This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Terror War

  • Avoiding the rush to the exit

    While the President claims he won’t “rush” to a decision on Afghanistan, and John Kerry carries his water for him, others don’t see the need to put off the application of more force to the region. Senator Richard Burr of South Carolina talked to Patti Ann Brown today on Fox news Channel;Senator Burr was in Afghanistan and talked to the generals while John Kerry wined and dined with diplomats. Also opposed to delaying the deployment is Uncle Jimbo from Blackfive;

    Blackfive, himself, reminds us that many of the things Democrats are saying today are similar to what they said when they opposed the “surge” in 2007. the difference, of course, is that our President agrees with the blivet heads in Congress that surrender is our best option.

    Of course, the Taliban appreciates a man who is pragmatic and slow to act – it’s a quality that they truly admire in their enemies. In fact, they’ve self-imposed a moratorium on fighting our forces while the president thoughtfully considers all of his options – that’s why this month is becoming our deadliest month in Afghanistan, according to the Washington Times.

  • 15 hours?

    The Washington Post reports this morning that the Obama Administration completed it’s review of the material that the Administration has assembled to aid in what he hopes we perceive as a decision-making process;

    What was intended to be two or three weeks of intensive White House meetings has stretched on for almost a month. Obama and his national security advisers have sorted through the military and civilian aspects of the war, building toward a decision that many on the outside have urged be made sooner rather than later. Last week, the president concluded the five planned review sessions, roughly 15 hours in all, with top advisers in the Situation Room.

    A month to conduct five sessions – 15 hours in total? Out of the 360 waking hours of the last month, they spent 15 poring over solutions to Afghanistan – 4.17% of their days. I’ve spent that much time thinking about what I’d have for lunch in the last month.

    And, oh, the marathon 15 hours of strategy sessions ended last week and there’s still no decision.

    But don’t worry, the Taliban and al Qaeda forces will be heading to their mountain hideouts for the winter soon and we can procrastinate for a few more months.

    He no longer appears thoughtful about the process – Obama is a populist poll reader who is afraid to lead the nation. The problem is that Americans are dying while he dawdles.

  • Karzai questions US reliability

    The Agency France-Presse and the Washington Times report that Afghan President Hamid Karzai wondered aloud to CNN if the US is a reliable partner. Of course, he says that to deflect criticism from the alleged corruption in recent Afghan elections, but he’d have no point if the Obama Administration hadn’t left him an opening;

    “Is the United States a reliable partner with Afghanistan? Is the West a reliable partner with Afghanistan?” Mr. Karzai asked. “Have we received the commitments that we were given? Have we been treated like a partner?”

    Mr. Karzai said a partnership to him was “where the Afghan lives are respected, where Afghan property is respected, where the Afghan traditions are respected, where we know the direction we are moving to.”

    The comments appeared to allude to Mr. Karzai’s longstanding criticism of civilian deaths in U.S. air strikes, and to President Obama’s still-unresolved review of U.S. strategy and a request by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, for up to 40,000 more troops.

    Weeks after General McChrystal made his request, we’re still waiting for an answer. The head of the largest information-gathering organization in the world can’t translate that information into action. And the answer is so simple; can we afford to lose Afghanistan? Can we afford to walk away again like we did in 1988? Has Joe Biden ever offered a solution that wasn’t hare-brained?

    Even a cursory examination of the facts related to those questions yields a resounding “no” to each. So what’s the delay?

    More disturbing? Aside from the Washington Times and Breitbart, no other US news source is running the story. Do a Yahoo search on the title of the article and see for yourself.

  • Our allies the Taliban

    Earlier this month we learned from the Times Online and VoteVets that the Obama Administration was contemplating forging an alliance with the Taliban in order to bring the war in Afghanistan to quick end. We scoffed at the idea then, and the Taliban themselves give reason to continue to scoff at it today with this message to the people of Afghanistan warning them to to not vote in the up-coming run off election as quoted in the Wall Street Journal;

    “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan urges the people of Afghanistan to not participate in the elections, and once again prove that they are true believers,” the group said in a statement emailed to the Wall Street Journal, using a name referring to the Taliban and allied groups.

    “All mujahedeen are ordered to do their best to disrupt the elections and carry out attacks on enemy outposts and prevent people from going to the polling centers,” the statement continued. The group hinted that they would target election workers and voters. “If anyone, including the participants and the workers, gets harmed they have only themselves to blame, since the Islamic Emirate warned them in advance.”

    So, since it was Biden’s plan, I wonder how he welcomes this news.

