Pat Dollard | Young Americans

This war has divided our politicians and may be the deciding factor in dividing our people. As we face our own private war against liberals, whether it be in the super market, or at the bar, we MUST educate ourselves and hit them with the facts. We must win the argument every time. Here is a quick, concise sit rep of Iraq from Max Boot. Enjoy…

Resist The Urge To Leave Iraq

As Petraeus and Crocker know, the U.S. can win if troops remain.

By Max Boot

One of the unfortunate consequences of the recent offensive in Basra is that when Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker appear before Congress today and Wednesday, their charts will show an uptick in Iraq’s violence last month. But that is an anomaly. Violence has already dropped back to pre-March levels, and Iraq is demonstrably more peaceful now than it was before the surge. Civilian deaths are down more than 80% and American deaths are down more than 60% since December 2006.

Faced with this evidence of the surge’s military success, critics of the war effort have resorted to claiming that promised political progress has not followed. But even that talking point is outdated. The legislative logjam was broken Jan. 12, when the Iraqi parliament passed a law designed to ease the reintegration of former Baathists into society.

There are still questions about how that law will be implemented, but there is no denying that the parliament made an even more dramatic breakthrough on Feb. 13, when it simultaneously passed a law on provincial powers, a law offering amnesty to many (primarily Sunni) detainees and a new national budget. Although one of Iraq’s vice presidents vetoed the provincial-powers law, his veto was withdrawn and the law was approved by Iraq’s presidency council. Provincial elections are set for Oct. 1.

According to the U.S. Institute for Peace: “It may be that Feb. 13, 2008, will be remembered as the day when Iraq’s political climate began to catch up with its improved security situation — or, more to the point, when Iraqi leaders discovered the key to political compromise and reconciliation.”

Overall, according to Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, the government of Iraq “has now met 12 out of the original 18 benchmarks set for it, including four out of the six key legislative benchmarks. It has made substantial progress on five more, and only one remains truly stalled.” The one benchmark that remains stalled is the hydrocarbon law, but its purpose (the equitable sharing of oil revenues) is being accomplished de facto through the budget.

This is hardly meant to suggest that everything is suddenly swell. Iraq is still a country at war, with deep problems that will take years to resolve. For every sign of progress, there is a “but” that follows.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has suffered major defeats in the last year, largely being driven out of Anbar, Diyala and Baghdad provinces, but it is still hanging on in Mosul, where Iraqi and American forces are fighting a tough battle against the terrorists.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has shown a welcome willingness to go after Shiite extremists, but the Basra offensive showed that he still does not have the ability to rout the Mahdi Army and other entrenched militias that receive considerable support from Iran.

Ninety thousand Iraqis (mainly but not entirely Sunnis) have joined the Sons of Iraq, U.S.-backed security groups, to protect their own neighborhoods from terrorists, but the central government needs to make greater progress in finding long-term employment for them — either in civilian jobs or in the Iraqi security forces.

The security forces are growing in size (from fewer than 500,000 in 2006 to more than 600,000 today) and competence (although a few deserted in Basra, most do not run away from a fight), but they still need U.S. support, especially for higher-level functions such as command and control, air cover, logistics and intelligence collection.

Iraqi politicians are showing a welcome ability to make compromises, but administrative competence remains low. The government’s most corrosive problem is the failure to deliver basic services — which might begin to be addressed by the election of new provincial governments.

The question that opponents of the war effort have to answer is: Will Iraq’s problems become better or worse if we pull our troops out? Few who have spent any time in Iraq doubt that an American withdrawal would trigger chaos that would make the recent fighting in Basra look like a picnic. That would be not only a terrible stain on our honor (we might be indirectly responsible for genocide) but a significant strategic setback because it could destabilize the entire region.

Victory — defined as a democratic state that does not oppress its own people, provide a haven for terrorists, proliferate weapons of mass destruction or threaten its neighbors — remains eminently achievable if we listen to the best advice of Petraeus and Crocker and resist the urge to pull our troops out too fast. If we ignore their warnings and head for the exits, we are assured of the worst military defeat in U.S. history and a major victory for Shiite and Sunni extremists who will continue to attack us in the future.

Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing editor to Opinion.

Not sure if this was already brought to your attention, but it is worth mentioning - every day if necessary. This is another great reminder of how amazing our military is. Reading this article makes me very humble. I am honored to call myself a veteran alongside legends like this.

Sorry I have been off the radar for a while; I have been traveling and training. It is good to be back and see all of you patriots still committed to the truth.

Sailor Killed In Iraq Awarded Medal Of Honor

Michael A. Monsoor, who grew up in Garden Grove, has been selected to receive the medal posthumously for his efforts to save fellow SEALs during a firefight in 2006.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

On the last day of his life, on a rooftop in Ramadi, Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor was assigned to protect three SEAL snipers. When an insurgent’s grenade lobbed from the street bounced off Monsoor’s chest, he didn’t hesitate. He yelled “Grenade!” and pounced on it even though he had a clear path of escape.

He was dead within 30 minutes, but he had saved the lives of three SEALs.

On Monday, the White House announced that Monsoor, 25, who grew up in Garden Grove, has been selected to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest medal for combat bravery, for his actions that violent day, Sept. 29, 2006.

It will be the third Medal of Honor bestowed for bravery in Iraq.

Monsoor’s family and his fellow SEALs said Monday that even as they grieve over his death they are not surprised that he sought the safety of others before his own.

Sara Monsoor, a pediatric nurse at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, said her brother never mentioned the dangers of his deployment in his e-mails and phone calls home. Still, the family knew he had been assigned to what was the most violent city in Anbar province, the home of the most hard-core elements in the Sunni Arab insurgency.

“We knew things were difficult there and if anything happened, Mike would be the first to jump in and try to make it better,” his sister said. His fellow SEALs, she added, “were like his brothers.”

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Seth Stone, Monsoor’s platoon commander on the mission that cost his life, remembered Monsoor’s sense of humor and dedication to duty. “Mike never complained. He always had a smile,” Stone said.

He said he knew something had gone tragically wrong on the rooftop that day when he heard the sickening sound of the muffled explosion.

President Bush is set to present the medal to Monsoor’s parents, George and Sally Monsoor, at the White House on April 8.

“We’re looking at it as a way to celebrate Mike,” his sister said of the ceremony.

Monsoor is buried at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, across the bay from SEAL headquarters in Coronado.

A petty officer second class, he will be the first in the Navy to receive the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq.

Only one Marine, Cpl. Jason Dunham, and one Army soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, have been awarded the medal for actions in Iraq. SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy received the Medal of Honor for service in Afghanistan. All three awards were posthumous.

Monsoor has also been awarded a Silver Star for rescuing a wounded SEAL during the same deployment. While under continuous fire, he dashed into a street to drag his comrade to safety. He never told his family about his heroism. They learned about it the month before his death, while attending another SEAL’s funeral.

Born in Long Beach, Monsoor played football at Garden Grove High School, graduating in 1999. He enjoyed snowboarding, body-boarding and spearfishing, as well as riding his motorcycle and driving his Corvette. His father and one of his brothers were Marines, but he decided to enlist in the Navy in 2001.

The family talks about him constantly, his sister said: “We just try to carry on. We’re all totally proud of him.”

Monsoor completed the grueling 25-week SEAL training in 2004 on his second try. A broken heel had forced him to drop out on his initial attempt. The dropout rate for many SEAL trainee classes exceeds 50%.

In Ramadi, Monsoor’s Delta Platoon, SEAL Team Three, was assigned to mentor Iraqi army troops. In late 2006, insurgents were spread throughout the city and had the support — either through shared ideology or intimidation — of many residents.

As a communicator and machine-gunner on patrols, Monsoor carried 100 pounds of gear in temperatures often exceeding 100 degrees. He took a lead position to protect the platoon from frontal assault.

On three-quarters of their patrols, the SEALs drew insurgent fire, Stone said. Some firefights lasted for hours. Over about five months, the platoon killed at least 84 insurgents and detained numerous others.

On Sept. 29, the platoon engaged four insurgents in a firefight. Anticipating further attacks, Monsoor and other SEALs had taken up a rooftop position. Civilians aiding the insurgents blocked off the streets, and a nearby mosque blared out a message for people to rise up against the Americans and the Iraqi soldiers.

Monsoor’s duty was to protect three SEAL snipers, two of whom were 15 feet away. His position made him the only SEAL on the rooftop with quick access to an escape route.

But when the grenade hit him and fell onto the roof, he “chose to protect his comrades by the sacrifice of his own life,” according to a Navy report.

The two SEAL snipers nearest to Monsoor were injured in the blast. Monsoor was immediately evacuated for medical care, but it was too late.

The SEALs, a tough and close-knit, group, were deeply affected by his death, Stone said.

We go through a hell of a lot to call ourselves Marines…I don’t know whether to feel sorry for this guy or what. Notice that it takes the NY Times to counterpoint this with a “free-speech” issue; Free only becasue people are willing to die for it…

A False Claim Of Valor And A Cry Of Free Speech

By Adam Liptak
NY Times

When Xavier Alvarez was asked to say a few words about himself at a meeting of a California water board last summer, he decided on these: “I’m a retired marine of 25 years. I retired in the year 2001. Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I got wounded many times by the same guy. I’m still around.”

Only the last three words were true. Mr. Alvarez never served in the Marines and was certainly never given the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor in action against an enemy force.

He is, then, a liar. Is he also a criminal?

Mr. Alvarez is scheduled to go on trial next month in federal court in Los Angeles for violating the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which makes it a crime to lie about having received certain medals.

Craig H. Missakian, the prosecutor in the case, is a brainy and literate fellow. “It’s a superinteresting area,” he said, beginning a discussion of Pericles’ funeral oration and the importance of honoring the legacies of those fallen in battle.

“You don’t want to stifle speech about opinions and ideas,” Mr. Missakian said. “But Congress, and rightfully so, recognized the great sacrifice that people awarded the Medal of Honor made on behalf of their country. To the extent we have phony Medal of Honor winners running around like Alvarez, it dilutes the value of their sacrifice.”

That rationale is reflected in Congressional findings. The law, Congress said, is meant “to protect the reputation and meaning of military decorations and medals.”

Some First Amendment experts worry that criminalizing speech about symbols is a dangerous business and is reminiscent of laws against flag burning that the Supreme Court has held unconstitutional.

“If the government cannot under the First Amendment compel reverence when it comes to our nation’s highest symbol,” asked Ronald K. L. Collins, a scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington, “why then can it compel reverence when it comes to lesser forms of symbolic expression?”

In California, where Mr. Alvarez continues to sit on the board of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District, an elected position, patience is wearing thin.

“There’s no question he’s pathological,” said Bob G. Kuhn, the board’s president, recounting some of what has come out of Mr. Alvarez’s mouth. “He’s had three helicopter accidents. He’s been shot 16 times. These are all fabrications.”

But Mr. Kuhn said the board was powerless to expel Mr. Alvarez, who continues to receive $200 per meeting and health insurance. The board has censured him, though, for putting a woman he falsely claimed was his wife on the board’s health plan.

At first, Mr. Kuhn said, he took no position on the wisdom of the criminal prosecution of his colleague.

“But we’ve had 40 or 50 veterans parade before our board, asking him to publicly apologize,” Mr. Kuhn said. “He has refused to do that. With that said, I have no problem with the prosecution.”

Mr. Alvarez is facing the possibility of two years in prison and a $200,000 fine. He is represented by a federal public defender, Brianna J. Fuller, and he has filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the First Amendment protects him.

Free speech experts say the motion is unlikely to succeed.

“On the other hand,” Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote on his blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, “the legal issue is not as clear as one at first might think.” He cited the somewhat muddy Supreme Court jurisprudence in this area and an October decision of the Washington Supreme Court that struck down a state law making it illegal for politicians to lie about candidates for public office.

“The best remedy for false or unpleasant speech is more speech, not less speech,” Justice James M. Johnson of the Washington Supreme Court wrote. It is hard to muster much sympathy for Mr. Alvarez. But it is easy to envision cases in which laws to protect symbols are misused.

In 1970, for instance, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Daniel J. Schacht, who had protested the Vietnam War in what he called a street skit, for violating a law that allowed actors to wear military uniforms only “if the portrayal does not tend to discredit” the armed forces.

Rodney A. Smolla, the dean of the Washington and Lee University School of Law and the author of several books on free speech, said Mr. Alvarez’s case was different.

“My instinct is that there probably would not be a winning First Amendment defense because of the confluence of two factors,” Professor Smolla said. First, he said, it is hard to identify anything positive Mr. Alvarez contributed to any debate. Second, he said, “the integrity of the honors that the military bestows is very important.”

Mr. Alvarez did not respond to a request for an interview, and Ms. Fuller, his lawyer, declined to comment, citing office policy.

Not long after he was indicted, Mr. Alvarez told The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin that his comments had been taken out of context. On learning they had been taped, he changed his story.

“I was just nervous, saying anything,” Mr. Alvarez said. “There’s no truth to that. What harm did that do to them?”

I need help here..I think we all do. Hear me out.

I am married. I raise my niece. So for tax purposes, I have a wife and a child. Me and my wife both work and we do OK. Middle class. Our tax with-holding is W1.

I have to pay $4,000.

I went to three different places and I did it myself. Same result.

We saved a few bucks by filing Married: filing Separate.

Then I get a letter from the IRS about the special money we are getting this summer, saying that if we file Separate, we get $300 a piece. If we file JOINT, we get $600 a person. WTF? Now I have to file an amended return. Thanks.

It gets worse…

I just heard that the money we get this summer, will come out of next year’s tax returns? Is this true or a nasty rumor? can somebody please give me a NO-SHIT reference? Is this really a sort of “loan” or “advance”?

Whoever gets elected next will do well by pulling their cock out of my ass.

Semper.

Just refreshing to know that we do have true heroes and visionaries that don’t just TALK about change, they roll up their sleeves, get in the mud, and MAKE change.

Lessons From The General

Big Ray Odierno Returns From Iraq

By Ralph Peters

LT. Gen. Ray Odierno looks like he could snap an NFL linebacker in half. Yet his voice is so quiet you strain to hear him across the table in an empty pub.

And the general’s worth listening to.

Just back from commanding our day-to-day military operations in Iraq, he’s been nominated as the Army’s next vice chief of staff. He’ll take the battlefield’s lessons along to that post.

What did Iraq teach Odierno as a soldier? What professional tenets were reinforced by his multiple combat tours?

“First, you have to empower your subordinates. That means you have to underwrite the risks involved,” to take the heat when they make mistakes. The general sees this as crucial to our 21st-century Army.

“Second, as a senior leader, you have to trust your instincts . . . you never stop learning and you have to adapt to the changing situation . . . but trust your instincts.”

“Third, you have to get out and touch it, feel it, see it.” You can’t manage a war or a counterinsurgency effort from an office. Nothing substitutes for the sense of reality you get from walking the streets with soldiers and Marines.

So what did an old soldier like Odierno learn about our troops during his successive - and successful - tours in Iraq?

“They are compassionate. They genuinely care - not just about each other, but about Iraqis, too. I saw it again and again. They are compassionate young men and women.”

Any surprises about our soldiers? “They’ve surprised me with their resilience. . . They continue to re-enlist, continue to perform. . . Both leaders and soldiers have shown incredible resilience in the way they’ve adapted” to the changing situation in Iraq. “And I realized how much we can trust our soldiers.”

That certainly goes for Marines, as well. The general sees the old inter-service rivalry as a relic of the past: “In Iraq, there’s only respect for capabilities between the Army and Marines. Marines command soldiers, soldiers command Marines. We’re all brothers in arms.”

And sisters in arms, too. Odierno stresses, proudly, that women have become so integrated into our military that “it’s second nature now. I’ve seen female officers commanding Military Police companies in some of the toughest spots in Iraq, leading a hundred men - and Iraqis, whose culture doesn’t put women in such positions. Because of their pure leadership qualities, it wasn’t a problem.”

The general also feels that a great untold story has been the advances in cooperation between special-operations and conventional forces - right down to the brigade and battalion levels - in just the last 18 months. In the past, the special operators and the grunts usually went their separate ways. Not anymore: “There’s real synergy now.”

Yet war’s essence remains the same: “The principle of war of mass hasn’t changed” - the piling-on that overwhelms an enemy - “but now it’s a question of what you mass. It may mean massing troops. Another time, you mass aircraft or rockets.” In counterinsurgency operations, “it may be money that you mass, or resources.”

In the what’s-new department, the Army’s prospective vice chief is convinced that “We need to better understand the cyber-world piece. . . It’s critical to our enemies.” In that field and in our information operations, we still have to come to grips with everything from practical capabilities to laws.

“It’s not just about the enemy anymore. It’s about the environment . . . the population, sectarian considerations, perceptions . . . or tribal politics, as in Iraq. What kind of government do you have to deal with, for example?”

Odierno keeps returning to the theme of doing our best for our soldiers, the key mission he’ll face in his new job. “What does the Army bring? We bring soldiers. How do we develop, educate, train and equip them to do their best?”

These are tough challenges at a time when there won’t be enough defense dollars to replace all the materiel lost or worn out in our wars and to acquire the next-generation systems each service hopes to field. The general intends to turn a skeptical eye on promised “wonder” systems, to make sure the Army and the taxpayer get good value.

“We have to make the most of the budget we’ve got,” he says bluntly.

So . . . what about Iraq? Do any specific incidents leap to mind from this past year? Was there an unforgettable Aha! moment?

“It was back in March and April. I went down to Ramadi, to 1-9 Infantry, who were doing the final clearance operations. I saw what they had to go through” in the brutal fighting. “Then I went back, just 30 days later, and saw an amazing difference. Once they were free of al Qaeda, the people just came back to life. They felt free.

“That’s when I thought to myself, ‘Yes, we can do this. We can make this happen.’ ”

The general was about to begin a long-overdue leave, and this interview was his final mission of the day. Anything he’d like to say directly to Post readers?

“I want to thank all the readers for the support they’ve given our soldiers. It means a lot to us. And I’m very proud to be a part of the Army of the United States.

“As for Iraq, we have made significant progress . . . and it’s in our strategic interests to have a friendly government in Iraq. Our soldiers have sacrificed a great deal. It should not be in vain.”

The general went quiet for a moment, looking inward. “It means a lot to me to finish this mission.”

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Wars of Blood and Faith.”

This is what Yours Truly had been up to the last couple of months. Great program with outstanding results. Feel free to ask me any questions; keeping in mind that there is only so much I can say. Either way, this is one of the best things to hit the Corps in my 12 years of Active duty.

Teaching Marines to be like hunters

Unorothodox war training emphasizes ‘primal skills’
By Rick Rogers

February 29, 2008

Trying to become predators instead of prey, Marines headed to Iraq will go through training built on advice from big-game hunters, soldiers of fortune and troops who grew up around firearms in the woods or the inner city.

Combat Hunter, a program begun at Camp Pendleton and now being rolled out nationwide, is designed to help Marines stalk and kill insurgents by using their senses and instincts. It emphasizes keen observation of Marines’ surroundings and meticulous knowledge of their foes’ habits.
“This is the most comprehensive training of its kind in our history,” said Col. Clarke Lethin, chief of staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton.

“These are primal skills that we all have but that we evolved out of,” he added. “We are going back in time. The Marines who go through this program will never be the same. They’ll never look at the world the same again.”

The Marine Corps had not paid much attention to this low-tech combat approach since the Vietnam War. Like the other service branches, the Corps has generally gone high-tech by creating increasingly advanced weapons and developing virtual reality training.

Combat Hunter grew out of a concept by Gen. James Mattis, who has spearheaded the formation of various training programs for the Marine Corps. He saw the need for greater focus on hunting-related skills while overseeing combat forces at Camp Pendleton in 2006.

At the time, the Marines had recently turned the corner on roadside bomb attacks that killed and maimed so many of them in Iraq. They became better at detecting improvised explosive devices and blunting their impact.

Then the insurgents changed tactics. Instead of blowing up Marines, the enemy increasingly turned to shooting them as they patrolled neighborhoods or drove by in convoys.

Mattis, known for out-of-the-box thinking, weighed his options. He considered adding Marine snipers to protect his units, but he rejected the idea because it would take too long to train and field them.

Then he hit upon the idea of Combat Hunter, a strategy that squared with the Marine Corps’ aggressive fighting style.

“One of the things that Gen. Mattis said is that he wanted a quick turnaround for this project. There was a sense of urgency,” said Maj. James Martin, the project officer for Combat Hunter.

Lethin recalled the reason for that urgency: Too many troops felt fear when they left their bases in Anbar province, the vast western region of Iraq where Marines hold the lead combat role for the U.S. military.

“Fear is a terrible thing. The Marines felt they were being hunted. They felt they were bait for the insurgents,” Lethin said.

“How do we teach our Marines to be the hunters? How do we bring the confidence back?” Lethin said. “Sometimes technology is not the answer. We think we have the answer in Combat Hunter.”

The unorthodox program draws on the expertise of an eclectic mix of consultants. There are the tracking abilities of David Scott-Donelan, a former officer in the South African Special Forces and a veteran of civil wars in Africa. Then there’s African guide Ivan Carter, as well as others who would rather not be identified by the Marine Corps.

Training drills also reflect the hunting skills of Marines from rural areas and, as an unclassified Marine briefing said, the life experiences of those “who have lived in disadvantaged areas of large cities.”

Some of the training was on display yesterday in an area of Camp Pendleton called the K-2 Combat Town.

Marines usually train among its prefabricated buildings and in its dirt-lined streets. But for Combat Hunter, they perch in the green hills and watch what goes on in the mock village.

From a distance of eight or more football fields away, teams of Marines learned what to look for downhill. As they peered through binoculars, the Marines tried to catalog hundreds of details to form a baseline of knowledge. Then they looked for telltale signs of insurgent behavior.

The scenario they watched yesterday involved a mock sniper shooting an Iraqi police officer. The Marines had to tease out clues to ascertain who did what and from where. The exercise was one of 15 scenes that they will scrutinize in the next two weeks.

One goal of the training is teaching troops to unleash deadly force only after they have determined that it’s warranted.

“Just because someone is a jerk does not mean we can kill them, do you got me?” said Greg Williams, a former police officer and big-game hunter as he debriefed 55 Marines from the 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

“Rrrr,” the Marines replied in agreement.

“We never do trigger time unless we do brain time, do you got me?” Williams emphasized.

“Rrrr,” the Marines responded.

After a lunch break, the trainees started analyzing more complex attacks.

Some of them praised Combat Hunter for teaching them to more effectively spot insurgents – as well as roadside bombs and weapons caches – while giving them confidence to patrol day in and day out.

“I think it is absolutely critical training,” said Cpl. Andrew Moul, 25, from Hart, Mich., who will deploy to Iraq in the fall. “In Iraq right now, it is more of a security situation, and we need this skill set to keep civilians and Marines alive by making better decisions.”

Unconventional thinking about an unconventional war might make a lot of sense, said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer for the Lexington Institute, a pro-defense think tank in Arlington, Va.

“What we are learning in Iraq is that the demands of warfare in the new century are so widely different from anything for which we were planning. We have to look in unexpected places for the skills that will serve us best” Thompson said.

“It may be that a combination of better hunting skills, language skills and cultural anthropology serves us better in Iraq than some gee-whiz wireless network,” Thompson said.

And not just becasue he wipes his ass with his bare hands..

This came out of the Washington Times…may be old news, but this is just another good reminder that Obamna’s Fairytale Politics is just a big fat lie. I would’t trust this guy to mow my lawn, let alone be my “Commander in Chief”.

Auchi connection

New attention is being focused on indirect connections between Iraqi-British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, who has been tied to illegal activities in Iraq and France, and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

Auchi gave at least $10.5 million to Obama fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko, including a payment of $3.5 million that coincided with Mr. Obama’s purchase in 2005 of a $1.65 million Chicago house, the London Times reported Tuesday. The newspaper said the timing of the payment and the house purchase, along with the purchase of land next door by Mr. Rezko’s wife Rita from the same seller, raise questions about whether Auchi helped buy the house.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, would not answer when asked if Auchi helped buy the senator’s house. He said the senator did not recall ever meeting Auchi, who was convicted of corruption charges in France in 2003.

A lawyer for Auchi told the London Times that his client is not aware that the money from a company linked to Auchi was used to buy Mr. Obama’s house. The newspaper stated that Auchi and Mr. Obama had a brief encounter in 2004 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago.

A 2004 Pentagon report obtained by The Washington Times identified Auchi as a global arms dealer and Iraqi billionaire “who, behind the facade of legitimate business, served as Saddam Hussein’s principle international financial manipulator and bag man.”

The report to the Pentagon inspector general stated that “significant and credible evidence was developed that a conspiracy was organized by Nadhmi Auchi to offer bribes to ‘fix’ the awarding of cellular licensing contracts covering three geographic areas of Iraq” under the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority.

“Additionally, significant and credible evidence has been developed that Nadhmi Auchi has engaged in unlawful activities working closely with Iraqi intelligence operatives to:

*”Bribe foreign governments and individuals prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom to turn opinion against the American-led mission to remove Saddam Hussein.

*”Arrange for significant theft from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program to smuggle weapons and dual-use technology into Iraq ….

*”Organize an elaborate scheme to take over and control the post-war cellular phone system in Iraq.”

The report suggests Auchi has ties to British intelligence through a 2002 association with a former British intelligence chief, and that British telecommunications companies may have used Auchi to gain access to cellular phone markets in post-invasion Iraq.

Auchi has denied accusations over the cell phone contract.

The London Times reported that Auchi gave a $3.5 million loan to Mr. Rezko in May 2005 through a Panamanian company linked to the Iraqi expatriate called Fintrade Services SA.

Several weeks after the loan, Mr. Obama purchased a house on Chicago’s South Side and Mr. Rezko’s wife bought an expensive plot of land next to the house from the same seller on the same day. Mr. Rezko’s wife later sold a 10-foot section of the property to Mr. Obama, to add to the Illinois Democrat’s garden. Mr. Obama has called the land purchase a mistake.

Just imagine….a whole battalion of these things running wild. Throw on some machine guns, rockets, grenade launchers…Holy Crap! I am in love.

Now watch Pat go buy one…

They Call Him The Crusher

He’s big. He’s got no soul. And he’s teaching the DOD what’s possible about driverless vehicles.

By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — The Crusher is a bad, bad man.

He doesn’t smile, doesn’t talk, doesn’t really care about his co-workers. He never offers to carpool.

He’ll drive through yards, roadblocks, even other vehicles without a second thought. He speeds through red lights, ignores stop signs and doesn’t brake for animals.

He has no soul.

But beneath his hard shell lies the heart of a great driver, hellbent on getting from start to finish as quickly as possible. Think Dale Earnhardt Sr., but driving a bulldozer.

Actually, think of Dale as the bulldozer.

The reason Crusher is a bad man is because he’s a fully automated battle truck, designed to plow over the hardest terrain without any help from puny human drivers. Imagine Knight Rider’s self-driving, self-thinking KITT, but with fewer wisecracks and a lot more ramming power.

The robotics project, the culmination of almost four years of work by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is designed to show military planners what unmanned, unsupervised machines can potentially handle on the battlefield.

The seven-ton Crusher is programmed to get itself from point A to point B without any instructions other than some basic GPS coordinates. It has no steering wheel, no seats for passengers, and — unless the remote control override is turned on — no human driver.

It maps its own route while it cruises, picking out the quickest and easiest path to complete the mission. For boulders and riverbeds more than two meters high, the machine plans easier paths around the obstacles. For ones less than two meters, it barrels over or through them, relying on its 30-inch ground clearance and six-wheel nonskid steering system.

“This vehicle can go into places where, if you were following in a Humvee, you’d come out with spinal injuries,” said Stephen Welby, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. “Usually vehicles are set up to protect humans. Here, we didn’t have to worry about that.”

But humans enjoy the scenic drive courtesy of the dozens of laser sensors and mapping cameras mounted on the machine. In a command center miles from the bumpy ride, technicians can see every hill and tumbleweed in full color — and in infrared readouts if needed.

Army officials are still experimenting with the Crusher, and there are no immediate plans to field a military truck that drives itself. And the machine does have limitations. Researchers said they didn’t design it for rush hour, so it doesn’t understand how to follow traffic signs or stoplights. Its nine-foot wide frame isn’t really designed for city driving either.

But Welby said the idea was to get Pentagon planners to think about the next step in warfare, and what role unmanned vehicles will play there.

“This could be used as a scout, or a quick-response support vehicle,” he said. “With existing cameras we’ve put on there this vehicle is able to see rabbits at long-range, and enemy troops from 4 kilometers away. Imagine sending this to an intersection and letting it sit there to monitor what’s going on for days or weeks.”

A battalion could mount speakers on the device and use it for crowd control from afar. Researchers said with a few modifications the crusher could drive as part of a convoy, or run route clearance missions on its own. And machine guns can be mounted on the mast, and controlled by remote while the truck drives itself.

Or the military could simply decide to enter the Crusher in this year’s NASCAR circuit and see how he stacks up against the top human drivers.

Sure, the machine only has a top speed of 26 mph, but it has the advantage of not worrying about getting in a wreck with Tony Stewart. In fact, he might cause a few of his own.

After all, the Crusher has no soul.

And they think She-wolf and Osama are gonna fix things….right…

NATO’s Check-Up

Europe Awakens To Reality

By Ralph Peters

THERE’S life in the old alliance yet.

For 44 years, NATO has given itself an informal health exam at the Munich Conference on Security Policy. This year’s poking and prodding had to be encouraging to anyone with a long-term perspective.

But it wasn’t all good cholesterol last weekend.

