Just like they did in Afghanistan 10 days before 9/11 and 2 weeks before the USS Cole bombing. There has been “chatter” that an attack was imminent, possibly a dirty bomb in LA, NY, and/or Miami.

Hopefully al-Qaeda and the Taliban abandoned these …

Of course, if we do that, we need to pull a Han Solo and claim “a slight weapons malfunction.”

Texas Nick 77 on August 13, 2007 at 6:10 AM

Or UFO’s did it. :)

Will we miss a ton of nuclear material that can be used in a dirty bomb?

csdeven on August 13, 2007 at 8:28 AM

Good point.

If AQ has both nukes and ICBM’s they would be foolish not to put a fig leaf on the source of the attack. Any counter strike could then be labeled as an attack on all innocent Muslims.

TunaTalon on August 13, 2007 at 9:15 AM

Agreed, but smuggling takes far longer and is much more likely to be detected in a manner that would allow us to secure the nuke(s) before detnonation. So if Musharraf fails now and Islamists take over, we’ll have a little time to secure Pakistan’s nukes while the Islamists are still busy trying to figure out how to extricate them and load them onto a vehicles, etc….

Alternatively, if Musharraf fails later and Islamists take over, they may be able to press a button to strike our homeland immediately, or more likely deter us from taking any action against them ever again while they busy themselves with preparations to sneak nukes into the USA. We will enter a new cold war but this time with people for whom death is little deterrent.

I’m not sure that a “cold” war will be possible with Islamists unless, perhaps, Tancredo’s idea of bombing Mecca and other holy sites might be used as an affective deterrent. At any rate, the WOT will be entirely different if we allow this scenario to happen.

Bill Roggio at the Fourth Rail has the intel:…On the same day of the release of news on concerns over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and the loyalty of the Pakistani military, the Asia Times’ Syed Saleem Shahzad reported…

aunursa on August 12, 2007 at 8:01 PM

So, all those guys detained in the US, UK, Spain, France, et al have been just moving violations?

We’ve thwarted many attacks since 9/11…the “boy ain’t cryin’ wolf” here.

The gravest threat from Pakistan’s nukes will begin after they’ve developed long range ICBM’s that can reach the continental USA.
FloatingRock on August 13, 2007 at 12:30 AM

FloatingRock, I have a sinking feeling that AQ knows that nukes travel well by ship.

ICBM’s are cold war relics that advertise the origin of the attack.

If AQ has both nukes and ICBM’s they would be foolish not to put a fig leaf on the source of the attack. Any counter strike could then be labeled as an attack on all innocent Muslims.

Floatingrock makes sense. We need to have a way to eliminate their nukes in case Musharif is overthrown. The question is…..can we get it all? Will we miss a ton of nuclear material that can be used in a dirty bomb?

The bigger question is. . . if we know where the camps are, why weren’t they emptied by Apaches?

- The Cat

MirCat on August 12, 2007 at 8:20 PM

Yeah, no crap! What the heck am I missing here? If we know where they are at, wouldn’t a couple of M.O.A.B.’s be the solution?

Along with this development, there were over 70,000 gathered in Jakarta in support of a world wide caliphate and sharia law…over 70,000!

Weight of Glory on August 12, 2007 at 8:39 PM

This is the islamic version of the Nuremberg rallies.

…Best bet is to cool it, and when the bad guys recongregate (if they ever do that again), we take immediate action without telegraphing our intentions.

Texas Nick 77 on August 13, 2007 at 6:06 AM

Of course, if we do that, we need to pull a Han Solo and claim “a slight weapons malfunction.”

…we could try to find a way to bring about democratic elections in Pakistan and hope for a stronger leader …
FloatingRock on August 13, 2007 at 4:36 AM

Unfortunately, an elected leader there could turn out to be not so friendly to the USA. Case in point #1, Egypt, which had been pressured by our state department (lowercase intentional), has now a significant percentage of parliament seats held by the muslim brotherhood (again, lowercase intentional); #2, “palestine”, in which a majority of the voters elected hamas. Of course, in the latter case, the voters had no real choice to vote for officials that had the best interests of the people.

Back to the main topic, it would have been much easier to take out AQ/Taliban had they stayed in a few large camps. And the fact that these camps were abandoned shortly after our intelligence was delivered to the Pakistan government only proves to whom they are loyal. Best bet is to cool it, and when the bad guys recongregate (if they ever do that again), we take immediate action without telegraphing our intentions.

Musharraf seems to have virtually no capability to destroy Pakistan’s Jihadis and I haven’t heard any real signs that this is ever likely to change. For years we have been told that the reason Musharraf can’t act is because his control of the country, (and more importantly his control of the nukes), is so tenuous that it is teetering on a knifes edge. If this is true and it’s inevitable that cracking down on the terrorists will lead to Musharraf’s demise, then it’s better that it should happen now rather than later. Otherwise there is no hope that we can ever eliminate al Qaeda or end the Jihad, and at some point in the future it seems likely Jihadis will acquire deliverable WMDs, perhaps including nukes.