    Speaking of Biden, the Wall Street Journal also reports that the Obama Administration is leaning heavily towards Biden’s plan for depending on ninjas and zombie robots to win the war in Afghanistan;

    The emerging strategy would largely rebuff proposals to maintain current troop levels and rely on unmanned drone attacks and elite special-operations troops to hunt individual militants, an idea championed by Mr. Biden. It is opposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Kabul, and other military officials.

    One scenario under consideration, according to an official familiar with the deliberations, calls for deploying 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. reinforcements primarily to ramp up the training of the Afghan security forces. But Gen. McChrystal’s request for 40,000 troops also remains on the table.

    People familiar with the internal debates say Mr. Obama rejected a strictly counter-terror approach during White House deliberations in early October. One official said Pentagon strategists were asked to draft brief written arguments making the best case for each strategy, but the strategists had difficulties writing out a credible case for the counter-terror approach — prompting members of Mr. Biden’s staff to step in and write the document themselves.

    Let’s look at Biden’s record of successes; he was against the first war against Saddam Hussein, for the second one, for partitioning Iraq and, finally, against the surge…so this new plan must a real winner for us, huh?

    ADDED: Bill Roggio points out that no one in the Defense Department was willing to commit to paper a proposal for the Biden plan, resulting in the Biden team writing their own plan without the experts to help.

  • The bad karma of VoteVets

    Dicksmith wrote in VetsVoicea bit about the new Obama foreign policy of openness and willingness to deal with Iran and how we’re reaping the rewards of having unicorns, fairies and other magical beasts in the White House, linking to this NYT article. He also used the opportunity to swipe at the Bush Administration.

    After nine months of an Obama Presidency, Iran has agreed to put their nuclear problem on hold for at least a year to engage in the diplomatic process. Previously, Iran spent eight years thumbing its nose at the international community while the Bush Administration engaged them with a strategy of “ignore it now, and decide whether or not to bomb it later”. This is how the world can work when you have American leadership that doesn’t engage in first-grade playground diplomacy (“You’re not my friend so I’m not talking to you anymore!”).

    That was yesterday. This is today (from Fox News Channel);

    State TV says Iran wants to buy nuclear fuel it needs for a research reactor rather than accept a U.N.-drafted plan to ship much of its uranium to Russia for further enrichment.

    “Iran is interested in buying fuel for the Tehran research reactor within the framework of a clear proposal … we are waiting for the other party’s constructive and trust-building response,” Iranian TV quoted a member of Iran’s negotiating team as saying, Reuters reports.

    Iran’s response will come as a disappointment to the U.S., Russia and France, which all endorsed the U.N. plan Friday that called for Iran to ship its uranium stockpile to Russia rather than continue what is believed to be an weapons-grade enrichment program. The three countries formulated the draft plan in three days of talks with Iran in Vienna that ended Wednesday.

    Dicksmith, karma is a stone-cold bitch. Next time don’t gloat and she won’t be so tough on you.

  • Losing political will

    Our troops are fighting their asses off in Afghanistan, but the politicians are emptying their bladders in their diapers. So much so, that the NATO chief had to remind the members of that organization that victory in the war in Afghanistan is imperative;

    Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said some critics are starting to say that the cost of engagement in the eight-year war is too high, but he countered that “the cost of inaction would be far higher.”

    “Leaving Afghanistan behind would once again turn the country into a training ground for al-Qaida. The pressure on nuclear-armed Pakistan would be tremendous. Instability would spread throughout central Asia and it would only be a matter of time until we here in Europe would feel the consequences of all of this,” Fogh Rasmussen said at a security conference in Bratislava ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers.

    Of course, the weak-kneed know that, but it doesn’t keep them from going wobbly at the sound of the word “commitment”. Meanwhile, the former top Canadian general warned that Afghanistan will end NATO;

    Retired general and former Canadian chief of defense staff Rick Hillier wrote in his autobiography to be published next week: “Afghanistan has revealed that NATO has reached the stage where it is a corpse, decomposing” and in need of “lifesaving” or “the alliance will be done.”

    Meanwhile, Dick Cheney told a conservative crowd that President Obama is scared to make a decision about our involvement in Afghanistan;

    “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger,” Cheney said at the Center for Security Policy. “Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.”

    Even the USAToday editorial board warns that the Obama Administration’s flirtations with the Taliban are ridiculous;

    Trying to treat al-Qaeda and the Taliban as separate threats is unrealistic and unworkable. It would certainly be easier, and more convenient, if al-Qaeda and the Taliban could be regarded as distinct entities. That would allow the U.S. to pursue a simpler “counterterrorism” strategy against the remnants of al-Qaeda instead of a far more complex “counterinsurgency” strategy against the Taliban. Unfortunately, however, the weight of the evidence is that al-Qaeda and significant elements of the Taliban have become so closely aligned as to be inseparable.

