U.S. drone that crashed in Iran goes miniature By Thomas Erdbrink
A photo released by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps purports to show the RQ-170 drone that was reported crash in December. (Sepahnews via Associated Press) TEHRAN — For the American government, the crash of the RQ-170 drone in Iran was an embarrassment. For the Iranian government, it was a propaganda victory.
And for at least one company, according to state radio, it could be a windfall.
An Iranian firm, seeking to capitalize on the frenzy that followed the crash of the drone — and American calls to have it returned — is now producing miniaturized toy versions of the craft. Most of the toys, which come in several colors and are made of Iranian plastic, have already been snapped up by Iranian government organizations, according to the group that manufactures them.
At least one model — a pink one — has been reserved for President Obama.
“He said he wanted it back, and we will send him one,” said Reza Kioumarsi, the head of cultural production at the Ayeh Art group.
Ayeh Art group designs “cultural products” — mugs with verses of the Koran printed on them, for instance, and small buttons picturing mosques. This month, the firm began producing a 1:80 scaled model of the RQ-170, the sophisticated drone that was being operated by the CIA when it crashed in eastern Iran. The firm is now making 2,000 of them a day.
“This is not made in China,” Kioumarsi stressed.
The toys come with a transparent plastic stand emblazoned with a quotation from Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic: “We will put America under our feet.”
The products made by Ayeh Art Group are not widely known in Tehran, but Kioumarsi said he was confident that the model drones would sell like hotcakes.
The Iranian government, meantime, has shown no indication that it will be returning the real RQ-170 to the United States. Last week, the Foreign Ministry demanded an apology first.
Is a Leadership Void in Libya Arming Terrorists? by Taylor Budowich
A story broke yesterday that caught our attention, but unfortunately came at no surprise - thousands of surface-to-air missiles have gone missing in Libya. What were once guarded military stockpiles have become abandoned chests of weapons, free for the taking. In recent months Libyan rebels have been able to take over the country with the help of the U.S.A. Regrettably, mismanagement from the current administration has led to this opportunity for al-Qaeda to equip itself with weapons like the one that took down the helicopter filled with Navy Seals last month in Afghanistan.
President Obama has not been known for being decisive problem solver. He often spends weeks deliberating and dissecting an issue before coming up with a conclusion. That is great when you’re in the halls of Harvard, but when you are the Commander-in-Chief of the worlds largest military and President of the United States of America, you must leave the universe of the theoretical and focus on the realities of the situation.
President Obama took months to agree with his generals in Afghanistan that pleaded for a surge, and then during the Arab Spring he sat back only observing as despots crushed opposition in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. Even when the Libyan tyrant began ruthlessly slaughter thousands, the Commander-in-Chief was only a small voice in the background. That was until our under equipped British and French allies forced his hand into action.
After the request by our European allies, President Obama instructed NATO (an organization that is nearly entirely funded and controlled by the US) to lead an air strike into Libya, consequentially instituting a no fly zone, which aimed to assist the rebel forces. Beyond this, there have been credible reports that via various covert organizations, the U.S. helped arm the rebels as they began to take over the country. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/arms-libya-rebels
A question rarely asked was “Who are these rebels in East Libya that we are so willingly supporting?” Well, most reports suggest they are not only anti-America, but also many believe they have strong links to al-Qaeda. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html In 2003, Libyan extremist groups supplied al-Qaeda with hundreds of fighters to attack American troops in Iraq. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/06/world/la-fg-libya-derna-qaeda-20110406
So now that we have a better understanding of just who is running Libya, we are horrified to learn what President Obama’s haphazard decisions have led to. There is a saying that goes, better have the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Now we have a country in shambles, with leaders largely unknown by the rest of the world, and motivations that are questionable at best – but more likely extremist and anti-American.
The U.S. Military is an unstoppable force, but the men and women that make it up aren’t invincible. The lack of strategy and leadership President Obama has shown is putting our troops in danger. These weapons that have gone missing are not being donated to a church, or sent back to the U.S. If they aren’t already in the hands of al-Qaeda, they will be on the Black Market going to the highest bidder. The President has absolutely no understanding or comprehension of war, but consistently picks his own theoretical solutions versus those that are best for the safety of our troops. The Commander-in-Chief must make the safety of our troops his top priority, not his own political ambitions.
Serious questions remain about the national security implications of the proposed deal to raise the federal debt ceiling. With members of Congress essentially being asked to vote immediately to avoid defaulting on the national debt, they are also entitled to immediate and compelling answers to the defense-related questions.
For fiscal year 2012 and 2013, cuts in defense spending remain uncertain, with reductions as much as three percent below last year’s level still possible. Depending on the outcome of further negotiations over the size and allocation of those reductions, these cuts alone may well be quite harmful. The best that can be said is that, for these fiscal years, the issue is still unresolved.
Over the longer term, the outlook is almost certainly much more disturbing. In the deal’s second stage, the yet-to-be-named Congressional Joint Commission will have wide discretion on what to agree on, but if no agreement or only partial agreement is reached, the deal’s sequestration mechanism will be triggered. Broadly speaking, if that happens, defense spending will bear fifty percent of the total cuts, with non-defense spending bearing the remaining fifty percent, up to the amount necessary to raise the debt ceiling by the minimum $ 2.4 trillion required by the deal. This approach risks grave damage to our national security.
There is no strategic rationale whatsoever for cuts of this magnitude. There is, in fact, every strategic rationale to the contrary. While the appropriations process may still be able to decide which specific programs will be cut, this is no consolation. Cuts of this size are effectively indiscriminate.
Defense spending is not just another wasteful government program. Subjecting it to potentially massive, debilitating cuts is rolling the dice in perilous times internationally. Adam Smith himself wrote in "The Wealth of Nations": “the first duty of the sovereign” [is] “protecting the society from the violence and invasion” of others.
Advocates of the deal place their reliance on the Joint Committee established by the agreement to prevent massive defense cuts. This means that the Republicans selected for membership on this Committee have the future security of this country resting on their shoulders. We can only hope that the leadership chooses representatives who understand the enormity of that responsibility.
Deal supporters argue in the alternative that the trigger mechanism, which would come into play if the Joint Committee could not reach agreement on the second tranche of spending cuts (or tax increases), need not be feared. They rest this assertion on three points.
First, they say, “Even if the committee failed to produce a single dollar in savings, the Department of Defense would be on the hook for less than $500 billion over nine years, beginning in 2013.” Unquestionably, however, cuts at this level would be catastrophic. They may not be at the $900 billion level of the Reid Plan, but they are debilitating nonetheless. If that is the best argument the deal’s advocates have, we are in deep trouble.
Second, proponents of the deal argue that out-year defense cuts can be reversed by subsequent Congresses. Of course, the Democrats will argue precisely the same point in favoring their domestic programs, suggesting that the entire second-stage exercise is a sham. Perhaps that is the best we can hope for, but it will mean a debt-ceiling increase in the second-stage without certainty about offsetting spending cuts.
Third, deal advocates say that “the point of the ‘backstop’ is that it never, ever happens.” Unfortunately, every prospect is that the Joint Committee will allocate cuts 50 percent to defense, 50 percent to non-defense. Why should Democrats agree to their favored domestic spending bearing more than 50 percent of the cuts when they know the sequestration mechanism will give them a better deal? Conversely, why should Republicans agree to more than 50 percent of the cuts being taken in defense, when they know precisely the same thing on their side?
Thus, the logic of the negotiating dynamic will mean that both sides of the Joint Committee will not concede more than they would otherwise get under the sequestration formula. That, in turn, brings us back to $500 billion in defense cuts.