Sergey Ivanov, Russia’s first deputy prime minister, is a snake with velvet-coated fangs whose skin has been polished until it gleams. Still, a well-mannered Stalinist with a proper knot in his tie is still a Stalinist.

Last year, President Vladimir Putin was in full Nikita Khruschev mode - spewing threats that repelled Europeans who longed for him to make nice. This year, the uber-sleek Ivanov blithely ignored his country’s tormented realities to assure us all that Russia has the world’s most promising economy, the best investment environment for foreign capital, an unmatched commitment to peace, a delighted citizenry and a firm commitment to democracy.

But his calculated smile always arrived a half-second too late, and his drama-class English only hinted at the interrogation room. Comparing notes with a fellow delegate, I found that we’d both heard a perfect Stalin-era declamation on the glories of the USSR - given a makeover in one of those salons that almost gets the latest hairstyle right, but misses by one embarrassing degree.

On the positive side, I was proud of the bipartisan solidarity and evident integrity of the US delegation’s congressional members. Sen. John McCain, who has long co-headed our Capitol Hill posse with Sen. Joe Lieberman, had to cancel at the last minute - but Sen. Lindsey Graham (en route to Afghanistan for his Reserve duty as an Air Force colonel) made a great substitute.

And the participating members of the House of Representatives, Republican and Democrat, made it clear to the crowd of presidents and ministers that all serious Americans are determined to defend our country against terrorism.

Separately, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who’s still repairing the damage done by his predecessor, made the case that NATO “must not - we cannot - become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not.” The SecDef is trying to prod the lazier members of NATO to lift another finger to help in Afghanistan.

The current frustration on the part of the nations that do fight is understandable. Yet, recalling the old, complacent NATO of the Cold War years, I’m personally surprised that member countries contribute as much as they do.

NATO is (slowly) reinventing itself for a new era - and reinvention-by-committee isn’t easy. We must be careful not to demand too much, too quickly, of countries that have long been convinced that the United States not only always will do their fighting for them (while they complain), but that we’re obligated to protect them free of charge.

Don’t break NATO. It ain’t perfect, but it’s a lot better than nothing.

As for complaints that German troops won’t fight: Come on - isn’t the world better off with Germans holding beer mugs instead of rifles? Been there, done that, got the Holocaust . . .

And while a few more cups of coffee will be required, Europe’s eyes are starting to open to our mutual security requirements. The genuine progress to date showed up in the remarks of Javier Solana, secretary-general of the European Union, who tore into Russia’s Ivanov.

Solana criticized Russia’s recent tantrums, from threats over Kosovo to the Kremlin’s closing of British Council reading rooms in the Soviet Union (sorry, I meant the “Russian Federation”). He stated bluntly that there was “still no strategic convergence with Russia,” that Putin’s threat of a new arms race didn’t do much for Russia’s image, that Russia needs to respect the rule of law and become a “civilized state,” and that the Putin Gang must stop threatening to cut off energy supplies in the dead of winter to punish its neighbors.

In a quasi-diplomatic setting, that amounted to a bare-knuckles smack-down.

Sen. Graham responded brilliantly to Ivanov’s complaints about NATO encroachment on Muscovy, noting - in his cottonmouth Southern drawl - that, “If Russia feels surrounded by states that subscribe to democracy and the rule of law, it should feel lucky.”

It was not a good year for the Kremlin team. The president of Georgia hammered the Russians, too - as did a wide range of other speakers.

But what was really amazing to anyone who’s lived in Europe and listened to generations cry “Yankee go home!” was that, apart from Sen. Graham’s observation, it wasn’t Americans taking on the Russians - we didn’t need to. The Europeans did it themselves.

My fellow Americans, that’s progress.

Other conference trend lines were equally clear:

*Turkey’s going to be more of a problem in the future: Prime Minister Erdogan’s prickly keynote address was disastrous - including yet another denial of the Armenian Genocide during the Q&A session.

*Russia will be much more of a problem.

*France will be much less of a problem (but will still have Gallic hissy fits, of course).

*Poland still manifests a deeper love of freedom and greater courage than any other continental country.

It was marvelous to hear Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslav Sikorski, as he stood at the lectern right above the Russian delegation and spoke - with unmistakable emphasis - of events “25 years ago, in the days of oppression.”

Other than Russian hardliners, the only people on earth who miss the Soviet Union are American defense contractors.

Even the conference catch-phrases on display behind the speakers telegraphed a growing European willingness to grapple with the challenges of our time: “The world in disarray . . . shifting powers . . . lack of strategies?”

Those words meant something. Because the first step in developing a common strategy for the future is the realization that you haven’t got one.

Since when did this “brain-child” become the spokesperson for world peace? I know Pat briefly mentioned her going to Iraq, but just take a look at these quotes; do people really look to her for hope and peace? Just look how good it went in Africa!

Or maybe she is using this opportunity to steal another baby…

You would think that she might help out one of her own and adopt an American baby. Guess not.

Film Star Angelina Jolie Visits Baghdad

By Associated Press

BAGHDAD — Note to world leaders: Next time you need instant access to foreign dignitaries and top military brass, forget the usual protocols. Just send Angelina Jolie.

Hollywood’s globe-trotting leading lady swooped into Baghdad on Thursday to highlight the plight of Iraqi refugees, gaining an audience with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the American Embassy said.

On her mission as a U.N. goodwill ambassador, Jolie also met with Iraqi migration officials to stress that there needs to be a coherent plan for the more than 2 million internally displaced Iraqis who are beginning to trickle back to their homes amid a recent lull in violence.

“There’s lots of goodwill and lots of discussion, but there seems to be just a lot of talk at the moment,” Jolie said in excerpts of an interview aired on CNN.

Jolie mingled with American troops during lunch at a dining facility in the heavily guarded Green Zone, which houses the embassy and Iraqi government offices. She grabbed a red plastic tray at the mess hall, collected her lunch and sat at a long banquet table to eat as flashbulbs from soldiers’ digital cameras lit up the wall behind her.

During the CNN interview, Jolie said the fate of Iraq will have an impact on the Middle East for years to come.

“And a big part of what it’s going to affect,” she said, “is how these people are returned and settled into their homes and their community and brought back together and whether they can live together and what their communities look like.”

Somebody tell me that this is just a bad dream…

Berkeley Finds A New Way To Make War Politics Local
NY Times

By Jesse McKinley

BERKELEY, Calif. — While the City Council here has little — read, no — sway over foreign policy and distant wars, local parking is a different matter. And so it was that a parking space directly in front of the recruiting station here for the Marine Corps was awarded on Tuesday night to an antiwar group in the hope of running the Marines out of town.

Having failed in recent years to impeach President Bush and stop the war in Afghanistan, members of the City Council approved a resolution that encourages people to nonviolently “impede, passively or actively,” the work of the recruiters.

To that end, the council awarded the group, Code Pink, exclusive use of the parking spot for four hours one afternoon each week, for the next six months, to stage its protests. “If you’re going to join the Marines, you’re going to join the Marines,” said Zanna Joi, an activist with Code Pink, which favors cotton-candy-colored garb and in-your-face tactics. “But you don’t have to join the Marines from our town.”

In taking on the Marines, the council also directed the city attorney to investigate legal means of ousting the recruiting station, calling the Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” in this bastion of liberal politics, 1960s free speech and high-minded nonbinding resolutions.

Tom Bates, the city’s mayor and a former Army man himself, said the vote represented his constituents’ longstanding — and frequently vocal — distaste for current military activity.

“Berkeley has been opposed to the Iraq war since the beginning; it’s overwhelmingly unpopular in this community,” Mr. Bates said. “And people feel this is an opportunity to express their discontent.”

One of the nine council members, Gordon Wozniak, opposed the resolution and the parking spot.

“I believe in free speech, and I certainly respect the right of Code Pink to protest,” Mr. Wozniak said. “But I’m also concerned we treat all sides fairly, and I think the Marines recruiters are just doing their job. They’re not evil people.”

Mr. Wozniak, a retired nuclear scientist who opposes the war in Iraq, added that those advocating the parking spot were engaged in the same type of selective treatment that many war opponents object to.

“A lot of the same people who voted for this felt Bush bent the rules,” Mr. Wozniak said, referring to the president’s unfounded claims that Iraq had chemical, nuclear or biological weapons.

This is hardly the first attempt by Berkeley’s civic leaders, many of whom fondly remember the city’s antiwar heyday in the 1960s, to express their unhappiness with the whole concept of war. In 2006, the City Council and voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure calling for the impeachment of Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, citing “high crimes and misdemeanors” related to the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism.

In 2001, the City Council also called for an end to the bombing of Afghanistan just weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, something that earned some council members anonymous death threats.

Despite the vote on Tuesday, Mr. Bates said it was not clear if the city could actually force the Marines to move out of town.

“They still have a year and a half on their lease,” he said.

That said, the resolution also calls for the city attorney to look into possible violations of the Berkeley municipal code regarding sexual discrimination by the Marines, and asks the city manager to write the Marine commandant and tell him that Semper Fi fans are “not welcome in our city.”

Maj. Wes Hayes of the Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, Va., said the corps had not immediately been aware of Berkeley’s actions, but added that they would have no effect on recruiting efforts.

“It’s business as usual,” Major Hayes said.

Inside the Berkeley office, a small storefront a block from the University of California campus, a pull-up bar sits near the window as does a pile of weights, part of the physical fitness test for any potential leathernecks. A poster on the wall reminds recruiters not “to fear the winds of adversity.”

After being open earlier in the day, the front door was locked and the window blinds drawn on Thursday afternoon, at least for a while, as Code Pink protesters chanted happily outside.

Brandon Rousseau, an information technology consultant who works across the street and has a cousin in the Marines, said both sides had a right to go about their business.

“Even if that were a Nazi recruiting station,” Mr. Rousseau said, “they have a right to do that in America.”

Keep your eyes peeled. This evil is everywhere. Transnational islamo-jihadi pukes means they are EVERYWHERE! As for me…guns blazin’…

Al-Qaida Web Site Was Hosted In Phoenix
By Robert Anglen, Arizona Republic

A Web site used by al-Qaida to recruit car bombers, encourage war on the West and provide a forum for Islamic militants went online from Phoenix this week.

The site, a well-known and popular forum for Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers, was the first to report the death of senior al-Qaida leader Abu Laith al-Libi in Pakistan this week.

The north Phoenix company hosting the site took it down Wednesday, just hours after being contacted by The Arizona Republic.

The Web site, www.ek-is.org, facilitates discussions on weapons, explosives and propaganda and often serves as a question-and-answer center for terrorists, a review of the Web site shows.

Bob Cichon, president of Phoenix-based CrystalTech Web Hosting Inc., said he was unaware of the site’s content when his company posted it earlier this week. He said his company, which hosts thousands of Web sites, has no association with extremists or terrorists.

“We are Americans,” he said, adding that his staff had no way to research the Web site because it was in Arabic. “The site is down now.”

The incident reflects a recent push by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups to spread their message, often using Internet hosts in the United States. Although private companies can refuse to host any Web site, they often do little to monitor their sites’ content.

Cichon said the site was sold to CrystalTech by another company. Computer records show the domain name is owned by a person using the address of another Web-hosting company in California. The company, Dynadot in Palo Alto, declined to provide any information about the person.

The site includes video casts of an American tank being bombed, messages from al-Qaida leaders and forums in which terrorist acts are openly discussed, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit group that tracks and translates Islamic Web sites.

“The Web site has ideological and operations functions. . . . There is information about explosives, training, security and technology,” said Eli Alshech, director of the institute’s Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project. “It is very closely associated with al-Qaida, if not directly related.”

Alshech said the Web site’s name is Ikhlas, which means “dedication of faithfulness or dedication to the jihad cause.” He said it is one of the most popular Web sites for Middle Eastern extremists and was the first to report the death of Libi, an al-Qaida commander in Pakistan.

Libi, 41, was on the military’s most-wanted list and was suspected of planning and executing attacks against the United States, including the bombing of an air base in Afghanistan.

Although the Web site was taken down by the Phoenix hosting company, Alshech said, it has other domain names and hosts around the world that allow it to remain online using various Web addresses.

“It is the most stable jihad Web site,” he said, pointing out that the site has had nearly 18 million page hits or viewers, 10 million of which were in the past 10 months.

“The public should be aware of it,” he added.

Alshech said the disruption caused by the Phoenix shutdown wouldn’t last long.

“It moved from Tampa just a week ago to Arizona,” he said. “Let’s see where it will pop up next. We’ll know tomorrow.”

FBI Special Agent Manuel Johnson of Phoenix said his agency is aware of Web sites promoting terrorism but said he could not talk specifically about the Phoenix site because of national-security concerns.

“We investigate specific threats of violence while balancing adherence to constitutional protections,” he said. “With the Internet today, there are blogs and Web sites advocating all kinds of matters.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix did not return calls Thursday.

Among topics recently featured on the Web site:

*Pleas by an al-Qaida operative for Americans to turn against their government.

*Calls for Palestinian militants and Saudi Arabia to attack President Bush with “bombs and traps” during a visit to the Middle East.

*The pros and cons of a terrorist attack in Paris posted by someone calling himself Al-Murabit Al-Muwahhid, or the Monotheistic Jihad Fighter.

*Questions about whether extremists residing in Great Britain can carry out terrorist attacks on British soil.

*An announcement inviting the public to engage in a question-and-answer session with Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, via the Internet.

*Death threats against the family and friends of a conservative Dutch politician and filmmaker who plans to release a film critical of the Quran.

Bill Warner, a Sarasota, Fla., private investigator who has worked with federal agencies on terrorist-related issues, has been tracking terrorist-related Web sites for months.

“The Web sites are a big part of the support network of terrorism financially,” he said. “They use the Web sites to request money from the U.S. and the U.K. They ask people to take money to Pakistan.”

Warner said he blames Web-hosting companies for failing to monitor content. Instead, he said, they wait until the site is brought to their attention to take action.

“All you’ve got to do is look,” Warner said, pointing to the Phoenix Web site as an example. “You are one click away. First, there is a very benign front page, but all of a sudden, you see tanks being blown up and Osama bin Laden and martyrs. It doesn’t matter that you can’t read Arabic.”

Is anybody here surprised???

The idea of Obama, or Hillary, in the White House should put the fear of God in your body. You better get your ass out there and vote!

Attorneys For Guantanamo Captives Back Obama’s Bid

More than 80 attorneys for war-on-terrorism prisoners being held by the U.S. in Cuba said ‘we are at a critical point in the presidential campaign.’

By Carol Rosenberg

WASHINGTON — More than 80 attorneys who have been offering free-of-charge legal services to Guantánamo detainees issued a statement Monday supporting Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential bid.

”We are at a critical point in the presidential campaign, and as lawyers who have been deeply involved in the Guantánamo litigation to preserve the important right to habeas corpus, we are writing to urge you to support Senator Obama,” the lawyers said in an open letter dated Monday.

Lawyers signing it included partners from major U.S. law firms and small-town practitioners as well as Michael Ratner, whose New York Center for Constitutional Rights has for years coordinated legal efforts to provide representation to each of the men held without charge at the offshore prison compound in southeast Cuba.

In 2006, Congress stripped the Guantánamo captives of the traditional right to file writs of habeas corpus in U.S. district court to challenge their detention — and instead offered detainees more limited appeals in federal courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court is now reviewing the constitutionality of that law.

Guantánamo has not been a major theme of the presidential campaign, but mainstream candidates on both sides — notably former Vietnam POW John McCain, the Republican senator — have said they would move to close the prison camps because they have stirred anti-American anger across the globe.

Obama has gone further than many. In a November, he pledged to both close the prison camps and ”restore habeas corpus,” a position that Democratic rival John Edwards has also staked out.

Hillary Clinton, likewise, has said from the U.S. Senate that she favors closure. But she has not prominently included pledges to do it in her campaign speeches.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney, in contrast, has advocated doubling the detention center — which today holds about 275 foreign men as enemy combatants and cell space for more than 1,500.

The Pentagon calls the war-on-terrorism compound a post-9/11 necessity and says captives there are held humanely, many of whom can go before military boards to argue they are no threat to the United States and should be set free.

Lawyers signing the letter included East Coast law school professors, who have visited the U.S. Navy base to defend individual detainees, as well as corporate lawyers for Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Yemeni detainees. None of the lawyers who signed the letter are from Florida.

Also among the signers are Wells Dixon and Gitanjali Gutierrez, the only lawyers so far to meet with a formerly CIA-held ”high-value detainee.” Last year, they met with Baltimore-educated captive Majid Khan in a special segregated section of the prison camps. They accuse the U.S. government of subjecting their client to a program of state-sponsored torture.

The CIA says it doesn’t engage in torture.

Others who signed the letter included a former federal judge, John Gibbons of Newark, N.J., who successfully argued the first Guantánamo detainee case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Rasul v. Bush, and a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, Donald Guter, who likewise argued against Bush policy.

Straight Talk On Pakistan
By Ralph Peters

‘PAKISTAN’S democracy hasn’t suffered because of the illiterate but because of the literate, because of abuses by the privileged who went to Oxford and Cambridge.

“Ninety percent of Pakistan’s politicians are feudals. We have to break the hold of tribal leaders who won’t permit development. India got it right when it broke up the great landholdings after independence.”

The speaker wasn’t a dissident student but Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Mahmud Ali Durrani, a retired major general. He once commanded his country’s premier strike force aimed at India, but spent the last decade lobbying for a permanent peace between New Delhi and Islamabad.

Having dealt with a leprous swarm of diplomats over the years, I was prepared for a waste of time when I walked into the embassy. A Pakistan-hand Army pal claimed that Durrani was a straight-shooter, but honest ambassadors are even rarer than honest pols.

My buddy was right: From the start of our hourlong conversation, the ambassador routinely committed the diplomatic sin of telling the truth.

We discussed two key issues: making democracy work in Pakistan and our mutual problems with Islamist fanatics.

On the first subject, the ambassador didn’t toe the party line. Instead, he suggested that Gen. Pervez Musharraf has outlived his welcome, that emotional term limits are as powerful as legal ones.

The Pakistani military “can’t do two jobs well,” he said. It needed to concentrate on fighting terrorists.

Of course, the ambassador’s well aware of how corruption plagues his country’s politics. He believes that Pakistan’s military should play a role resembling that of Turkey’s - a referee at the edge of the ring to make sure abuses don’t get out of hand.

The former general is committed to making democracy work but warns that the process takes time: “People have a simplistic notion of democracy. It’s not a switch that can be thrown overnight.”

When it comes to the struggle with terrorists, Durrani is passionate. It frustrates him that every Pakistani setback makes news while successes go ignored. He’d just returned from Swat, a beautiful, remote region where extremists had driven out the local government. We knelt over a map as he detailed a recent multibrigade operation that shattered the terrorists and forced their leader into hiding.

There hadn’t been a whisper about that campaign in the Western media. Pakistan is typecast in the role of shirker.

Lord knows the Pakistani military has undeniable problems and makes mistakes (we’ve made a few ourselves in a place called Iraq). It has serious training and equipment shortfalls - especially a shortage of helicopters to maneuver in mountains where there are no roads, as well as inadequate night-fighting gear.

Pakistan’s army also has had to reset itself for counterinsurgency after six decades of preparing for war with India - a parallel with the tough adjustments our own military faced as we “re-cocked” from facing Soviets to coping with suicide bombers.

But the ambassador bristles at the suggestion that his military isn’t fighting hard. Westerners who’ve never set foot in the country rant as though it’s Delaware with ski slopes. Yet Pakistan’s a vast state with 178 million people and some of the most rugged terrain on Earth, as I’ve seen for myself.

In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan has 85,000 soldiers and constabulary forces deployed - twice the number of US and NATO soldiers in all of Afghanistan, which is 20 times larger. Tens of thousands more Pakistanis in uni- form serve in the adjacent Northwest Frontier Province, for a total of five divisions and 130,000 troops engaged.

The contribution in blood? Almost 500 Pakistani soldiers and paramilitary members were killed in action in 2007 as suicide bombings soared. We get it backward when we blame Pakistan for Afghanistan’s problems: Our successes in Afghanistan have led the terrorists to view Pakistan as a preferable target.

That said, the ambassador expressed confidence that Pakistan’s new chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, is the right man at the right time. Having met both men, he finds a marked resemblance between Kiyani and Gen. David Petraeus. Both are serious thinkers as well as rigorous, ascetic soldiers; like Petraeus, Kiyani will base military operations on a coherent, comprehensive plan.

But even with the best generals in charge, this remains a long-term struggle complicated by practical realities that Western pundits ignore.

“Two hundred thousand people a day cross the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the ambassador noted. “We need excellent intelligence, and we need hard-hitting mobile forces. The military must use both carrot and stick, but when force is used, you have to be very strong. In the tribal areas, they understand the language of strength.”

Asked about our planned $2 billion training package for Pakistan’s military, the old soldier reminded me that training alone takes years to be felt in the field: “Only equipment - helicopters and night-vision devices - could bring short-term results.”

A stock military response? Durrani just doesn’t fit the mold. During his term as the chief of Pakistan’s military production, he fought corruption, improved efficiency and cleaned up arsenal towns, building schools and clinics for workers and their families.

That information came from my Army buddy, not from a PR firm. Queried about it, the ambassador beamed: “In the first speech I gave to my subordinates, I told them, ‘Treat every individual with dignity.’ ” He was also proud of breaking traditions of nepotism in the system (something I’d like to see US generals do).

As the interview ended, I asked what message he’d like to send directly to the American people.

“Americans should know that we’re doing the best we can. We are committed. Lack of trust hurts us all,” he said. “Please don’t micromanage Pakistan for us.”

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Wars of Blood and Faith.”

One way or another…

click..bang…

Gates Criticizes Chavez Plan To Legitimize FARC

Calls Colombian rebels terrorists

By Sara A. Carter, Washington Times

The Pentagon chief yesterday said there is growing concern regarding Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s stance to have a Latin American terrorist group “recognized as a legitimate organization.”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who recently visited Colombia, told reporters that Mr. Chavez’s attempts to legitimize the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by the Spanish acronym FARC, are hurting the work Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has done in fighting the terrorist group.

“The FARC is a declared terrorist organization and remains so,” Mr. Gates said. “As the president of Colombia reminded me, it’s been his entire life that he has not seen a peaceful day, and that FARC has been a threat of great and continuing concern.”

FARC, established in 1964 by the Colombian Communist Party, continues to tout itself as a guerilla organization.

More than “750 soldiers a year” are injured fighting FARC and “half of them are losing limbs … In addition, they’re also losing a soldier a day in this fight,” Mr. Gates said.

Nearly two weeks ago, the militant group responded to continued negotiations on hostage release with Mr. Chavez by releasing only two among the nearly 700 people thought held. Mr. Uribe asked the Venezuelan president to stop his negotiations after Mr. Chavez last week called FARC and the more-militant National Liberation Army (ELN) legitimate political forces.

“FARC and ELN are not terrorist groups. They are armies, true armies that occupy a space in Colombia,” the Venezuelan leader told his state-run news agency. “We should recognize them … They are insurgent forces that have political and Bolivarian goals, and here [in Venezuela] that is respected.”

In other matters, Mr. Gates said there are no plans to set up permanent U.S. bases in Iraq despite concerns among critics that a planned U.S. military accord with Iraq would pose problems for future U.S. presidents.

“I think it is pretty clear that such an agreement would not talk about force levels — we have no interest in permanent bases,” he said.

The secretary also spoke at length regarding al Qaeda’s presence in Pakistan, offering the Pakistani government an olive branch of sorts, when he said the U.S. will “remain ready, willing and able to assist the Pakistanis” in conducting joint operations against al Qaeda. He told reporters that Islamabad has not asked for U.S. assistance in rooting out al Qaeda from its stronghold in Pakistan.

“Pakistan is a sovereign country,” Mr. Gates said. “They clearly have the right to decide whether or not forces from another country are going to operate on their soil. We will continue the dialogue, but we would not do anything without their approval.”

Earlier in the day, Air Force Brig. Gen. Jay Lindell said Afghanistan’s air force is facing major challenges and will not be able to fly combat missions until 2013.

Gen. Lindell, who is charged with assisting to rebuild the Afghan force, said that although its pilots have many years of experience, most are older than 40 and new pilots haven’t trained in 16 years.

“So over the next three years, our focus has been to develop their mobility capability,” Gen. Lindell said. “That is the urgent and most critical need that the Afghan national security forces need.”

You decide. I would like to hear your take on this. I hope that this is not completely true, and that there is another, more respectable side to this story.

Military ‘Charity’ Rewards Celebrity Generals First

By Jay Bookman

In the combat tradition of the U.S. military, officers are supposed to eat last, after the enlisted personnel under their command have been served. It’s a gesture of respect, a way to communicate the idea that a good officer puts the well-being of his soldiers before his own.

But Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, apparently believes that custom no longer applies once he takes off his uniform.

After his retirement in 2003, Franks followed the career path trod by many generals before him, cashing in on his celebrity by accepting well-paid speaking gigs, writing a book and serving on corporate boards. Franks also agreed to lend his name to fund-raising efforts by an outfit called the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes, a charity created to assist wounded veterans.

“The whole purpose will be to help put our disabled veterans on the road to a productive and rewarding life by assisting them to better develop their own abilities to overcome their disabilities,” Franks said in a mass mailing sent out over his signature.

The founder of the group, Roger Chapin, has created other veterans’ charities as well, such as Help Hospitalized Veterans. From 2004 to 2006, his groups collected $160 million in contributions from Americans wanting to help those who had been harmed in the line of duty.

Unfortunately, only a small percentage of that money ever trickled down to veterans. According to congressional investigators, Chapin and his group spent $125 million on fund-raising, salaries and expenses such as a membership in a country club, eating up 74 cents of every contributed dollar.

Over that time period, Chapin and his wife paid themselves $1.5 million in salary and more than $340,000 in personal expenses, not including the charity’s purchase of a $440,000 condo for their use in the Washington. D.C., area. And it was all legal.

In congressional testimony last week, Chapin was asked whether groups such as his should at least be required to tell potential donors just how much — or in his case, how little — of their contribution actually reaches its intended target.

Chapin thought that was a terrible idea. “If we disclose, we’d be out of business,” he said.

Chapin and his wife weren’t the only ones to profit from the charity. As the Army Times and others reported, Franks also got a piece of the action. In return for use of his name, the general was paid $100,000 from money intended to help wounded veterans. Chapin has also been paying Air Force retired Brig. Gen. Arthur Diehl III $5,000 a month for similar fund-raising help.

“I am proud to contribute my time and financial support to Salute America’s Heroes,” Diehl wrote in one fund-raising letter.

To his credit, Franks later ended his relationship with the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes. However, he did so not because he thought it inappropriate to take money meant to help wounded veterans, but because so little of the money was actually reaching the vets.

Many of those veterans had been wounded under Franks’ command. They paid the price in missing arms and legs, shattered minds and broken psyches, while Franks collected fame and fortune.

To some degree, that’s the way it always was and always will be. Grunts fight and die; generals get the glory. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant and even George Washington rode military fame all the way to the presidency.

But a top general profiting from a charity supposedly established to help the wounded … well, let’s just say the general made sure he ate first this time, ahead of all those folks in wheelchairs.

Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Thursdays and Mondays.

A long-time opponent, and supporter of Jihad freindly regimes. Not cool. Keep your eyes peeled.

Bad News Bear

Russia’s sure to keep on pushing hard

By Peter Brookes

The next American president will likely face an increasingly frosty relationship with an increasingly mighty Mother Russia.

With the liberal-democratic experiment plainly over, today’s Russia is authoritarian and nationalistic at home, confident and assertive abroad, awash in oil/gas wealth and bent on reinventing itself - once again - as a great power on the world stage.

Soviet? No. Proto-imperialist? Maybe.

While we’re unlikely to see a rivalry as bitter as in the permafrost days of the Cold War, Russia and America will clash on a host of issues.

Russia’s feisty President Vladimir Putin steps down in March but he’s expected to keep the real power, probably re-emerging as prime minister or “national leader.” Certainly, his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, will closely cleave to “Putinism.”

Since taking office in 2000, Putin worked to stabilize the Motherland and re-establish Russia as a global force - on par with the United States, China and the European Union. Medvedev’s Kremlin is sure to continue pushing back against any “encroachment” on Russia’s traditional sphere of influence in Eastern and Central Europe, the Baltic, the Caucasus and Central Asia - what Moscow calls its “near abroad.”

Most recently, Russia objects to the United States putting a radar in the Czech Republic and deploying 10 interceptors in Poland to counter the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile threat. (Moscow’s complaint - that the bases undermine Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent - is simply false.) But the Kremlin surely dislikes seeing US bases in its old East European stomping grounds, where it still wants to have sway - and a say.

Then there’s Russia’s defense buildup. Putinism sees a strong defense as a deterrent against attack - and a means of resisting outside pressure on its policies, foreign or domestic.

Defense spending rose as much as 30 percent in 2007 - following jumps of 22 percent and 27 percent bump-ups in the two prior years. After years of neglect, the $200 billion modernization program leaves Russia with the world’s second-largest defense budget.

The buildup is accompanied by Moscow’s leaving the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe treaty last year, unnerving the Europeans, and may move it to vacate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, too.

Russia’s making security problems for the next prez in a host of other ways, too. With sales to emerging superpower China, troublemaker Venezuela and rogue states like Iran and Syria, Moscow is the world’s largest arms supplier to the developing world. And it’s building and fueling nuclear plants for Iran, with the Bushehr reactor set to finish late this year - just in time for the next commander-in-chief’s inauguration. (Moscow has also agreed to help out Beijing’s burgeoning space program - a boon to China’s bid to challenge the US dominance in space.)

