The Problem With Crowing About Something...

...is sometimes, you have to eat yourself:

RIYADH (Reuters) - The death toll in a militant attack on French tourists in Saudi Arabia rose to four on Tuesday after a French teenager died from bullet wounds, a hospital doctor said on Tuesday.

The boy's father was among three French expatriates working in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, who were shot dead during a desert trip on Monday in what appeared to be the first attack by suspected al Qaeda militants on foreigners in three years.

An acquaintance who did not want to be named said the men were machine gunned down in front of the women and children, confirming a report from a security source[...]

They were part of a group of nine French nationals living in Riyadh who had been visiting historic sites and camping in the desert in the scenic western region of the vast desert country.

Islamic militants swearing allegiance to al Qaeda launched a violent campaign to topple the U.S.-allied Saudi monarchy in 2003, with suicide bomb attacks on foreigners and government installations, including the oil industry.

So, Al Qaeda pops its ugly head up in Saudi Arabia after all these drinks. Where else?

KABUL (Reuters) - A Taliban suicide bomber killed up to 12 people at the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday in an attack the rebels said was aimed at Dick Cheney, but the visiting U.S. vice president was not hurt.

An American and South Korea soldier were killed, as well as a U.S. government contractor whose nationality was unknown, NATO and Korean officials said. NATO said 27 people were wounded.

A Reuters photographer at the scene at Bagram Airbase, 60 km (40 miles) north of Kabul, saw eight bodies in addition to NATO's tally of four dead, putting the toll at 12.

Oops! OK, not Al Qaeda, but an incredible facsimile! These were the guys we were supposed to be getting six years ago, right?

Eh....not so much...

ISLAMABAD, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Britain does not foresee any chance of dialogue with Taliban leaders running an insurgency in Afghanistan, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in Pakistan on Tuesday.

Beckett said she had no inclination to talk to Taliban commanders whose expressed goals were to kill British troops stationed in Afghanistan.

But, she added that talks with former Taliban or sympathisers who were no longer active might be a possibility in the future.

Because, you know, there's been this "spring offensive" in the works since November...

Six years after the declaration of victory in Afghanistan the British government announced the dispatch of 1,400 extra troops yesterday in readiness for an escalation of the violence sweeping the country.

The sending of the troops, along with aircraft, armoured vehicles and artillery, will raise the total force there to 7,700 making it bigger than the one now deployed in Iraq.

...which, if you only watched US network news, you would only have heard about either this weekend, when Dick Cheney finally raised his helmeted head out of his playpen secure bunker to announce with grave alarm:

US Vice President Dick Cheney today sought Pakistan’s help in countering al-Qaida’s efforts to regroup in its remote border region.

He warned that Taliban militants are planning a “spring offensive” in neighbouring Afghanistan, the Pakistani president’s office said.

Now, if you really wanted to flush out the Taliban AND Al Qaeda, wouldn't you go to where the money came from?

No, not Saudi Arabia: Pakistan:

experts say that Pakistan’s military and Interservices Intelligence (ISI) both include personnel who sympathize with—or even assist—Islamist militants. ISI has provided covert but well-documented support to terrorist groups active in Kashmir, including the al-Qaeda affiliate Jaish-e-Mohammed, which investigators linked to the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament and the February 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

*Ahem* But we've made our bed and now must sleep in it. I swear, Musharraf has done such a bang up job of misleading the Bush administration, I'm surprised he hasn't tried to sell them on the idea of a pipeline through his country to the India! For natural gas!

Um. Oops.

So we have terror attacks against Westerners in Saudi Arabia resuming, a Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, assisted by Pakistan's ISI, forming up, and possible Al Qaeda cyberattacks on our banking and other financial institutions.

In effect, they've taken six years to regroup, reform and re-energize the network. Add to that the growing threat of non-Al Qaeda terrorism, and the fact that every year since we've attacked Iraq has seen more deaths from more terrorist attacks in more countries than the previous year.

All while Al Qaeda lay dormant. While some of our *koffkoff* finest minds have said Al Qaeda is on the run...

And Bush thought 2006 was a bad year for him! I expect he'll be crying for his mommy by September.

snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky

Bush
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Al Qaeda
Taliban