This deal may be the best we can get, and in many respects it is far better than we feared. But to have accomplished so much, and fended off so many harmful proposals, to stumble at the last hurdle is a great tragedy. Make no mistake, this deal, by risking massive defense cutbacks, potentially points a dagger at the heart of our national security.
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, is a Fox News contributor and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
American military officials say the upcoming US withdrawal has emboldened Iranian-backed militias, which they blame for recent deadly attacks and allege are stockpiling weapons.
U.S. soldiers attached to the Golden Lions forces patrol a street in the city of Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad July 20.
As the clock ticks toward full US military withdrawal from Iraq, American officials who want troops to stay longer continue to warn of a growing Iranian threat.
Some argue that the diminishing US presence is turning Iraq into an even-more contentious regional battlefield, giving rise to a low-grade war between the remaining American forces and what the US says are militias tied directly to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose rule is dependent on Iraqi parties with ties to Iran, appears unable or unwilling to crack down on the most lethal Iranian-back militias, blamed for June attacks that killed the largest number of American forces in two years.
While military officials say Iraqi security forces have continued to fight Shiite militias linked to Iran, the US is increasingly conducting attacks alone – attacks authorized for self-defense under the status of forces agreement between Washington and Baghdad that expires this year.
“We always want to work with the Iraqi security forces … but we’re not going to sit back and get shot at and can’t defend ourselves. So if we can’t have the help or don’t have the help then we will in fact act to defend ourselves,” says US military spokesman Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan.
For example, says General Buchanan, US Apache helicopters fired on Iraqis shooting rockets at the US base at the Basra airport last month.
“They engaged and killed them – that was an act of self defense. It would have been far better for all had the Iraqi Army been able to prevent the attack or respond to it and stop it in action but things like that happen... what we’re not going to do is sit back and watch them shoot at us and wait for the Iraqi army to show up,” he says.
15 American fatalities in June
Rocket, mortar, and roadside bomb attacks in June killed 14 US servicemen and an American civilian contractor. Buchanan says all but two of the fatal attacks were conducted by three major Shiite militias with ties to Iran.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Wednesday said it would be difficult for a new agreement with the US to pass through parliament. He said Iraq was likely to instead sign more limited agreements on the Defense Ministry level for American trainers and advisers to remain in Iraq.
In the oil-rich south – seemingly one of the calmest areas of the country – recent attacks appear to have taken some of the US military by surprise. Some soldiers live in trailers with little of the protection from mortars and rockets that is common in the rest of the country.
US Gen. Martin Dempsey, in Senate confirmation hearings Tuesday, said the heightened militia campaign could be the run-up to a huge attack similar to the 1983 bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut that drove US forces out of Lebanon.
Analysts say the attacks follow an Iranian strategy of trying to exert security, political, and economic influence in Iraq that the US has found difficult to counter.
“The Iranians are good at this and they are continuing to try to counter balance US influence throughout the region,” says John Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert and president of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank.
Weapons stockpiling
Buchanan says weapons used in attacks include Iranian-made rockets manufactured as recently as 2010 representing an increase in munitions coming across the Iranian border over the past eight months.
At a recent display for a small group of journalists last week at one of the military’s most secretive installations, military explosives experts displayed rockets, powerful roadside bombs, and timing devices recovered in attacks on US forces. The arms included an improvised rocket-assisted munition – known as an IRAM – used extremely effectively in attacks against American forces in the south. Only Iranian-linked groups use the mortars, made more lethal by attaching warheads from rockets, say officials.
[Edtior's Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described an IRAM, an improvised rocket-assisted munition].
US explosive experts linked a fatal attack on US soldiers in June to the Iranian-backed group Kitaib Hizbollah. An explosives expert says fingerprints on the truck used in the rocket attack led them to a suspected militant who had been in US custody previously.
The explosives experts, who insisted on not being identified by name, would talk in only the most general terms on what features identify the rockets and bombs as having been made in Iran. Iranian officials deny arming or training militants in Iraq.
Buchanan said the Iraqi Army has found significant stockpiles of rockets and improvised explosive devices, including a cache of 49 fully ready EFPs – the most lethal roadside bombs – discovered in a Baghdad neighborhood two months ago but has proved less capable of stopping the supply lines.
“What we have not seen a lot of is intercept of any of these munitions while they’re in transit,” Buchanan says. He says many of the shipments seem to be coming across the legal border crossings, including in buses of Iranian religious pilgrims that are not checked by border authorities, he says.
Sadr's powerful position
Despite media reports of a major Iraqi government crackdown on southern Iraq's Shiite militias last month said to involve 2,000 Iraqi soldiers, they have not made significant inroads, according to US officials.
Analysts say that while Maliki significantly boosted his popularity in 2008 by sending in the Iraqi Army into Basra to retake the city from Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, he is too reliant now on Mr. Sadr’s political support to do the same thing.
Sadr is in Iran where he is pursuing his religious studies but his political wing forms an essential part of Maliki’s coalition government while another of his militias, the Promised Day Brigade, is one of the groups blamed for attacks on US forces. Maliki emerged from elections 1-1/2 years ago with fewer seats than his nearest rival and managed to take power only by cobbling together a broad coalition.
“As long as there is this big unwieldy government, it is very unlikely that Maliki is going to turn on the militias the way the United States wants him to do,” says Reidar Visser, an Iraq expert at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs who also maintains Historiae.org.
The US has given assurances to Iraq it will not attack Iran from Iraqi territory. Despite the covert attacks, Iran is also believed to have assured Iraq it will not openly attack US forces.
“America accuses Iran and Iran accuses America. At the end, this is part of two decades of struggle between America and Iran,” says Abbas al-Bayati, a member of parliament from Maliki’s State of Law coalition. “But there are also indirect side agreements. If we didn’t have such agreements, Iraq now would be hell.”
This past week I joined a group of friends at the airport, all of us baring homemade signs, to welcome home a dear friend: Trey Bowen. That’s at least how we know him. We were not actually welcoming home Trey though, we were welcoming Private First Class Bowen, a 19D Calvary Scout in the U.S. Army. PFC Bowen was returning from Iraq for a two-week leave in the middle of his year-long tour.
This emotional homecoming gave me a chance to reflect on just what so many families and friends of deployed soldiers are still going through. As I watched my friend embrace his 9-year-old brother, I was able to sympathize with the sacrifice that he and so many other soldiers must make in order to serve this nation on hostile foreign soil.
PFC Bowen enlisted in the military at 20 years old with the ambition to serve his country and take a financial burden off his family by earning enough money to pay for college independently. His motivation mirrors that of many of the men and women that enlist in the military. The decision to sign-up for him and a majority of the current enlisted troops could not have been made lightly though. They signed a document and made a pledge to fight for their country knowing they would be doing just that, fighting for their country.
It is to seldom that we truly appreciate the heroes that are currently serving our country and the courage it takes to do so. They did not sign up thinking that they could make some easy money sitting around all day, they signed up knowing they would be putting their life on the line to defend their country.
A hero is someone that runs into a fire to protect those that are trying to run out. America has the best military in the world not because of technology or the number of troops, but because of the courage, commitment, and heroism of each and every soldier serving. Life is full of decision and these intelligent and capable troops have made a decision that most of us lack the bravery to make.
PFC Bowen and those serving along side of him have something that many of their civilian peers do not have – a strong sense of purpose and responsibility. They wake up every day knowing what they must accomplish and day-in and day-out they do so with crisp perfection. They are driven not only to make their country better by keeping it safe, but because they want to make themselves better as individuals.
I joined Move America Forward because I do not have any greater respect than that of which I have for our troops. To show you just what I mean, I invited PFC Bowen into our headquarters to chat about his experiences so far and he even talked about receiving Care Packages saying, “When these guys get these care packages it just means the world to them… it just really makes their day.”