Russian intelligence operations in the US are back at Cold War levels once again, says the FBI. While fascinated with Washington political gossip, Russian spies are also targeting military-related high technology.

Bolstering both its intel and its military forces is a notable cyber-competence. In 2007, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s director said Russia has the world’s most “highly developed, capable and well-resourced IO [information operations] capability among potential adversaries.” Estonia suffered a withering Russian cyber attack last year, affecting state and commercial institutions, including newspapers and banks, as it planned to move a Soviet war memorial.

But Russia’s chief source of influence and strength these days is its ample energy supplies. It’s the world’s largest producer of natural gas and second-largest pumper of oil. The energy boom has already allowed Moscow to pay off its international debt, build up the world’s third-largest foreign-currency reserves - and establish a $50 billion domestic stabilization fund, making “managed democracy” acceptable at home.

Vice President Dick Cheney has called Russian energy supplies “tools of intimidation and blackmail” - and it’s certainly shown a willingness to use them as that. Just ask Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and Moldova.

With record energy prices and demand anything but softening, Moscow will continue to throw its weight around by re-nationalizing domestic energy resources and industries, buying assets abroad, cutting supplies, ending subsidies or raising prices for those that displease it.

Our European allies are especially vulnerable. Europe gets 50 percent of its natural gas and 25 percent of its oil from Russia - and may be on track to grow more dependent in the years ahead. Moscow will use the energy wedge to divide NATO and weaken trans-Atlantic ties wherever possible.

And that’s not all. Russia is seeking to maximize its energy muscle, promoting a natural-gas cartel along the lines of OPEC. Planned charter-members Russia, Qatar and Iran together hold 60 percent of the world’s natural gas - and other countries, like Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, have expressed an interest in joining.

In fairness, the US-Russian relationship hasn’t been all bad news. Moscow has sometimes been helpful on North Korean and Iranian nuclear issues, agreeing to limited, targeted sanctions at the United Nations Security Council last year.

It was also supportive early after 9/11 on counterterrorism. But it has since pushed (along with China) for the closing of US bases in Uzbekistan (succeeded) and Kyrgyzstan (nearly succeeded), hindering our Afghanistan operations.

In the end, Moscow’s new “Russian Doctrine” sees a world dominated by Washington - or anyone else - as a threat to its raw national interests and pride. In the name of standing up for itself, the Kremlin is clearly willing to check US power just about anywhere.

While Russia may not be looking to recover the lost Soviet empire, it’s out to regain its Soviet-era international clout and significance. The Kremlin sees America in decline and Russia’s tsar, er, star on the rise - again.

The United States and Russia can both benefit from a cooperative relationship. But the important thing for the next US president is to see Russia with a sober eye: It’s not a “bury the West” Russia, but it’s not a “make nice with the West” Russia, either.

Heritage Foundation senior fellow Peter Brookes is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.

WTF Canada? Just goes to prove the age old saying: “Socialists Suck!”

Oh, and one more thing GO GIANTS! (I’m a Jersey Boy)

Canada To Rewrite Manual Linking U.S. And Torture

By Ian Austen

OTTAWA — The Canadian minister of foreign affairs, Maxime Bernier, said Saturday that he had ordered officials to rewrite an internal government manual that listed the United States among countries that potentially torture or abuse prisoners.

“I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department’s torture awareness training,” Mr. Bernier said in a statement. “It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten.”

The United States government has repeatedly said that it does not torture prisoners, an assurance that has been accepted by Canada’s Conservative government.

Although the Department of Foreign Affairs would not specify which countries would be removed from the list, the United States is a close ally and had complained to Canada about its inclusion.

The 89-page PowerPoint presentation now under review is used to train diplomats on how to detect and handle cases involving the torture of Canadians held by other countries. It became public after being turned over last week to Amnesty International Canada as part of a lawsuit.

The document includes the United States on a list of nations under the heading: “Possible Torture/Abuse Cases.” Another slide, titled “Definition of Torture,” lists six “U.S. interrogation techniques” that it describes as nonphysical, including blindfolding, covering heads in hoods, forced nudity and sleep deprivation.

The presentation concludes, “All of the above have the same long-term effects as physical torture.”

It was not clear from Mr. Bernier’s statement if the rewriting of the manual would remove all references to the United States or any other nation. When asked if that would be the case, Neil Hrab, a spokesman for Mr. Bernier, replied in an e-mail message: “The statement speaks for itself. The manual is being reviewed and rewritten.”

Other countries identified in the document include Afghanistan, Israel, China, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The American military base and prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is included on the list separately from the United States.

Afghanistan is included on the list although the Canadian government says that prisoners turned over to the Afghan government by Canadian troops are not ill treated or tortured in violation of Canadian laws.

Amnesty International’s lawsuit is an attempt to end those handovers.

The current Canadian government has rejected calls from human rights groups to ask the United States to return the one Canadian currently held at Guantánamo Bay. Other allies of the United States have asked for their citizens to be returned.

…send in the Marines!

Marines Will Bolster Canadians In Kandahar
Reinforcements for thinly stretched troops in the region should help reduce casualties, U.S. Defence Secretary says

By Paul Koring

WASHINGTON — Hard-pressed Canadian troops in Kandahar will get help - and fewer may get killed - as more than 2,000 battle-hardened U.S. Marines with counterinsurgency training and experience start arriving next month in southern Afghanistan.

“My hope is that the addition of the marines will provide the kind of help that will reduce the levels of casualties,” U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday when asked about the disproportionate number of Canadians killed battling the Taliban.

Mr. Gates, still dealing with the brouhaha caused by published reports that suggested he had faulted the ability of Canadian, Dutch and British troops for counterinsurgency warfare, said he never intended his general criticism of NATO training to apply to Canada’s troops in southern Afghanistan.

“I have no problems with the Canadians,” he said at a Pentagon news conference yesterday.

“Our allies, including the Canadians, the British, the Dutch, the Australians and others, are suffering losses as they demonstrate valour and skill in combat.”

In Canada, the nation is deeply divided over whether to extend the fighting mission in Afghanistan beyond its current mandate of February, 2009.

The arrival of the marines, expected to reinforce NATO forces in southern Afghanistan for this year’s so-called summer fighting season, will add a massive punch to the thinly stretched Canadian and Dutch forces in Kandahar and neighbouring Uruzgan province.

Although Canada has about 2,500 soldiers deployed to southern Afghanistan, only about 500 are “outside the wire” directly involved in counterinsurgency operations at any time.

A much bigger percentage of the 2,200 marines will be available for combat because the U.S. military already has a huge logistics, support and administrative structure in Afghanistan.

The marines will report to Canadian Major-General Marc Lessard, who takes over command of NATO’s southern regional command next month as part of a rotation including the British and Dutch.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit will provide “a manoeuvres force so it has the flexibility to move wherever in Regional Command South that the Canadians deem is necessary to go after the enemy. I mean, this is a fighting force that will greatly enhance the capabilities of the Canadians and our allies who are down there taking it to the enemy,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said earlier this week.

“There is a fighting season in Afghanistan. And so we’re getting those marines there at the beginning of that fighting season,” General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday.

“We learned last year that if you’re there and ready to go in the spring, it makes a big difference.”

But the one-time, seven-month deployment of the marines will mean that at least three battalions will be required to replace them and Mr. Gates served notice yesterday that NATO allies are needed to fill the gap.

He said he wanted “them to be thinking seriously about who can backfill against the marines when the marines leave early next winter, so that that capability won’t be lost.”

Mr. Gates also ordered another 1,000 U.S. Marines to Afghanistan to act as trainers and mentors to the Afghan army, which despite showing significant improvement, lacks the equipment, firepower, training and numbers to take on the Taliban insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The 3,200 U.S. Marines will partly fill a 7,000-soldier shortfall in Afghanistan that NATO nations have refused to address for more than a year.

About 45,000 foreign troops are currently deployed in Afghanistan. About two-thirds are American.

Most of the rest, including sizable contingents from Germany, France, Italy and Spain, are stationed far from the insurgency in the south and forbidden by their governments to deploy close to the fighting.

For months, Mr. Gates has been pushing some of the European allies to share more of the combat burden.

But in a radio interview yesterday he acknowledged that “many of them are in minority or coalition governments where support for the activity in Afghanistan is fragile, if not difficult to come by.

“And one of the reasons why I decided to tone down the public criticism is that, frankly, I think they’re doing as much as they can.”

the article speaks for itself…

7 ‘Worst Of The Worst’ Captives Now Back Home

A Miami Herald investigation found that six years after Guantánamo Bay received its first 20 detainees from Afghanistan, seven have been released.

By Carol Rosenberg

One former Guantánamo captive is studying liberal arts in England. Another is famously free, released from an Australian jail after a U.S. military-mandated, nine-month prison sentence.

A third is in Kuwait with his wife and five children, still traumatized, his lawyer says, by his U.S. captivity.

On Jan. 11, 2002, the Pentagon transferred its first 20 men from Afghanistan to its detention center in southeastern Cuba, calling them ”the worst of the worst” of the U.S.-held prisoners in the war on terror.

The Miami Herald has found that seven of those men have since gone home, some with little fanfare, others after well-publicized campaigns for their freedom.

A dozen of those first detainees remain — none currently charged with crimes — six years after Pentagon photographs stirred international outrage by showing the men shackled on their knees at Camp X-Ray.

The names came from Defense Department documents, notably prison camp weight charts, detainee accounts and contacts with lawyers and home nations. The name of the 20th captive that day remains a mystery.

The documents show that, with the exception of Australian David Hicks, there would be little to distinguish the men on their knees from those who would arrive in the months and years later.

”There was a sort of randomness to it,” said Marine Maj. Dan Mori, whose client Hicks, now free, is kneeling somewhere in that first worst-of-the-worst photo. “It was probably far too early for them to know what anybody had really done.”

Sole conviction

Hicks is today the only man ever convicted at President Bush’s Military Commissions set up at Guantánamo. Amid electioneering protests in his native Australia, the self-confessed al Qaeda foot soldier settled with the U.S. government for a nine-month sentence, mostly served in his homeland.

He was set free last month and has a midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew under a court order that requires he check in with Adelaide police three times a week.

What can he say about that flight, that first day, whether he can even spot himself in the photos?

Nothing.

As part of his March guilty plea, which netted him nine months in prison on a terror crime that could carry a maximum of life, he agreed to a one-year ban on talking to the media and pledged never to accuse the United States of mistreating him.

In fact, none of the men in the photo who were tracked down by The Miami Herald agreed to an interview.

Feroz Abassi, 28, is now back in England working toward a liberal arts degree at an undisclosed university, said several attorneys who declined on his behalf to specify the location.

”Feroz is studying and doing remarkably well adjusting to his life now after years of abuse and uncertainty about his fate while imprisoned at Guantánamo,” said Gitanjali Gutierrez, attorney for the New York Center for Constitutional Rights.

She was the first attorney allowed to meet Guantánamo captives, in August 2004, and Abassi was among two men she met there her first day — after 2 ½ years of confinement.

The Bush administration at one point designated him for trial by military commission. Instead, he was freed in early January after intervention by the British government.

Gutierrez, staff attorney at the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, said Abassi’s case illustrates just how wrong the U.S. military was in characterizing that first airlift of prisoners — ferried 8,000 miles from Afghanistan — as “the worst of the worst.”

”At one point, they described him as an al Qaeda leader!” she said. “He gets out and what’s the first thing he does? He goes off to school. He’s gotten on with his life and has gone on to mentor younger students.”

Omar Amin, 40, home in Kuwait since September 2006, likewise declined through his attorney and a family friend to speak with The Miami Herald.

”Omar Amin was deeply traumatized by the ordeal. He’s back home with his wife and five children, trying to put his life back together and move on,” said attorney David Cynamon.

Less is known about the fate of a Pakistani man, Shabidzada Usman, who was the

first on that flight to be set free, 15 months later — or two Saudi men who were sent to their homeland in 2006 and 2007.

A Taliban member from the first flight, Ghulam Ruhani, has just gone home — to a U.S-sponsored lockup near Kabul. In the earliest days of the American-led coalition assault on Afghanistan, he was held on a U.S. Navy ship at sea, along with Hicks and American captive John Walker, now serving in a federal penitentiary in California for being a Taliban foot soldier.

Earlier this month, The Miami Herald inquired about the men on that first flight since freed and got this reply from a spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon: The Pentagon had no ”information to share” on those men.

Since the camps opened, the Pentagon says about 500 men have been released. It says it has a list of ”more than 30” who have returned to the battlefield, but it refuses to identify most of them.

The U.S. military has also steadfastly cited privacy reasons in declining to identify the first 20 men to be held captive at Camp X-Ray in Cuba.

The Miami Herald investigation turned up one striking finding: Six years after their arrival, four of the original detainees have never seen lawyers. Bush administration policy prohibited civilian attorneys from the prison in the first 30 months. But advocates for the captives slowly succeeded in providing civilian legal counsel. War court defendants automatically get military lawyers.

Few people would have imagined the Pentagon paying to defend the men when they landed at the camp in January 2002.

”These represent the worst elements of al Qaeda and the Taliban. We asked for the bad guys first,” Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert told reporters hours before their arrival on an 8,000-mile air-bridge from Bagram, Afghanistan.

It was early in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and hunt down Osama bin Laden, and the Pentagon opened Camp X-Ray at the U.S. Navy base in the Caribbean as an interrogation and detention center far from then-freezing cold Afghanistan.

Guantánamo was chosen for both its isolation and to argue that it was beyond the reach of U.S. courts. None of the original detainees are currently charged at military commissions, but two may face the war court — Ali Hamza Bahlul, 39, and Abdl Malak al Rahabi, 29, both Yemenis.

Bahlul and Rahabi have never been invited to argue for their freedom before the annual U.S. military parole boards, a key indicator that they are war court candidates.

The first 20 men were a mixed group of alleged al Qaeda foot soldiers and Taliban functionaries, all Muslim and about half of them Arabs.

Identity a mystery

The Miami Herald has discovered the identities of 19 of the first prisoners. Who is the 20th man?

No clear answer emerges from the thousands of pages of detainee documents the Defense Department has released, much of it under Freedom of Information lawsuits by the Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union.

But a 2006 affidavit from a two-star general who supervised interrogations provides a possible explanation: In the earliest days of the prison project, when detainees were kept at Camp X-Ray, military intelligence planted informants among them.

Southcom in Miami would not confirm whether such a program existed; nor would it provide its own list of the first 20 captives in a rolling detainee population that numbers nearly 800.

Not sure what to make of this, but France’s new President seems to be on the right path - for now. But is this a signal of France’s dedication to stability in the region, or is it a counterbalance or even a challenge to the American presence in the Middle East?

You decide…

France Announces Base In Persian Gulf

Deal With U.A.E. Seen as Warning to Iran

By Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service

PARIS, Jan. 15 — President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Tuesday that France would establish a military base in the United Arab Emirates, making it the only Western power other than the United States to have a permanent defense installation in the strategic Persian Gulf region.
Sarkozy signed the deal in Abu Dhabi with Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, president of the U.A.E., describing it as “a sign to all that France is participating in the stability of this region of the world.”

The base, announced at the end of a three-day visit by Sarkozy to Persian Gulf countries, is part of his effort to raise France’s international and diplomatic profile.

Though small in size — at least 400 navy, army and air force personnel — the installation would be an important symbol for both countries.

The announcement signals a shift in the political realities and sensitivities of the region from the days of the first U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991, when most Persian Gulf countries demanded that the United States keep its bases in the region officially secret.

Sarkozy also used his visit, with stops in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to cement his alliance with the United States in demanding that Iran — seen by many of its Persian Gulf neighbors as a growing threat — halt its uranium enrichment program. President Bush is also in the region this week, issuing similar pointed criticism of Iran.

French officials said the U.A.E. military base, coupled with an agreement to help the Emirates build two nuclear reactors for energy production, is intended in part to warn Iran against taking aggressive steps toward any of its neighbors.

“France responds to its friends,” Sarkozy told reporters after signing the military agreement. “France and the Emirates signed a reciprocal defense accord in 1995. Our friends from the Emirates asked that this accord be prolonged and asked that a base with 400 personnel be opened.”

France is a major arms supplier to the U.A.E. and other Middle Eastern countries and stages regular joint military exercises with the Emirates.

In two of the largest weapons sales to the U.A.E. in recent years, France signed a $3.4 billion deal involving 63 Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft and a $3.4 billion agreement to supply 390 Leclerc tanks.

The French base will be set up in Abu Dhabi, the largest and wealthiest of the seven emirates, and will become operational in 2009, according to French officials. Officials declined to provide specifics of the base’s operations. Abu Dhabi is just across the Persian Gulf from Iran.

French Vice Adm. Jacques Mazars, who will head the project, said that in addition to the 400-plus people at the base, as many as 150 French navy personnel would be assigned to a U.A.E. naval base in Abu Dhabi, according to news service accounts from the region.

The United States has strategic military bases in many parts of the Middle East, including the Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. The British military is part of the coalition naval task force based in Bahrain and operates aircraft from a U.S. air base in Qatar.

Sarkozy also used his trip to solidify other ties. He extended agreements in the U.A.E. for economic, education and cultural projects and signed new accords on transportation and intellectual property rights.

Both the French and U.S. presidents cautioned the petroleum-producing states about the high price of oil, currently around $90 per barrel, and urged them to raise production to help bring down prices.

Do They Really Hate Us?

Sometimes you have to wonder if the liberal media really hates the US Military (which would include their families), and do they really mean it when they turn our sacrifices into something wrong? Or is it that their bias, and political motives are more important than those men and women who have sworn to give their life in defense of this great nation.

Our lives are not a game.

Pigs….

Smearing Soldiers

The Gray Lady’s Killer-GI Lie

By Ralph Peters

THE New York Times is trashing our troops again. With no new “atrocities” to report from Iraq for many a month, the limping Gray Lady turned to the home front. Front and center, above the fold, on the front page of Sunday’s Times, the week’s feature story sought to convince Americans that combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan are turning troops into murderers when they come home.

Heart-wringing tales of madness and murder not only made the front page, but filled two entire centerfold pages and spilled onto a fourth.

The Times did get one basic fact right: Returning vets committed or are charged with 121 murders in the United States since our current wars began.

Had the Times’ “journalists” and editors bothered to put those figures in context - which they carefully avoided doing - they would’ve found that the murder rate that leaves them so aghast means that our vets are five times less likely to commit a murder than their demographic peers.

The Times’ public editor, Clark Hoyt, should crunch the numbers. I’m even willing to spot the Times a few percentage points (either way). But the hard statistics from the Justice Department tell a far different tale from the Times’ anti-military propaganda.

A very conservative estimate of how many different service members have passed through Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait since 2003 is 350,000 (and no, that’s not double-counting those with repeated tours of duty).

Now consider the Justice Department’s numbers for murders committed by all Americans aged 18 to 34 - the key group for our men and women in uniform. To match the homicide rate of their peers, our troops would’ve had to come home and commit about 150 murders a year, for a total of 700 to 750 murders between 2003 and the end of 2007.

In other words, the Times unwittingly makes the case that military service reduces the likelihood of a young man or woman committing a murder by 80 percent.

Yes, the young Americans who join our military are (by self- selection) superior by far to the average stay-at-home. Still, these numbers are pretty impressive, when you consider that we’re speaking of men and women trained in the tools of war, who’ve endured the acute stresses of fighting insurgencies and who are physically robust (rather unlike the stick-limbed weanies the Times prefers).

All in all, the Times’ own data proves my long-time contention that we have the best behaved and most ethical military in history.

Now, since the folks at the Times are terribly busy and awfully important, let’s make it easy for them to do the research themselves (you can do it, too - in five minutes).

Just Google “USA Murder Statistics.” The top site to appear will be the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. Click on it, then go to “Demographic Trends.” Click on “Age.” For hard numbers on the key demographics, click on the colored graphs.

Run the numbers yourself, based upon the demographic percentages of murders per every 100,000 people. Then look at the actual murder counts.

Know what else you’ll learn? In 2005 alone, 8,718 young Americans from the same age group were murdered in this country. That’s well over twice as many as the number of troops killed in all our foreign missions since 2001. Maybe military service not only prevents you from committing crimes, but also keeps you alive?

Want more numbers? In the District of Columbia, our nation’s capital, the murder rate for the 18-34 group was about 14 times higher than the rate of murders allegedly committed by returning vets.

And that actually understates the District’s problem, since many DC-related murders spill across into Prince George’s County (another Democratic Party stronghold).

In DC, an 18-34 population half the size of the total number of troops who’ve served in our wars overseas committed the lion’s share of 992 murders between 2003 and 2007 - the years mourned by the Times as proving that our veterans are psychotic killers.

Aren’t editors supposed to ask tough questions on feature stories? Are the Times’ editors so determined to undermine the public’s support for our troops that they’ll violate the most-basic rules of journalism, such as putting numbers in context?

Answer that one for yourself.

Of course, all of this is part of the disgraceful left-wing campaign to pretend sympathy with soldiers - the Times column gushes crocodile tears - while portraying our troops as clichéd maniacs from the Oliver Stone fantasies that got lefties so self-righteously excited 20 years ago (See? We were right to dodge the draft . . .).

And it’s not going to stop. Given the stakes in an election year, the duplicity will only intensify.

For an upcoming treat, we’ll get the film “Stop-Loss,” starring, as always, young punks who never served in uniform as soldiers. This left-wing diatribe argues that truly courageous troops would refuse to return to Iraq - at a time when soldiers and Marines continue to re-enlist at record rates, expecting to plunge back into the fight.

Those on the left will never accept that the finest young Americans are those who risk their lives defending freedom. Sen. John Kerry summed up the views of the left perfectly when he disparaged our troops as too stupid to do anything but sling hamburgers.

And The New York Times will never forgive our men and women in uniform for their infuriating successes in Iraq.

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Wars of Blood and Faith.”

Remember Patriots, the media war is nowhere near over. It will only get worse as the Left piles up the lies to fool the American public into elevting them into office. With the war going so well, they need to find something - ANYTHING - to discredit our scarifices. Remmeber, no combat related deaths for Marines in November and December. Our enemies are alive and well.

Stay strong, fight the good fight.

A War Report Discredited

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist

Few medical journals have the storied reputation of The Lancet, a British publication founded in 1823. In the course of its long history, The Lancet has published work of exceptional influence, such as Joseph Lister’s principles of antiseptics in 1867 and Howard Florey’s Nobel Prize-winning discoveries on penicillin in 1940. Today it is one of the most frequently cited medical journals in the world.

So naturally there was great interest when the Lancet published a study in October 2006, three weeks before the midterm US elections, reporting that 655,000 people had died in Iraq as a result of the US-led war.

Hundreds of news outlets, to say nothing of antiwar activists and lawmakers, publicized the astonishing figure, which was more than 10 times the death toll estimated by other sources. (The Iraqi health ministry, for example, put the mortality level through June 2006 at 50,000.)

If The Lancet’s number was accurate, more Iraqis had died in the two years since the US invasion than during the eight-year war with Iran. President Bush, asked about the study, dismissed it out of hand: “I don’t consider it a credible report.” Tony Blair’s spokesman also brushed it off as “not . . . anywhere near accurate.”

But the media played it up. “One in 40 Iraqis killed since invasion,” blared a front-page headline in the Guardian, a leading British paper. CNN.com’s story began: “War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis, or more than 500 people a day, since the US-led invasion, a new study reports.” Few journalists questioned the integrity of the study or its authors, Gilbert Burnham and Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Iraqi scientist Riyadh Lafta. NPR’s Richard Harris reported asking Burnham, “Right before the election you’re making this announcement. Is this politically motivated? And he said, no, it’s not politically motivated.”

But the truth, it turns out, is that the report was drenched with politics, and its jaw-dropping conclusions should have inspired anything but confidence.

In an extensively researched cover story last week, National Journal took a close look under the hood of the Lancet/Johns Hopkins study. Reporters Neil Munro and Carl M. Cannon found that it was marred by grave flaws, such as unsupervised Iraqi survey teams, and survey samples that were too small to be statistically valid.

The study’s authors refused to release most of their underlying data so other researchers could double-check it. The single disk they finally, grudgingly, supplied contained suspicious evidence of “data-heaping” - that is, fabricated numbers. Researchers failed to gather basic demographic data from those they interviewed, a key safeguard against fraud.

“They failed to do any of the [routine] things to prevent fabrication,” Fritz Scheuren, vice president for statistics at the National Opinion Research Center, told the reporters.

Bad as the study’s methodological defects were, its political taint was worse:

Much of the funding for the study came from the Open Society Institute of leftist billionaire George Soros, a strident critic of the Iraq war who, as Munro and Cannon point out, “spent $30 million trying to defeat Bush in 2004.”

Coauthors Burnham and Roberts were avowed opponents of the Iraq war, and submitted their report to The Lancet on the condition that it be published before the election.

Roberts, a self-described “advocate” committed to “ending the war,” even sought the Democratic nomination for New York’s 24th Congressional District.

“It was a combination of Iraq and Katrina that just put me over the top,” he told National Journal.

Lancet editor Richard Horton “also makes no secret of his leftist politics,” Munro and Cannon write.

At a September 2006 rally, he publicly denounced “this axis of Anglo-American imperialism” for causing “millions of people . . . to die in poverty and disease.” Under Horton, The Lancet has increasingly been accused of shoddiness and sensationalism.

In 2005, 30 leading British scientists blasted Horton’s “desperate headline-seeking” and charged him with running “badly conducted and poorly refereed scare stories.” The claim that the US-led invasion of Iraq had triggered a slaughter of almost Rwandan proportions was a gross and outlandish exaggeration; it should have been greeted with extreme skepticism.

But because it served the interests of those eager to discredit the war as a moral catastrophe, common-sense standards were ignored. “In our view, the Hopkins study stands until someone knocks it down,” editorialized the Baltimore Sun.

Now someone has, devastatingly. But will the debunking be trumpeted as loudly and clearly as the original report? Don’t hold your breath.

I have to apologize, I do not normally post stuff like this but my Big Bro sent me this and I almost shot some Scotch out of my nose. This will give you a reason to smile.

Burnouts

This is one of Africa’s more stable countries?

Democracy at work

Kenyan caucuses

Unbelievable. I have not idea what to say even. Kenya is down the tubes, as is most of Africa. Remember the colonize video I put up? Well, this just goes to prove my point – Talk is Cheap in Africa. The man with the machete wins. There is no “diplomatic” solution. Someone explain the diplomacy when someone is hacking your family to death. Please tell me. The US, and the world – most importantly the UN, have made the requisite statements of “concern”, but nothing more. Just like Sudan, Rawanda, and almost all of Africa, the people effected by these horrors will have their fate decided by violence.

Let’s not forget the similar issues all throughout Africa still occurring on a daily basis. Could imagine any better reason for us establishing Africa Command? Yet those who would never lift a finger to help anyone would complain of American Imperialism – but at the same time cry about the “crimes against humanity”.

Fear the worst; a Democrat as president…

Here are two conflicting articles. One of them may make you vomit.

Into Africa Without A Map

By David Ignatius

Last week’s tribal violence in Kenya reminds us of the severe social and political problems facing Africa. But is greater involvement by the U.S. military the answer to these African challenges?

The growing U.S. military role in Africa isn’t a hypothetical issue. In one of the sleeper events of 2007, the Pentagon established a new command for the continent, known as AFRICOM. The organization has a commander, Gen. William “Kip” Ward, but it doesn’t yet have a plan for where it will be based or even a clear statement of its role. Right now, it’s a headquarters in search of a mission.

Pentagon officials have offered idealistic but vague explanations of what the new command is supposed to do. “We want to prevent problems from becoming crises, and crises from becoming catastrophes,” said Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant defense secretary for African affairs. Ward said in an interview two months ago with PBS’s Charlie Rose, “We have in our national interest that Africa is a stable continent. That’s what’s in it for us.”

Nobody would argue the need for assisting Africa, especially after the gruesome ethnic killings that left more than 300 Kenyans dead. But how should that assistance be provided? Is the U.S. military the right instrument for the nation-building effort that AFRICOM apparently envisions? Should American soldiers coordinate the digging of wells, the vaccination of animals and other development projects that will come under AFRICOM’s umbrella? Will a larger U.S. military presence check terrorism and instability on the continent, or will it instead become a new magnet for anti-Americanism?

The chaos in Kenya should prompt a serious discussion, better late than never, of these issues. AFRICOM’s mission isn’t well understood, either in America or Africa. Two leading African nations — Nigeria and South Africa — have expressed strong reservations about the greater U.S. military role on the continent. And surely the American experience in Iraq should prompt closer scrutiny of military projects with bold ideals but fuzzy details.

The African command began as a project of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who believed that the military wasn’t well prepared for the kind of stabilization operations it would face in the post-Sept. 11 world. The command was formally established Oct. 1, with a temporary headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany — and the goal of establishing a forward base in Africa by this coming Oct. 1.

But problems surfaced immediately. The first was the $5 billion cost of setting up the forward headquarters, a steep price for a military strapped by Iraq and Afghanistan. A second problem was where to put the headquarters. Liberia was eager to play host, but Pentagon officials believed that West Africa would be too far from the continent’s big security challenges. For now, the Pentagon will probably finesse the headquarters issue by starting with several smaller regional centers — perhaps in Botswana, Liberia and Rwanda — that combine military and civilian operations.

