John L. Work
John L. Work is a veteran of twenty years of Colorado law enforcement service and a graduate of Cal State Long Beach, B.A. and M.A. He has been a contributor and featured columnist for NewsRealBlog since January of 2010, and a guest columnist for FrontPageMagazine.
American Press Corps Again Misses The Target In C.I.A. Bombing Investigation
I just can not stay away from the story of the December 30 suicide bombing at a C.I.A. base in Khost, Afghanistan, which killed seven American C.I.A. agents, injured six others, and killed al-Balawi’s “handler” Sharif Ali bin-Zeid, a Captain in the Jordanian intelligence service. Maybe there’s still some police detective left in me, even nearly eight years after retirement.
The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi (photo above from AP file), was a physician and known Jordanian al-Qaeda operative, recruited by the Jordanian government to assist in the C.I.A.’s hunt for Usama din-Laden’s number one henchman, Ayman al-Zawahiri. read more…
During my twenty year law enforcement career, which I assure you was not anything like James Bond’s movies, I learned that in gathering either intelligence or evidentiary information from a snitch, a mole, a rat, or whatever term you prefer, there sometimes comes a point in the work where the snitch is no longer reliable or of benefit to his handlers because he has been “burned”. That is to say there is a juncture at which the targeted criminal enterprise or enemy realizes it has an “informant” problem, and must either go out of business or change tactics to neutralize the snitch.
We may now have reached a point where the entire Jordanian intelligence service has been “burned”. The Jordanians hand-picked a known al-Qaida agent and physician, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, arrested him, interrogated and supposedly “flipped” him to our side of the War, then gave him to our C.I.A. to use as a mole in locating the al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al Zawahiri. read more…
I remember wondering during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, what are we going to accomplish there? I knew something about Sunni Muslim strongman Saddam Hussein’s brutality from reading a bit of the news and listening to talk radio. Combat operations in Afghanistan had wound down and the Taliban had been pretty well routed – or so we thought. George Bush had stopped worrying about Usama bin Laden.
Then came the Iraq Invasion and the quick toppling of Hussein with very few American casualties. There soon followed a completely unanticipated horrific resurgence of sectarian Sunni v. Shiite violence that claimed most of the more than four-thousand American lives lost after the apparent easy victory. My nephew came home with a Purple Heart from his first of three U.S. Army tours of duty there, courtesy of an improvised explosive device (IED) blast that destroyed his “SAW” gun and blew shrapnel through his mouth.
A subsequent “surge” of thousands of brave, brilliantly trained American troops into Iraq temporarily suppressed the sectarian fighting, but the Iraqis just could not get their political act together.
The Iraq surge did not work, folks, not because our armed forces failed in their part of the mission, but because the Iraqis did not, could not, do politically what they were supposed to do. The rift between Sunni and Shiite goes back in Islamic history for about twelve centuries. The rift is eternal and it is irreparable. Historian and author Hugh Fitzgerald of www.Jihadwatch.org wrote a marvelous essay on this surge failure, and author Diana West just completed a three part series here. read more…
The heavy hitters in our global Whac-a-Mole game, President Obama and U.S. Army General David Petraeus, have had their mallets confiscated by the Yemeni government. Maybe we should take the hint and stay out of there.
In part 1 and part 2 of this series I explained the futility of chasing al-Qaida and the Taliban as they pop up in various remote locales around the world. The January 4th news report in the Los Angeles Times by Borzou Daragahi tells us that Petraeus visited Yemen on January 2, 2010, and pledged intel assistance to Yemen. Obama, according to Daragahi’s report, wants to “step up intelligence-sharing and training of Yemeni forces and perhaps carry out joint attacks against militants in the region.” read more…
In part 1, I propounded that our current strategy in the War is not getting us anywhere, as have pundits Diana West here, David Harsanyi here, and George F. Will here.
Why is that? Well, no one of prominence in the White House, in Congress or at the Pentagon has yet seriously taken into account the roles that Islam’s doctrine, law (Sharia), history and practice are playing in the enemy’s plan to destroy us and make Islam the dominant political/religious/legal force in the world. read more…
I told you in a prior posting that I worked as a cop in Colorado for about twenty years. I was a detective for eight years and worked with my fair share of informants.
The one informant during my career that I arranged for release from jail on a personal recognizance bond, a man who provided information that enabled me to make an arrest and head off the contract murder of the sole eye witness to another murder, later used a hatchet to kill an innocent victim. The informant, who committed this crime while out on the bond I arranged for him through the District Attorney’s Office, is now doing life without parole. read more…
President Obama and U.S. Army General David Petraeus are continuing the exasperating game of chasing the Taliban through Afghanistan and Pakistan, while al Qaida dashes around the Middle East and elsewhere about the Muslim World. The latest indication that we’re about to swing the Whac-a-mole mallet at a brand new, freshly-dug hole in Yemen comes from Petraeus’ visit to Yemen last Saturday, accompanied by his pledge to the Yemeni government of increased aid to fight al Qaida. That is going to mean lots and lots more American cash, folks.
Worse yet, President Obama is promising assistance in the form of U.S. intelligence, training of Yemeni armed forces, and possible U.S. combat operations in Yemen. Does this sound familiar? It’s all apparently a part of our response to Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam on its approach to Detroit’s airport. Abdulmutallab says he got his jihad training and blow-up skivvies in Yemen. read more…
It is a tenet of left-wing argument that if one can inject an accusation or even the tiniest innuendo of extremism into a debate, it has the effect of doing this to the opponent. Don’t worry about the debate of the ideas, attack the person.
Actor Robert Redford and billionaire Socialist George Soros’ names have surfaced in Colorado gubernatorial politics, with Redford’s recent endorsement of left-wing incumbent Bill Ritter, whom Denver conservative radio talk-show host Peter Boyles re-named Tax Ritter, for re-election.
The Denver Post Politics-West blog, part of Denver’s only surviving major printed newspaper, has most cleverly, deliberately, fallaciously and backhandedly shoveled some slime into gubernatorial challenger Scott McInnis’ face. read more…
Weren't leftists against "fascist" cops that did not have to answer to the rule of law?
I spent twenty-two years serving in the Colorado criminal justice arena. I worked as a municipal police patrolman, a police detective, a patrol sergeant, and as a uniformed county sheriff’s deputy and detective. Following twenty years as a cop, I also spent two years on the other side of t
he Courtroom as an Investigator for the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office. So, I saw crime and punishment from both sides of the Courtroom. I spent my share of time at crime scenes gathering facts and evidence, then in Courts of Law, presenting the evidence and testifying under oath in trials.
Sometimes, warrant in hand, I actually kicked in doors and made arrests at gunpoint, but not exactly like this Clint Eastwood “Dirty Harry” operation. Real cops don’t get to do business like Dirty Harry did — but it is fun to watch his movies. read more…