CARE PACKAGES FOR THE TROOPS JUST IN TIME FOR 4th OF JULY
Summer is here and while families back home prepare to celebrate Independence Day by stocking up on fireworks, hot dogs and beer, firing up the grill and preparing to hop in the swimming pool, our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq face a very different scenario for the 4th of July.
Send a care package to our brave troops serving overseas, packed with food goodies and other items to help them get through a tough deployment in a hostile land where they continue to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQ FEND OFF INCURSION FROM IRANIAN MILITIAS BLOODIEST MONTH IN YEARS
Three more American troops lost their lives yesterday in an attack that reminds us that our troops in Iraq are still fighting a persistent enemy who continues to attempt to disrupt the security situation in Iraq for their own gain.
Shiite militias backed by Iran have ramped up attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, making June the deadliest month in two years for American forces. The militiamen's goal is to prevent the U.S. military from extending its presence in the country past the end of this year.
Three separate militias have been involved in the attacks, particularly a small but deadly group known as the Hezbollah Brigades, believed to be funded and trained by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard and its special operations wing, the Quds Force.
- ASSOCIATED PRESS 30 JUN 2011
Don’t let our troops take on the Iranian-backed insurgents without our help!
Send a care package filled with coffee, cookies, beef jerky, Gatorade, and much needed personal items like deodorant and chap stick.
THE TRUTH IS; THEY HAVE NO REASON, THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY, BUT THEY WANT GITMO CLOSED.
The people that want Guantanamo Bay to be closed have made it clear that when you take all the arguments against GITMO and refute them each, discredit them all, and show all the arguments in favor of keeping the terrorists at GITMO, no matter what the multitude of problems GITMO solves; the ultimate fact of the matter is: when no other arguments stand, they still don’t care, they jus want GITMO to close.
They just hate it, they want to vilify it, and to them closing it proves that they were right.
The longer that the controversy over Guantanamo Bay gets drawn out, that is becoming increasingly clear about the motivations and the arguments of the people who want to see GITMO closed, that is, the anti-war people, the simple bush-haters, the far left, President Obama, and those who are willing to support him.
First they said ‘it’s illegal’ but here we are years later and GITMO still stands. It’s an entirely legitimate facility, built to house people who have no official standing in what we think of as war criminals or foreign armies. They said we tortured people, they said we were violating their rights, they said we had no right to hold them, they said it was a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda, they said it made us look bad.
They have leveled every complaint in the book at GITMO and yet they don’t have a better solution, and all of their criticisms have been shot down. Eric Holder sent a team in and they determined (as we ourselves did in 2008) that the facility was run extremely well, efficient, and in accordance with every law set forth in the Geneva Conventions, this DESPITE the fact that the terrorists held there aren’t even technically eligible for those protections, since they represent no formal State or governmental body.
This blog post seems to say it all for me. This is the mentality that I SEE and HEAR when talking to people about Guantanamo and reading the articles they write about it. But in this blog post it’s on stunning display; plain and simple.
At yesterday's Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on the sell of Thomson Correctional Center to the federal government, Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT) raised the issue of a prison on U.S. Soil as a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. And to make his point, he remarked how much nicer Guantanamo Bay was than Illinois.
They go on to quote Hatch, who is talking about the same kinds of things we’re talking about, that Guantnamo Bay really treats those terrorists a lot better than they deserve, and that really they have a much comfier existence on the island out in Cuba than they would in frigid Illinois.
Well, you're right. As much as we normally get riled up with our inferiority complex, this time, Hatch is right. But come on, Senator. Illinois in January is the perfect deterrent. Even you admitted, "I think it's easy to see... that no matter what we do, they're going to criticize us." So why not?
The magic words. “So Why Not”
When all other arguments fail, “WHY NOT”
Hatch is right – and THEY ADMIT IT! The fact that Obama reached out to the Muslim world has not changed their attitude toward the West. Especially not the jihadists. They are still bent on killing us all. Will closing GITMO take a recruiting tool away from Al Qaeda? Probably not, but even if it does, they have thousands more lies to tell about the USA, the Great Satan. But even if closing GITMO accomplishes nothing, even if it puts America in danger… they still want to do it. Why Not? It’s a symbol of the Bush years, and they want to destroy anything that reminds them of W.
When we CAN spend $300 billion dollars to do duplicate something that already exists, WHY NOT!
Major Hasan and the Ideological Blinders By Walid Phares
Major Nidal Hasan was not flagged because Washington has disarmed its own analysts with ideological blinders. The Pentagon's review of the act of terrorism committed at Fort Hood deserves national attention regarding not only its important conclusions, but also what it missed in terms of analysis.
Jihadi Penetration: Part of a War
As announced by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the report "reveals serious 'shortcomings' in the military's ability to stop foreign extremists from trying to use America's own soldiers against the United States." The Pentagon's review of the Fort Hood massacre stated that "serious shortcomings" were found in "the military's ability to stop foreign extremists from trying to use its own soldiers against the United States." The first question that comes to mind is whether the issue is about "shortcomings," as described by the Pentagon, or about "systemic failures," as announced by President Obama in his evaluation of the Christmas Day terror act. For as underlined by the Department of Defense in the case of Major Hasan, these failures were about the military's ability to "stop foreign terrorists from using American soldiers against the United States."
Such a statement is extremely important, as it finally informs the public that the U.S. personnel roster is indeed being infiltrated and recruited by foreign jihadists, who are described politically by the administration as "extremists." Hence, the first logical conclusion from that finding is that jihadi networks are performing acts of war (and thus of terrorism) against U.S. defense assets and personnel in the homeland. This warrants the reevaluation of the conflict and a re-upgrading of it to a state of war, even though it would still need to be determined "with whom."
Self-Radicalization
Secretary Gates said that "military supervisors are not properly focused on the threat posed by self-radicalization and need to better understand the behavioral warning signs." He added that "extremists are changing their tactics in an attempt to hit the United States." He then concluded that the Fort Hood massacre "reveals shortcomings in the way the department is prepared to defend against threats posed by external influences operating on members of our military community. ... We have not done enough to adapt to the evolving domestic internal security threat to American troops and military facilities."
The bottom line of the Department of Defense report is, as I relentlessly argued before and since Hasan's shootings, that the U.S. military and intelligence lack the capability of detecting radicalization, should it be "self"-developed or activated from overseas. American analysts are not able to "detect" radicalization from where it is generated. In my last three books and dozens of briefings and testimonies to legislative and executive forums, I underlined the crucial importance of identifying the ideology behind radicalization. The latter is produced by a set of ideas assembled in a doctrinal package.
Unfortunately, the Bush and Obama administrations were both poorly advised by their experts. They were told, wrongly, that if they try to identify a "doctrine," then they will be meddling with a religion. Academic and cultural advisers of the various U.S. agencies and offices (the majority of them, at least) failed their government by triggering a fear of theological entanglement. To the surprise of our Arab and Muslim allies in the region, who know how to detect the jihadist narrative, Washington disarmed its own analysts when bureaucrats of the last two years banned references to the very ideological indicators that could enable our analysts to detect the radicalization threat.
And it is not about "extreme religious views" as much as it is about an ideology. If Arabs and Muslims can identify it in the Middle East, why can't Americans also? It is simply because jihadi propaganda has already penetrated our advising body and fooled many of our decision-makers into dropping the ideological parameters.
Hence, stunningly, Major Hasan, who fully displayed the narrative of jihadism, was not spotted as a jihadist. The report tried to blame his colleagues and other superiors for failing to find him "suspicious enough" and thus for causing a shortcoming. I disagree: What allowed Hasan to move undetected was a bureaucratic memo issued under both administrations, and made into policy last summer, ordering the members of the public service not to look at ideology or refer to words that can detect it. We did it to ourselves.