The new command has had bipartisan political backing — who could question the idea of taking Africa more seriously? But behind the scenes, some senior Pentagon officials have been skeptical. “The depth of support is pretty shallow, frankly, and that’s a real hazard. There’s a danger that everything will be done on the cheap,” says Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The real puzzle with AFRICOM is understanding its purpose. Some advocates propose pragmatic strategic goals, from containing China’s influence in Africa to countering terrorism to protecting African oil supplies. But the official rationale is much less specific — in Ward’s formulation, “bringing stability to the continent.” Some Africans worry that these generalities mask a deeper goal of establishing what amounts to American neocolonialism.

What would AFRICOM be doing now in Kenya, say, if it were up and running? Would it intervene to halt the violence between Kikuyus and Luos that exploded last week? Would it work with nongovernmental and relief organizations? Would it operate jointly with the Kenyan military to restore order? Ward says that he does not “envision kinetic operations for United States forces,” but what happens if Kenya spirals toward Rwanda-level genocide?

The U.S. military is so powerful — so blessed with money and logistical skill and leadership — that it’s easy to make it the default answer to problems that are otherwise in the “too hard” category. That’s my worry about AFRICOM. Its nation-building goal sounds noble, but so did European imperialism of 150 years ago to its proponents. Before America sends its soldiers marching off to save Africa, we need more discussion about what this mission is all about.

Kenya Too Important To Let Collapse

By Jonathan Stevenson

Kenya has been the anchor of political stability in East Africa. But in recent days, 300 people have been killed and 100,000 have been displaced in political unrest after the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki amid widely reported voting irregularities.

As America’s key ally in the region, Kenya cannot be allowed to collapse. Mr. Kibaki has acquiesced to a judicial investigation of the elections, but its impartiality is open to doubt. The U.S. must warn Mr. Kibaki that unless he agrees either to a conciliatory accommodation satisfactory to the opposition or to new, legitimate elections, economic sanctions will be in the offing.

Mr. Kibaki’s refusal to budge has only intensified opposition suspicions of government fraud and fueled the violence, much of which has had the flavor of outright ethnic cleansing.

If the opposition’s grievances are left unanswered, civil discord could consume the nation. While complete civil breakdown is unlikely, even partial political debility would diminish Kenya’s sorely needed leadership and clout.

East Africa and the Horn of Africa constitute a strategically critical region that includes a failed state in Somalia, the defiant and repressive Islamist government of Sudan, insurgency-plagued Uganda, two countries ever poised for war in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and slowly rising Islamic radicalism throughout. Always pro-Western, Kenya alone has been consistently active and effective in regional diplomacy. Nairobi furnished crucial political support for the north-south peace process in Sudan - one of Washington’s few recent diplomatic achievements in Africa. Kenya’s steady counterterrorism cooperation has also helped the United States keep a lid on Islamist terrorism in the region. And Kenya’s dogged diplomacy has kept alive prospects of Somalia’s political rehabilitation.

Kenya thus remains America’s indispensable partner. Kenya’s problems are, to be sure, acutely domestic. Deep divisions among its more than 30 tribes were kept to a simmer during the autocratic but politically sturdy 24-year rule of former President Daniel T. arap Moi, a member of the medium-sized Kalenjin tribe. Mr. Kibaki, however - like Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta - is from the Kikuyu tribe, Kenya’s largest and most powerful. The large but less-powerful Luhya and Luo tribes, along with smaller tribes, backed Raila Odinga, a wealthy and charismatic Luo, as a champion of the poor and an antidote to a Kibaki government increasingly regarded as corrupt, incompetent and biased in favor of the Kikuyu.

There is room for a power-sharing compromise. Even if official election results stand, although Mr. Kibaki narrowly won the popular vote, his coalition party was decimated in parliament, emerging with only 37 of 210 seats as several Cabinet ministers were defeated. Yet the Kibaki government has summarily rejected the opposition’s proposal of temporary joint rule and a new election in three months.

Washington has tried mild, bilateral diplomatic measures - bland commendations of peaceful democratic principles and earnest pleas for negotiation - but they have been insufficient to move Mr. Kibaki. Stern demarches and offers of third-party brokerage would also probably fall short, as his government has stated firmly that it will not accept outside mediation. Multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the African Union could nudge Mr. Kibaki toward concessions, but they alone probably won’t be able to produce them.

The most effective political lever in Africa is still economic power. The U.S. and other major powers, bilaterally and through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, have long used threats to withhold economic assistance to cajole African countries - including Kenya - into better governance. The result has been a frustrating seesaw pattern of compliance and backsliding.

But now Kenya has more to lose. Mr. Kibaki is proudest of Kenya’s economic recovery. Since his first election victory in 2002, Kenya has enjoyed 5 percent average annual growth, earned a solid B+ sovereign credit rating, and maintained a comparatively strong currency. After delaying millions of dollars in aid in 2006 because of corruption, the IMF and World Bank resumed lending in 2007. Prolonged political violence could threaten these results as well as the $870 million annual tourist trade and major state commercial transactions such as Kenya’s joint venture with the British giant Vodaphone and a planned $300 million international bond issue.

Acting in concert, the United States, European powers, the European Union and the international financial institutions can establish strong incentives to compromise by ensuring Nairobi that although recalcitrance will be penalized, compromise will be rewarded. Preserving Kenya’s special place in Africa’s geopolitics, as well as its recent domestic advances, warrants the effort.

Jonathan Stevenson is a professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College.

More great Stuff from Peters. Let’s keep up the fire in 2008.

The year the tide turned

By Ralph Peters

As 2007 drew to a close, embarrassed journalists sought to play down American military successes and avoided questioning Democratic presidential contenders about their predictions of inevitable failure in Iraq.

Magically, Iraq disappeared from the headlines - except on those rare occasions when a problem could be reported. At the close of a year of stunning progress, media stories on New Year’s Eve leapt to report that 2007 had been the deadliest year for US troops.

You had to read deep into the columns to learn that those casualties occurred in the first half of 2007, as we battled and defeated the terrorists and militias - or that, in recent months, American and Iraqi casualties have plummeted as a relative peace broke out.

Still, all that was just hushing up dirty family secrets in the media clan and an effort by left-leaning journalists and editors to protect the politicians they favor.

The greatest media story of 2007 was the one you never read (unless you read The Post): The year was a strategic catastrophe for Islamist terrorists - and possibly a historic turning point in the struggle against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

While al Qaeda in Iraq can still launch suicide missions, such acts now serve only to further alienate the Iraqi people, who’ve come to hate the grisly foreign interlopers with a passion you have to encounter first-hand to appreciate.

That fundamental change in outlook, especially among Sunni Arabs, may well mark last year as Islamist terrorism’s high-water mark, the point at which fellow Muslims by the tens of millions publicly rejected the message and methods of self-styled holy warriors who revel in the slaughter of the innocent.

Tens of thousands of fellow Muslims, previously allied with al Qaeda, turned their weapons against the fanatics. It was the biggest global story since 9/11. And it was buried on Page 14, if mentioned at all.

Many factors came together to transform Iraq, including the fierce and incisive leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, the effectiveness of a new breed of subordinate commanders honed by war, the psychological impact of the troop surge and the pervasive Iraqi weariness of violence and destruction - a strategic mood swing.

Yet, for all that, the greatest strategic development - which will reverberate for years to come - was the Arab-Muslim repudiation of al Qaeda, an organization that claims to be the champion of Sunni Islam.

Islamist terrorism isn’t going to go away, of course. Countries from Algeria to Pakistan are newly endangered as fanatics turn from futile attempts to defeat America to punishing local populations. We’ll still see decades of bombings and assassinations.

But Islamist terrorism is no longer viewed as a solution by the masses of the Middle East.

That self-tormented region will struggle for decades with its religious civil wars. And terrorists may still muster the ability to strike the American homeland again in the hope of reinvigorating their cause.

But 2007 may have been to the struggle against Islamofascism what 1943 was to the Second World War: the year in which it became clear that, no matter how long the war lasted, civilization’s enemies couldn’t win.

The lack of attention paid to the disaster that befell the terrorist cause - essentially acknowledged by Osama bin Laden’s “holiday” audio tape - is as if, in 1943, the Allied media hadn’t reported any Axis defeats.

Instead, as Iraq improved, we only heard how things were turning bad in Afghanistan. Political and media critics of our efforts to defeat Islamist terror attempt to discourage the American people (and voters) by downplaying progress anywhere and by raising the bar for success impossibly high.

As this column has maintained for years, Afghanistan is never going to become Iowa. Much of the country is still decades away from the electric light. Impoverished, backward and torn by three decades of war, it just isn’t going to meet civics-class norms anytime soon.

But the essential question regarding Afghanistan isn’t how closely Kandahar resembles Des Moines this week, but simply this: “Is Afghanistan a better place today, for the Afghan people and for our own security, than it was 9/10/01, when religious fanatics ruled the country and al Qaeda had a homeland?”

The answer, of course, is “Yes!”

But that won’t do for journalists or pols who’ve staked their reputations and careers on America’s failure. And now we’re seeing a shift to declaring all our efforts in vain because of the rising terror threat in Pakistan.

Well, we helped create that situation - not because we supported Gen. Musharraf, but because we undercut him by insisting that his government share power with some of the most corrupt politicians in the world, including the cynical, unscrupulous and incompetent Benazir Bhutto.

(How many chances does a political leader deserve to wreck his or her country? Bhutto had two and left an astonishing legacy of malfeasance.)

The bottom line on 2007 is simply this: While many in the media want you to believe it was another disaster for the United States, it was the worst year for the terrorists since 2001.

Much could still go wrong, of course, in Iraq and elsewhere. We should never underestimate the genius for self-destruction ingrained in Middle-Eastern mentalities. And Islamist terror, to some degree, will be with us throughout our lifetimes.

But in 2007 we saw how superficial Muslim support really was for al Qaeda and its ilk. We learned that bloodthirsty fanatics who invoke religion can - and will - be defeated.

And we should have learned the utility of fighting, instead of letting liberal-elite America-haters inflict their defeatist agenda on our country and the world.

If the forces of civilization and freedom do as well in 2008 as they did in 2007, we’ll all have a great deal to celebrate next New Year’s Eve.

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Wars of Blood and Faith.”

Here is just another story of the amazing things that our Marines do every day in Iraq. We have asked them to do the impossible and they continue to produce and inspire. They have gone above the call of their profession, handling State Department duties, rebuilding nations, and they do it without question, without compensation, and without the specific support of our liberal congress and their media dogs. If you ever need a role model for your child, pick a Marine.

A Tall Order For A Marine: Feeding The Hand That Bit You

By Damien Cave

FALLUJA, Iraq–CAPT. SEAN MILLER shook his head like a big brother. He and his marines had just walked by a cluster of large orange garbage bins, American-bought, from which thieves had ripped the wheels, and now they confronted a cemetery entrance that Captain Miller had paid an Iraqi contractor to fix. It was still broken.

He snapped a photograph and moved on.

It was one more day on the job here in Anbar Province, where fighting has given way to fixing. But reconstruction was hardly the only thing on the captain’s mind. Falluja’s past as the epicenter of the Sunni rebellion was with him too.

“The road we just walked down, I lost three marines on that road,” said the captain, a compact 32-year-old company commander from Virginia. “I was wounded in Falluja too, so walking down these streets — it’s not easy.”

“Reconciliation,” he said, eyeing some Iraqi policemen nearby. “It’s a hard pill to swallow.”

Since long before this war, forgiveness has been Iraq’s greatest challenge. What does it take for an abused, angry population to move on after so much suffering? Can they ever learn to trust one another?

In 2007, more than before, the same questions became central for Americans like Captain Miller. This was the deadliest year of the war for American troops. But it was also the year of a sudden shift in Sunni loyalties throughout Iraq, overnight turning enemies of America into allies against more extreme Islamists.

The Americans welcomed the turnabout, which has helped decrease violence throughout the country, but they were not prepared for it. It has been 25 years since another generation of marines failed to separate the sides in Lebanon’s civil war, and the Middle East, with its long history of about-faces and betrayals, where allegiances are shallow and enmities deep, often still defies American logic.

Battle-scarred marines and soldiers are now doing what they couldn’t fathom less than a year ago, working beside Iraqis who may have tried to kill them. Ordered to act as mentors and honest brokers, to suppress personal feelings for the common good, the troops are surrounded by a language they don’t speak, rejiggering alliances they don’t quite fathom, while they try to rebuild a broken, politically immature nation on bedrock American values of enterprise, tolerance, hard work and optimism. Horatio Alger and Audie Murphy — those archetypal “can do” Americans — once again are hearing “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

The Iraqis are wary, too, because they think, perhaps mistakenly, that they recognize the Americans’ behavior. Seventeen years ago, the first President Bush turned furiously against the Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, only to abandon Iraq’s Shiites when they rose up against Mr. Hussein. Then, after toppling Mr. Hussein, marines stormed the Sunni stronghold of Falluja three years ago, subduing its rebels by decimating the city and leaving hundreds dead.

Mutual distrust is what remains. Iraqis resent American power but also say they fear that the Americans will leave without making the country stable and prosperous. Hearing such contradictory attitudes is part of what bewilders the Americans, who continue to wonder if their old enemies are just playing them — snatching all the money and arms they can in preparation for a future battle.

The uneasiness shows up throughout Iraq, but it is particularly acute in Anbar, the desert province in Iraq’s far west where the shift from war to tentative peace has been most abrupt. Ask an American infantryman where he served and when he answers “Anbar,” he’ll rarely say more; one word is enough, a shorthand for horrors.

Captain Miller commands Kilo Company, in the Third Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, which suffered 194 casualties — roughly one of every six marines — in its last rotation in Anbar, from January 2006 to May 2006. His old platoon had it worse; one in four killed or wounded.

Captain Miller, who displays an easygoing charm in his new role as diplomat and city planner, cajoler and referee, was himself injured when his Humvee hit a mine in September 2006. The explosion threw him from the vehicle and temporarily blinded his left eye. He had to cheat on his eye exam to get back to Iraq (“I used my good eye when the doctor turned around,” he said) and what he found on his return was vastly different from what he had left. Three months into deployment, the battalion has yet to suffer a casualty from hostile action.

Captain Miller said that he, like most marines, was immensely relieved that the violence had subsided. But spending time with him also reveals a deep ambivalence about the new bond with Anbar’s Sunnis, and ultimately with Iraq.

One recent day began with smiles and easy handshakes as he greeted the tribal sheiks and local officials of the Falluja District Council. He and his battalion commander had come to lend support and to speed the delivery of services.

But getting Iraqis to take the lead was a challenge. When discussion turned to a heating fuel shortage, Captain Miller scanned the room for a contractor he had asked to stand and address the issue. The man hadn’t shown up. When he explained later, through an interpreter, that he had expected a more formal invitation, Captain Miller just rolled his eyes.

That is the way things have gone in Iraq for years, and often the root of the problem can be traced to Saddam Hussein. His paranoid totalitarian rule crushed initiative, set neighbor against neighbor and injected fear into nearly every interaction. The regime’s abuses can still be seen in Sunni-Shiite antagonisms: Sunnis were favored under Mr. Hussein, and do not relish their loss of status; Shiites feel they are finally getting their due and have little interest in sharing.

The divide shows up in the streets.

From the council meeting, Captain Miller drove to a command center near a school where another contractor had left a job unfinished. The school department’s chief engineer offered an explanation: the contractor was a Shiite and knew that his bosses at the Education Ministry — also Shiites — wouldn’t mind the lapse in a Sunni city.

Whatever the reason, the chief engineer now finds himself following Captain Miller to meeting after meeting, pleading for assistance, a reluctant supplicant to a foreigner half his age.

Falluja has become a city filled with such relationships. Around lunchtime, Captain Miller and his marines walked to a second school, where the captain was treated like the mayor of a poor American city. He had expected to discuss awards for students who had recited passages from the Koran. But in the principal’s office, he found a handful of strangers.

“Who are these guys?” he asked.

For the next hour, they bombarded him with demands. Two men asked about a relative who they said had been detained several years ago.

A bearded man seeking work pushed forward a contract that included a $50,000 charge for a generator that Captain Miller knew he could buy for $8,000.

Captain Miller listened, initially calm. He took notes. But as the requests kept coming, he grew more annoyed, firing baffled glances at a marine sitting next to him.

Then a man in a leather jacket leaned forward. He told Captain Miller that another marine had promised to pay him for burying 535 Iraqis killed during the American assaults on Falluja in 2004.

“So someone told you we would pay you to bury dead bodies but never gave you anything in writing?” Captain Miller said.

The man nodded.

And Captain Miller lost his cool.

“Those guys were trying to kill me,” he said, his voice just shy of a yell. “You want me to pay to have them buried?”

The room went quiet. Old, searing memories — of shattered bodies and dead friends — seemed to hang in the air.

Marines are not known for emoting. They fight wars. End of story. But a businesslike approach to nation-building can’t always mask a gut-level anger, barely suppressed, at working with Iraqis who may be former insurgents.

Less than two weeks ago in northern Ramadi, a knife fight broke out between an American marine and an Iraqi policeman. It left the Iraqi dead.

In the principal’s office, Captain Miller simply changed the subject. He returned to awards for the students, and agreed to tour the school so the bearded contractor could explain his proposal for the generator. Captain Miller, who hands out between $500,000 and $1 million to Iraqis every month, told the contractor that he would have to weigh the cost against other needs.

He did not say — but it is also true — that the marines struggle to measure whether the money they hand out is getting them any closer to stability or reconciliation. Any serious assessment would have to include a count of work done and redone. The schoolyard Captain Miller visited next had been cleaned repeatedly with the help of payments from the Americans. But when the marines looked at it that day, they found that papers, plastic and foam had returned.

AND again, Captain Miller’s easy manner slipped. Looking up, he saw a man on a roof installing a pipe that might have been connected to his bathroom. “Hey,” Captain Miller shouted to the man. “I’ll get a pipe and put my own sewage in your house if I see a pipe pouring sewage into this school.”

The principal stood beside him, silent. Pleased by the threat? Embarrassed?

The afternoon bell rang. Children as old as teenagers poured out of the school, and some of the marines grew skittish. “Should this be happening?” one asked himself.

The squad moved on. Near a mosque being rebuilt after it was destroyed by American bombs, Captain Miller stopped at a cafe and listened to young men say they would have to pay $800 to $1,000 in bribes to get a job on the police force. It was clear they were frustrated, but it wasn’t clear whom they blamed — Americans or fellow Iraqis.

Up ahead, a green steel bridge straddled the Euphrates. In 2004, from that bridge, insurgents had displayed the charred bodies of two American contractors after killing and mutilating them. If the marines were thinking about that, they didn’t show it. They walked by without incident, turning onto a side street where children began blurting out two English phrases: “Give me money,” and an obscenity. The marines of Kilo Company looked neither angry nor surprised. The bridge, the mosque, the children — they were all signs of a city in transition from insurgency to pleas for help.

By the time Captain Miller reached the garbage bins without wheels and the empty doorway by the cemetery, the unit seemed to have calmed. The sun was setting. A call to prayer rang out.

A young marine told me that he was in Iraq for the first time, thrilled to be here and eager to see action. It is like that in many units. There is a divide between those who have learned the costs of combat — the past that colors the present — and those who have not.

Captain Miller’s thoughts had already turned to the three marines he knew who had been killed by snipers in the area last summer. “This was the Colosseum of Falluja,” he said. “It was where the warriors and insurgents came to fight.”

He clearly didn’t want to relive the memories. Things had changed. On this night, a crowd of young men had gathered by a well-stocked grocer. Another group, fixing a sewer line, was up ahead.

Captain Miller kept walking. He said he would talk to the contractor about the doors to the cemetery. Rather than hold a grudge, for his own psyche and for Iraq, his goal was simple. He just wanted to see the job completed.

Here is a quick article I read in the post. Many “arm-chair” warfighters in congress would like us to believe that they have the answers to the Global War on Terror. This artcile is just more proof that war should be left to the real warriors, not politicians.

Surge And Denial

Dems vs. success in Iraq

By Michelle Malkin

There should be no question what the top story of the year was: America’s counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, the Democrats’ hapless efforts to sabotage it, and the Western mainstream media’s stubborn refusal to own up to military progress.

What happened in January defined the rest of the year. We rang in 2007 with vehement liberal opposition to the “surge” of 21,000 added U.S. troops and tactical changes to secure Baghdad. In the ensuing 12 months, Democrats tried and failed repeatedly to undermine this military strategy and starve the war of funding. Their poisonously partisan allies at MoveOn.org attempted to smear surge architect and patriot Gen. David Petraeus as a traitor. The New York Times and Associated Press fought tooth and nail to obscure the successes of the surge with their relentless “grim milestone” drumbeat. But by year’s end, with Shiites and Sunnis marching and praying together for peace, even anti-war Democrats and adversarial media outlets alike were forced to acknowledge that undeniable military progress and security improvements had been made.

Is there still a long way to go? Hell, yes. Were there other ancillary factors that contributed to the decrease in violence and the “awakenings” in Anbar province and Baghdad? Yes again. But go back to January. Refresh your memories of the anti-surge rhetoric and the spectacularly misguided conventional wisdom.

When the Senate Foreign Relation Committee’s resolution opposing the surge passed 12-9 on Jan. 24, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the panel’s chairman, disingenuously claimed it was “not an attempt to embarrass the president.” Bull. That’s what the Democrats have been trying to do all year. Biden argued: The measure “is designed to let the president know that there are many in both parties, Democrats and Republicans, that believe a change in our mission to go into Baghdad — in the midst of a civil war — as well as a surge in ground troops . . . is the wrong way to go, and I believe it will have the opposite — I repeat —opposite effect the president intends.”

Seven months later, staunch anti-war Democrat Rep. Brian Baird of Washington returned from Baghdad and recognized reality:

“As a Democrat who voted against the war from the outset and who has been frankly critical of the administration and the post-invasion strategy, I am convinced by the evidence that the situation has at long last begun to change substantially for the better . . . the people, strategies and facts on the ground have changed for the better and those changes justify changing our position on what should be done.”

Wrong-way Biden insisted the anti-surge resolution wasn’t meant to embarrass the president. Opponents of the Baghdad mission insisted they didn’t want America to fail. But let’s not forget where the Democrats came from in January — and where the party leadership remains. A Fox News poll in mid-January revealed that a disturbing 49 percent of Democrats either wanted us to lose in Iraq or “didn’t know” if they wanted us to succeed. All but two Democrats voted in the House to oppose the surge. As our troops succeeded, these surge critics went from arguing against the strategy to arguing whether violence dropped in Baghdad to arguing about why that decrease occurred. Through it all, Gen. Petraeus and the troops serving under him have remained stalwart, candid and courageous. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 23: “The way ahead will be neither quick nor easy.”

That’s also what I heard repeatedly from officers I interviewed while embedded in Baghdad in January — just as the first wave of surge forces was being mobilized. It’s a message the instant gratification Beltway media didn’t want to deliver.

There’s a reason the magazine and newspaper editors are naming everything but the surge as their top story of the year. (Putin? The Virginia Tech massacre? Come on.) Good news in the war on terror is bad news for those rooting for failure. Far easier to play up casualties and sectarian strife, sensationalize accusations of atrocities, and demonize the men and women in uniform to indulge Bush Derangement Syndrome, as Washington Post staffer and NBC military analyst William Arkin did on Jan. 30 when he lambasted troops for enjoying “obscene amenities” and serving as a “mercenary” force.

One of the troops Arkin considers a “mercenary” was Army 2nd Lt. Mark J. Daily. On Jan. 19, a reader e-mailed me that the 23-year-old standout soldier had been killed in an IED attack in Mosul along with three other comrades. To MoveOn and Democrat leaders and the anti-surge press, he’s just another number. Another “victim.” Another pawn. But on his MySpace site and across the Internet, his immortal words resonate:

“Some have allowed their resentment of the President to stir silent applause for setbacks in Iraq. Others have ironically decried the war because it has tied up our forces and prevented them from confronting criminal regimes in Sudan, Uganda, and elsewhere. I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined.”

He declared simply: “I genuinely believe the United States Army is a force of good in this world.”

It’s the legacy 2Lt. Daily left on this world — and the legacy that defined 2007 against all political and media odds.

Next and final part. Great posts. It feels nice to be in good company.

THE CITIZEN AND THE TRIBESMAN
(or Why We Will Never See Democracy in the Middle East)

by Steven Pressfield

In the five years since 9/11, much looking-back has been done. The problem is we haven’t looked back far enough. To understand the nature of the enemy in the Middle East and to evaluate the prospects for democracy and peace, we need to extend our gaze not five years into the past, but five hundred and even five thousand.

I’ve spent the last four years writing two books about Alexander the Great’s campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, 331-327 B.C. What has struck me in the research is the dead-ringer parallels between that ancient East-West clash and the modern ones the U.S. is fighting today — despite the fact that Alexander was pre-Christian and his enemies were pre-Islamic.

What history seems to be telling us is that the quality that most defines our Eastern adversaries, then and now, is neither religion nor extremism nor “Islamo-fascism,” but something much older and more fundamental.

Tribalism.

Extremist Islam is merely an overlay (and a recent one at that) atop the primal, unchanging mind-set of the East, which is tribalism, and its constituent individual, the tribesman.

Tribalism and the tribal mind-set are what the West is up against in Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the Iraqi insurgency, the Sunni and Shiite militias, and the Taliban.

What exactly is the tribal mind-set? It derives from that most ancient of social organizations, whose virtues are obedience, fidelity, warrior pride, respect for ancestors, hostility to outsiders and willingness to lay down one’s life for the cause/faith/group. The tribe’s ideal leader is closer to Tony Soprano than to FDR and its social mores are more like those of Geronimo’s Apaches than the city council of Scarsdale or Shepherd’s Bush. Can the tribal mind embrace democracy? Consider the contrast between the tribesman and the citizen:

A citizen is an autonomous individual. A citizen is free. A citizen possesses the capacity to evaluate the facts and prospects of his world and to make decisions guided by his own conscience, uncoerced by authority. A congress of citizens acting in free elections determines the political course of a democratic community.

A citizen prizes his freedom; therefore he grants it to others. He is willing to respect the rights of minorities within the community, so that his own rights will be shielded when he finds himself in the minority.

The tribesman doesn’t see it that way. Within the fixed hierarchy of the tribe, disagreement is not dissent (and thus to be tolerated) but treachery, even heresy, which must be ruthlessly expunged. The tribe exists for itself alone. It is perpetually at war with all other tribes, even of its own race and religion.

The tribesman deals in absolutes. One is either “of blood” or not. The enemy spy can infiltrate the tribal network no more than a prison guard can worm his way into the Aryan Brotherhood. The tribe recognizes its own. It expels (or beheads) the alien. The tribe cannot be negotiated with. “Good faith” applies only within the pale, never beyond.

The tribesman does not operate by a body of civil law but by a code of honor. If he receives a wrong, he does not seek redress. He wants revenge. The taking of revenge is a virtue in tribal eyes, called badal in the Pathan code of nangwali. A man who does not take revenge is not a man. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the sectarian militias of Iraq are not in the war business, they are in the revenge business. The revenge-seeker cannot be negotiated with because his intent is bound up with honor. It is an absolute.

Perhaps the most telling difference between the citizen and the tribesman lies in their views of the Other. The citizen embraces multiplicity; to him, the melting pot produces richness and cultural diversity. To the tribesman, the alien is not even given the dignity of being a human being; he is a gentile, an infidel, a demon.

The tribesman grants justice within the tribe. In his internal councils, empathy, humor and compassion may prevail. Outside the tribe? Forget it. Can Shiites really sit down with Sunnis? Will the pledges of Hezbollah or Hamas to Israel prove true?

The democratic virtues of the Enlightenment, the Rights of Man and the American Constitution are not virtues to the tribesman. They are effeminate. They lack warrior honor. “Freedom” to the tribesman means the extinction of all he and his ancestors hold dear; “democracy” and Western values are a mortal threat to the ancient and proud way of life that the tribal mind has embraced (whether Scythian nomads, Amazon warriors, or American Indians) for tens of thousands of years.

The tribesman isn’t “wrong” or “evil.” He just doesn’t want what we’re selling. We will not convert him with free elections or with SAW machine guns. To him, 9/11 is only the most recent act of badal in a clash that has been raging for more than two thousand years. We will not find the way to contest him, let alone defeat him, until we see the struggle against him within the greater context of this millenia-old, unaltering, East-West war.

Here is a great read by one of my favorite authors, Steven Pressfield. I highly suggest reading Gates of Fire and The Afghan Campaign. For those who have not seen this, check it out. I will follow it with a follow up article tomorrow. Enjoy…

IT’S THE TRIBES, STUPID

Forget the Koran. Forget the ayatollahs and the imams. If we want to understand the enemy we’re fighting in Iraq, the magic word is tribe.

Islam is not our opponent in Baghdad or Fallouja. We delude ourselves if we believe the foe is a religion. The enemy is tribalism articulated in terms of religion.

For two years I’ve been researching a book about Alexander the Great’s counter-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan, 330-327 B.C. What struck me most powerfully is that that war is a dead ringer for the ones we’re fighting today — even though Alexander was pre-Christian and his enemies were pre-Islamic.

In other words, the clash of East and West is at bottom not about religion. It’s about two different ways of being in the world. Those ways haven’t changed in 2300 years. They are polar antagonists, incompatible and irreconcilable.

The West is modern and rational; its constituent unit is the nation. The East is ancient and visceral; its constituent unit is the tribe.

What is a tribe anyway?

The tribe is the most ancient form of social organization. It arose from the hunter-gatherer clans of pre-history. A tribe is small. It consists of personal, face-to-face relationships, often of blood. A tribe is cohesive. Its structure is hierarchical. It has a leader and a rigid set of norms and customs that defines each individual’s role. Like a hunting band, the tribe knows who’s the top dog and knows how to follow orders. What makes Islam so powerful in the world today is that its all-embracing discipline and order overlay the tribal mind-set so perfectly. Islam delivers the certainty and security that the tribe used to. It permits the tribal way to survive and thrive in a post-tribal and super-tribal world.