    If nothing else, the Obama Administration should take VoteVets’ endorsement of that strategy as a warning.

    Dick Cheney’s warning to the President should resonate a bit more than the words of dicksmith and Jon Soltz;

    “Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced,” Cheney said in reference to Emanuel’s comments. “It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.”

    There is no substitute for American warriors and the more, the better.

  • Rudderless war policy

    Who is our commander-in-chief and where is he? Today, the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, told a gaggle of reporters that the president’s decision to beef up forces in Afghanistan can’t wait for their elections to get unscrewed. Of course, he’s right. There are Taliban and al Qaeda operatives in that country right now that need killing. Obama’s decision boils down to whether he wants to kill them now or wait until Spring and then kill them.

    Why is he waiting?

    “The UN, NATO, the US stand ready to assist the Afghans in conducting the second round,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

    “Whether or not the president makes a decision before that I don’t think has been determined.

    “I have continued to say a decision will be made in the coming weeks as the president goes through an examination of our policy,” he added.

    There is absolutely no reason to delay deploying more troops to Afghanistan waiting on the Afghans to learn how to run elections. Those fighters in the mountains need killing no matter who is president of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis delayed killing them and now they’re locked in a battle for their lives. Delaying killing those folks only benefits them. Of course, it benefits Obama because he gets to hold on to his base supporters a little longer – but meanwhile US troops are dying in Afghanistan. That doesn’t seem to matter to the Obama Administration, though.

    They get to lay some medals on some troops for their actions four decades ago and everyone thinks he supports the troops. But all the Obama Administration has become is a ceremonial unit – he gets Nobel prizes for doing nothing. Jon Soltz, Chris Lejeune and Dicksmith applaud him for sending more troops to Afghanistan, even though those troops were follow-on troops for the last surge there.

    This is clearly Obama’s war now, and he’s clearly afraid to fight it. In the face of a newly-elected Democrat Congress which had been elected on their promise to de-fund his war, george Bush made the politically courageous decision to send more troops to iraq which broke the back of al Qaeda in Iraq – and it was mainly because the al Qaeda thought they had won in Iraq because of the election of Democrats. Bush made it more costly for terrorists to ply their trade.

    miss-me-yet

  • Command restricts photos of dead US troops

    TSO sent us this link last night from Congressional Quarterly;

    The U.S. military command in Bagram, Afghanistan, confirmed Wednesday that it has barred reporters who embed with its forces from videotaping or photographing U.S. military personnel killed in action.

    Several senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee — including the chairman, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, and the ranking Republican, John McCain of Arizona — said Wednesday they were not aware of the change in policy and wanted to find out more about it.

    As much as I disagree with restrictions on the press by government agencies, journalists brought it on themselves with their abhorrent behavior in the case of Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard whose final moments of life were sent out over the news wires.

    His family asked the Associated Press to not publish the photos, yet they did it anyway. And then, the entire media engaged in an electronic circle jerk to assuage their widdle feewings. For example, although his newspaper didn’t publish the photos, Stars and Stripes ombudsman, Mark Prendergast felt the need to give AP a handjob;

    It was a tough call, but the right one.

    As hard as it may be to view that picture, especially for the Marine’s family, it belongs in the public domain as a legitimate piece of visual history in a conflict that as of this writing has taken 562 American lives in combat, with no end in sight.

    It honors his death, and those of all others, by showing what it means to give one’s life for one’s country. It is also a testament to courage and comradeship. Two fellow Marines can be seen risking their own lives to tend to their fallen buddy under fire.

    Suppressing or withholding the photo would have ill served the open society that the dead Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Me., gave his life to serve so well so far from home.

    So, in the age of instant imaging and broadcasting, Prendergast sees no problem engaging in this type of snuff journalism. Especially, working for a newspaper that’s claim to fame is “The Independent News Source
    for the U.S. Military Community”.

    What choice did the military have to protect the good order and discipline of the military by restricting the bad order and indiscipline of the press.

    If the Associated Press and the news outlets who chose to run the photos of LCPL Bernard had showed a bit of decorum, maybe they wouldn’t have had these restrictions placed on them. The government doesn’t usually regulate things that people and organizations regulate properly for themselves.

    Of course, we can probably count on snuff pornographers in the media to cry and whine, but it’s their own damn fault.