The Strategic Threat Ahead
The report raises "serious questions" about whether the military is prepared for similar attacks, particularly "multiple, simultaneous incidents." In my book, Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America, published half a decade ago, I sternly warned about the strategic determination of jihadists, al-Qaeda and beyond, to target the U.S. homeland -- not just in terms of terrorizing the public, but in the framework of a chain of strikes widening gradually until it would evolve to coordinated, simultaneous attacks. In 2006-2007, I served on the then Task Force on Future Terrorism of the Department of Homeland Security and developed an analysis clearly showing the path to come. My briefings to several entities and agencies in the defense sector clearly argued that implanting, growing, and triggering homegrown jihadists to strike at U.S. national security is at the heart of the enemy's strategy. I even projected the existence of a "war room" that directs these operations; Imam al-Awlaki's example of multiple operatives' coordination is only a small fragment of what it would be like.
In facing this mushrooming threat, not only do we lack a detection capacity to counter it, but we have been induced in error to adopt policies opposite to those suitable to our national defense. The misleading advice that the U.S. government relied on is deeply responsible for the failure to stop and counter radicalization. The report, although a step in the right direction, has troubling shortcomings:
A. It claims that "fixation on religion" is a missing indicator. This means that if Muslims insist on praying or Catholics refrain from eating meat on Fridays during Lent, this could be a lead to radicalization. Obviously, it is a dead end, for the indicator is the substance of the fixation, not the mere fact of religiosity. One statement of commitment to jihad is by far more important than fasting during the whole month of Ramadan. It is not theology but ideology, even though many writers in town insist on merging both based on their readings of text. I offer our government an easier way to detect the threat without venturing into unnavigable religious debates or unnecessarily apologizing for one or another particular faith.
B. The report describes Hasan as "an odd duck and a loner who was passed along from office to office and job to job despite professional failings that included missed or failed exams and physical fitness requirements." Nice shot, but it leads nowhere, for the other potential Hasans amongst us aren't all necessarily odd, failed students, and physically unfit. The next jihadists could be sharp, professional, and extremely social. It all depends on what the "War Room" is going to surprise us with. Medical doctors in Britain, rich young men from Nigeria, or converted farmers from North Carolina aren't all in one profile basket. So let's stop looking for framing "profiles" and start detecting ideology.
C. The report calls on the Defense Department "to fully staff those teams of investigators, analysts, linguists and others so the Pentagon can quickly see information collected across government agencies about potential links between troops and terrorist or extremist groups." This is a long-awaited initiative, short of creating further catastrophes by staffing our bureaucracies with more cultural advisers who would further mislead our leaders and worsen the fledgling counter-ideology sectors already in place. I am making the bold statement that our problem is precisely that the expertise we sought over the past eight years is the reason for our inability to detect radicalization. Hence I would recommend an additional inquiry into our own specialization body before we re-contract it to lead the war of ideas.
The beef is there. Everything else is dressing.
Dr. Walid Phares is Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the recently released book, The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- No detainees from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison will be transferred to Saudi Arabia any time soon, an Obama administration official said.
The decision to suspend the transfers came after the failed terror attack Christmas Day aboard a U.S.-bound jetliner and mounting bipartisan criticism about the administration policy of sending detainees to countries known to sponsor terrorist activity, The Hill reported Tuesday.
The administration official defended a decision to transfer three detainees to Saudi Arabia in June 2009, saying they were under Saudi "judicial review" once they were sent to the Middle Eastern country. The official didn't define "judicial review," nor did he discuss whether the transferees were in prison or had been prosecuted, The Hill said.
"There are no Saudis slated for transfer in the near term," the official told the Washington publication. "The three Saudis that were transferred in 2009 were subject to judicial review in Saudi Arabia following their transfer."
The decision regarding transfers to Saudi Arabia comes about two weeks after the White House decided to suspend detainee transfers to Yemen, which has become a haven for al-Qaida. Officials said the Christmas Day terror attempt was made by a Nigerian who told investigators he was trained and equipped for his mission by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.
More than 100 Guantanamo Bay detainees were sent to Saudi Arabia under the George W. Bush administration.
Please forgive me if the next thing you see here seems a little obnoxious...but I have to be clear.
THIS IS WHY CIVILIAN TRIALS ARE A BAD IDEA!
I just read the following story about Friday's opening motions in the CIVILIAN court case against Abdulmutallab, the would-be bomber of Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009. The otherwise benign news report shows the glaring problems in prosecuting this Muslim extremist that would not have to be dealt with if the Obama administration would look at this guy for what he actually is, any enemy combatant in a WAR against America that Al Qaeda is waging, and that this guy was a willing participant.
Here are some of the most disturbing excerpts:
Not guilty plea entered for Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up Detroit-bound airliner Link to full Article
Obama's counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, has said Abdulmutallab would be offered a plea deal in exchange for valuable information about his contacts in Yemen and elsewhere.
Abdulmutallab's lawyer, Detroit's top federal defender Miriam Siefer, declined to comment Friday, and Detroit's new U.S. attorney, Barbara McQuade, said no offer has been made yet.
"We'll take the case one step at a time," said McQuade, who handled national security cases before her promotion. "If he wants to plead guilty he has the right to do that. ... We need to prepare as if this case is going to trial."
Some attorneys, however, doubt that Abdulmutallab would really want to help the United States by cooperating with investigators.
"A person who wants to blow himself up in an airplane over Detroit is not looking to shave some time off in the big house," said Lloyd Meyer, a former terrorism prosecutor at the Guantanamo Bay prison. "I have no doubt he will welcome the world stage of a federal courtroom. They want a public forum. They want the spotlight to show why they are holy warriors against the great Satan."
Since the failed attack, security at airports in the U.S. and around the world has tightened as the Obama administration acknowledged government missteps in the near-catastrophe.
Obama said Thursday that the government had the information that might have prevented the botched attack but failed to piece it together. He announced about a dozen changes designed to fix that, including new terror watch list guidelines and wider and quicker distribution of intelligence reports.
Several experts pointed to the difficulties facing Siefer and her team as they defend Abdulmutallab. They didn't get the case until he was charged the day after the failed attack. By then he had talked to investigators about training with al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.
"They may be able to challenge his statements, whether he was given Miranda rights," said Keith Corbett, a former organized-crime prosecutor in Detroit. But beyond any incriminating words, "you still have a large number of witnesses who saw things in a confined space. That's going to pose a serious problem to the defense."
Indeed, with the syringe, the fire, explosive material, burns and other evidence, "it's almost a classic smoking gun case _ a smoking pants case," Steingold said.
In announcing the indictment Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the investigation already had produced "valuable intelligence" about the failed attack.
But the more time that elapses, the less valuable his information could be for any plea deal, Corbett said.
"If he cuts a deal in six months, he's had no contact (with foreign allies) for six months. The answer lies in what information he has, like names, training facilities," Corbett said. "For any significant reduction in his sentence, he would have to be in a position of giving the government what it really wants."
The parts I highlighted in RED show the most glaring reasons WHY military commissions would be a much better way to deal with terrorists like this. First of all why are we offering PLEA BARGAINS to these terrorists, he ought to be under interrogation - yes those enhanced interrogation procedures we have heard so much about - to get every little scrap of information this guy knows. And he still ought to be locked up in GITMO for the rest of his life, even after we get what he knows.
And speaking of GITMO here we have a former GITMO prosecutor who brings up another great point, and this applies not just to this guy but all the other GITMO detainees we are trying. Such as KSM and his cohorts who Obama is trying to put to trial in New York with it's own media circus...they LOVE IT! They love the attention and they love being seen as martyrs to the terrorists still in the middle east watching on satellite tv! They ought to be locked away in GITMO, never to be seen or heard from AGAIN! That is what the terrorists should KNOW they have waiting for them.. NOT a media feeding frenzy.
