Justice Scalia, forget about habeas; how many American lives will this release cost?

Via Noor Khan and Jason Straziuso:

In the prison escape, the police chief of Kandahar province, Sayed Agha Saqib, said 390 Taliban inmates were among those who fled the prison during the attack late Friday.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force put the number of escapees slightly higher, at around 1,100, according to spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco. He conceded that the assault was a success.

“We admit it,” Branco said. “Their guys did the job properly in that sense, but it does not have a strategic impact. We should not draw any conclusion about the deterioration of the military operations in the area. We should not draw any conclusion about the strength of the Taliban.”

The complex attack included a truck bombing at the main gate, a suicide bomber who struck a back wall and rockets fired from inside the prison courtyard, setting off a series of explosions that rattled Kandahar, the country’s second biggest city.

The rockets demolished an upper prison floor, said Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai, a deputy minister at the Justice Ministry. Nine police were killed in the attack, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.

There were no indications that the militants received help from the inside, but as a precaution the prison’s chief official, Abdul Qabir, was placed under investigation for possible involvement, Hashimzai said.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked Sarposa Prison.

NATO was providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to help track fleeing militants, Branco said.

Afghan officials warned that the Taliban essentially boosted its force by 400 fighters because of the prison break, but Branco said NATO officials didn’t think it would change the military situation.

“OK, they got some more fighters, more shooters,” Branco said. “These guys who escaped from the prison are not going to change the operational tempo and they do not provide the Taliban with operational initiative.”

Nope, it really doesn’t matter that the group that sheltered Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri before AND AFTER the 9-11 attacks just pulled off a massive prison escape under the nose of the world’s most powerful military.

We’ve heard for years that electing a Democrat or withdrawing from Iraq will boost the morale of these guys and make them happy, but something like this? Nope, doesn’t “have a strategic impact”.

Uh-huh. Ri-i-i-i-ight.

If there were another 1,000 US troops (currently on their 87th tour to Iraq) near the prison, would that have a strategic impact?

Bush and McSame seem bound and determined to be the first Keystone Kop tag team to blow two wars simultaneously through error, arrogance, corruption and overreach.

Instead of getting the leaders of the worst attack ever on US civilians, they opted for starting another war that drove oil prices to ridiculous highs, that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, that tarnished our country’s image among friend and foe alike, and has blown more than half a trillion, while their cronies got rich from all the profiteering. And these fresh escapees “are not going to change the operational tempo and they do not provide the Taliban with operational initiative.”

But they sure are being provided plenty of guffaws at George and Dick and John.