Am I knocking tribalism? Not at all. In many ways I think people are happier in a tribal universe. Consider the appeal of post-apocalyptic movies like The Road Warrior or The Day After Tomorrow. Modern life is tough. Who can fault us if now and then we entertain the idea of going back to the simple life?

The people we’re fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan live that life 24/7/365 and they’ve been living it for the past ten thousand years. They like it. It’s who they are. They’re not going to change.

How do you combat a tribal enemy?

Step one is to recognize that that enemy is tribal. We in the West may flatter ourselves that democracy is taking root in Iraq when we see news footage of blue-ink thumbs and beaming faces emerging from polls. What’s really happening has nothing to do with democracy. What’s happening is the tribal chief has passed the word and everybody is voting exactly as he told them to.

What is the nature of the tribe? What can sociology tell us about its attributes?

The tribe respects power.

Saddam Hussein understood this. So did Tito, Stalin, Hitler. So will the next strong man who ultimately stabilizes Iraq.

The tribe must have a chief. It demands a leader. With a top dog, every underdog knows his place. He feels secure. He can provide security for this family. The tribe needs a Tony Soprano. It needs a Godfather.

The U.S. blew it in Iraq the first week after occupying Baghdad. Capt. Nate Fick of the Recon Marines tells the story of that brief interlude when U.S. forces were still respected, just before the looting started. Capt. Fick went in that interval to the local headman in his area of responsibility in Baghdad; he asked what he needed. The chief replied, “Clean water, electricity, and as many statues of George W. Bush as you can give us.”

The tribe needs a boss. Alexander understood this. Unlike the U.S., the Macedonians knew how to conquer a country. When Alexander took Babylon in 333 B.C., he let the people know he was the man. They accepted this. They welcomed it. Life could go on.

When we Americans declared in essence to the Iraqis, “Here, folks, you’re free now; set up your own government,” they looked at us as if we were crazy. The tribal mind doesn’t want freedom; it wants security. Order. It wants a New Boss. The Iraqis lost all respect for us then. They saw us as naive, as fools. They saw that we could be beaten.

The tribe is a warrior; its foundation is warrior pride.

The heart of every tribal male is that of a warrior. Even the most wretched youth in a Palestinian refugee camp sees himself as a knight of Islam. The Pathan code of nangwali prescribes three virtues–nang, pride; badal, revenge; melmastia, hospitality. These guys are Apaches.

What the warrior craves before all else is respect. Respect from his own people, and, even more, from his enemy. When we of the West understand this, as Alexander did, we’ll have taken the first step toward solving the unsolvable.

The tribe places no value on freedom.

The tribe is the most primitive form of social organization. In the conditions under which the tribe evolved, survival was everything. Cohesion meant the difference between starving and eating. The tribe enforces conformity by every means possible–wives, mothers, and daughters add the whip hand to keep the warriors in line. Freedom is a luxury the tribe can’t afford. The tribesman’s priority is respect within the tribe, to belong, to be judged a man.

You can’t sell “freedom” to tribesmen any more than you can sell “democracy.” He doesn’t want it. It violates his code. It threatens everything he stands for.

The tribe is bound to the land.

I just read an article about Ariel Sharon (a tribal leader if there ever was one.) The interviewer was describing how, as Sharon crossed a certain stretch of Israeli real estate, he pointed out with great emotion the hills where the Biblical character Abigail lived out her story. In other words, to the tribesman the land isn’t for sale; it’s been rendered sacred by the sagas of ancestors. The tribe will paint the stones red with its own blood before letting itself be evicted from the land.

The tribe cannot be negotiated with.

Tribes deal in absolutes. Their standards of honor cannot be compromised. Crush the tribe in one century, it will rise again a thousand years from now. We’re seeing this now in a Middle East where the Crusades happened yesterday. When the tribe negotiates, it is always a sham — a stalling tactic meant to mitigate temporary weakness. Do we believe Iran is really “coming to the table?” As soon as the tribe regains power, it will abrogate every treaty and every pact.

The tribe has no honor except within its own sphere, deriving justice for its own people. Its code is Us versus Them. The outsider is a gentile, an infidel, a devil.

These are just a few of the characteristics of the tribal mind. Now: what to do about this?

How to deal with the tribal mind.

You can’t make deals with a tribal foe; they won’t be honored. You can’t buy them; they’ll take your money and despise you. The tribe can’t be reasoned with. Its mind is not rational, it’s instinctive. The tribe is not modern but primitive. The tribe thinks from the stem of its brain, not the cortex. Its code is of warrior pride, not of Enlightenment reason.

To deal successfully with the tribe, a negotiator of the West must first grant it its pride and honor. The tribe’s males must be addressed as warriors; its women must be treated with respect. The tribe must be left to its own land, to govern as it deems best.

If you want to get out of a tribal war, you must find a scenario by which the tribe can declare itself victorious. The tribal mind is canny; it knows when it’s whipped. But its warrior pride is so fierce, it cannot admit this. The tribe has to be allowed its face.

How Alexander got out of a quagmire.

It took Alexander three years, but he finally got a handle on the tribal mind. (Perhaps because so many of his own Macedonians were basically tribal.) Alexander produced peace by marrying the daughter of his most powerful enemy, the princess Roxane. The tribe understands such an act. This is respect. This is honor.

Alexander made the tribesmen his equals. He acknowledged their warrior honor. When he and his army marched out to their next conquest, Alexander took the bravest of his former enemies with him as his Companions. They rode at his side in stations of honor; they dined at his shoulder in the royal pavilion. (Of course he also beat the living hell out of the Afghans for three years prior, and when he took off he left a fifth of his army to garrison the place.)

The outlook for the U.S. in Iraq
In the end, unless we’re ready to treat them they way we did Geronimo, the tribe is unbeatable. They’re just too crazy. They’re not like us. Tolerance and open-mindedness are not virtues to them; they’re signs of weakness. The tribe is too rigid to bend, and it can’t be negotiated with.

Perhaps in the end, our leaders, like Alexander, will figure some way to bring the tribal foe around. More likely in my opinion, they’ll arrive at the same conclusion as did Lord Roberts, the legendary British general. Lord Roberts fought (and defeated militarily) tribesmen in two bloody wars in Afghanistan in the 19th century. His conclusion: get out. Lord Roberts’ axiom was that the farther away British forces remained from the tribesmen, the more likely the tribesmen were to feel warmly toward them; the closer he got, the more they hated him and the more stubbornly and implacably they fought against him.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

A Holiday Showdown We Can’t Afford

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced recently that if Congress did not provide the additional war funding President Bush has requested, the Army would be forced to cease all base operations and furlough “about 100,000 government employees and a like number of contractor employees” by mid-February. The Army would be required by law to notify affected employees 60 days in advance — just in time for the holidays.

That’s not the kind of news you ever want to hear, but especially not during this season. What’s sad is this scenario is entirely avoidable.

Just weeks ago, Congress passed the largest defense spending bill ever — $459 billion for all non-war operations. This gives the Army and the Defense Department a number of options to defer a furlough until later in 2008, by which time the notion of furloughs hopefully will be nothing but a bad memory.

In fact, the Army discussed this with the House Appropriations Committee this year. Moreover, the Defense Department can transfer funds not needed to meet operating balances and assign contract obligations to other services to forestall more drastic measures.

A recently released Congressional Research Service report confirms these budget options, estimating that even if only the low-hanging fruit were plucked, a furlough would not be necessary until the end of March.

That’s five weeks longer than the Defense Department has claimed possible. More drastic budget options are available that could add another month’s delay, pushing a possible furlough well into the spring. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has pledged that Congress will not allow it to ever get that far, and, speaking on behalf of the capital area delegation, we pledge that Congress will not let it get that far.

The bottom line is that there are a number of options to overcome budget shortfalls and we look forward to discussing those with the Pentagon in the immediate future.

While our views on Iraq are not quite identical, our views on whether federal employees should be used as bargaining chips are. Unfortunately, the administration is resorting to an old budget showdown tactic — using federal employees’ livelihoods as leverage in a battle with Congress.

Civilian employees and contractors are crucial to our national defense and serve our country with distinction. Presenting furlough notices a week before the holiday season critically threatens employee morale and damages the Defense Department’s effectiveness. In addition, the long-term effects of such a furlough can be devastating. Experienced employees may choose not to return once the layoffs end; those considering a career with the federal government are likely to think twice. Workforce shortages are a serious issue for some of our most critical defense agencies — indeed, the entire federal government. This is no time to make matters worse.

Taking care of your own is a fundamental tenet of good leadership. Putting employees’ livelihoods on the line should be the last resort, not Plan A.

–Jim Moran and Tom Davis,Washington

The writers, a Democrat and a Republican, represent the 8th and 11th congressional districts of Virginia, respectively, in the House of Representatives.

This is the final in a weeklong special segment on Wounded Warriors. Thanks to Ralph Peters and The Wounded Warrior program for supporting these brave men and women. More importantly, thanks to these brave warriors who provide us with the humility we desperately need and the inspiration to become better people. They are true symbols of American resilience and courage. I can testify that I am a better man for having the privilege of being associated with them. It’s a long read, 2 articles, but well worth it. Semper Fi.

Wartime Moms

Wounded sons, mighty spirits

By Ralph Peters

FORT SAM HOUSTON, SAN ANTONIO — After four years of helping our severely wounded warriors struggle back, Judith “Mom” Markelz reserves her highest praise for their mothers and wives:

“Women are the strongest people in the world. They do whatever it takes. They give up a year, two years . . . the car is gone, the house is gone, they’ve lost their own medical insurance, but they stick to their husbands and sons.”

I sat down in the cramped “make do for now” Warrior and Family Support Center with two of those sturdy military moms, Joy Sparks and Rose Lage. Speaking through the good-natured tumult around us, they fought back tears as they told their tales of battlefield heroism, heartbreaking loss - and the struggle to recover.

Earthy and warm-hearted, Mrs. Sparks spoke first. As a former Navy petty officer first class, with a retired-military husband, she knows how the bureaucracy works - and uses her experience to help younger wives and mothers cope with the inevitable frustrations.

But this strong woman’s voice weakens as she tries to put her son’s experience into words. Spec. Christopher Sparks drove a Bradley Infantry Combat Vehicle in Echo Co., 1st of the 8th Cav. On a route-clearance mission, his vehicle was hit - by the seventh IED the 22-year-old had faced during his tour of duty.

No. 7 wasn’t lucky this time. Spec. Sparks suffered traumatic brain injuries from the blast - yet, amazingly, surged to drive on through the ambush, saving his buddies. He made it all the way back to Forward Operating Base Hope and safety.

Then he collapsed. Now he’s been at Brooke Army Medical Center for three months, with speech, memory and balance problems. But his mom prefers to focus on his progress: “With brain injuries, it’s tough . . . but he can stay on task now.”

Rose Lage’s family story is, if anything, more wrenching. Her son, Staff Sgt. Michael Lage, age 30, “doesn’t remember a lot” about what happened. But his 3rd Infantry Division comrades do. On a mission near Baghdad - on his third tour in Iraq - a remote-detonated bomb struck the NCO’s Humvee.

Of five soldiers in the vehicle, Lage was the lone survivor. The others were “blown to pieces,” in his mom’s words. When other soldiers reached him, her son was “found on fire, clinging to his weapon,” an Infantryman to the end.

Staff Sgt. Lage spent three weeks in intensive care. He had third-degree burns over 39 percent of his body - face, arms and torso. His left hand had to be amputated; he lost his right thumb.

But he’s a fighter, from a family of fighters. He’s recovered to the point where he can take short trips into San Antonio for a dinner out with his parents. On one such trip, this heroic soldier saw the worst side of our country. Mrs. Lage - a petite blond with a giant heart - can’t speak of it without choking up.

His parents took Michael to an Applebee’s. Everything went just fine - some good-hearted American even picked up their dinner tab anonymously. But, as they were leaving, a woman pointed at Michael and said, loudly, “Look at him! He only has half a face, he has no nose.”

Staff Sgt. Lage turned to the woman and explained that he looks that way because he was defending her freedom. And he walked out of the restaurant.

VETERANS who’ve suffered the worst injuries face that sort of heartlessness as they re-enter society. Helping them cope is the core mission of the new Warrior and Family Support Center - which still needs another $2 million before it can be completed. Your donations are critical.

Both Joy Sparks and Rose Lage are mature, confident, capable women - as well equipped to deal with the fates of their sons as any mothers could be. But they, too, have relied heavily on the overwhelmed temporary support center that the new facility will replace.

Both moms agreed that the interim center - one big, crowded room at present - is a wonderful place for the gravely wounded: “Here they’re accepted, nobody stares, and they all get the same treatment. We have to bring these soldiers out of their hospital rooms,” to get them really living again.

But the new facility will offer desperately needed privacy for reunited families, as well as resources and activities to help them on their march back. It’s going to be a special place - as close to a real home as possible, with shaded porches where burn victims can enjoy fresh air and special adaptations for those who’ve suffered catastrophic limb-loss.

The center covers a lot of other ground, too, from providing underwear and toiletries to wounded soldiers who arrive with nothing, to coming up with baby supplies for bewildered young mothers whose soldier-husbands remain in intensive care.

Mrs. Sparks and Mrs. Lage especially praise the outings the center coordinates to sporting events or shows - to help troops who’ve lost limbs or suffered disfiguring injuries learn that they’re still welcome among their fellow Americans (that wretched woman at Applebee’s notwithstanding).

These two moms are now fixtures at the center, volunteering between sessions with their sons to give other women a shoulder to cry on - and much-needed advice. They do all they can (including wearing cow hats that moo) to cheer up young wives and moms terrified by the changes their families face.

What experience has moved them the most? Both moms recall a soldier who’d taken a rocket hit through his back and stomach - yet mustered the will to live until he got back to the States to see the son born in his absence. After three weeks - and a family reunion - “he passed,” as Joy Sparks put it.

“You don’t see all the wounds,” Rose Lage added, “the mental and emotional ones. Some make it back, but some just can’t make it.” She’s troubled that so little attention is paid to female amputees - whose lives have been shattered.

Asked what they’d like to say to their sons in front of the American public, neither mother hesitated. Ma Sparks said, “I love you and support you.”

Eyes going damp again, Rose Lage said, “I’ve got you back!”

Splendid Valor

Heroes need our support

By Ralph Peters

FORT SAM HOUSTON, SAN ANTONIO — As I wrap up a week of columns dedicated to our wounded veterans, I have one great regret: We could only tell a limited number of stories in these pages, but every one of our wounded warriors deserves to have his or her tale told.

The soldiers and Marines who took a break from their therapy sessions to talk to The Post last week all have compelling histories; here are sketches of just a few more:

Airborne Infantryman Staff Sgt. Nick McCoy was on patrol in Iskandariyah when a roadside bomb took off his legs and left him with severe upper-body injuries. A rigorous soldier who took pride in his physical fitness, he’s seen his life change profoundly.

But Nick just won’t quit. The Mt. Penn, Pa., native is working on a book with his dad, exploring the personal side of the war from Iraq and from the home front. He’s thinking about a journalism degree, too. (I warned him it means a vow of poverty.)

During her second tour in Iraq, Sgt. Lilina Benning was driving her sergeant-major on the “safe” circular road at Camp Victory outside of Baghdad. A random terrorist rocket hit her SUV. Lilina lost her foot, but not her dedication to the Army. She’s determined to remain on active duty. Oh, and her brother’s in Iraq right now - on his second tour.

On the day I met Lilina, she was ecstatic - she’d just left her wheelchair and walked from the main hospital to the rehab center with only a cane.

Army medic Spec. Greg Dotson was on a bomb-clearing patrol north of Baqubah when an improvised explosive device got the drop on the convoy. He’ll never be able to serve as a combat medic again, but he’d like to share his battlefield expertise by teaching at the Army’s school for medics at Ft. Sam Houston. If that doesn’t work out, Greg’s going to finish college, teach school - and coach basketball.

These men and women aren’t going to be burdens on their communities. They’re going to become community leaders.

Then there’s Capt. Jeromie Smith, a former patient himself and now the company commander responsible for the wounded warriors and military staff at the Center for the Intrepid. He shepherds the newly wounded through phases of anger and depression, helping them form a new brotherhood among themselves.

Speaking of the men and women in his care, Capt. Smith summed up everything this week’s columns have been about: “They don’t want our pity - they want our respect. And they’ve earned it.”

There are so many more: NYPD and National Guard member Spec. Alexander Marner, an immigrant from Ukraine (and a veteran of the old Soviet Air Force) suffered a debilitating illness in Kuwait. He had to undergo a series of complex operations on his arms and legs. Now he’s anxious to get back to the NYPD after New Year’s.

On a “routine” supply run in Baghdad, West Point grad Capt. Christian Fierro was shot - by a medic who failed to clear her weapon properly. The round tore into his ankle and foot, shredding the artery, severing his Achilles tendon, and ripping out a chunk of meat and bone “the size of a softball.”

The new medic panicked. Capt. Fierro credits his gunner with saving his life.

After more than a dozen surgeries to save his foot, Chris still may lose it. But he’s determined to remain in the Army, even if he has to leave his beloved Field Artillery and take a desk job. He just wants to stay in uniform.

WE could’ve run weeks of columns about these magnificent young men and women. But we can all be proud of two things: these selfless wounded warriors themselves - and the generosity of Post readers, who’ve poured in donations to help make the new Warrior and Family Support Center a reality.

That said, more money needs to be raised. If you haven’t given, please consider a donation (see the box at left for how-to details).

Let me tell you a bit more about the organization dedicated to building this new refuge for the gravely wounded and their families. (I refuse to use the word “charity” where these heroes are concerned - helping disabled veterans is our duty.)

In this age of “nonprofit” scams and scoundrel CEOs, you have a right to know where your contributions will go. Well, out of every dollar you donate to this cause, 97.3 cents goes directly to the construction of the new center and our veterans. I doubt that even my lifelong favorite charity, the Salvation Army, can meet that 2.7 percent standard for administrative overhead.

How do those citizen-volunteers down in San Antonio do it? By being citizen-volunteers. The closest thing the effort has to a full-time employee is the woman (paid at an hourly rate) who does the accounting. No member of the oversight board receives a cent; there’s no six-figure CEO flying around in a personal jet and throwing lavish parties. In fact, there’s no CEO at all - just volunteers who want to help our troops.

(Speaking of volunteers, I have to close this series on a personal note - thanking one of them in particular. Eliza Sonneland, a recently retired Alamo-city talk-show host and an early advocate for this project, told me to stop blathering, get off my butt, come down to San Antonio and help. You were right, Eliza. Thanks. And God bless you.)

Finally, I have to confess that I expected to have a depressing time interviewing veterans who’d suffered massive burns and the loss of multiple limbs. I was wrong. Every single soldier and Marine I met inspired me with his or her determination, valor and positive outlook. Their courage is immeasurable - and beautiful.

Those wounded warriors are too humble and decent to ask us for one damned thing. But they need our help. Let’s not leave them behind this holiday season.

Do what you can…

Semper, Semper Fi

Injured Marines fighting on

By Ralph Peters

FORT SAM HOUSTON, SAN ANTONIO — The best way to capture the spirit of the severely wounded Marines who pass through the Center for the In trepid is just to tell their stories and let them speak for themselves:

Sgt. Eric Morante, a squad leader in Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines stood watch in a sandbagged observation post atop a bridge west of Fallujah. Visibility was great - five miles in each direction - preventing terrorists from planting roadside bombs.

But the bridge served a crucial highway, and traffic had to flow. Risk was unavoidable. The best the Marines could do was to keep vehicles moving. On April 20, a suicide bomber detonated 3,000 pounds of explosives underneath the Marine OP. The bridge collapsed.

Sgt. Morante landed hard, blacking out as debris covered him. When he came to a few minutes later, he was pinned under concrete shards. Struggling, he shoved the wreckage off him - then saw that his right leg had snapped back behind his body.

The leg was amputated by surgeons in Balad. Morante woke up in a military hospital in Germany. Next stop: San Antonio and rehab.

His chief ambition is still to become a drill sergeant. Missing a leg, he arranged for the Marine Corps logo to be painted on his prosthesis. “I was back on my feet in three months,” he says proudly - but he still faces all-day therapy.

It’s been a tough year: His father died, and his mother’s been sick. And some jerk stole the sergeant’s truck, which had been parked back home in Houston.

So what does he worry about? The other Marines wounded in the blast - and, especially, his Navy corpsman. The medic’s still in a coma down in Tampa Bay and may never come out of it. He’s never seen the child his wife delivered a few months ago.

* Then there’s Gunnery Sgt. Blaine Scott, 35, and a “lifer.” The gunny served with the 3rd Light Armored Recon Co. of the 1st Marine Division in Anbar Province. He was 6½ months into his second Iraq tour when an IED detonated under his vehicle.

Gunny Scott was burned over 40 percent of his body. He’s been in rehab for 16 months, with “too many operations to count.” Despite reconstructive surgery, his face still tells of wounds. But this Marine’s Marine is 1,000 miles away from self-pity: “Hey, this is what I do for a living, this is what I chose.”

It helps that Marines stay close and support each other. And that this Iowa native has a strong marriage and three great kids.

Gunny Scott praises the “awesome” quality of care he’s received. And he’s grateful for the Fisher House room in which his family spent three months before being assigned on-post housing.

When you first meet Gunny Scott, your eyes go to the burn scars on his face. That’s the plain truth of it. But he projects so much fortitude and pride that a strange thing happens: After a little while, it strikes you that he’s still a handsome man - a man you’re privileged to know.

His priority now? Working with new Marine patients to bolster their spirits.

* Lt. Col. Grant Olbrich, a Marine aviator, heads the local Patient Affairs Team from the Marines’ Wounded Warrior Regiment. He calls the Center for the Intrepid “wonderful” and the Army hospital “very supportive of Marines.”

But he also notes that Marines do miss their own culture. Part of that culture is the Corps Commandant’s position on severely wounded Marines: “If you want to stay in the Corps, we’re going to find a way to keep you.”

And Marines want to stay in. “They do not feel sorry for themselves,” Lt. Col. Olbrich says.

* Lance Cpl. Chris Traxson is on a high: He just got engaged to his high-school sweetheart.

He’d been on a Humvee patrol in the black heart of Fallujah - before the city “flipped” and turned on al Qaeda - when a bomb struck the underside of his Humvee. It wasn’t even his regular Humvee - that had been hit by another IED two days earlier.

Fire shot through the vehicle. He suffered third-degree burns over 56 percent of his body, along with bone exposure. He looks fine now - but, under his garments, he has to keep his skin moisturized at all times.

He’s come a long way, though. His parents had been at his bedside for two weeks before he “really” woke up in the burn center. Now he’s determined to move on: “For a long time, I was pretty depressed . . . for four or five months . . . but over time I came to grips with it: This is my new body.”

He was a police officer back home in Arkansas (the chief and his fellow officers came down to visit). That’s over now - but Traxson, who holds a degree in criminal justice, intends to go to law school. And he’s really looking forward to going home for Christmas.

His buddies avenged him, by the way: “They caught the guy who planted the IED, and he rolled over. He gave up the bombmaker.”

* When Sgt. Jose Martinez arrived for our interview at the ad hoc Warrior and Family Support Center, the room was so crowded and noisy that we had to move out to the hallway for the interview. He had to step carefully, skirting dangling decorations and the Christmas tree.

Sgt. Martinez is fighting blindness.

The movie-star handsome sergeant describes himself as a “Navy brat.” A brother’s in the Army - in Iraq.

Martinez is a Force Recon Marine, the elite of the elite. He’d been working with a sniper team in the city of Hit. The team pulled out of an infiltration mission to “act on intel” about insurgents planting a bomb - and a running gun battle developed. The Marines kept up the pressure, dueling with the insurgents. Wrapping things up, the team called for extraction by a Bradley combat vehicle.

But the insurgents had lured the Marines into a prepared site. As the team approached its ride back to safety, a buried bomb went off. Three Marines and a translator were killed. The three remaining Marines were gravely wounded.

Sgt. Martinez took shrapnel in his eyes. The retinal damage to his left eye limits him to three inches of vision. The right eye’s stronger, but his peripheral vision is gone and the discrepancy between his eyes prevents him from wearing corrective lenses as he walks. He’s at a point where further operations would only risk the vision that remains.

The sergeant calls himself lucky: Others died. He’s alive, with a girlfriend he adores and college ahead. “Whatever I decide to do, I’ll get it done,” the Marine said.

We joke about how close he has to be to recognize a pretty girl (the answer is very close). Then Sgt. Martinez grows wistful and adds a holiday message to us all, “Be grateful for what you have. Nothing is ever that bad.”

What you can do

You can donate to the Warrior and Family Support Center project via credit card by phone at 1-888-343-HERO or on the Web at ReturningHeroesHome.org.

To give by mail, send donations to: Returning Heroes Home, P.O. Box 202194, Dallas, TX 75320-2194. Checks should be made out to Returning Heroes Home, Inc. This is a nonprofit 501c3 endeavor; all donations are tax-deductible.

All contributions, in any amount, will help our wounded warriors. Please give to those who gave so much.

‘You Just Drive On’

Vets fighting their way back

By Ralph Peters

FORT SAM HOUSTON, SAN ANTONIO — Watching Army Staff Sgt. William Corp work out with a boogie-board on the wave-rider in the rehab center, I couldn’t help thinking of the best line from a bad film, “Apocalypse Now”: “Charlie don’t surf.”

Well, maybe the Viet Cong didn’t ride the waves, but our latest generation of severely wounded veterans do. Recovering from the loss of his right leg in a roadside-bomb attack in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Corp ran through his rehab routine - then started doing somersaults in the pressure-generated waves.

It’s no luxury. A workout in those roiling waters is exhausting, building muscles back up and helping those who’ve lost limbs re-master their sense of balance. It’s a challenging, innovative regimen.

And yes, it’s fun - but fun is vital to healthy rehab. Lt.-Col. Jennifer Menetrez, MD, the director of the Center for the Intrepid for our wounded warriors, argued for the wave-rider’s installation. It was a stroke of genius.

Lt.-Col. Menetrez is a story in herself - a Karen Allen look-alike (Remember the hottie from “Animal House”?), she’s a Wellesley grad who dedicated herself to a career in military medicine. A veteran of the first Gulf War, she’ll soon be promoted to full colonel.

She’d deserve it just for the intensity she brings to caring for our wounded warriors.

Grinning as he climbs out of the water, Staff Sgt. Corp is one of the rehab program’s success stories. (There are many others, as well.) He’s come a long way back since his arrival at the Brooke Army Medical Center in 2006. How far? Well, he isn’t just a “surfer dude.” He also ran the Army Ten-Miler in D.C. this autumn.

Oh, and he’s awaiting orders to go back to his job as a military policeman. Meanwhile, he volunteers to train newly arrived amputees. Just 27 and married to a military intelligence NCO (Whitney Corp), he’s got four kids and an attitude toward life that puts the rest of us to shame.

“You just drive on,” he told me. “What’s the next step? Hey, just drive on.” Drying off poolside, he shrugged and said, “Aw, I’m just an MP grunt.”

Well, Staff Sgt. Corp isn’t “just” anything. He’s a lion in a world of alley cats. As is another “combat surfer” - Spec. Joshua Wold, who lost his foot to a roadside bomb while on a recon mission outside Baghdad’s Sadr City last September.

An infantryman, Spec. Wold is fighting his way back fast. He’s already got a job lined up with the sheriff’s department back home in Lewis County, Wash. - where he’ll be reunited with his two daughters. Asked about his treatment, he said, “The medical facility here is the top of the line.”

That’s the Center for the Intrepid, built with private donations. (Congress didn’t help then and won’t help now.) But we, the people, still have more to do for our vets who’ve endured life-changing injuries: Your donations are needed to complete the construction of the Warrior and Family Support Center, where our wounded warriors and their families can find their way back into society.

Men and women in uniform who’ve suffered amputations, extensive burns or brain and nerve damage need a refuge where they can do everything from spending some quiet time getting re-acquainted with their loved ones to starting college classes or learning how to approach job interviews before they take off their uniforms.

They gave. Now we have to give. (Details on how to donate to the Warrior and Family Support Center are below.)

Asked if he had any thoughts he wanted to share with the American people this holiday season, Spec. Wold grew somber. “We’ve got to stick with it [Iraq]. All those men who sacrificed their lives . . . it would be pointless.”

For his part, Staff Sgt. Corp just wanted to thank the American people for their support.

In the course of dozens of interviews with severely wounded soldiers and Marines, not one complained about anything. They’re the bravest of the brave - not the demoralized losers Hollywood desperately wants them to be.

If you want to meet examples of what heroism means, visit these men and women who’ve served our country.

And no, it’s not all good news and happy outcomes. War’s carnage endures a lifetime for these men and women. As Doc Menetrez put it, “Sometimes we have to tell their care-providers [their families], ‘He’s not going to get all the way there.’ Some of them may need help for the rest of their lives. We have to set realistic goals.”

But she’s upbeat, in the end, and proud of the troops in her care. “Rehab is about taking what you have and maximizing it . . . and we have facilities here that don’t exist elsewhere.”

We were standing in a hallway just outside the rehab gym, where amputees were sweating through an exercise class. Looking in their direction, the lieutenant colonel said, “We consider our patients national treasures.”

And they are.

What you can do

You can donate to the Warrior and Family Support Center project via credit card by phone at 1-888- 343-HERO or at ReturningHeroesHome.org. To give by mail, send your donations to: Returning Heroes Home, P.O. Box 202194, Dallas, TX 75320-2194.