And doesn't this miranda thing burn you up too? It's like what we heard months ago about the possibility of our troops being forced to give terrorists caught on the battlefield their miranda rights... this guy is NOT a US Citizen! He does not deserve miranda rights or any other rights that American citizens get... all he deserves is cold hard prison cell in Guantanamo Bay. thats much more than he deserves actually, since GITMO is such a high quality facility. I think this guy deserves much less.
This is just sad. It's sad to see how we are giving this guy every consideration, allowing him to have every advantage...and why...is it supposed to make the rest of Al Qaeda feel sympathetic to us? "Oh sure, let's just take it easy in America, see how nice they treated our operatives after we tried to blow up their planes"
Not going to happen. They want us all dead. And we're almost making it easy for them.
WASHINGTON -- On Wednesday, Nigerian would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was indicted by a Michigan grand jury for attempted murder and sundry other criminal charges. The previous day, the State Department announced that his visa had been revoked. The system worked.
Well, it did for Abdulmutallab. What he lost in flying privileges he gained in Miranda rights. He was singing quite freely when seized after trying to bring down Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit. But the Obama administration decided to give him a lawyer and the right to remain silent. We are now forced to purchase information from this attempted terrorist in the coin of leniency. Absurdly, Abdulmutallab is now in control.
And this is no ordinary information. He was trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen, and just days after he was lawyered up and shut up, the U.S. was forced to close its embassy in Yemen because of active threats from the same people who had trained and sent Abdulmutallab.
Arguing with Idiots By Glenn Beck
This is nuts. Even if you wanted ultimately to try him as an ordinary criminal, he could have been detained in military custody -- and thus subject to military interrogation -- without prejudicing his ultimate disposition. After all, every Guantanamo detainee was first treated as an enemy combatant and presumably interrogated. But some (most notoriously Khalid Sheik Mohammed) are going to civilian trial. That determination can be made later.
John Brennan, President Obama's counterterrorism adviser, professes an inability to see any "downsides" to treating Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal -- with a right to remain silent -- a view with which 71 percent of likely voters sensibly disagree.
The administration likes to defend itself by invoking a Bush precedent: Wasn't the shoe bomber treated the same way?
Yes. And it was a mistake, but in the context of the time understandable. That context does not remotely exist today.
Richard Reid struck three months after 9/11. The current anti-terror apparatus was not in place. Remember: This was barely a month after President Bush authorized the creation of military commissions and before that system had been even set up. Moreover, the Pentagon at the time was preoccupied with the Afghan campaign that brought down the Taliban in two months. The last major Taliban city, Kandahar, fell just two weeks before Reid tried to ignite his shoe on an airplane.
To be sure, after a few initial misguided statements, Obama did get somewhat serious about the Christmas Day attack. First, he instituted high-level special screening for passengers from 14 countries, the vast majority of which are Muslim with significant Islamist elements. This is the first rational step away from today's idiotic random screening and toward, yes, a measure of profiling -- i.e., focusing on the population most overwhelmingly likely to be harboring a suicide bomber.
Obama also sensibly suspended all transfers of Yemenis from Guantanamo. Nonetheless, Obama insisted on repeating his determination to close the prison, invoking his usual rationale of eliminating a rallying cry and recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.
Imagine that Guantanamo were to disappear tomorrow, swallowed in a giant tsunami. Do you think there'd be any less recruiting for al-Qaeda in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, London?
Jihadism's list of grievances against the West is not only self-replenishing but endlessly creative. Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa commanding universal jihad against America cited as its two top grievances our stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia and Iraqi suffering under anti-Saddam sanctions.
Today, there are virtually no U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. And the sanctions regime against Iraq was abolished years ago. Has al-Qaeda stopped recruiting? Ayman al-Zawahiri often invokes Andalusia in his speeches. For those not steeped in the multivolume lexicon of Islamist grievances, Andalusia refers to Iberia, lost by Islam to Christendom -- in 1492.
This is a fanatical religious sect dedicated to establishing the most oppressive medieval theocracy and therefore committed to unending war with America not just because it is infidel but because it represents modernity with its individual liberty, social equality (especially for women) and profound tolerance (religious, sexual, philosophical). You going to change that by evacuating Guantanamo?
Nevertheless, Obama will not change his determination to close Guantanamo. He is too politically committed. The only hope is that perhaps now he is offering his "recruiting" rationale out of political expediency rather than real belief. With suicide bombers in the air, cynicism is far less dangerous to the country than naivete.
ATTACKS AGAINST MARINES LED BY FORMER GITMO INMATE! MORE PROOF GITMO TERRORISTS SHOULD NOT BE RELEASED
Yesterday MAF made a plea for you to help out our Marines who are taking part in Operation Khanjar. This operation is the largest and fiercest fight in the Afghanistan war and 4,000 Marines are taking part.
Today, the mass media are reporting a couple stories about the progress of Operation Khanjar. While the Taliban and Al Qaeda could never stand toe to toe with our highly skilled Marines, several news organizations reported that the Taliban are in the middle of launching a counter-operation.
Operation Foladi Jal, Pashtu for ‘Iron Net’ is supposedly a Taliban counteroffensive designed to ‘teach’ our Marines ‘a lesson’ according to a Taliban spokesman.
The Taliban are being led by ‘Mullah Zakir’ a former GUANTANAMO BAY detainee also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rassoul. Zakir was LET GO, he was RELEASED because of international pressure, and now he is out there in Afghanistan leading the Taliban and killing American troops!
What is wrong with these people in our government who turn our enemies loose so they can come back and kill our military men and women? It just sickens us, and hope you agree with this total outrage.
MAF has produced a TV AD urging Americans to support our troops at GITMO and keep America safe by fighting to keep GITMO open. Polls show that over 60% of Americans don’t want to close GITMO.
Please make a contribution so we can put this ad on the air!
This is a travesty, and it’s even more dangerous because President Obama is trying to close Gitmo and possibly release even more of these monsters into the world.
Zakir was handed over to Afghan authorities to be imprisoned there, but he was released, which means that we CANNOT trust foreign governments like Afghanistan, Yemen or Saudi Arabia to keep tabs on these terrorists. There IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR GITMO, especially when American lives, our troops’ lives, are at stake!
A former Guantanamo Bay inmate is leading the fight against U.S. Marines in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to FOX News on Tuesday.
[Zakir]… surrendered in Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan in 2001, and was transferred to Gitmo in 2006. He was released in late 2007 to Afghan custody…
Zakir was released from Afghan custody around 2008, according to the New York Post. He re-established connections with high-level Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan after his second release.
Taliban chief Mullah Omar appointed Zakir in mid-2008 as senior military commander, according to the newspaper.
Further on in the report, our Department of Defense official reveals the folly in Obama’s plan to release the detainees to try and reconcile the U.S. with Europe and the Arab street.
Explaining why Zakir was released from Gitmo, the defense official said, "We were under incredible pressure from the world to release detainees at Gitmo. You just don't know what people are going to do.”
When will the politicians, especially President Obama learn the simple truth? Appeasement DOESN’T WORK! Even more important is the lesson: THESE TERRORISTS ARE DANGEROUS!
President Bush was right to detain these villains in GITMO, he was right to sequester them in a highly protected, secure military facility. But he DID NOT do enough to ignore the leftists here in America and especially around the world. Now, Obama is actively TRYING to distribute these terrorist to other countries where they could be released or worse yet he may allows GITMO terrorists to be set free here in America. And here we have another example of why this is such a bad idea. Now our Marines are going to have to deal with Zakir TWICE.
DON’T LET THE FAR LEFT POLITICIANS LIKE REID, PELOSI, SCHUMER, AND AL FRANKEN CLOSE GITMO!