Are we going to wait for another attack on the USA before we take the fight into Pakistan where the enemy’s command and control is, to say the least? Will it be too late?

Lets tell Musharraf and Pakistan, and the world if necessary, that the next time we have a shot at terrorist facilities inside of Pakistan’s tribal areas that we are going to bomb the hell out of them without informing anybody first. We’ll make it clear that we have limited objectives and that our beef isn’t with the good people of Pakistan. (Let’s get the old Radio Free America running over there.) If Musharraf’s control begins to falter we will require a contingency plan to take out Pakistan’s nukes, but it seems as though this will be inevitable at some point in the future anyway.

If al Qaeda is smart they will wait until Pakistan has ICBM’s that can strike the USA before they attack us again. At that point our hands will be tied and we will either have to risk a massive nuclear war to respond to the next jihad strike or we will have to ask Musharraf if perchance his rule is finally strong enough now that maybe we could eliminate al Qaeda, pretty please, now that NY and/or DC has been reduced to cinders?

I realize I’m one of the only people here who hold this opinion but I can’t understand how we can win the WOT, the big-picture WOT, without dealing with Pakistan sooner or later. How would the rest of you deal with Pakistan’s Jihadis? More of the same, do nothing?

The gravest threat from Pakistan’s nukes will begin after they’ve developed long range ICBM’s that can reach the continental USA. At that point al Qaeda will be truly safe from our reach else we risk old-fashioned global thermal nuclear war. Our only hope might be if Pakistan believes that we have a robust missile defense in place capable of destroying their new missiles.

FloatingRock on August 13, 2007 at 12:30 AM

We have signifigant assets in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other M.E. countries nearby. Also, the only real democracy in the M.E. (Israel) would be a likely target. And those places are within range of a ship. Hitting the US mainland is not the only way to strike out against the US.

Hopefully, by scattering the rats from their hideouts, they can be taken out piecemeal and the threat reduced.

From the Fourth Rail (Hat Tip: Hot Air):
The emptying of the camps is a cause for great concern in the military and intelligence communities. “We don’t know where they went to or who was in the camps,” the military officer told The Fo…

AllahPundit:

Why is everybody ignoring this passage in Roggio’s piece?

The al Qaeda and Taliban personnel abandoned the 28 camps after “the US had presented Islamabad with a dossier detailing the location of the bases as advance information on likely US targets,” Mr. Shahzad reported.

That sure looks like proximate cause to me, with disturbing ramifications of its own which seem to be going unnoted in the flurry of speculation over a new 9/11 style hit.

JM Hanes on August 12, 2007 at 11:22 PM

I get the sense that Musharraf was told about the camps…in order to see if he would do anything about them. I suspect the decision was made that it was the only way, knowing full well the AQ sympathizers in Musharrafs government would give them a heads-up.

If the US hitting them means Msuahrraf falls, who controls their nukes?

If telling Musharraf means the rumor leaks to the camps that they are about to be hit…then they scatter like rats without their safe-haven, which means it might be easier to hit them on the run.

The rumor spreads, the rats scatter, Musharraf keeps his job, the nukes are still in some fashion of control.

Check Guam.

Why is everybody ignoring this passage in Roggio’s piece?

JM Hanes on August 12, 2007 at 11:22 PM

I would guess it’s because just a few days ago everybody was slamming Obama for being naive by suggesting that we should bomb targets inside of Pakistan, our “ally”. If you ask me Obama’s biggest mistake was suggesting that we should only bomb inside of Pakistan if Pakistan was unable to do so themselves. We can see what results from providing Pakistan with advanced notice of our plans; the target(s) disappear.

The same thing happened back when Clinton sent a few cruse missiles into that al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. Unfortunately he also made the mistake of informing Pakistan ahead of time and consequently the camp was evacuated before our missiles arrived.

The ONLY reason that Musharraf is our ally is because, so far as we know, he hasn’t yet allowed terrorists to get their hands on Pakistani nukes.

Grrrrr!

Why is everybody ignoring this passage in Roggio’s piece?

The al Qaeda and Taliban personnel abandoned the 28 camps after “the US had presented Islamabad with a dossier detailing the location of the bases as advance information on likely US targets,” Mr. Shahzad reported.

That sure looks like proximate cause to me, with disturbing ramifications of its own which seem to be going unnoted in the flurry of speculation over a new 9/11 style hit.

Could it be that the ROE invented by a bunch of suits in Washington, D.C. didn’t allow it?

pullingmyhairout on August 12, 2007 at 8:49 PM

The notion of lawful conduct of war seems so debilitating that it’s hard to imagine its being very durable. One of the qualities I admire in our enemies is their comparative lack of restraint; I’m not praising unintelligible mayhem, but the capacity for cruelty well used. When “the terrorists have won” and “we’re just as bad as they are,” let’s thank them for increasing our virtue and then use it to destroy them and their god.