Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry reports to CNN that a suicide bomber has killed seven civilians near the German Embassy in Kabul

Breaking News…

Developing…

UPDATE 1: Reuters.com

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb exploded outside the German embassy and a U.S. base in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Saturday, killing three civilians, witnesses said.

A sewage tanker and several cars were burning at the scene and there were bloodstains on the road as police loaded the bodies onto the back of a pick-up truck and ferried several wounded to nearby hospitals, a Reuters witness said.

The blast was a result of a suicide attack, an Interior Ministry spokesman said, but he could not confirm the number of casualties.

The bomber struck on a road lined with high concrete blast barriers that runs between the German embassy and Camp Eggers, the headquarters of a U.S. unit that trains the Afghan army and police.

Four U.S. military personnel at the base suffered non-life threatening injuries from shattered windows and debris, but the perimeter walls were not penetrated, a spokesman said.

Spokesmen for the German embassy were not immediately available for comment.

Taliban militants, fighting to overthrow the Western-backed Afghan government and drive out foreign troops, have launched hundreds of suicide attacks in the last two years, but most of the victims are Afghan civilians.

While Taliban influence has spread from their traditional heartlands in the south and east to areas closer to the capital, there were fewer attacks inside Kabul last year than in 2007 with many more police checkpoints throughout the city.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to make Afghanistan a foreign policy priority after he comes to office Tuesday and is expected to approve the doubling of U.S. troops in the country from the 30,000 at present.

Reinforcements cannot come soon enough.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his farewell address to the nation, President George W. Bush is acknowledging that many of his decisions are unpopular with the American people. But he says there can be no debate about the results.

Indeed, a text of the speech comes with a laundry list of what Bush says are successes.

In the text, released by the White House in advance of the address Thursday night, the president says Afghanistan and Iraq have changed for the better.

Bush credits his administration for improving public schools, creating a new Medicare prescription drug benefit and finding more money for veterans.

What about the bad economy? Bush says his team took decisive measures to safeguard it.

The bottom line, Bush says, is there have been good days and tough days during his term.

On that, even his critics would agree.

(I just corrected two misspelled words in the Associated Press article. And these liberal idiots are considered “professional journalists”?)

President Bush made many socialist decisions to “safeguard” the economy.

Why are liberals complaining? Liberals should love President Bush when it comes to the economy.

Well, what goes around, comes around, and when President-elect Obama takes office, it will be my turn to disrespect Obama and give him an EPIC FAIL every time he screws up.

I cannot wait to be called a “racist”, too! (Will liberals dare call me, a Puerto Rican, a “minority”, a racist?)

Let us grade President Bush’s tenure:

Response after 9/11/01: A+

Afghanistan: B+ (The job is not done, yet. Victory is within our grasp, though.)

Iraq: B+ (Again, the job is not done, but victory is within our grasp. Our brave military will have to mop-up the terrorist bastards that are still hiding.)

Al Qaeda: B+ (They are still out there, however, they have been severely cut off from the outside world.)

Osama bin Laden: Grade pending. President Bush still has a few more days to find him and kill him.

AIDS in Africa: A+. Not even liberals can spin this as a “failure”.

Pro-Life: A+. Abortions have dropped during the past 8 years.

Economy: D-. President Bush inherited President Clinton’s recession, 9/11 and Enron screwed the economy, President Bush then cut taxes, the economy rebounded and the Dow Jones index went past 14,000 points. The economy tanked in September of 2008, especially with Bear Stearns becoming worthless, and John McCain lost the presidency due to the economy. More and more banks lost money, the auto manufacturers lost money, more businesses spanning several different sectors went out of business, Bernard Madoff ripped off the world (including his own sister) of $50 billion dollars, and now the nation is facing 7.2% unemployment.

Final Grade: B-

Those are the only issues I really care about.

Oh, wait. One more issue.