Checks should be made out to Returning Heroes Home, Inc. This is a nonprofit 501c3 endeavor; all donations are tax-deductible. All contributions, in any amount, will help our wounded warriors. Please give to those who gave so much.

I am BACK!

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Calling all Patriots!

There has got to be a few keyboard warriors who can meet this threat head on. Where is our genius youth, our virus makers and hackers? Lets get these smart guys to spread havoc across the net. Ignorance and hatred is contagious, we must stop the spread of radical extremism. It has no part in our lives, just like we have no part in theirs. Buy your kids a computer and up there allowance every time they bring down a Jihadi website!!

Terror Conference Gets Internet Chill

RIYADH — There are now about 5,600 Web sites spreading al Qaeda’s ideology worldwide, and 900 more are appearing each year, a Saudi researcher told a national security conference yesterday.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has identified the Internet as a key battlefield with militants who launched a campaign to topple the U.S.-allied ruling royal family in 2003.

“Research shows there are more than 5,600 sites on the Internet promoting the ideology of al Qaeda,” Khaled al-Faram told the Information Technology and National Security conference in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Reuters:

The president lost despite activating an oil-financed, state-backed get-out-the-vote machine.

Chavez is popular for a folksy style and often uses spicy language, particularly against the opposition and Washington.

He labels his rivals “lackeys of the empire” and U.S. President George W. Bush the “devil” and a “donkey.” He once called Bush an “asshole.”

From Caracas Chronicles:

Quico says: It’s now an established talking point in the government’s response to Sunday’s referendum defeat: by “graciously” accepting he’d lost, Chávez put the lie to the opposition claim that he’s some kind of crazy dictator. Like the democrat that he is, he “accepted the will of the people” and moved on…

Or did he?

This afternoon, Chávez turned up unannounced at the Military High Command’s press conference and totally freaked out. Less than 72 hours after his “graceful” election night concession speech, the all too predictable Narcissistic Rage response began. He called the opposition’s referendum win “a triumph made of shit,” using the word “mierda” four times in two sentences on national TV. I mean, you know things have come to a head when Reuter’s has to put the journalistic equivalent of a parental advisory at the start of its write up.

And I know everybody says Chávez doesn’t drink but…well, you be the judge:

Continue Caracas Chronicles story

Me and Iggy’s old home, the Ramadi Government Center

Patriots! This will be my last weekend away from home (for now), and I will have a video up next weekend, I promise. Things are well and I am obtaining a skill-set that makes me, and my fellow Marines better, more deadly warriors - You’re Tax Dollars at Work! Take a look at the Billy Joel news and support the song and the charity. Also, check out the wise words from former SecDef, Rumsfeld. Thanks for loving our country!

Joel’s Words, Dillon’s Voice Honor Troops

After watching footage of young soldiers serving in Iraq and getting letters from some, Billy Joel was inspired to write a song addressing their experiences.

“But I knew I wasn’t the person to sing it,” he says. To record Christmas in Fallujah, available Tuesday exclusively at iTunes, Joel turned to fellow Long Island native Cass Dillon. “I’ve already had my day in the sun — and to be honest, I’m not a big fan of my own voice,” Joel says.

Joel did sing backup and had his band play on the track, which he describes as apolitical. “I’m hoping the people (serving in Iraq) know we care about them. Whatever your political stance, they should not be forgotten.”

Proceeds will go to Homes for Our Troops.

–Elysa Gardner

The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chavez

By Donald Rumsfeld

Today the people of Venezuela face a constitutional referendum, which, if passed, could obliterate the few remaining vestiges of Venezuelan democracy. The world is saying little and doing less as President Hugo Chávez dismantles Venezuela’s constitution, silences its independent media and confiscates private property. Chávez’s ambitions do not stop at Venezuela’s borders, either. He has repeatedly threatened its neighbors. In late November, Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, declared that Chávez’s efforts to mediate hostage talks with Marxist terrorists from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were not welcome. Chávez responded by freezing trade with Colombia.

With diplomatic, economic and communications institutions designed for a different era, the free world has too few tools to help prevent Venezuela’s once vibrant democracy from receding into dictatorship. But such a tragedy is not preordained. In fact, we face a moment when swift decisions by the United States and like-thinking nations could dramatically help, supporting friends and allies with the courage to oppose an aspiring dictator with regional ambitions.

The best place to start is with the prompt passage and signing of the Colombian free trade agreement, which has been languishing in Congress for months. Swift U.S. ratification of the pact would send an unequivocal message to the people of Colombia, the opposition in Venezuela and the wider region that they do not stand alone against Chávez. It would also provide concrete economic opportunities to the people of Colombia, helping to offset the restrictions being imposed by Venezuela — and it would strengthen the U.S. economy in the bargain.

The importance of the Venezuela-Colombia clash goes beyond turmoil in the U.S. back yard. The episode can help us understand what’s at stake in a new age of globalization and information, an age in which trade networks can be as powerful as military alliances. Extending freedom from the political sphere to the economic one and building the global architecture, such as free trade agreements, to support those relationships can — and should — be a top priority for the United States in the 21st century.

Since the first years of the Cold War, 10 presidential administrations have operated within an institutional framework fashioned during the Truman administration: NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the CIA, the Defense Department, Voice of America and the National Security Council. Over six decades, the United States and the rest of the free world have benefited from those institutions, which led to victory in the Cold War and helped maintain international order thereafter.

But with the passage of more than half a century, the end of the Cold War, the attacks of 9/11 and the rise of an Islamic extremist movement that hopes to use terrorism and weapons of mass destruction to alter the course of humankind, it has become obvious that the national security institutions of the industrial age urgently need to be adapted to meet the challenges of this century and the information age.

At home, the entrenched bureaucracies and diffuse legislative processes of the U.S. government make it hard to creatively, swiftly and proactively handle security threats. Turf-conscious subcommittees in Congress inhibit the country’s ability to mobilize government agencies to tackle new challenges. For example, U.S. efforts to build up the police and military capacity of partner nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to fight al-Qaeda and other extremists have been thwarted over the past six-plus years by compartmentalized budgets, outdated restrictions and budget cycles that force a nation at war to spend three years to develop, approve and execute a program.

The United States has also lost several tools that were central to winning the Cold War. Notably, U.S. institutions of public diplomacy and strategic communications — both critical to the current struggle of ideas against Islamic radicalism — no longer exist. Some believed that after the fall of the Soviet Union such mechanisms were no longer needed and could even threaten the free flow of information. But when the U.S. Information Agency became part of the State Department in 1999, the country lost what had been a valuable institution capable of communicating America’s message to international audiences powerfully and repeatedly.

Meanwhile, a new generation of foes has mastered the tools of the information age — chat rooms, blogs, cellphones, social-networking Web sites — and exploits them to spread propaganda, even while the U.S. government remains poorly organized and equipped to counter with the truth in a timely manner. The nation needs a 21st-century “U.S. Agency for Global Communications” to inform, to educate and to compete in the struggle of ideas — and to keep its enemies from capitalizing on the pervasive myths that stoke anti-Americanism.

Many existing international institutions are also falling short. The United Nations — which elected Syria and Iran to a commission on disarmament, Sudan to one on human rights and Zimbabwe to one on sustainable development — can hardly be considered a credible arbiter of international issues and dialogue. Endemic inertia and corruption threaten to render the United Nations even less effective in the 21st century.

NATO, the great bulwark against communist expansion, could be usefully reoriented toward today’s threats to the nation-state system — global problems that can be successfully dealt with only by broad coalitions of nations capable of efficiently executing collective decisions. By building bilateral and regional partnerships with other like-thinking countries — such as India, Singapore, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Israel — NATO could evolve into a diplomatic and military instrument of the world’s democratic and capitalist societies.

We also must reinvigorate the structures that support global prosperity. Free trade seems to be slipping out of fashion in Congress and the presidential campaign, with some candidates calling for a “timeout” for free trade and the abolition of current agreements, such as NAFTA and CAFTA. But the world will need a network of trading nations to provide a way to change the circumstances of people in poor nations. Strong U.S. economic relations with the countries of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East would encourage international development and investment even as they build closer ties among the United States and its allies. The prosperity that trade pacts foster has proved to be one of the most effective weapons against internal instability and international aggression.

Today’s global order is threatened not only by violent extremists, rogue regimes, failing states and aspiring despots such as Chávez. It is also threatened by the complacent assumption that our domestic and global institutions, in their present form, can meet these growing menaces.

In the first years of the Cold War, the free world’s leaders created the new institutions necessary to prevail against communism. Sixty years later, six years into a new ideological struggle, in the face of new challenges from asymmetric warfare, in an age in which information mixes with weapons of unprecedented lethality, these old institutions by and large remain arrayed to deal with the enemies of the last struggle, not the enemies of today.

Pundits tend to focus on individuals, not institutions. Personalities, after all, garner more headlines than do bureaucracies and agreements. But when institutions no longer serve our interests well — or, worse, hamper important efforts — we need to hear more about reform through public commentary, in Congress and on the campaign trail. The next president will face the issue of reforming domestic and international institutions — and will need to accelerate the efforts begun by President Bush. We can prevail by mustering the same resolve that President Harry S. Truman and others demonstrated 60 years ago.

Donald Rumsfeld is a former secretary of defense

Soldiers at Fort Huachuca, Arizona

Hey gang, I have been away for training so I will not be able to put up a video post until Dec 9th. In the mean time, I will put up some articles that support the cause. Take a look at this one; I am actually on this base on a special training mission and the border situation is scary. I have been all over the world, to include 2 combat tours to Iraq, and this is just as scary. I have received several briefs that would make you shudder in absolute fear. There is a low intensity conflict along the border, it is very real, and getting worse day by day. Please contact your congressmen and put on the heat. Iraq is important, but let’s not forget our unguarded backyard. And don’t forget to thank the Border Patrol, Customs, Park Rangers, National Guard, and all those guys who get paid crap but still answer the call to protect our borders.

Islamists Target Arizona Base

Terrorists said aided by cartel

By Sara A. Carter, Washington Times

Fort Huachuca, the nation’s largest intelligence-training center, changed security measures in May after being warned that Islamist terrorists, with the aid of Mexican drug cartels, were planning an attack on the facility.

Fort officials changed security measures after sources warned that possibly 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were to be smuggled into the U.S. through underground tunnels with high-powered weapons to attack the Arizona Army base, according to multiple confidential law enforcement documents obtained by The Washington Times.

“A portion of the operatives were in the United States, with the remainder not yet in the United States,” according to one of the documents, an FBI advisory that was distributed to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, Customs and Border Protection and the Justice Department, among several other law enforcement agencies throughout the nation. “The Afghanis and Iraqis shaved their beards so as not to appear to be Middle Easterners.”

According to the FBI advisory, each Middle Easterner paid Mexican drug lords $20,000 “or the equivalent in weapons” for the cartel’s assistance in smuggling them and their weapons through tunnels along the border into the U.S. The weapons would be sent through tunnels that supposedly ended in Arizona and New Mexico, but the Islamist terrorists would be smuggled through Laredo, Texas, and reclaim the weapons later.

A number of the Afghans and Iraqis are already in a safe house in Texas, the FBI advisory said.

Fort Huachuca, which lies about 20 miles from the Mexican border, has members of all four service branches training in intelligence and secret operations. About 12,000 persons work at the fort and many have their families on base.

Lt. Col. Matthew Garner, spokesman for Fort Huachuca, said details about the current phase of the investigation or security changes on the post “will not be disclosed.”

“We are always taking precautions to ensure that soldiers, family members and civilians that work and live on Fort Huachuca are safe,” Col. Garner said. “With this specific threat, we did change some aspects of our security that we did have in place.”

According to the FBI report, some of the weapons associated with the plot have been smuggled through a tunnel from Mexico to the U.S.

The FBI report is based on Drug Enforcement Administration sources, including Mexican nationals with access to “sub-sources” in the drug cartels. The report’s assessment is that the DEA’s Mexican contacts have proven reliable in the past but the “sub-source” is of uncertain reliability.

According to the source who spoke with DEA intelligence agents, the weapons included two Milan anti-tank missiles, Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles, grenade launchers, long guns and handguns.

“FBI Comment: The surface-to-air missiles may in fact be RPGs,” the advisory stated, adding that the weapons stash in Mexico could include two or three more Milan missiles.

The Milan, a French-German portable anti-tank weapon, was developed in the 1970s and widely sold to militaries around the world, including Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Insurgents in Iraq reportedly have used a Milan missile in an attack on a British tank. Iraqi guerrillas also have shot down U.S. helicopters using RPGs, or rocket-propelled grenades.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson would not elaborate on the current investigation regarding the threat, but said that many times the initial reports are based on “raw, uncorroborated information that has not been completely vetted.” He added that this report shows the extent to which all law enforcement and intelligence agencies cooperate in terror investigations.

“If nothing else, it provides a good look at the inner working of the law-enforcement and intelligence community and how they work together on a daily basis to share and deal with threat information,” Mr. Bresson said. “It also demonstrates the cross-pollination that frequently exists between criminal and terrorist groups.”

The connections between criminal enterprises, such as powerful drug cartels, and terrorist organizations have become a serious concern for intelligence agencies monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Based upon the information provided by the DEA handling agent, the DEA has classified the source as credible,” stated a Department of Homeland Security document, regarding the possibility of an attack on Fort Huachuca. “The identity of the sub-source has been established; however, none of the information provided by the sub-source in the past has been corroborated.”

The FBI advisory stated the “sub-source” for the information “is a member of the Zetas,” the military arm of one of Mexico’s most dangerous drug-trafficking organizations, the Gulf Cartel. The Gulf Cartel controls the movement of narcotics from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, into the U.S. along the Laredo corridor.

However, the sub-source “for this information is of unknown reliability,” the FBI advisory stated.

According to the DEA, the sub-source identified Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel as the drug lords who would assist the terrorists in their plot.

This led the DEA to caution the FBI that its information may be a Gulf Cartel plant to bring the U.S. military in against its main rival. The Sinaloa and Gulf cartels have fought bloody battles along the border for control of shipping routes into the U.S.

“It doesn’t mean that there isn’t truth to some of what this source delivered to U.S. agents,” said one law-enforcement intelligence agent, on the condition of anonymity. “The cartels have no loyalty to any nation or person. It isn’t surprising that for the right price they would assist terrorists, knowingly or unknowingly.”

Iraq: What Went Right

Courage, skill, luck — and exhaustion

By Ralph Peters

The situation in Iraq has im proved so rapidly that Democrats now shun the topic as thoroughly as they shun our troops when the cameras aren’t around.

Yes, Iraq could still slip back into reverse gear. And no, we’re not going to get a perfect outcome. But the positive indicators are now so strong that the left’s defeatist lies are losing traction among the American people.

Attacks of every kind are down by at least half - in some cases by more than three-quarters. A wounded country’s struggling back to health. And our mortal enemies, al Qaeda’s terrorists, have suffered a defeat from which they may never fully recover: They’ve lost street cred.

Our dead and wounded have not bled in vain.

What happened? How did this startling turnabout come to pass? Why does the good news continue to compound?

Some of the reasons are widely known, but others have been missed. Here are the “big five” reasons for the shift from near-failure to growing success:

We didn’t quit: Even as some of us began to suspect that Iraqi society was hopelessly sick, our troops stood to and did their duty bravely. The tenacity of our soldiers and Marines in the face of mortal enemies in Iraq and blithe traitors at home is the No. 1 reason why Iraq has turned around.

Without their valor and sacrifice, nothing else would’ve mattered. Key leaders were courageous, too - men such as now-Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno. Big Ray was pilloried in our media for being too warlike, too aggressive and just too damned tough on our enemies.

Well, the Ray Odiernos, not the hearts-and-minds crowd, held the line against evil. Only by hammering our enemies year after year were we able to convince them that we couldn’t - and wouldn’t - be beaten. If the press wronged any single man or woman in uniform, it was Odierno - thank God he was promoted and stayed in the fight.

Gen. David Petraeus took command: Petraeus brought three vital qualities to our effort: He wants to win, not just keep the lid on the pot; he never stops learning and adapting, and he provides top-cover for innovative subordinates.

By late 2006, mid-level commanders were already seizing opportunities to draw former enemies into an alliance against al Qaeda. Petraeus saw the potential for a strategic shift. He ignored the naysayers and supported what worked.

Oh, and under Petraeus our troops have been relentless in their pursuit of our enemies. Contrary to the myths of the left, peace can only be built over the corpses of evil men.

The surge: While the increase in troop numbers was important, allowing us to consolidate gains in neighborhoods we’d rid of terrorists and insurgents, the psychological effect of the surge was crucial.

Pre-surge, our enemies were convinced they were winning - they monitored our media, which assured them that America would quit. Sorry, Muqtada - that’s what you get for believing The New York Times.

The message sent by the surge was that we not only wouldn’t quit, but also were upping the ante. It stunned our enemies - while giving Sunni Arabs disenchanted with al Qaeda the confidence to flip to our side without fear of abandonment.

Fanatical enemies: We lucked out when al Qaeda declared Iraq the central front in its war against civilization. Our monstrous foes alienated their local allies so utterly that al Qaeda in Iraq is now largely a spent force - the hunted, not the hunters. The terrorists have suffered a strategic humiliation.

Religious fanatics always overdo their savagery - but you can’t predict the alienation time-line. Al Qaeda’s blood-thirst accelerated the process, helping us immensely.

The Iraqis are sick of bloodshed and destruction: This is the least-recognized factor - but it’s critical. We still don’t fully understand the mechanics of black-to-white mood shifts in populations, but such transitions determine strategic outcomes.

What we do know is that, when tyrannical regimes collapse in artificial states such as Iraq (or the former Yugoslavia), a lot of pent-up grudges play out violently. People seem to need to get suppressed hatreds out of their systems.

The peace-through-exhaustion mood swing happened abruptly in Iraq. Suddenly, the people have had their fill of gunmen and gangsters who claim to be their defenders. Heads-down passivity has morphed into active resistance to the terrorists and militias.

We’re all sober now, Americans and Iraqis. And peace is built on sobriety, not passion.

As Thanksgiving approaches, consider a vignette from Baghdad:

As part of its campaign to eliminate Iraq’s Christian communities, al Qaeda in 2004 bombed St. John’s Christian church in Doura, in the city’s southern badlands. By last spring, local services had stopped completely.

Our Army’s 2nd Battalion of the 12th Infantry stepped up. Under Lt. Col. Stephen Michael (a Newark native), our soldiers methodically cleaned up Doura - no easy or painless task - and aided the reconstruction of the church.

Last week, a grateful congregation returned for a service that was, literally, a resurrection. Fifteen local Muslim sheikhs attended the Mass to support their Christian neighbors. Could there be a more hopeful symbol?

Those long-suffering Iraqi Christians will celebrate Christmas in their neighborhood church this year. “Peace on earth” will mean more to them than mere words in a carol.

As for the grunts of 2-12 Infantry who made it all possible, their motto is “Ducti Amore Patria,” or “Having been led by love of country.”

On Thanksgiving Day, be thankful for such men.

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Wars of Blood and Faith.”

We all know there’s only one viable explanation: MSM = Leftists = Traitors working for U.S. “defeat” in Iraq. Case closed.

Washington Times

By Rich Lowry

Forget the briefings from generals, the intelligence evaluations and the Pentagon status reports. There is a handy indicator for whether the war in Iraq is going well — its relative absence from the front pages.

In the past month, the country’s top newspapers have splashed Iraq stories on Page A-1, but most have involved the scandal concerning the security contractor Blackwater and the impending (but yet to materialize) Turkish invasion of the Kurdish north. Reports on major trends in the war tend to be relegated to inside pages because — from the blows dealt to al Qaeda, to the rise of Sunni security volunteers, to Muqtada al-Sadr’s cease-fire — they have been largely positive.

In Israel, there’s a law that bans reporting on sensitive national-security operations; you could be forgiven for thinking the U.S. has a similar ban on any encouraging news from the hottest battlefront in the war on terror. The United States might be the only country in world history that reverseitself, magnifying its setbacks and ignoring its successes so that nothing can disturb what Connecticut’s Sen. Joe Lieberman calls the “narrative of defeat.”

In an incisive account of the surge in the new issue of the Weekly Standard, military analyst Kimberly Kagan writes: “The total number of enemy attacks has fallen for four consecutive months, and has now reached levels last seen before the February 2006 Samarra mosque bombing. IED [improvised explosive device] explosions have plummeted to late2004 levels. Iraqi civilian casualties, which peaked at 3,000 in the month of December 2006, are now below 1,000 for the second straight month. The number of coalition soldiers killed in action has fallen for five straight months and is now at the lowest level since February 2004.”

Seemingly every day brings a new encouraging number. The latest is that rocket and mortar attacks in Iraq have fallen to the lowest in nearly two years. The left’s initial reaction to the surge’s success in reducing violence in Iraq was to declare Gen. David Petraeus a liar. Now, a new tack has become necessary — finding creative ways to deny credit to the surge. Rep. David Obey, Wisconsin Democrat, says insurgents are simply “running out of people to kill.”

So between January and today everyone who could die in violence in Iraq perished? This is childish. It is true the ethnic cleansing in Baghdad neighborhoods, once complete, creates a perverse kind of stability. But the violence has been reduced all around the country, in allSunni areas and in parts of Baghdad that remain ethnic fault lines.

As Miss Kagan writes, U.S. forces interposed themselves between warring factions in Baghdad, and on the outskirts of the city, attacked al Qaeda strongholds. This is why American casualties went up earlier this year and now — with al Qaeda on the run — are back down. As security has taken hold, the Sunnis have felt comfortable partnering with American forces to battle al Qaeda.

Defeating the terror group has been a consensus goal of all sides in the Iraq debate. Now that some U.S. commanders consider al Qaeda in Iraq all but routed, Democrats should be delighted. Instead they avert their eyes from the signal accomplishment of the U.S. military during the past year. Troops have never been so notionally “supported” by everyone, while having their accomplishments so ignored.

The political reconciliation so important to Iraq’s longterm stability has yet to take place. But the first, necessary step is to get Iraqis to stop resorting to violence to resolve their differences. And whatever comes of Iraq, eliminating al Qaeda in Iraq is a desirable goal in its own right. President Bush repeatedly has said there will be no ceremony on the deck of a battleship to mark victory over al Qaeda; when it comes to any eventual victory over al Qaeda in Iraq, not only will there be no ceremony, we’ll be lucky to get a headline.

Rich Lowry is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

U.S. Fights For Boost In NATO Troops

Support fluctuates for Afghanistan mission

By Leander Schaerlaeckens, The Washington Times

BRUSSELS — For U.S. and other officials prodding NATO members to boost their troop strength in Afghanistan, it is a case of two steps forward and one step back.

Alliance spokesmen said several countries offered improved participation and cooperation in the mission at a recent conference in Brussels attended by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

But a few countries seek to reduce their contributions to the effort — which is aimed at bolstering the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai against Taliban insurgents — and others are talking about withdrawing altogether.

One NATO official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Gates is “struggling” to find more soldiers for the operation, but also noted that with 41,000 troops, the International Security Assistance Force is at 90 percent of its target strength.

“In the Balkans, we”ve never had more than 80 percent and there has never been a casualty there, so 90 percent is actually a lot,” he said.

Mr. Gates also asked European defense ministers to remove some of the so-called “caveats” that prohibit their troops from entering the most dangerous regions or participating in specified combat activities.

Although the exact details of the caveats haven”t been disclosed, they are thought to restrict some countries’ troops from flying at night, fighting in snow or even fighting at all. One senior U.S. defense official told Reuters news agency there is a total of 62 such restrictions.

“We need to lift our sights, it seems to me, and see what is required long-term for success, beyond the specific commitments that have already been made,” Mr. Gates said.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said it is not realistic to ask governments to drop the caveats, but NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer did get a commitment from all countries that in an emergency situation, their forces can and will go where they are needed.

He also devised mechanisms making it easier for richer countries to help fund the deployments of poorer ones.

For example, “the Czech Republic has helicopters but can”t afford to deploy them,” a senior NATO official said. “Now, other countries without helicopters but with more funds are able to help them.”

Still, it has not been easy to coax more troops from NATO members, some of which have fewer than a dozen troops in Afghanistan.

The meeting in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, yielded commitments from Georgia for an additional 200 soldiers and some helicopters; from the Czech Republic and Slovakia for a combined 160 soldiers; from Hungary for a few dozen soldiers; and from Germany and France for 200 soldiers and 50 trainers, a NATO source said.

But the Netherlands prefers to cut its troop strength and wants another country to assume its logistical and helicopter duties. The Dutch government threatened that if these requests aren”t met, the country will consider pulling out of Afghanistan altogether.

Portugal, meanwhile, said it plans to reduce its contribution from 165 soldiers to 15 trainers and one transport airplane by August, according to the Lusa news agency.

The Netherlands warned it will not extend its troop presence in the volatile southern province of Uruzgan beyond August unless it gets more help from other NATO members.

“There is no free ride to peace and security. Fair risk and burden-sharing has to be the leading principle for NATO,” said Dutch Defense Minister Elmert van Middelkoop.

If the Netherlands does withdraw, there are fears others might follow. Canada, which faces growing domestic opposition to the operation because of mounting casualties, is considered a strong candidate to follow suit.

A ‘Forgotten’ War

As Iraq Improves, Coverage Dries Up

By Ralph Peters

LAST weekend’s news coverage of our veterans was welcome, but deceptive. The “mainstream media” honored aging heroes and noted the debt we owe to today’s wounded warriors - but deftly avoided in-depth coverage from Iraq. Why? Because things are going annoyingly well.

All those reporters, editors and producers who predicted - longed for - an American defeat have moved on to more pressing strategic issues, such as O.J.’s latest shenanigans.

Oh, if you turned to the inner pages of the “leading” newspapers, you found grudging mention of the fact that roadside-bomb attacks are down by half and indirect-fire attacks by three-quarters while the number of suicide bombings has plummeted.

Far fewer Iraqi civilians are dying at the hands of extremists. U.S. and Coalition casualty rates have fallen dramatically. The situation has changed so unmistakably and so swiftly that we should be reading proud headlines daily.

Where are they? Is it really so painful for all those war-porno journos to accept that our military - and the Iraqis - may have turned the situation around? Shouldn’t we read and see and hear a bit of praise for today’s soldiers and the prog- ress they’re making?

The media’s new trick is to concentrate coverage on our wounded, mouthing platitudes while using military amputees as props to suggest that, no matter what happens in Iraq, everything’s still a disaster.

God knows, I sympathize with - and respect - those who’ve sacrificed life or limb in our country’s service. I just hate to see them used as political tools.

How many of you really believe that those perfectly coiffed reporters care about our soldiers and their families? Does anyone think those news anchors will invite any Marines in wheelchairs home for Thanksgiving?

Still, for the 100-proof nastiness of the intelligentsia, you have to move to the “entertainment” world. Hollywood declines to make a single movie about any of our Medal of Honor winners in Iraq - but has deluged us with left-wing diatribes, as activist actors and directors parade by with their limp bayonets fixed.

“Stars” who enjoy incredible privileges that our troops will never experience treat us to vicious propaganda - such flicks as “In The Valley Of Elah,” “Rendition” and the released-on-Veterans’-Day-weekend (gee, thanks) “Lions For Lambs.”

And then there’s the forthcoming “Redacted,” which wants us to grasp that our psychopathic military’s basic skills are the rape and murder of innocent civilians.

Immeasurably self-important, Hollywood tells itself these movies are acts of courage.

In some of the films, the victims - of their own leaders - are our troops. In others, the victims are innocent Muslims falsely linked to terrorism. But the unifying thread is that the only heroes are stay-at-homes who bravely fight for the truth.

A number of critics have noted that the American people refuse to pay an hour’s wages to see these films. Last weekend’s release, “Lions For Lambs,” earned less than $7 million, despite starring Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl “America’s in Peril” Streep. And that was the big-bucks earner so far.

Scriptwriters, directors and vanity-project actors (how many have been to Iraq?) scratch their heads and deplore our apathy. They fail to grasp what’s truly happening: We, the citizens and moviegoers, simply reject these films’ underlying message.

Because the real message of all of these in-the-toilet flicks isn’t just that the war in Iraq or the struggle against Islamist terrorists is bad - it’s that America is evil. At best, we’re the moral equivalent of our enemies.

You know down in your guts that isn’t true. I know it isn’t true. But the Reese Witherspoons and Tommy Lee Joneses, the Charlize Therons and Robert Redfords have a clearer perspective from Malibu and Sundance than we do: America not only isn’t worth defending; we’re a danger to all humanity. Our troops are the semi-literate tools of the powerful.

Well, the names on the marquees come and go, but our troops are always there for us. In good times and bad, those in uniform see us through. And, yes, our troops are defending the right of wealthy fools to make goofball propaganda films insulting them.

Now listen to what a real soldier (no makeup, no script), the assistant division commander of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad, had to say about the changes on the ground in Iraq during an internal end-of-tour interview: “As we’ve changed the environment for the Iraqis, the Iraqis are the bigger part of the solution now - and I don’t mean the security forces [but] the population.”

Brig.-Gen. Vincent Brooks stressed that the citizens have learned that “extremists of any ilk” are the real threat: “They’ve tasted what happens when those elements are sidelined. They long for the glory days of Baghdad, they really do.”

An impressive soldier and a man of conscience, Brooks acknowledged to his staff that the months ahead “will be difficult.” Success “will be challenged for indigenous reasons and, frankly, for external reasons, by those who don’t want to see Iraq be stable and prosperous.”