DON’T LET OBAMA AND ERIC HOLDER RELEASE THEM HERE IN AMERICA OR ANYWHERE THEY COULD THREATEN OUR TROOPS OR AMERICAN CITIZENS
MOVE AMERICA FORWARD IS FIGHTING TO KEEP GITMO OPEN. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO OUR EFFORTS HERE!
SEND CARE PACKAGES TO OUR 4,000 MARINES FIGHTING IN AFGHANISTAN
Fighting intense heat and long marches, these Marines are lugging heavy equipment on their backs and slugging it out for control of towns and villages across Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.
As has been reported in the news, these small towns have long been strongholds of Taliban power, where the local Afghan army has little or no presence or power to enforce the laws or give legitimacy to the Government in Kabul and as a result the Taliban and Al Qaeda have largely had free reign to exploit local tribes and use them as cover.
Our Marines are there now, fighting the Taliban forces and forcing them out of the cities and into the hills so they will be easier to distinguish from civilian targets, and much easier to neutralize and kill. Unfortunately, establishing outposts in these towns will take time and meanwhile, our troops don’t have nice dining facilities and supply depots like the ones enjoyed by troops at larger bases, so they are relying on us for anything above the bare necessities. That’s why we send them care packages, filled with food and other items that they can carry with them into the field.
We owe it to our Marines to equip them properly to complete their missions and stay alive, and a little extra coffee, beef jerky and refreshing Gatorade will go a long way to make their combat operations more bearable.
Please make a contribution today for these brave Marines.
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Move America Forward's Debbie Lee Speaks Out in Illinois Agasint "GITMO NORTH" Local Citizens Also Strongly Against the Move Join Debbie in Strongly Questioning Public Officials
Yesterday MAF's own Debbie Lee traveled to Sterling, AZ to participate in a rally against the plan to bring Guantanamo Bay prisoners to a facility in Thomson, Illinois. After the early afternoon rally, where Debbie spoke, there was also a hearing held by state officials which Debbie testified at. The rally was only an hour, but the grueling hearing took five long hours and Debbie valiantly sat through the whole thing because it is so important that the voice of patriotic Americans who are really concerned with our security NEEDS to be HEARD!
Hundreds showed up to protest the move, and Debbie Lee was leading the charge, along with our good friend Bev Perlson from Band of Mothers! This story has been getting amazing press and Debbie has been all over Fox News and local stations covering this developing drama with state officials trying to push this plan onto the people. They rolled out dozens of people at the hearing, making claim after outrageous claim about the many economic benefits this plan would bring to the people. They glossed over the fact that all the jobs they are promising people will likely go to federal agents instead, and tried to downplay the security risks, but there are too many to number.
Here are som press reports about the rally and hearing.
Among the 300 who showed up at Sterling High School, some carried signs of protest. Navy Seal Marc Alen Lee was killed in Iraq. His mother traveled from Phoenix to speak out against the transfer of Gitmo detainees to Thomson prison.
"My son willingly gave up his life fighting terrorists over in Iraq so that we would not have the terrorists back here on our soil," said Debbie Lee.
Critics, however, said it was inviting danger. “I ask you to imagine the Exelon nuclear facility in the hands of the terrorists,” said Beverly Perlson, of Aurora, Ill. “God help us all.”
Representatives of the prison unions said they opposed the sale because Thomson is needed to relieve state overcrowding. The state’s top corrections official, Michael Randle, said it wasn’t needed and the state didn’t have the money to operate it, anyway.
Before the hearing, demonstrators, some of them members of the TEA Party movement, said the foreign detainees ought to be kept where they are.
“This is such a huge disgrace and dishonor to our men and women who are serving,” said Debbie Lee, the mother of a Navy SEAL who was killed in Iraq. Lee came here from Arizona to speak.
“I don’t want Gitmo to come to Illinois,” said Glenda Bumber, of Oglesby, Ill.
The Obama administration’s plan to move terrorist detainees from the security of Guantanamo Bay to a little-used state prison in Illinois is being hailed by supportive Democrats as a boon for local economic development. Even if the development were truly a boon — and it’s more a boondoggle — that would not come close to justifying it. National security is not a shovel-ready jobs program. It is the first duty of government, and it would be senselessly imperiled by transferring trained jihadists into the United States.
Like much unpopular or embarrassing news, the transfer plan leaked late on a Friday. It appeared in the form of presidential memorandum drafted by Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Once approved by the president, the memo would direct Holder to “acquire” (as in purchase) the Thomson Correctional Center, about 150 miles west of Chicago. Defense Secretary Robert Gates would then, “as expeditiously as possible,” relocate the remaining 200-plus Gitmo detainees to the TCC.
The prison is a $145 million white elephant. When Illinois was comparatively flush with capital, it built the 1,600-bed penitentiary to stimulate the depressed Mississippi Valley town. But the state is now a basket case. Budgetary woes have squeezed law-enforcement funding, and local politicians — including former state senator Barack Obama — have insisted that alternatives to incarceration be found, even for violent offenders; as a consequence less than 10 percent of the TCC’s space is currently being used. Naturally, Obama’s home-state Democrats are thrilled by the prospect of having Uncle Sam take the TCC off the state’s hands. Sen. Dick Durbin and Gov. Pat Quinn issued a statement rapt at the prospect of “generating up to 3,800 jobs” and “injecting more than $1 billion into the regional economy.”
This exorbitant “injection” of funds would be necessary because TCC is not ready to accommodate international jihadists, who are prone to riot, savagely attack their custodians, attempt escape, and plot terror attacks while in U.S. prisons. The jail would have to be hardened before it could become the new Gitmo. So even if financial considerations were the first-order priority here — and they should not be — the administration’s plan would be inexcusably wasteful. Gitmo has already been hardened, at a cost of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. It is now a state-of-the-art, Geneva Conventions-compliant detention center. It makes no sense to sink those expenditures down a black hole, spending another fortune on a project that won’t generate sustainable growth. Illinois found that out when it built TCC in the first place.
But the money isn’t the worst of it. Moving the detainees into the United States would greatly increase the likelihood that federal judges will order some of them released here.
Though the nation’s attention has been focused on the administration’s absurd decision to grant the 9/11 plotters a trial in the civilian justice system, the fact is that many, if not most, of the remaining Gitmo detainees will not face a trial of any kind. They are being held under the laws of war, which permit the detention of enemy operatives until the conclusion of hostilities. The threat they pose is terrible, but it is known to us mostly through foreign intelligence that may not be used in trial proceedings.
This was not a problem in America’s prior wars. Handling enemy prisoners was properly considered a military matter. In this war, activist judges urged on by left-wing lawyers have taken on an oversight role: the power, codified by Congress in the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, to review the legitimacy of military detention. Many civilian judges are fundamentally hostile to the concept of indefinite detention under wartime protocols that do not require proof of a crime. With no political accountability to the voters whose lives are at stake, and no guidance from Congress regarding the rules for these detention proceedings, judges have made abominable rulings, vacating the combatant designations of detainees who were trained in terror camps and clearly connected to the jihadist network.
So far, these rulings have not resulted in detainees’ being released in the United States. But that is only because, at present, the detainees are physically kept outside of the country. In the 2005 Real ID Act, Congress barred aliens who either have been members of terrorist organizations or have received paramilitary training in terrorist camps from entering our nation. Though one judge has tried to order detainees released here regardless, his order was reversed on appeal. Other judges have been hesitant to hold that their power to review detention rulings implies a power to order detainees released, much less released in the United States, in defiance of statutory proscription.