Pissing of liberals: A+++

Sweet.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

CNN.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed a deployment order to move an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan next year, U.S. military officials said on Friday.

The troops will be part of a combat aviation brigade, the latest approved by Gates for the expected build-up of U.S. troops in Afghanistan throughout next year.

Earlier this year, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, requested at least 20,000 additional troops be sent there to fight the increasing violence by the resurgent Taliban forces in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

The officials could not say what units are being tapped to go because those units are now being told of their deployment and the announcement has not yet been made public.

The aviation brigade will send a number of much-needed helicopters to the region.

Helicopters are the main transportation of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, where high mountain roads and passes make it difficult for large transport vehicles to move troops and supplies around the country.

The U.S. military should just lower the boom on the Taliban.

Let’s drop a few dozen MOAB’s on those sheet heads.

Michael Yon on Pajamas Media reports:

U.S. and Afghan soldiers in Zabul Province give high marks to the Lithuanian Special Forces, who like to ride these captured Taliban motorbikes to sneak up on, and chase Taliban fighters. The “LithSof” are on their way to becoming living legends: Both Afghans and Americans report that the Taliban are afraid of the Lithuanians. Stories about them are filled with dangerous escapades and humor.

Americans say that the Lithuanians are sort of a weaponized version of Borat, who think nothing of sauntering around a base in nothing but flip-flops and underwear. “They look like mountain men. They never shave, sometimes don’t bathe, and often roll out the gate wearing nothing but body armor and weapons. Not even a t-shirt,” an American soldier told me. The Lithuanians may be a little bit nuts, but the Americans love to have them around because Lithuanians love to fight, and when you need backup, you can count on them. That contrasts starkly with many of the NATO “partners.”

Maybe when your country spends almost a half-century with the Soviet boot on its neck, its first generation of free soldiers know what freedom is worth — and that you sometimes have to fight for it.

That last line is pretty powerful.

Thank you for your service, Lithuania.

Hat Tip: The Jawa Report

ISAF

Initially the Marines observed four adults and two children in a truck laden with burlap sacks and shovels. The adults began digging holes. Once the burlap sacks were removed from the truck and opened, the Marines were able to see IED materiel in the sacks and that the holes being dug in the road were for IEDs.

Marine snipers shot two of the positively identified insurgents as they emplaced an IED. After the initial shots were fired, the other two insurgents grabbed the two children they had brought with them and held them in front of them to use them as shields.

The Marines waited until the children were let go and ran away before snipers shot the remaining two insurgents.

The Taliban are a bunch of cowards. But what else would you expect?

Thank God for U.S. Marines and all other U.S. military personnel.

Hat Tip: The Jawa Report

Around the 2:00 minute mark in the second video, you can hear the chilling screams from Viper Company members. They took friendly fire from a mortar shell.

Bloggers, we sit at our computers every day and we report about both wars. We sit in our air conditioned houses and offices, and with the freedom our military personnel buys for us with their blood, we happily type away, sometimes blogging about crap that does not matter, like $7 million dollar bras. We are not constantly hungry, fatigued, dehydrated, physically sick, and covered with fleas while fighting a relentless enemy. We do our best to report the truth on behalf of the brave people that fight for all of us, but in the grand scheme of life, our blogging contribution is a ghostly pale comparison to the sacrifice exuded by Viper Company, and the rest of our military.

Now, I am not saying that we should not enjoy life, because we should, however, please remember to take some time out in your day and say a prayer for our military. They fight when we cannot; they serve when we cannot. They keep our common enemy at bay, and hopefully one day soon, they will eradicate this enemy.

To all military personnel - the editors at Scoop This believe in victory, and we believe in you. We trust our elected leaders to bring all of you home victorious from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We know our thanks is not enough, though we hope you all accept our gratitude, because the sacrifice all of you have given is a debt we can never truly repay.

J-Post.com

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama reportedly told the top military commander in Iraq that some US forces should be pulled out of Iraq and deployed to Afghanistan when the two met in July in Baghdad.

