house in Kabul (used by members of the Haqqani terror network) currently under surveillance.  Great work Barbara!

Would anyone care to wager that within hours of Starr’s story being published on the Internet that the Haqqani network began sanitizing and abandoning all of its safe houses in Kabul?

How about a wager on whether or not Taliban operatives are now actively triangulating the information from Starr’s reporting in order to find out how the United States came by it?  What about a wager on whether or not once the Taliban discover who’s responsible on their end, that person or persons will be murdered? (more…)

The first rule in intelligence is to not get used.  This is something Robert Young Pelton and Eason Jordan should have learned before agreeing to become rock-throwers for the Central Intelligence Agency.

As I reported on Tuesday, Pelton and Jordan were upset because they “lost” an intelligence-gathering contract with the Department of Defense.  What stuns most people is that a man like Pelton (who thinks Al Qaeda is a myth, that the U.S. Military has killed thousands and thousands of people in Afghanistan and was publicly rebuked by the US Military and taken to task for his unprofessional conduct and reporting in Afghanistan) ever got close to a Department of Defense contract in the first place.

The level of incredulity is only added to by Pelton’s partner, Eason Jordan, a former CNN News exec who was forced to resign from CNN when he stated that American soldiers in Iraq had purposefully been targeting journalists.and that he deliberately covered up news in Iraq so as not to lose his Baghdad bureau.

Simply put, these two should never have been anywhere near the American military, much less a D.O.D. contract.  Thankfully at some point in the process, one man seemed to realize this. (more…)

I never thought I’d live to see the day when my daughter’s grade school newspaper had higher journalistic standards than the New York Times, but perhaps I just don’t dream big enough.

In all fairness, the articles at my daughter’s paper that appeal to the editorial board (longer vacations, less homework, a make-your-own-sundae-bar on every school bus) tend to get heavier consideration and better placement than others.  Unfortunately, the same can be said for articles that meet the heavily liberal bias at the New York Times.

But unlike the Times, my daughter’s school paper actually requires articles to be based on fact, be backed up with real sources, and it takes pains to guard against people who would like nothing more than to use it to grind a host of axes.

To that end, the latest axe-grinders granted access to the once venerable, now wrinkled Gray Lady’s anemic subscribership are Canadian Robert Young Pelton and anti-US military, ex-CNN News exec, Eason Jordan.  In a piece yesterday entitled Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants, Messsrs. Pelton and Jordan vent their rage at losing a Department of Defense contract and take outrageous outrage to new heights by claiming that not only did they lose the contract, but that the people they suspect took over are doing an even better job:

(more…)

Andrew Breitbart’s recent smackdown of Max Blumenthal at CPAC (for his vicious smears against James O’Keefe) serves as a reminder to us all that when Liberal “journalists” attack, they have one goal – and it isn’t reporting the truth.  It is to win at any cost no matter what the damage is to the victim.  It is called the politics of personal destruction and it reflects the utter nihilism of Liberalism.

The tactic has been used repeatedly by the left (see Sarah Palin), but is particularly disturbing when used as a cudgel to destroy decent, hard-working Americans.  One such decent, hardworking (and extremely patriotic) American is Barrett Moore, founder of Triple Canopy.

I met Barrett a couple of years ago in Chicago at a luncheon for Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell author of the bestselling novel, Lone Survivor and boy do the Liberals hate him.

As I mentioned, Moore was the founder of Triple Canopy, one of America’s first private military companies (or PMC) and under his stewardship, he assembled one of this nation’s most impressive fighting forces – most of whom were retired members of the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D) (Delta Force) – and sent them overseas to help carry our burden in Iraq.  What’s more, he did it at a fraction of the cost and much more efficiently than the American government ever could.  That’s private enterprise for you, but because his private enterprise involved guns, the Liberals focused on him like a laser beam.

Their attacks would come not only while he was at Triple Canopy, but even more devastatingly once he had been forced out. (more…)