Once the terrorists are already in the country, though, that hesitancy will vanish. Anyone who doubts that has not been watching the courts’ pro-terrorist decisions over the last eight years, to say nothing of such rulings as the 9th Circuit’s recent directive that California release over 40,000 convicted inmates in order to relieve the supposed overcrowding in the state’s prisons. Indeed, the Obama administration has already floated the idea of releasing Gitmo detainees in the U.S. — and providing public welfare payments to support them — as an example for other countries to follow. And Jennifer Daskal, now advising Holder on detainee issues, spent years as a Human Rights Watch activist campaigning for Gitmo to be shuttered, and detainees released in the United States, if other countries are unwilling to take them. Human Rights Watch also maintains that U.S. “supermax” prisons, where terrorists convicted in civilian courts are incarcerated, are inhumane.
Even if they are not released, the presence of terrorists in American prisons creates enormous security problems. In 2000, while purportedly preparing for his trial on charges of bombing U.S. embassies in Africa, an al-Qaeda inmate maimed a prison guard in an attempt to break himself and his confederates out of jail. Sayyid Nosair helped plot the 1993 World Trade Center bombing from Attica prison in New York, even as he recruited new terrorists and conspired to escape. Despite maximum-security confinement conditions, other WTC bombers were permitted to communicate by mail with overseas terror cells. And from the federal prison where he is serving a life sentence for terrorism, the notorious “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel Rahman, issued the fatwa approving the 9/11 attacks. With the help of his now-convicted lawyer, he continued guiding his Egyptian terrorist organization.
Despite this record, the Obama administration says it can securely detain additional hundreds of terrorists. This claim would be hard to swallow even if Holder’s Justice Department were not now caving in to jihadists’ complaints that confinement conditions in civilian prisons are too onerous. DOJ has just moved the “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, into the general prison population after he contended that heightened security measures designed to hinder terrorists violated the First Amendment by denying his alleged right to communal prayer with other jihadists.
The detainees should be kept at Gitmo. Situated on a U.S. naval base outside the country, it optimizes security and minimizes the threat imprisoned terrorists pose to the public. It is a fastidiously humane facility. With the trumped-up critiques of Gitmo muted by the embarrassing reluctance of its severest European critics to accept custody of the prisoners, none but the most inflexible leftists are bothering about its continued operation. Gitmo is money well spent. The TCC would be money poorly spent — and a dangerous blunder.
The Jacksonville Examiner’s resident expert on Homeland Security Val Jensen has written a nice long article discussing the differences between the surge in Iraq and the coming surge in Afghanistan. This is a question that has been on many people’s minds, especially since organizations like ours have been heralding the successes of the surge, even as many liberals predicted it would fail, or denied that it was succeeding even as the violence was dropping.
Many anti-war leftists and liberal democrats have argued that the Afghanistan war is completely unwinnable. This is extremely ironic as most of the people who used to criticize the Iraq war would point to Afghanistan and say “why are you spending so much time and resources on an endless war in Iraq when we really should be worrying about Afghanistan.”
Well where are we now? Iraq has turned into the success story and the liberals have changed their tune. In trying to explain the differences he sees, Val Jensen echoed some of the arguments brought up by those people trying to derail this new Surge in Afghanistan.
He has three main points in his article. They are:
1 - The terrain is different and makes it hard to hunt down the Taliban
2 - The Taliban/Al Qaeda is Different from Iraqi Al-Qaeda
3 - Afghanistan has less infrastructure and is a less cohesive nation
They sure do seem like they make it a lot tougher, and everyone is saying that if we apply the same strategy to Afghanistan as we did in Iraq, that it’s going to be much tougher and we’re likely to fail. But in reading some of Jensens reasoning, I found many things I disagreed with him on, ways in which I think Iraq and Afghanistan actually aren’t quite that different on.
First of all Jesnen says, “The Taliban has used this natural fortress to protect them from any sort of pitched battle and resorting to guerilla tactics and short skirmishes makes them quite effective against the strongest military in the world; not to mention repelling and defeating the Soviet invasion of the 1980’s .”
While it’s true that the Taliban did defeat the Soviet Union, we have to remember they had SUBSTANTIAL assistance from The USA, Pakistan, and the state of Israel, all whom contributed tons of money, advanced weaponry from America, and even a tough-negotiated deal between Israel and a historical enemy Egypt, to buy soviet made AK-47s very cheaply. We EVEN had some help from Saudi Arabia’s state secret police and intelligence agency. Doesn’t anyone remember Charlie Wilson’s War?
Comparing the US’s current mission to the Soviet’s invasion is quite erroneous. And while our troops have been operating in the mountainous, harsh regions of the Hindu Kush, the real goal is not to destroy the Taliban in those “impregnable mountains” ( actually they are not so impregnable, if Obama would let our military use all the forces at their disposal, we could make those mountains as flat as Iraq )
But Stan McChrystal has noted that our mission in Afghanistan is not to kill every last Taliban rank-and-file soldier but to kill their leaders (like OBL) and “disrupt and degrade the Taliban's capacity, deny their access to the Afghan population, and strengthen the Afghan security forces," as he testified before congress.
The real bottom line is that looking at the differences in terrain as mountains v.s. deserts is a slight misunderstanding of what Counter-Insurgency strategy really is, and it’s not how our troops view the terrain. When Move America Forward visited Iraq in late 2007, we were reminded several times by commanders there that “our Terrain is the population, not the cities or countryside or the desert”
In his 2nd point, Jensen says, “In Iraq, what helped turned around the tide of the war was not any initiative on the American military side but by the Sunni tribal sheiks turning against or at least not assisting Al-Qaeda.”
First of all I take issue with how he is wording this, because he says “not any initiatives on the American military side” making it seem like The Sunni Awakening and the Sons of Iraq were what really changed the war, NOT the surge.
If that’s the case why does he say “what HELPED” turn the war around? He seems to recognize that it was not JUST the awakening, but other factors as well. So if it was other factors what were they if not the surge?
Obviously the surge was the catalyst here… the Sunnis would NEVER have turned against Al Qaeda if they did not KNOW reliably that America was in the game to stay and win. The Surge proved that America was willing to stand and fight, and that gave the Sunnis the confidence to know that if they opposed Al Qaeda, they would get the support from the Americans and not be killed by Al Qaeda’s terrorist death squads. Also it was the US that armed, worked with and organized the son’s of Iraq, who were the first credible Iraqi security force, since at the time the National Police were still weak and rank with corruption and infighting.
So I think Jensen fails to give U.S involvement the credit that it deserves in not only fermenting the Sunni Awakening, but with the surge and all the other factors that turned Iraq around.
Finally he says “In Afghanistan, it seems hard pressed to turn Taliban fighters in part because of their strict adherence to radical Salafi-inspired ideology”
This doesn’t seem to be an apples-to-apples comparison. In Iraq the civilian population turned against Al Qaeda. In Afghanistan we are also looking for the civilian population to turn against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. We already know most of the civilians in Afghanistan just want to be left alone by the Taliban, so I don’t see why Jensen thinks it’s a necessary component to actually turn Taliban fighters against other Taliban fighters.
Finally he says “fighting the Taliban takes on a considerable extra hardship than self-interested tribes in Iraq who were willing to side with the U.S. and eventually not Al-Qaeda. At the time of the surge in Iraq, the tribal leaders were already starting to take sides with the U.S. and so this very important variable will not be present in the Afghani surge.”
I know Jensen has studied in Israel, but I don’t know if he has studied an intricate history of Afghanistan. I myself have only a limited knowledge of history, but in more than a few sources I have read about the Afghan-Soviet war, it is a fact that there were many tribes and tribal in Afghanistan who were willing to side with the soviets against the religious insurgency then.
So while it is true that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have a long history and will not turn against each other, we are not trying to cause a rift between Taliban and al Qaeada, nor do we need to in order to defeat them. The tribes in Afghanistan and Iraq ARE essentially THE SAME in that they are not inextricably adherent to one power, simply to the one that benefits them.