At the July meeting, Petraeus did not disclose his opinion on moving troops from one war to the other, according to an article in the Sept. 8 edition of The New Yorker magazine. The Taliban-led insurgency has dramatically increased attacks on US and Afghan forces in recent months.

But Iraq war commander Gen. David Petraeus will soon be in a position to oversee such a move if President Bush decides to shift some forces.

Petraeus takes over US Central Command in September where he will have responsibility for military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the Middle East. In the meantime, he is expected to recommend a modest cut in troop levels in Iraq to the president in the next few weeks, a reflection of the improved security situation.

There are currently 15 combat brigades in Iraq and a total of 146,000 troops, including tens of thousands that perform support, rather than direct combat, functions.

So, a rookie Senator with no military experience feels obligated to give advice to a man that has spent his adult lifetime in the military serving his country and studying war? Obama, this is not a game of . This is real life and death. Obama, try not to make military command decisions in Afghanistan, and instead at least give thanks to troops in Afghanistan. As Scoop This posted last month, Obama snubbed troops in Afghanistan. Obama did not thank them, much less acknowledge them. But, snubbing troops has become the norm for Obama.

And yes, Obama, as a civilian, I know the difference between a brigade and a battalion.

My Pet Jawa

Here is the much discussed video from the Islamic Jihad Union showing children being trained for battle. The Uzbek jihad group trains in Pakistan and, like its allies in al Qaeda and the Taliban, raids NATO and Afghan forces across the Afghan border.

This would be the same group that was caught plotting to attack U.S. bases in Germany. If you look at the related links below, you’ll notice a pattern here: the group has an extensive support system in Europe.

The video is taken from the last half of the Badr al-Tawheed 3 that I spliced and then uploaded to Liveleak. The first part of the video shows various adults “martyred” in Afghanistan. This portion of the video focuses on another “martyr”, an 11 year old named Abd al-Rahim who the group claims was killed in battle with Pakistani forces in Waziristan. They also say that he was some kind of translator between the Pashtun speaking natives and the mainly Uzbek offshoot of al Qaeda.

The 11 year old does not appear to be the youngest boy in the group of kids being trained for jihad. If you watch the whole thing you’ll notice that in addition to being trained with AK-47s and pistols, that the kids are also given RPGs.

Child abuse? Certainly, but remember the video below is taken from an IJU propaganda video. This means that they are proud of themselves for getting this kid killed.

The next time some idiot tries to equivocate between us and them, remind them of how sorry we are when kids get killed in the haze of war (even brainwashed kids like this) versus our enemies who are proud of sending their children into harms way.

WARNING: The video, while not that graphic, does show the dead body of the child. Consider yourselves warned.

BLACKFIVE.net

Hello everyone,

As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to ‘ The War Zone ‘. I wanted to share with you what happened.

He got off the plane and got into a bullet proof vehicle, got to the area to meet with the Major General (2 Star) who is the commander here at Bagram.

As the Soldiers where lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off and didn’t say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General. As he finished, the vehicles took him to the ClamShell (pretty much a big top tent that military personnel can play basketball or work out in with weights) so he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball. He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to thank them for their service.

So really he was just here to make a showing for the Americans back home that he is their candidate for President. I think that if you are going to make an effort to come all the way over here you would thank those that are providing the freedom that they are providing for you.

I swear we got more thanks from the NBA Basketball Players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from one of the Senators, who wants to be the President of the United States. I just don’t understand how anyone would want him to be our Commander-and-Chief. It was almost that he was scared to be around those that provide the freedom for him and our great country.

If this is blunt and to the point I am sorry but I wanted you all to know what kind of caliber of person he really is. What you see in the news is all fake.

In service,

CPT J
Bagram, Afghanistan

Scoop This thanks all the military men and women in America, Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world, even if Senator Obama does not.