But the general stressed his belief that “the Iraqi people can do this.” That’s Hollywood’s nightmare. And the “mainstream” media’s.

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Wars of Blood and Faith.”

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

I will have a new video up tomorrow. Pat posted this video yesterday, but I feel compelled to put it up again.

This is from our Commandant to each Marine, past and present… Semper Fi Marines.

SINCE THE BIRTH OF OUR NATION, OUR LIBERTY HAS BEEN PURCHASED BY VALIANT MEN AND WOMEN OF DEEP CONVICTION, GREAT COURAGE, AND BOLD ACTION; THE COST HAS OFTEN BEEN IN BLOOD AND TREMENDOUS SACRIFICE. AS AMERICAS SENTINELS OF FREEDOM, UNITED STATES MARINES ARE COUNTED AMONG THE FINEST LEGIONS IN THE CHRONICLES OF WAR. SINCE 1775, MARINES HAVE MARCHED BOLDLY TO THE SOUNDS OF THE GUNS AND HAVE FOUGHT FIERCELY AND HONORABLY TO DEFEAT THE SCOURGE OF TYRANNY AND TERROR. WE ARE MARINES - THAT IS WHAT WE DO.

IN THE WORDS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: “IN THE LONG HISTORY OF THE
WORLD, ONLY A FEW GENERATIONS HAVE BEEN GRANTED THE ROLE OF DEFENDING FREEDOM IN ITS HOUR OF MAXIMUM DANGER.” MAGNIFICENT HEROES FOUGHT IN THE WHEAT FIELDS OF BELLEAU WOOD, IN THE SNOWS OF THE CHOSIN, AND ON THE STREETS OF HUE CITY. YOUR GENERATION BEARS THIS OBLIGATION NOW, AND IT IS BORNE ON MIGHTY AND CAPABLE SHOULDERS. JUST LIKE THE MARINES AT BELLEAU WOOD – WE ARE ONCE AGAIN ENGAGED IN SUSTAINED OPERATIONS ASHORE. JUST LIKE AT BELLEAU WOOD - THE MARINES HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE TOUGHEST SECTOR AND HAVE PREVAILED OVER A RESILIENT AND DETERMINED ENEMY - WHO HAS MADE US PAY FOR OUR GAINS. ONCE AGAIN, AS IN ANY STRUGGLE, THE ROAD AHEAD IS FAR FROM CERTAIN, BUT AS MARINES, WE ARE NOT DISSUADED BY THE CHALLENGES OF WAR OR THE TOUGH CONDITIONS OF A WARRIOR’S LIFE. INDEED, WE DON’T JUST ACCEPT OUR DESTINY - WE SHAPE IT.

ON OUR 232ND BIRTHDAY, TO EVERY MARINE - THOSE STILL IN UNIFORM AND THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED HONORABLY IN THE PAST - BE PROUD OF WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DO. KNOW THAT YOUR CITIZENSHIP DUES HAVE BEEN PAID IN FULL; YOU ARE PART OF THIS NATION’S ELITE WARRIOR CLASS. CHERISH OUR FAMILIES WHO OFFER MARVELOUS SUPPORT, ABIDING RESOLVE, AND STEADFAST PATIENCE. REMEMBER THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED AND THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN - THEIR NAMES ARE CHISELED ON THE ROLL CALL OF AMERICA’S HEROES. THOSE WHO HAVE CARRIED THE BATTLE COLORS OF OUR CORPS HAVE FORGED OUR HERITAGE, AND TODAY’S GENERATION OF LEATHERNECKS CHART OUR FUTURE. CARRY THE COLORS WITH PRIDE; CARRY THEM WITH HONOR.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARINES!
SEMPER FIDELIS,
JAMES T. CONWAY,
GENERAL, U.S. MARINE CORPS,
COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS

Enemy POW lawyer Clyde Stafford Smith

..Right After You Shoot These Scumbag Lawyers.

Terror Suspects’ Beards Are Safe Now
Miami Herald

By Carol Rosenberg

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — Guards earlier this year stopped cutting the beards off unruly war-on-terror detainees, according to the military, confirming for the first time a practice that enraged Muslim captives and their American advocates.

Prison commanders withdrew the policy of ”beard trimming” in May, said Army Col. Bill Costello, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami.

From 2005, he said, it had been an approved “disciplinary action for severe physical assaults against the guard force, to include the throwing of feces, urine, semen, vomit, blood and/or saliva.”

But, he said, beard trimming “was not designed as a religious punitive measure, nor was it ever carried out by interrogation personnel.”

The issue cast a spotlight on religious tensions behind the razor wire at the Pentagon’s showcase detention and interrogation center: Detainees and attorneys have long protested policies they said were designed to humiliate Muslim captives. The U.S. says its respects Islam while providing safe and humane detention to allegedly dangerous al-Qaeda members and sympathizers.

‘Beard shortening’

”Some of the beards are long — you can hide a bazooka in there,” Navy Capt. Patrick McCarthy told reporters during an October visit by reporters in which he defended what he called an earlier policy of “beard shortening.”

Countered New York attorney Martha Rayner, who represents a Yemeni client named Sanad al Kazimi, 37, whose beard was cut in October 2006, allegedly for throwing urine and feces at the guards: “They do it to humiliate. As punishment. It is how they truly can humiliate a Muslim man — shave his beard.”

Beard-cutting has long been controversial at the Guantánamo prison camps, which opened in January 2002 to detain and interrogate war-on-terror captives scooped up around the globe and airlifted to Cuba from Afghanistan. Captives arrived at Camp X-Ray clean-shaven and their hair shorn from their heads for health reasons, according to commanders.

Soon, tours for reporters and visiting business leaders pointed to captives’ long, flowing beards as proof of respect for their religious identities. The tours also showcase a range of Muslim amenities — halal food, prayer beads and rugs — as well as Korans in a variety of languages.

Captives countered, through their lawyers, that they so feared their guards would defile their Korans that some returned them to commanders rather than leave them behind in their cells when they went to recreation or attorney meetings.

During a recent media tour, the military said that about 90 of the roughly 330 detainees had returned their Korans.

Meanwhile, the military denies that the guards ever shaved off a captive’s beard entirely as part of its disciplinary measures for ”non-compliant detainees who assaulted the guard force” and “may have had their beards trimmed because it represented a threat to the operation of a safe and humane detention facility.”

Added Costello: “Beards were trimmed to within inches, not clean-shaven.”

Detainees can shave
But he said detainees can shave themselves entirely, if they want, during their shower periods.

Veteran Guantánamo attorney Clive Stafford Smith said one of his youngest clients — Mohammed Gharani, 18, of Chad — was punished by having his first beard completely shaved off in February.

High-value captive Majid Khan protested that Guantánamo guards shackled him and shaved off his beard for refusing to return his breakfast tray on Nov. 15, 2006.

Khan is a 1999 suburban Baltimore high school graduate who was seized in Pakistan and held for years in secret CIA detention. Although the U.S. alleges he plotted unrealized attacks on U.S. gas stations and water reservoirs, he has not been charged with a crime.

He told the panel he was so upset by his treatment at Guantánamo that he twice tried to commit suicide by gnawing through arteries in his arm.

”They just came in with eight guards and took me to main rec and forcibly shaved my beard to humiliate me and offend my religion,” he told a panel of military officers April 15. “While they were shaving my beard, the female Navy head psychiatrist was watching the whole thing.”

Navy Adm. James Stavridis, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, ended the policy in May in consultation with detention center commanders, Costello said.

He declined to say why, and whether the admiral received a specific protest.

Nazi comparison

Earlier this year, Washington attorney David Remes circulated a Holocaust-era photo of a Nazi cutting a Jew’s beard, and likened it to the Guantánamo policy.

”I don’t think that anyone who is doing this [at Guantánamo] understands the historical association,” he said.

Captives claim the military magnified their humiliation by videotaping the beard-cutting. The military declined a Herald request for a copy, and would not allow a Herald reporter to view one.

Detainees’ lawyers said the policy had waned for a while and then saw a resurgence after the command staff was rattled by clashes between detainees and guards in the most lenient camp on the base, which the military cast as a foiled uprising.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

A Generation Lost?

By James G. Zumwalt
Washington Times
October 28, 2007

Historically, in determining public support for America’s wars, university campuses across the country have served as the “canary in the mineshaft.”

During World Wars I and II, for example, many students dropped out of school to answer their nation’s call to duty to fight a war against an enemythreatening democracy. Those wars saw a level ofpatriotism that declined considerably during the Korean war and, during the Vietnam conflict, transitioned into student activism against U.S. involvement. In the late 1960s, we saw such activism, for the first time, undermine the war effort at home. A subtle indicator on campuses today as to whether student activism will move toward supporting or undermining America’s war against terrorism may turn on whom students identify — or fail to identify — as their “heroes.” While student activism has yet to surface as a factor in this war, there are signs, some over the past few weeks, a subtle undercurrent may beflowing.

One of these signs manifested itself Sept. 7 at the Rutgers University-Navy football game hosted by Rutgers. As the Midshipmen took to the field, they were hit by a chorus of “boos” and profanities. When Navy kick-returner Reggie Campbell was injured after a return, Rutgers chanted repeated obscenities. The verbal abuse continued, not only against Navy players, but their families and fans as well.

While some might dismiss this display by Rutgers’ fansas “boys being boys,” itis a sad commentary on the failure of Rutgers’ fans to recognize the selfless sacrifices soon to be made by young men like Mr. Campbell, and already being made by hundreds of thousands of others, in putting their lives at risk to protect those hurtling profanities at them. While the Rutgers chanters will be going off to the comfort of corporate America, the players they berated will be placed in harms’ way — some undoubtedly even paying the ultimate price to protect American values. One would have thought Rutgers students would have given the Middies a standing ovation as they took the field. In failing to recognize the Midshipman as heroes for their willingness to fight a war most Rutgers fans won’t, they clearly fail to understand the threat confronting America today.

Another college campus development suggests students embrace false heroes. Ward Churchill is the University of Colorado professor who caused a furor when he wrote an essay in 2005 describing the victims of September 11, 2001, as “little Eichmanns.”Hiding behind his constitutional right of freedom of speech to share his outrageous views with his students, the furor prompted an investigation into Mr. Churchill’s essay and other writings. A panel of academics found” patterns of deliberate, academic-misconduct violations, including plagiarism and fabrication,” resulting in his being fired.

In October, he was invited back to the university by some students, who rented a classroom, to give a series of classes that, undoubtedly, will be further critical ofAmerica. One student supporter coordinating Mr. Churchill’s return suggested, “We were deprived of his teaching.” Ironically, the man who so staunchly defended his “little Eichmanns” comment on the right to speak and be heard freely has denied access to his current class to reporters or students opposed to his views.

In probably the most high-profile college campus incident, Columbia University invited the Jew-hating, terrorist-supporting, human rights-violating, nuclear weapons-developing, U.S. soldier-murdering president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to speak. However, unlike the University of Colorado where the invitation for a controversial speaker was extended by students, the invitation for Mr. Ahmadinejad to speak was extendedby the president of Columbia.

How many students truly understandthis man’s fervent beliefs? How many understand he wants for them the same thing he wants for all non-Muslims — death? How many understand he believes in the return of the 12th Imam to lead the advancement of Islam to become the world’s only religion? How many understand he believes the 12th Imam’s return will only occur in the wake of world chaos? How many understand he believes such chaos can be triggered by Mr. Ahmadinejad himself, after which he will be rewarded by becoming heir to the Prophet Muhammad? (This, perhaps, explains the “vision” he had last year of himself engulfed in a “halo” while speaking at the U.N.)

This belief, coupled with his declaration Israel needs to be destroyed and his efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, should leave no doubt of his true intentions. Mr. Ahmadinejad has issued his version of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” only this time the entire non-Muslim world is the intended victim. Yet, at certain points during his discussion when Mr. Ahmadinejad demonstrated contentiousness, he was applauded by some students. Ironically, as non-believers in Islam, they applauded for a man who, left to his own devices, would not hesitate to be their executioner. It was sad to see this madman on steroids receive a more supportive response at Columbia than did Navy at Rutgers. A man responsible for killing our soldiers in Iraq received a common courtesy deniedto those in our military committed to protecting us.

Additionally, Columbia, while providing a soapbox to someone committed to our demise, extends no similar courtesy to those committed to our defense, such as ROTC and military recruiters — both of whom are denied access to the campus.

Tom Brokaw describes the generation that fought World War II as America’s greatest. We must hope he is wrong. For the tremendous challenges facing America today will, in fact, demand an even greater generation of Americans rise to the task. To meetsuch challenges, that generation must first understand the threat and appreciate those already confronting it. They must know the difference between true and false heroes. Should we fail to fully educate our young people to this, all hope for the coming of America’s greatest generation will have been lost.

James G. Zumwalt, a Marine veteran of the Persian Gulf and Vietnam wars, is a contributor to The Washington Times.

By Victor Davis Hanson
New York Post
October 27, 2007

At first glance, it would seem a straightforward thing to stop a relatively weak but volatile Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. It would also seem to be something a concerned world community would be actively working to do.

After all, the Sunni Arab states surrounding Iran don’t want a Shiite nuclear power on their borders.

Europe, which isn’t all that far from Tehran and lacks a missile-defense shield, certainly doesn’t want to be in range of Iran’s missiles.

Israel can’t tolerate an Iranian theocracy both promising to wipe it off the map and then brazenly obtaining the means to do so.

The Russians and the Chinese, both already concerned about India, Pakistan, and North Korea, don’t need another rival Asian nuclear power on their borders.

And the United States, already worried about Iranian threats to Israel and involved in daily military battles in Iraq with pro-Iranian agents and terrorists armed with Iranian-imported weapons, doesn’t want a nuclear Iran expanding its Persian Gulf influence.

But in truth, most players don’t care enough to stop Iran from getting the bomb, or apparently don’t think it’s worth the effort and cost. Some may even see some advantages to a nuclear Iran.

The Arab Gulf monarchies, for example, know that their enormous dollar reserves would likely buy them some reprieve from a nuclear Iran, or at least bring in the U.S. Navy to offer them deterrence from attack.

Meanwhile, the current tension and ongoing fear of disruption in the Persian Gulf sends billions in windfall oil profits the Gulf states’ way.

Leaders of Arab states also have to fear their own populations’ reactions to any action taken against Islamic Iran. Despite his religious Shiite background, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is far more popular among Sunni populations in the Gulf than George Bush — and even perhaps more popular than the autocratic Arab thugs and dictators who run most of the Middle East.

The European Union, like the Arab states, believes as a last resort that its economic clout and deft diplomats can always work out some sort of arrangement with Tehran’s clerics, who, after all, need customers to buy their high-priced oil.

So most in Europe bristle at French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s warnings about an impending war to stop an Iranian bomb. Instead, they feel it’s an American problem to organize global containment of Iran.

Israel also has reason to fear a war with Iran. If Israel were to attack Tehran, it could find itself in three instantaneous wars — and be hit with thousands of missiles from the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. That shower would make last year’s Hezbollah barrage seem like child’s play.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy is nursed on grievances about a lost empire, America as the sole superpower and the independence of cocky former Soviet republics. In the thinking of oil-exporting Russia, anything that causes America to squirm and world oil prices to soar is a win/win situation. That’s why Russia supplies Iran with its reactor technology and stirs the nuclear pot.

China, like Russia, is a large nuclear power and doesn’t fear all that much Iranian missiles that it thinks are more likely to be pointed westward anyway. True, it would like calm in the Gulf to ensure safe oil supplies, but thinks it still could do business with a nuclear Iran.

And, as in the case of Russia, anything that bothers the United States can’t be all that bad for Beijing. While Ahmadinejad ties the U.S. down in the Middle East, China thinks it will have more of a free hand to expand its influence in the Pacific.

Then there’s the complacent situation here at home. After Afghanistan and Iraq, most Americans don’t feel we’re up to a third war. Some point to nuclear Pakistan and believe we could likewise live with Iran having the bomb.

A few on the left even feel that a nuclear Iran would remind us of our own limitations in imposing our will and influence abroad. They belittle the current warnings of George Bush and Dick Cheney about Iran’s nuclear program, shrugging that the two used to say similar things about Saddam and his nonexistent arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, much of the rest of the world, represented in the U.N.’s General Assembly, feels that a nuclear Iran offers comeuppance to a haughty United States, Israel, and Europe without threatening anyone else.

Ahmadinejad may be viewed across the globe as a dangerous religious nut. But to many, he, like Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez, also represents an anti-capitalist, anti-globalization popular front against America and therefore shouldn’t be ostracized.

So who wants a nuclear Iran?

No one and everyone.

TRADITIONAL VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing,
“It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.”

Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer! The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it

The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote in 2008

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Playing Politics With Genocide

How The Democrats Are Using The Armenians To Get Their Way In Iraq

By Ralph Peters

In the midst of the First World War, the Young Turks who had taken over the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against their Armenian subjects. At least a million Armenians were murdered - with nauseating cruelty - or died of abuse, heat, hunger and thirst.

The only reason any survived was that the Turks lacked the administrative skills and technologies to kill everyone. Not every captive fit into the burning churches. On the death marches across Anatolia into the Syrian desert, guards ran out of bullets. And even sadists grew weary of bayoneting children and clubbing old men to death.

Women were raped by the tens of thousands. Many were raped repeatedly. Then they were killed. Or enslaved. Or left to die of exposure by the roadside.

Ancient communities were annihilated. A magnificent culture - the remnants of the world’s first Christian kingdom - drowned in blood.

Only Turks question this history. The eyewitness accounts are extensive - not only from Armenian survivors, but from American and German consuls and missionaries. The documentation is readily available (texts crowd one of my bookshelves).

Hitler cited the Armenian Genocide as an inspiration for the Holocaust - the lesson he drew was that the Turks got away with it. The world never intervened. Apologists for the Allies blamed the war. The truth is that the eyewitnesses went ignored: Armenian lives had less value then than do those of Darfur refugees today.

Last Wednesday, the Democrat-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution formally declaring the Armenian tragedy what it was: genocide. Speaker Nancy Pelosi intends to bring the resolution to a vote on the floor, after which it would go to the Senate.

We need to stop it. It’s a travesty and a betrayal. Of Armenian-Americans. And of our troops.

Make no mistake: I’m on the Armenian side in the court of history. When the same resolution came up in years past, I supported it. The Armenian survivors - their descendents, at this point - deserve justice.

And I have no sympathy with the Turks. The Turks are jerks. After the United States supported them unswervingly for more than a half-century, they stiffed us the single time we needed help - when we asked to move an Army division through Turkey on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

And the Ankara government has led an internal campaign of anti-Americanism far more lurid and vicious than the old Soviet bloc’s anti-Western propaganda. It’s not just Turkey’s Islamists, but its secular nationalists, too. The anti-American hatred spewing from the Turkish media is uglier than Barbra Streisand at four in the morning.

The Turks tormented their Kurdish minority for decades - and express outrage when Kurds respond. Now they’re threatening to invade northern Iraq, while whining that honor-killings, pervasive corruption and anti-Western venom shouldn’t deny them membership in the EU.

Despite all that, we’ve got to kill this resolution. It’s not the wording - but the timing.

Legislation similar to this has come up repeatedly in Congress, yet it’s always been defeated - in 2000, because of pressure from the Clinton administration. But if the resolution passes the House and Senate now, the Turks plan to evict us from Incirlik airbase in southeastern Turkey, to halt our military over-flight privileges and to shut down the supply routes into northern Iraq.

That’s what the Democrats are aiming at. This resolution isn’t about justice for the Armenians. Not this time. It’s a stunningly devious attempt to impede our war effort in Iraq and force premature troop withdrawals.

The Dems calculate that, without those flights and convoys, we won’t be able to keep our troops adequately supplied. Key intelligence and strike missions would disappear.

The Pentagon might be able to improvise other options. But the loss of the base and those routes would definitely hurt our troops. Severely. And we’d be more reliant than ever on a single, vulnerable lifeline running from Kuwait.

It’s a brilliant ploy - the Dems get to stab our troops in the back, but lay the blame off on the Turks. They pretend they’re responding to their Armenian-American constituents - while actually moving to placate MoveOn.org.

For the Democrats in Congress, it looks like a cost-free strategy. For our troops? When did the Dems give a damn about our troops? This resolution isn’t a stand in favor of historical justice. It’s an end-run that ducks behind the bench. It’s one of the most cynical betrayals in our legislative history - of our troops, of Armenian-Americans, of the Kurds under threat from the Turkish military and of the people of Iraq.

We can’t let Pelosi & Co. get away with this one. We need to call the Dems on it and make it clear that we, the people, know what they’re trying to do.

Every human being with a drop of Armenian blood deserves justice. This isn’t it.

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Wars of Blood and Faith.”

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Casualties by Ethinicity

Marine Demographics

Military Sees Big Decline In Black Enlistees
Iraq war cited in 58% drop since 2000

By Joseph Williams and Kevin Baron, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent

WASHINGTON - African-Americans, whose longstanding relationship with the US military helped them prove their abilities and offered a way to get ahead, have turned away from the armed forces in record numbers since 2000, a period covering the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the start of the Iraq war.

Defense Department statistics show the number of young black enlistees has fallen by more than 58 percent since fiscal year 2000. The Army in particular has been hit hard: In fiscal year 2000, according to the Pentagon statistics, more than 42,000 black men and women applied to enlist; in fiscal year 2005, the most recent for which a racial breakdown is available, just over 17,000 signed up.

The unpopular Iraq war is the biggest reason, according to military analysts, Pentagon surveys, and interviews with young African-Americans. But they say mistrust of the Bush administration is adding to the problem - along with the notion that black soldiers are being steered to combat jobs, a lingering perception from the Vietnam War.

The decline in enlistment applications among blacks is by far the fastest of any demographic group. Between fiscal 2000 and 2005, white applicants declined by more than 10 percent. Hispanic applicants dropped by almost 7 percent.

The Army Recruiting Command acknowledged that the Iraq war has presented special challenges in the African-American community, but said it continues to reach out to black recruits.

“The main thing everyone has to realize is that an all-volunteer force is just that,” said S. Douglas Smith, public affairs officer for the US Army Recruiting Command. “We try to make sure we communicate to every part of society and let them know what we have to offer. We try to be as open as we can about the risk of service and the benefits of service. After that, it’s a matter of people choosing if they want to come in and serve.”

But some military specialists worry that the trend could persist long after the current administration and war are over.

“African-Americans have been such a key part of the modern military,” said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst for the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution. “There’s obviously been a degree where the black community in the United States has seen [military service] as culturally valuable and promoted it. That whole culture and value system is at risk in the black community. That is a big, big change. To me, it portends the possibility of a longer-term loss of interest. It can be tough to get it back.”

Interviews with young African-Americans confirmed a lack of faith in the president and the war.

Nathaniel Daley, a young African-American from Atlantic City, N.J., said he doesn’t believe in the Iraq war and won’t enlist because of it. Daley, 28, and two friends, Brian Jackson, 27, and Eddie Mickle Jr., 26, talked one recent afternoon at the Pentagon City Mall in Arlington, Va., a vast shopping complex just blocks from the military’s nerve center. As they talked, uniformed servicemen and women, some wearing battle fatigues, passed by.

In high school during the late 1990s, Daley said, he signed a letter of intent to join the Army upon graduation, “to pay for my college, get a better job, and better myself.” He said he broke that commitment for a higher-paying job at a nearby casino.

Though the Army would likely consider them ideal recruits - young, fit, high school-educated - each said the Iraq war and Bush’s presidency, particularly after the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, has kept them out of uniform.

“Why would we go over there and help them [Iraqis], when [the US government] can’t help us over here?” he said, referring to the cleanup after Katrina.

The war “is unnecessary,” Jackson said. “It’s not our war. We got our own war here, just staying alive,” he added, noting his hometown of Philadelphia has racked up more than 200 homicides so far this year, most involving young black men.

Eager to bolster its stretched-thin ranks - and meet a congressional mandate to increase its force by about 65,000 troops within five years - the Army has launched an aggressive recruiting campaign targeted at young black people like Daley and his friends, with ads featuring a young black man convincing his parents that enlistment is a good choice. The Army has also raised its enlistment bonuses, highlighted its access to college tuition money, and loosened its age and physical fitness standards.

But Damon Wright, a senior at Anacostia High School in Southeast Washington, was not impressed. “There’s no guarantee I wouldn’t have to go over there,” he said. “I’m trying to play football in college. I might go over there and lose a leg.”

The Pentagon and military analysts say the downturn in enlistments partly reflects the fact that young African-Americans have broader options, pointing to the growing number of black students in college. But the decrease in enlistment also comes amid high dropout rates among African-American youths and a 7.7 percent unemployment rate in the black community, almost twice that of whites.

Negative opinions about Iraq - and attitudes like Wright’s - have overshadowed the military’s efforts to highlight the positives about military service.

A recent CBS News poll showed 83 percent of African-American respondents said the Iraq invasion was a mistake. In addition, the president’s approval rating has hit rock-bottom with black voters at about 9 percent, according to a 2006 Pew Research Center poll.

The relationship between African-Americans and military service is complex, dating back to the 1700s. Both freedmen and slaves joined colonists in the fight against British rule. A century later, the all-black corps known as the Buffalo Soldiers helped settle the West.

Meanwhile, during the Civil War, black Union regiments won acclaim for heroism. In World War I, more than 350,000 black troops served in segregated Army units but few were allowed to fight, dashing hopes that courage under fire in Europe would help them defeat Jim Crow laws at home.

In World War II, African-Americans were again assigned mostly to support duty, but they made up 75 percent of truck drivers for the Red Ball Express - a dangerous, nonstop supply convoy that fueled General George H. Patton’s sweep across Europe.

When President Harry S. Truman desegregated the military in 1948, African-Americans saw the Army as a key avenue for advancement. Joining up became “a way out of a worse situation,” said Gregory A. Black, a retired Navy dive commander and creator of blackmilitaryworld.com, a website devoted to the history of African-Americans and the military.

By the Vietnam War, the Army had a full complement of black combat troops, including Colin Powell, who did two combat tours as a captain and major and later became secretary of state. But civil-rights leaders complained about the disproportionately high casualty rate among black soldiers, arguing that the Pentagon was drafting young black men and sending them directly into combat.

“A lot of African-Americans are still messed up over Vietnam,” said Black. Yet Defense Department statistics show African-American soldiers today are more likely to work in clerical or support jobs than fight on the front lines.

Despite the sharp decline in enlistments, the percentage of blacks in the military still slightly exceeds that of the general population: 14.5 percent in the military, as of 2005, versus 12.8 percent in the US population. Nonetheless, recent Pentagon-sponsored surveys suggest that attitudes among military-age African-Americans may have changed for good.

Adult influencers of all youths, such as parents, sports coaches, or mentors, say Iraq makes them less likely to recommend military service, according to Pentagon surveys. Of all racial groups, African-American influencers are the least likely to suggest enlistment, according to the surveys.

At Oxon Hill High School, located in a predominantly black Washington suburb, guidance counselor Kabir Tompkins is also an Army National Guard sergeant wounded in Iraq. He tells interested students the Army can lead to better life: a good salary, health benefits, and tens of thousands of dollars for college. But their parents are harder to convince, he said.

“They see it from the aspect of . . . ‘I don’t care about the benefits, I don’t care about the money, I don’t care about nothing. I don’t want my child going to Iraq,’ ” Tompkins said.

Lieutenant Colonel Irving Smith, a sociologist at the US Military Academy at West Point, isn’t surprised the war “has had its toll” on black enlistment. But Smith, who is black, said he fears that a proud legacy of black men and women is at risk, and could be lost in a generation.

“We fought for many reasons, we enlisted for many reasons,” Smith said. “Particularly in early times, we fought because we thought we’d get all the opportunities of citizenship . . . The fewer African-Americans that enlist, the fewer African-Americans there are that can tell their stories in the future. The fewer that get commissioned as officers, the smaller the leadership pool will be in the future.”

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

The Long Arm Of Iran
Wall Street Journal

By Dan Senor

“I think it would be almost inconceivable that Iran would commit suicide by launching one or two missiles of any kind against the nation of Israel.”

–Jimmy Carter, speaking at Emory University, Sept. 19, 2007

On March 17, 1992, a suicide bomber crashed an explosive-filled truck into a building filled with Israelis in Buenos Aires. The bombing was so powerful that the destruction covered several city blocks — 29 innocents were killed and hundreds more were injured. This occurred more than 8,000 miles from Tehran. Two years later, on July 18, 1994, Buenos Aires was again hit with a terror attack. This time the target was the Jewish community center in the center of the city — 85 were killed.

Argentina was, understandably, rattled. The government launched a full-scale investigation. One of the key officials assigned to it was Miguel Angel Toma (later appointed by then President Eduardo Duhalde as secretary of intelligence from 2002-2003). Mr. Toma is not a warmonger. And he did not approach his job with any ideological axe to grind. He concluded not only that Hezbollah carried out the attacks in Argentina, but that at least one of them was planned in Iran at the highest levels of the Iranian government, aided by a sophisticated sleeper-cell network in Latin America. He also concluded that the attacks were strategically aimed at punishing the Argentinean government.

Iran and Argentina had had commercial ties throughout the 1970s and ’80s valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, and had entered into agreements to jointly pursue nuclear energy and missile programs. But by 1989, a new civilian government headed by Carlos Menem had come to power and canceled its prior agreements with Iran. As far as Iran was concerned, it was time to punish Argentina for the reversal and send a warning shot to the rest of Latin America. And by focusing on soft targets in Jewish communities, the operations would serve an additional objective: demonstrating to Israel that Hezbollah could hit anywhere at anytime.