The key here is not to sew dissention in the ranks of Al Qaeda or Taliban but to win popular support. That’s how we won in Iraq and that’s how we CAN win in Afghanistan.
As Gen. McChrystal put it, “rather than wipe out every Taliban member, what we need to do is lower their capacity to the point where -- within their own means -- Afghanistan can hold them from being a major threat to either their way of life or their government. I think that, over time, that will cause the Taliban to go away, to become irrelevant, and cease to exist."
Lt. Colonel Oliver North, one of our favorite commentators and probably one of the most credible voices around when it comes to our troops and the proper strategy to follow in Afghanistan (and Iraq before) has written a nice two pager going over some of the problems in President Obama's address to West Point Cadets
Giving the enemy a timetable for withdrawing American troops while committing additional combat forces to a war zone is unprecedented. No commander in chief has done such a thing before -- because it makes no sense from a political or military perspective.
Ollie here is referring to what I also thought was the stupidest thing about Obama's 'strategy' if you could even call it that. This timetable they are talking about is just the dumbest way to fight a war that I can imagine. Even with the caveat that it is 'subject to the situation on the ground' it's still a horrible miscalculation and it still provides a recruiting call for the enemy.
Even if the Taliban and Al Qaeda do last through to 2011 and Obama determines that he can't draw down the troop levles as much as he would hope for, it won't mitigate the effect of making America look weak and providing a rallying cry of 'imminent victory' for the Taliban. Post 2011, the Taliban and Al Qaeda will both be under the mentality that "America wants to pull out, they said they would any day now" and it won't matter how many troops we have there, or what Obama says THEN, it will be clear at least in the terrorists minds that if they just keep holding out SOON, VERY SOON, the resolve of America will buckle and they will take their tanks and go home just like the Soviets were booted from Afghanistan.
It's too late for Obama now, I think. Even if he goes back on his word and says "no timetable" i think everyone will still know in the back of their heads that 2011 is going to be breaking point for the United States. And I think the only thing that could change that perception in the minds of the Taliban would be a whole new commander in chief whose rhetoric is totally different from Obama's.
Some other things to note in this article that I had not seen anywhere else, and even though you might think these seem trivial, if you consider that Obama does these types of things in almost ALL his speeches, you start to feel like they really say something about the character of this man and how he sees himsself... which disturbs me.
Mr. Obama has stopped talking about the war in Afghanistan and moved on to "creating jobs," a topic he raised four times in his West Point speech.
Mr. Obama's self-centered West Point remarks -- he referred to himself no fewer than 57 times
"More than half working were kids between 10 and 16 years old, mostly home-educated, whose parents want to raise them to be responsible. It was loud and social and productive. We assembled and filled almost 900 boxes, stopping only because we started running out of stuff."
The Taliban and Al Qaeda received another respite from President Obama this week when he decided to yet again postpone a decision on General McChrystal’s request for additional troops in Afghanistan until after the Thanksgiving holiday.
While the AP is reporting that the country (and the forgotten troops already in Afghanistan) will finally be graced with Obama’s “revised” strategy early next week, the delay has been, in military jargon, one fubar after another.
The mess started with an initial review last spring that resulted in the firing of Gen. David McKiernan in May and replacing him with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Because, in Defense Secretary Gate’s words, “fresh thinking” on Afghanistan was urgently needed.
But when that same, hand picked, “fresh thinking”, general plopped a 40,000 troop increase request on the President’s desk in August all of a sudden a “new” review of Afghanistan was needed. (In Obama speech that translates into: Crap, what the hell does McChrystal think he’s doing? He was appointed to be a “different” kind of general. I’ll never get this past my left wing base.)
And so McChrystal and the men and women actually carrying the burden have been forced to wait for months while the White House political machine spun the delays as a deliberate and thoughtful process. (Translated: We’re in it up to our eyeballs now and we don’t have a clue what to do next.)
Even our most staunch ally, Great Britain, is publicly wondering what the hell this White House is doing. It has gotten so bad, that UK Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth publicly stated Obama’s delays as a reason for loss of British public support for the crucial mission against the Taliban.
But it does now seems that even Obama couldn’t bear the thought of his legacy being the President who lost his own “war of necessity” and will grant McChrystal most of what he wants. (According to AP’s Anne Gearan and Jennifer Loven , the troop increase will be in the 32,000 to 35,000 range.)
So other than providing the President political cover, it appears the delay accomplished precious little. All the while, precious time was lost and even more importantly more precious American blood was spilled.
If FDR had been as indecisive as this President has been so far, instead of the famous: “Yesterday, December 7th, a date which will live in infamy….”, we’d have, “A few months back, on a date I’m not really sure of…..”
Thank you to the ACLU Blog for mentioning Move America Forward, as we as Soldier Angels, another great organization.
I have to say though, I don't really agree with the STOP-ACLU blogger about these PETA treats. I would say... 'NICE TRY, JERKS" instead of "Kudos for trying"
I have nothing against PETA for wanting to help our troops - that is admiral thing... but did they think at all? Maybe I'm just oversensitive but I have 2 issues as to why I don't think this idea, however well intentioned, was a good idea, or helps our troops. Here's why
One - the idea of putting Bin Laden on a piece of chocolate is pretty much stupid. I know some might think it's cute to bite the head off of this hated terrorist, but look at the other examples of things we make chocolate out of.
Chocolate Bunnies. Chocolate Santa.
Chocolate Obama even
We even have chocolate Star Wars
NO ONE makes or produces a milk chocolate Hiter. No matter what the joke is, if it's cute or funny, I think either way, a milk chocolate hitler would be considered by most to be in poor taste. We make chocolate in the likeness of things we love, not things we want to destroy. Because chocolate is awesome, and I'm sorry but Chocolate Bin Laden, you are not awesome.
Point 2.
why do we not send chocolate to iraq? it melts.
Vegan chocolate is non-dairy, but it still melts.
Which sucks for troops opening up a box of messy, disgusting chocolate. In fact, the BEST way to send chocolate to Iraq, is in cookie form, which is how MAF sends chocolate through our OREO brand cookies.
So thats why I think PETA is still lame, despite trying to do a good thing. Now for your reading pleasure, here is the original article
Even When Doing Something Great For The Troops, PETA Goes Wonky
Posted on November 19, 2009
The first part deserves a big “kudos!”
Troops craving chocolate in Afghanistan could soon be eating dairy-free treats bearing the image of Osama bin Laden.
A chocolatier and longtime People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals supporter is making the special vegan chocolates for the troops after reading about how difficult it was to get chocolate in Afghanistan. The so-called “bin Laden bites” give the troops the chance to bite his head off, a news release from PETA said.
As the saying goes, it’s the thought that counts, and, hey, there could be some who are allergic to milk. Either way, chocolate is chocolate, when you are in a war zone. What about the Iraq troops, though?
In addition to supporting the troops and protesting the Sept. 11 attacks, PETA said it also wanted to use the chocolates to protest bin Laden’s torture and killing of animals during and in the days following the World Trade Center attacks, when their guardians were killed, leaving the animals to die of dehydration, starvation or exposure to toxic fumes.
Sigh. While certainly noble in concept, they do realize that 3,000 of friends, neighbors, and loved ones died that day, and huge amounts of people were injured and affected, right? At least they, unlike so many on the left, hate Osama, so, a bit of props to them on that. So, credit where credit is due. Even if a bit wonky.
With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, and, heck, just a day ending in a “y,” there are tons of places you can send a care package to our troops. I usually do it through Soldier’s Angels and Move America Forward, and Food Lion have a chocolate for the troops program, at least at the 2 different ones I tend to hit.