Mr. Toma says — based on Argentina’s cooperation with intelligence agencies around the world — he’s certain of the date, location and participants in the decision by the Iranian government to execute the second Buenos Aires attack. He pinpoints it to a meeting that occurred in the holy Iranian city of Mashhad on Aug. 14, 1993. It was presided over by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then and now the Supreme Leader of Iran; and the Iranian president at the time, Ali-Akbar Rafsanjani. Following this meeting, Mr. Toma believes that Iran began working with Hezbollah in the planning, funding and staffing of the 1994 attack in Argentina. Indeed, Argentina has issued warrants for nine Hezbollah operatives and Iranian leaders, including Mr. Rafsanjani. Nobody has been arrested.

The Argentinean case reminds us of four important points.

First, we must reconsider the applicability of Cold War-style deterrence. Its central argument is this: While it would be preferable that Iran not go nuclear, the history of the Cold War demonstrates that the possession of nukes creates a balance of power, and thus makes the possibility of nuclear war extremely unlikely. Representing the pro-deterrence school, Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations says, “We’ve lived with Iran as a terror threat for a generation. Iran has a return address, and states with a return address can be retaliated against.”

This misses the point. Even if Iran never fires a nuke or transfers one to a terrorist group, its possession of nukes would enable it to escalate support for terrorist proxies, allowing it to dominate the region and threaten moderate regimes. Who would be prepared to retaliate against a future Buenos Aires terror attack if we knew that the “return address” was home to a nuclear weapon?

Second, U.S. officials are deeply concerned that Tehran would not even have to build a complete bomb to transform the balance of power. It would just have to make the case that it could complete development on short notice. “For their political needs, that would be enough,” says Gary Samore, a nonproliferation official in the Clinton administration.

Third, Mr. Rafasanjani continues to be described in the Western media as a leading Iranian “moderate.” If Mr. Toma is correct, this “moderate” was intimately involved in the planning of the Argentina bombings. And he has ambitions to succeed President Ahmadinejad.

Fourth, according to Mr. Toma, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei authorized the Buenos Aires attacks. This is important because many analysts today argue that, as scary as President Ahmadinejad sounds, he is not really in charge in Tehran — the true “decider” is the Supreme Leader. Well if he is, then we should in fact be doubly concerned.

Iran is not the Soviet Union and the post-9/11 struggle is not the Cold War. The deterrence camp is willing to stand by as Iran develops nuclear weapons, presumably on the model that Iran will eventually collapse as the Soviet Union did. But the Argentinean case demonstrates what Tehran was willing and able to do when it had no nuclear umbrella. If, as the 9/11 Commission Report argues, the U.S. suffered from a “failure of imagination” regarding how far terrorists would go, a nuclear Iran risks encouraging the terrorist imagination to take another quantum leap.

Mr. Senor, a former foreign-policy adviser to the Bush administration, is hosting “Iran: The Ticking Bomb,” a documentary airing this Saturday at 9 p.m. (EST) on Fox News.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

The Knife Behind the Smile.

Please read this article and send it out. The Democratic mask of support; that they wear when trying to fool the American public that they support our troops, has slipped once again, revealing the true ugly nature of these cowards: (I guess they love their money more than they love the troops)

Akaka (D-HI)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Murray (D-WA)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Biden (D-DE) - No vote
Cantwell (D-WA) - No vote
Obama (D-IL) - No vote

Let’s also show our gratitude to those who did vote Yea!

Senate Approves Resolution Denouncing MoveOn.Org Ad

By David M. Herszenhorn
(none other than the NY Times)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 — The Senate approved a resolution on Thursday denouncing the liberal antiwar group MoveOn.org over an advertisement that questioned the credibility of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq.

MoveOn.org, with 3.2 million members, has become a powerful force in Democratic politics and the advertisement it paid for, which appeared in The New York Times, has come under sharp attack from Congressional Republicans and others as unpatriotic and impugning the integrity of General Petraeus.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, both Democratic candidates for president, voted against the resolution, which passed 72 to 25.

But curiously absent from the vote was Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, also a Democratic candidate for president, who had canceled a campaign appearance in South Carolina so he could be in Washington for votes.

Mr. Obama issued a statement calling the resolution, put forward by Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, “a stunt.” Mr. Obama said, “By not casting a vote, I registered my protest against these empty politics.”

Mr. Obama had voted minutes earlier in favor of an extremely similar resolution proposed by Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California.

Ms. Boxer’s proposal, which failed, called for the Senate to “strongly condemn all attacks on the honor, integrity and patriotism” of anyone in the United States armed forces. It did not mention the MoveOn.org ad. Mr. Dodd and Mrs. Clinton also voted in favor of Ms. Boxer’s proposal.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination, was in Iowa and did not vote.

At a White House news conference, President Bush called the advertisement disgusting and said it was an attack not only on General Petraeus but also on the entire American military.

“And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad,” Mr. Bush said. “And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org — or more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military.”

Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, has urged the House to hold hearings on the MoveOn.org ad and to investigate whether The Times gave the group an improper discount. A New York Times Company spokeswoman has said that the group paid a standard “standby” rate.

MoveOn.org lashed out at Mr. Bush’s comments and pledged to double its spending on ads criticizing Republican lawmakers for blocking efforts by Democrats to change the war strategy. Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, said, “What’s disgusting is that the president has more interest in political attacks than developing an exit strategy to get our troops out of Iraq and end this awful war.”

Iggy’s Daily Gouge

Good news, at least in the big picture; the Troop to Dwell time bill was blocked, giving our commanders the flexibility they need to adequately fight the war on terror.

Syria has publicly declared that those killed at the missile site are “martyrs”. I would like the term “idiots”. At least they got what they deserved.

The first article is a reminder of the savagery of Al Qaeda and Iran’s continual support of our enemies. Can we actually consider this a proxy war?

I am also attaching an article from the Weekly Standard, just to help strengthen our resolve.

Taliban Allegedly Used Children As Shields

By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban fighters carrying machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades used children as human shields during a battle in southern Afghanistan yesterday, forcing U.S.-led coalition soldiers to hold their fire for a time, the coalition said.

The clash in Uruzgan province began when more than 20 insurgents attacked a joint Afghan and coalition patrol.

The soldiers did fight the insurgents when they tried to flee the compound, and more than a dozen suspected militants were killed, the coalition said. The report did not list any casualties among troops or civilians.

U.S. Maj. Chris Belcher said Taliban forces had previously used children as shields. In June, insurgents forced women and children into a canal in Uruzgan while battling coalition forces, and many of the human shields died in the cross fire, he said.

“If you look at some of the actions where the Taliban have had women and children carrying ammunition for them, where they’ve used civilian houses, and now in this case they’re using children to shield themselves, I’d say that shows they really don’t care about Afghans,” Belcher said.

The U.S.-led coalition and the NATO force in Afghanistan themselves were strongly criticized earlier in the year by President Hamid Karzai and others for causing civilian casualties in air strikes on suspected enemy locations. The number of such casualties has dropped recently.

Also yesterday, NATO said it was investigating a weapons shipment recently intercepted by troops in Farah province near the Afghan border with Iran.

“We’re still evaluating what is contained in that shipment,” a NATO spokesman, Maj. Charles Anthony, said.

A Washington Post report Sunday said the shipment seized Sept. 6 was being sent to the Taliban and included armor-piercing bombs similar to those that have been used against foreign troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile, about 2,500 Afghan and NATO troops launched an operation yesterday in Helmand province. The southern province has been the site of the fiercest battles this year and is the world’s largest opium-producing region.

Ready, Willing, And Able

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too.

By Thomas Donnelly

In the wake of last week’s Iraq-related developments in Washington, the strongest quasi-respectable argument available to Democrats who want to oppose President Bush and General Petraeus while sounding responsible is the claim that a troop drawdown larger than the one they propose is needed to “rebalance risk”–that is, that the surge in Iraq has made us more vulnerable elsewhere in the world.

This has long been a concern to more moderate Democrats, and Rep. Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (and father of an Army officer), reiterated the position in his prepared statement at the Petraeus-Crocker hearings. He asked whether “Iraq is the war worth the risk of breaking our Army and being unable to deal with other risks to our nation. . . . With so many troops in Iraq, I think our response to an unexpected threat would come at a devastating cost.”

This argument is a version of the concerns voiced by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army chief, Gen. George Casey–a point not missed by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, who wrote that “Democrats are now hoping concerned generals will support their case [for withdrawal], even if most Republicans won’t.” Indeed, the goal of driving a wedge between the military and the Bush administration has been a consistent strategy of the antiwar party. As Dionne puts it, “If withdrawing troops from Iraq is dangerous, failing to withdraw them may, in the long run, be even more dangerous.” Fighting now compromises future readiness.

Yet the military logic behind this argument is weak. What are the “other risks to our nation” that are so “unexpected” and would exact such a “devastating cost”? It’s a dangerous world and the risks are great, but our ability to respond is likewise great. Consider the threats the Pentagon regards as most real. A crisis across the Taiwan Strait or even a Chinese attack would call for the deployment of naval and air power–capabilities not much employed in Iraq. Suppose we collected “actionable” intelligence on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. We’d launch air and missile strikes and perhaps a special operations raid. Again, not really a problem. Even a North Korean invasion would initially demand the strike power of naval and air forces in support of South Korea’s large, well-equipped, and well-trained land forces.

In an emergency, we can even respond to the call for significant land forces. The “surged” force in Iraq of 160,000 represents only about 20 percent of active-duty Army and Marine strength, and less than 15 percent if one includes reserve and National Guard forces. It would be a struggle to make ready and to deploy another large land force–although those forces recovering from Iraq and in the reserves represent a superbly trained, equipped, experienced, and powerful force. But responding to even the most nightmarish surprise, such as a mass-destruction attack at home, is hardly impossible. We should remember that the strains of Iraq come from the length of the mission, not the surge.

The strategic logic of the “risk management” argument is similarly weak: It sharply underplays the negative consequences, in the Middle East and around the world, of a U.S. defeat in Iraq.

This is not the place to elaborate that argument fully, yet it’s worth noting the insight of Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a former Army officer and author of the classic work The Army and Vietnam. A withdrawal from Iraq, he says, would not be like the American withdrawal from Saigon, but rather like the British evacuation from Dunkirk. In the context of the Cold War, the United States could retreat and recover from a loss in Vietnam without having to retake Saigon. But in World War II, strategic realities compelled the Allies to retake Western Europe from the Germans. It’s hard to imagine a victory in “The Long War” against revolutionary Islam without success in Iraq. This grim logic is well understood by troops serving in Iraq, especially those who also fought in Desert Storm. We are fighting in Iraq, they often say, so our children won’t have to.

For better or worse, it is and will be for quite a while the duty of America’s land forces to fight the Long War. Of the three great security challenges of our time–the rise of China, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the dangers of revolutionary Islam–it is the third that requires of us strong land power capabilities. The way to manage the risks of this extended struggle is to rebuild and reshape our land forces to respond to the challenge.

While not all the battles of this war will be exactly like Iraq, the bitter experience of the last four years should serve as a reminder that we must adapt to the war as it is rather than pretend we have the option of fighting a war we would prefer. Nor should we pretend that there’s something more important for U.S. ground troops to do. If they are ordered to retreat from this battle, their next battle is likely to be a lot harder.

Thomas Donnelly is resident fellow in defense and national security studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

In my last video I talked about military will vs. political will. Take a look at these two articles:

1. Our democratic leadership is war weary and likes to fight with kid gloves. The media and political outcry against the war on terror does nothing more than express our weakness to the world. America’s rivals (dare is say enemies) are using this opportunity to strengthen themselves against us. In this article, compare our political willpower to that of Israel. Notice that we have done nothing but talk at North Korea, Syria, and Iran; and that “tough” talk fools no one. Israel on the other hand does not talk, they act.

2. Take a look at Pat’s post about Iran and Syria.

This article just goes to show you the growing dangers in the middle east. Even a free Iraq will be a weak one, and its neighbors are preparing to take advantage of that. Iran and Syria have been willful participants in the Iraq insurgency, they pursue WMD’s, and denounce America and her allies. What else must they do before we act?

Osirak II?

By Bret Stephens
Wall Street Journal

In the late spring of 2002 the American press reported that Israel had armed its German-made submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. In Israel, this was old news. It was also headline news.

“Washington Post: Israeli subs have nuclear cruise missiles,” was how the Jerusalem Post, of which I was then the editor, titled its story of June 16. It wasn’t as if we didn’t previously know that Israel had purchased and modified the German subs for purposes of strategic deterrence. Nor did we delight in circumlocutions. We simply needed the imprimatur of a foreign source to publish items that Israel’s military censors (who operate as if the Internet doesn’t exist) forbade us from reporting forthrightly.

So it’s more than a little telling that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz chose, in the wake of an Israeli Air Force raid on Syria on Sept. 6 dubbed “Operation Orchard,” to give front-page billing to an op-ed by John Bolton that appeared in this newspaper Aug. 31. While the article dealt mainly with the six-party talks with North Korea, Mr. Bolton also noted that “both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear matters is not far-fetched.” He went on to wonder whether Pyongyang was using its Middle Eastern allies as safe havens for its nuclear goods while it went through a U.N. inspections process.

How plausible is this scenario? The usual suspects in the nonproliferation crowd reject it as some kind of trumped-up neocon plot. Yet based on conversations with Israeli and U.S. sources, along with evidence both positive and negative (that is, what people aren’t saying), it seems the likeliest suggested so far. That isn’t to say, however, that plenty of gaps and question marks about the operation don’t remain.

What’s beyond question is that something big went down on Sept. 6. Israeli sources had been telling me for months that their air force was intensively war-gaming attack scenarios against Syria; I assumed this was in anticipation of a second round of fighting with Hezbollah. On the morning of the raid, Israeli combat brigades in the northern Golan Heights went on high alert, reinforced by elite Maglan commando units. Most telling has been Israel’s blanket censorship of the story — unprecedented in the experience of even the most veteran Israeli reporters — which has also been extended to its ordinarily hypertalkative politicians. In a country of open secrets, this is, for once, a closed one.

The censorship helps dispose of at least one theory of the case. According to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Israel’s target was a cache of Iranian weapons destined for Hezbollah. But if that were the case, Israel would have every reason to advertise Damascus’s ongoing violations of Lebanese sovereignty, particularly on the eve of Lebanon’s crucial presidential election. Following the January 2002 Karine-A incident — in which Israeli frogmen intercepted an Iranian weapons shipment bound for Gaza — the government of Ariel Sharon wasted no time inviting reporters to inspect the captured merchandise. Had Orchard had a similar target, with similar results, it’s doubtful the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert — which badly needs to erase the blot of last year’s failed war — could have resisted turning it into a propaganda coup.

Something similar goes for another theory, this one from British journalist Peter Beaumont of the Observer, that the raid was in fact “a dry run for attack on Iran.” Mr. Beaumont is much taken by a report that at least one of the Israeli bombers involved in the raid dropped its fuel tanks in a Turkish field near the Syrian border.

Why Israel apparently chose to route its attack through Turkey is a nice question, given that it means a detour of more than 1,000 miles. Damascus claims the fuel tank was discarded after the planes came under Syrian anti-aircraft fire, which could be true. But if Israel is contemplating an attack on Tehran’s nuclear installations — and it is — it makes no sense to advertise the “Turkish corridor” as its likely avenue of attack.

As for the North Korean theory, evidence for it starts with Pyongyang. The raid, said one North Korean foreign ministry official quoted by China’s Xinhua news agency, was “little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security.” But who asked him, anyway? In August, the North Korean trade minister signed an agreement with Syria on “cooperation in trade and science and technology.” Last week, Andrew Semmel, the acting counterproliferation chief at the State Department, confirmed that North Korean technicians of some kind were known to be in Syria, and that Syria was “on the U.S. nuclear watch list.” And then there is yesterday’s curious news that North Korea has abruptly suspended its participation in the six-party talks, for reasons undeclared.

That still leaves the question of just what kind of transfers could have taken place. There has been some speculation regarding a Syrian plant in the city of Homs, built 20 years ago to extract uranium from phosphate (of which Syria has an ample supply). Yet Homs is 200 miles west of Dayr az Zawr, the city on the Euphrates reportedly closest to the site of the attack. More to the point, uranium extraction from phosphates is a commonplace activity (without it, phosphate is hazardous as fertilizer) and there is a vast gulf separating this kind of extraction from the enrichment process needed to turn uranium into something genuinely threatening.

There is also a rumor — sourced to an unnamed expert in the Washington Post — that on Sept. 3 a North Korean ship delivered some kind of nuclear cargo to the Syrian port of Tartus, forcing the Israelis to act. That may well be accurate, though it squares awkwardly with the evidence that plans for Orchard were laid months ago.

More questions will no doubt be raised about the operational details of the raid (some sources claim there were actually two raids, one of them diversionary), as well as fresh theories about what the Israelis were after and whether they got it. The only people that can provide real answers are in Jerusalem and Damascus, and for the most part they are preserving an abnormal silence. In the Middle East, that only happens when the interests of prudence and the demands of shame happen to coincide. Could we have just lived through a partial reprise of the 1981 Israeli attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor? On current evidence, it is the least unlikely possibility.

- Iggy

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Al Qaeda ‘Co-Opts’ New Affiliates
The network aims to broaden its reach and ability to strike by taking over regional Islamic militant groups.

By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Secure in its haven in northwestern Pakistan, a resurgent Al Qaeda is trying to expand its network, in some cases by executing corporate-style takeovers of regional Islamic extremist groups, according to U.S. intelligence officials and counter-terrorism experts.

Though not always successful, these moves indicate a shift in strategy by the terrorist network as it seeks to broaden its reach and renew its ability to strike Western targets, including the United States, officials and experts say.

“Certainly we do see Al Qaeda trying to influence the broader movement and to control some of these affiliates in a more direct way,” said a senior counter-terrorism official in the Bush administration. “The word I would use is ‘co-opt’ . . . as opposed to simply associating with or encouraging.

“By that I mean target selection, types of attacks, methodology, funding, all of the things that would make an affiliate suddenly a subsidiary.”

The senior official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitive nature of the subject matter. That person’s assessment coincided with those offered by a variety of current and former government authorities and private-sector experts.

Bruce Riedel, a senior CIA counter-terrorism official until late last year, said Al Qaeda “central” stands to gain hundreds or even thousands of foot soldiers, many of whom already have been radicalized, carry European passports and don’t require a visa to travel to the United States.
“I think what we are seeing is the reconstitution of their capabilities to strike targets in Western Europe and ultimately North America on a scale identical or bigger than Sept. 11,” said Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“Absolutely, we should be alarmed about this. They are creating franchises and buying franchises, offering expertise, networks, money.”

From northwest Pakistan, these current and former officials say, Al Qaeda leaders have rebuilt a network of field commanders that was largely decimated in the post-Sept. 11 attacks on its bases in Afghanistan.

These new mid-level operatives are reestablishing connections with long-standing affiliates that have been fairly independent. But they also are reaching past those groups to new organizations and even tribal and clan leaders.

Degrees of influence
Al Qaeda’s efforts do not always pan out. In some cases, it has pulled back after making an initial approach. And some groups have rebuffed Osama bin Laden’s organization.

Sometimes, it is not clear exactly what influence senior Al Qaeda leaders have. Three men arrested this month in Germany for allegedly plotting attacks there against Americans have been linked to an extremist group based in Uzbekistan that broke away from an organization long under Al Qaeda’s umbrella. Authorities fear that the group, the Islamic Jihad Union, might have been drawn tightly into Al Qaeda’s orbit and aimed far beyond its previous targets in Central Asia.

From its early years in the 1990s, Al Qaeda has been an umbrella organization of groups in Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries that has fostered symbiotic relationships with like-minded militant organizations without necessarily directing their operations.
Al Qaeda’s links to many outlying parts of its network were severed after the post-Sept. 11 attacks.

Signs of the rebuilding effort began to become apparent at least two years ago, but they have intensified significantly since then. U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials say they have seen indications in numerous terrorist plots and attacks and other extremist violence in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

In congressional testimony Sept. 10, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said Al Qaeda’s “mergers with regional groups . . . have created a more diffuse violent Islamic extremist threat that complicates the task of detecting and deterring plots against the homeland.”

U.S. officials and private experts described it as a two-way process in which Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, including chief strategist Ayman Zawahiri and perhaps Bin Laden himself, reach out to the groups, sending them emissaries and providing them with financing, logistical support and training.

And they said the groups were also reaching out to Al Qaeda, sending their recruits to Pakistan for training and indoctrination.

U.S. officials say these liaisons combine Al Qaeda’s money, training, finely honed tactics and muscle with the widespread support and participation that the local and regional groups enjoy from within their communities.

Some of those groups have jumped at the chance to align themselves with the Al Qaeda “brand name,” which has soared in popularity because of its increasingly sophisticated multimedia campaigns and widespread opposition to U.S. foreign policy, particularly the war in Iraq, the officials and private experts say.

The most clear-cut example is that of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an extremist group previously known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by the French acronym GSPC. The earlier group consisted mostly of Algerians bent on overthrowing their own government.

But on Sept. 11, 2006, Zawahiri announced that the group had became Al Qaeda’s affiliate in the North African region to become “a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.”
“They had people but they had no arms, no training and no money. By pledging allegiance, they got all of those,” one recently departed State Department counter-terrorism official said. In return, Al Qaeda “got more juice” in the form of frequent attacks on Western targets that raised its visibility, the official said.

In recent months, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has launched as many as four attacks a week, often suicide bombings against Western targets and political enemies, including what intelligence officials believe was an attempt to assassinate Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika this month. That bombing killed at least 20 people.

Olivier Guitta, a Moroccan counter-terrorism consultant based in Washington, said that Al Qaeda was using structures already in place to advance its cause.

“It is really moving and shaking the region,” he said, adding that some loyalists are angry that the organization is now attacking civilians.

U.S. intelligence officials are convinced that the alliance is not so much a merger but a takeover of the GSPC, which Riedel said came only after “many, many months of discussions about what the terms and conditions would be” between Zawahiri and Bin Laden and GSPC leader Abdelmalek Droudkel.

The group now is active throughout much of North Africa and the sub-Saharan Sahel region.Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan are using the network’s contacts and foot soldiers in North Africa and in Spain and other parts of Europe.

In many parts of Europe, they can disappear into large North African communities to recruit operatives, raise money and plot attacks.

Al Qaeda’s expansion efforts in some cases have encountered resistance. In Southeast Asia, some groups have rejected advances by its affiliates Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines and Jemaah Islamiah, the senior administration official said.

In Iraq, Al Qaeda’s Pakistan-based leadership moved aggressively to exert more control over foreign fighters, sending Abu Ayyub Masri from Pakistan after Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of a group calling itself Al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. airstrike last year. Masri, who had been in charge of Al Qaeda’s overseas networks, is considered more loyal to Al Qaeda than Zarqawi was.

But Al Qaeda in Iraq remains largely independent and consists mainly of local Iraqi insurgents, say U.S. intelligence officials. Some local tribal leaders have allied themselves with the U.S. military to counter the group’s advances.

Elsewhere in the Mideast
Al Qaeda also has made strong overtures to the Palestinian group Army of Islam in the Gaza Strip, and to Fatah al Islam, which until recently was based in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el Bared in north Lebanon, according to the senior administration officialand Fawaz Gerges, a scholar of Islamist militancy.

Two Al Qaeda operatives, Abdullah Bishi and Abd Rahman Afghani, were sent to Lebanon to investigate whether Fatah al Islam would make a suitable affiliate, but ultimately rejected the group because of its criminal activity and suspected ties to Syrian intelligence, Gerges said.
The senior administration counter-terrorism official said Al Qaeda was interested in forging alliances with similar groups in Lebanon, Jordan and other neighbors of Israel.

Gerges, author of the recent book “Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy,” said he saw signs of Al Qaeda’s outreach effort during interviews in the Middle East over the last 15 months. Al Qaeda is making connections to influential clans and tribal leaders and to disaffected Muslims with no previous ties to militant organizations.

“We have gone beyond ideology into a new terrain,” Gerges said. “Al Qaeda central has succeeded in replacing its field lieutenants who were captured or killed with new lieutenants, and not just in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Al Qaeda has been trying, with mixed results, to gain a stronger foothold in Egypt, which has a large recruiting pool of militants already sympathetic to Zawahiri, an Egyptian who is Bin Laden’s top deputy.

U.S. officials and experts believe Zawahiri is driving the current expansion effort. Last year, he announced a merger between Al Qaeda and the Egyptian terrorist group Gamaa al Islamiya. But many of the Egyptian group’s leaders denied that they had joined Al Qaeda’s ranks.

Al Qaeda has been negotiating with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, U.S. officials and experts say. Already, so many Al Qaeda fighters have shown up in Libya that the nation’s leader, Moammar Kadafi, a new but valuable counter- terrorism ally of Washington, has launched a crackdown that has led to hundreds of arrests.

In East Africa, Al Qaeda has been trying to exert more direct control over its longtime affiliates, which have been run by veteran operatives of the organization as largely independent — and active — cells since at least 1998, when they bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224.
Al Qaeda is also trying to forge closer alliances with clan-based militants in Somalia, who are fighting the U.S.-backed transitional government there, and in Yemen, Bin Laden’s ancestral homeland, current and former U.S. officials said.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Troops Political Pawn In Iraq War

By Marco Martinez

You can tell a lot about a nation by whom it trusts.

I am a former gang member-turned-Marine, not a statistician. But when I read that a Pew Research Center survey recently found that 76% of Republicans “have confidence” in the U.S. military to give an accurate picture of the war vs. only 36% of Democrats, the long-range consequences of a divided country became clear: We’ve become a nation that sees its soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines as political pawns, not patriots. Like thousands of combat veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I am now home, working and attending college. Yet it is the pre-presidential election climate I see stateside that concerns me most for my brothers and sisters in arms.

Gen. David Petraeus, who has faced Herculean challenges of mortal consequence, will issue his report on progress in Iraq next week. Regardless of what he reports, it’s worth reminding the American people — and all politicians in Washington — that the troops must not become the rope in a political tug of war on Capitol Hill.

When I hear members of Congress, such as House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., say that progress with the surge might create a “real big problem for us” in moving toward withdrawal, I think back to the hellish fighting my fellow Marines and I endured — and I feel ashamed that any American would make such a seemingly reckless political calculation. Knowing that a politician might view success in Iraq as an electoral problem is political zealotry in the extreme. Does Clyburn’s remark, though his alone, reflect a growing anxiety among Democrats that success in Iraq might complicate plans for ending the war?

Political dissent is healthy, especially when the issue is as critical as the Iraq war. But so is human decency. When an anti-war protester at the college I attend found out I was an Iraq veteran, she called me “a disgusting human being.” I felt sorry for her, so blinded by politics that she had abandoned basic civility. Thankfully, she doesn’t represent most Americans who oppose the war. But I worry about those still on the battlefield, and the individuals they will face when they return to a nation embroiled in election politics.

Many combat veterans, like me, have the luxury of watching the political debates from the safety of America. Not true for the 190,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Undermining the efforts of those whom one claims to support is the height of hubris.

Is it too much to ask that politicians view U.S. progress in Iraq as positive and not negative? I pray not.

Marco Martinez, a recipient of the Navy Cross, is author of the forthcoming book Hard Corps: From Gangster to Marine Hero.

Navy Cross Citation:
For extraordinary heroism while serving as 1st Fire Team Leader, 2nd Squad, 1st Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM on 12 April 2003. Responding to a call to reinforce his Platoon that was ambushed, Corporal Martinez effectively deployed his team under fire in supporting positions for a squad assault. After his squad leader was wounded, he took control and led the assault through a tree line where the ambush originated. As his squad advanced to secure successive enemy positions, it received sustained small arms fire from a nearby building. Enduring intense enemy fire and without regard for his own personal safety, Corporal Martinez launched a captured enemy rocket propelled grenade into the building temporarily silencing the enemy and allowing a wounded Marine to be evacuated and receive medical treatment. After receiving additional fire, he single-handedly assaulted the building and killed four enemy soldiers with a grenade and his rifle. By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, Corporal Martinez reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Muslims burning churches 1

Muslims burning churches 2

Bosnian Mujahideen

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

***I apologize in advance for saying former prime minister Jafari’s name wrong. I owe you 20 pushups and a cold one on me.

If Iraq Falls

Wall Street Journal
August 27, 2007
By Josef Joffe

In contrast to President Bush’s dark comparison between Iraq and the bloody aftermath of the Vietnam War last week, there is another, comforting version of the Vietnam analogy that’s gained currency among policy makers and pundits. It goes something like this:

After that last helicopter took off from the U.S. embassy in Saigon 32 years ago, the nasty strategic consequences then predicted did not in fact materialize. The “dominoes” did not fall, the Russians and Chinese did not take over, and America remained No. 1 in Southeast Asia and in the world.

But alas, cut-and-run from Iraq will not have the same serendipitous aftermath, because Iraq is not at all like Vietnam. (Read More)

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Troops And Crimes
New York Post
August 3, 2007

History’s best-behaved military
By Ralph Peters

The media love to trash our troops. Every crime alleged to have been committed by a soldier or Marine in Iraq is headlined until it seems that those in uniform are so busy with atrocities they haven’t got time to fight.

No accusation is too preposterous for “respected” media outlets to feature, and the left-wing press convicts our troops long before they see a courtroom. Our service members are portrayed (by those who never served) as a sadistic rabble.

But when you look at the facts - the hard numbers - a very different picture emerges.

While crimes committed by our troops can’t be condoned (and they certainly aren’t), official crime statistics make it clear that we have the best-behaved military in history - one that’s vastly more law-abiding than our general population.

(Read More)

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.