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

Category: Terror War

  • LTC Chessani cleared!

    My email box is filling up, Rush Limbaugh’s talking about it, it’s all over the news, so I guess I’d better tell ya’all (CBS News link);

    A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

    Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges Tuesday against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after defense attorneys raised concerns that a four-star general overseeing the prosecution was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha.

    The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled, but Folsom excluded Marine Forces Central Command from future involvement.

    There were 9 Marines charged and we’re down to one Staff Sergeant. I wonder if Murtha is writing his resignation.

    UPDATED: My post at Eagles UP! Talon deals with this subject and Murtha.

  • Iraqis unsure about US’ future role

    The Washington Post writes this morning, under the headline “Iraqis Condemn American Demands” in regards to negotiations with the Iraq government for our security plans in Iraq. Since the Washington Post has a habit of changing their headlines after I write about them, I took a screen cap;

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    The article doesn’t really support the headline (which I learned in my journalism class the first day is one of three places a journalist tells the story). The headline implies that all Iraqis are of that mind. In fact, the article only names a few;

    “The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq,” said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician on parliament’s foreign relations committee who is close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “If we can’t reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, ‘Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don’t need you here anymore.’ “

    Most Iraqis realize that we don’t want a colony – most of the world knows that our history doesn’t support that contention, but that doesn’t stop the Post from injecting a single quote from a single Iraqi.

    The use of the term “American Demands” doesn’t fit either;

    President Bush has spoken directly to Maliki about the issue in recent days and instructed his negotiating team to show greater flexibility, Iraqi politicians said. U.S. officials circulated a draft of the status of forces agreement over the weekend without many of the most controversial demands, buoying hopes that a deal could be reached, according to Iraq lawmakers.

    “Greater flexibility” doesn’t sound like the US is making “demands” on the Iraqis at all. Further along in the article is this quote:

    “Now the American position is much more positive and more flexible than before,” said Mohammed Hamoud, an Iraqi deputy foreign minister who is a lead negotiator in the talks.

    Yeah, why wasn’t that in the headline? I’m pretty sure I’ll get to hear or read some nit-witted Leftist screaming that the Iraqis don’t want us there anymore. All they seem to read are the headlines. Like this commenter at the WaPo story;

    irae wrote:
    “Let Freedom reign!” Unless, of course, it leads the Iraqis to assert independent control of their “sovereign” nation. This fiasco will appear on the historic list of our national embarassments, like the Native American genocide and the internment of U.S. citizens during WW II. Thanks, Republicants!

    Or this bubblehead at Counterpunch;

    A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November.

    The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to this reporter, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq.

    If you want to talk about demands, maybe the Post was thinking about this paragraph;

    In Washington, the White House hastily organized a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday after Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.), the chairman and ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee, respectively, demanded Monday that the administration “be more transparent with Congress, with greater consultation, about the progress and content of these deliberations.”

    Yes, the Democrats who’ve sabotaged every move the administration has made in Iraq wonder why no one will let them take part in the discussion. Maybe we can have Leaky Leahy make daily reports through the WaPo of the closed door meetings – that should make the Iraqis more trustful of the process.

    If the Iraqis truly want us leave, I’d be the first to say we should go, but this article focuses on the same Shi’ites who’ve been calling us an occupying force since al Sadr formed the Mahdi Army to drive us out. They’ve been beat politically and militarily, so they turn to their only ally – the American media.

    I’d like to see fewer troops in Iraq, but I already predicted we’d be back in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War when Iraqi bullets were still ricocheting off of my Bradley turret when the ceasefire took effect and ending our presence there again might force a future generation back – depending on who we elect in the interim. And the Iraqis should take that into consideration, too. The next President might abandon them like we abandoned the South Vietnamese when they needed us most in 1975.

    UPDATE: Gateway Pundit reports that President Bush says we don’t permanent bases in Iraq. Quoting the President;

    And as I said clearly in past speeches, this will not involve permanent bases, nor will it bind any future President to troop levels. You know, as to — look, Eggen, you can find any voice you want in the Iraqi political scene and quote them, which is interesting, isn’t it, because in the past you could only find one voice, and now you can find a myriad of voices.

  • Iraqi sheik offers troops to Afghanistan

    The constant bleat from the Left that the war against Hussein and al Qaeda in Iraq distracted us from fighting the “real enemy” in Afghanistan is losing traction. The leader of the “Anbar Awakening” has offered to send troops to Afghanistan to help fight al Qaeda there (NY Sun link);

    In an interview, Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi told The New York Sun that in April he prepared a 47-page study on Afghanistan and its tribes for the deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Kabul, Christopher Dell. When asked if he would send military advisers to Afghanistan to assist American troops fighting there, he said: “I have no problem with this; if they ask me, I will do it.”

    The success of the Anbari tribal rebellion known as the awakening spurred Multinational Forces Iraq to try to emulate the model throughout Iraq, including with the predominately Shiite tribes in the south of the country.

    The sheik went on to praise President Bush;

    Of his meeting with Mr. Bush, Sheik Ahmad said he was impressed. “He is a brave man. He is also a wise man. He is taking care of the country’s future, the United States’ future. He is also taking care of the Iraqi people, the ordinary people in Iraq. He wants to accomplish success in Iraq.”

    When Sheik Ahmad’s brother, Sheik Sattar, met with Mr. Bush in Anbar last fall, he told the president that he dedicated his victory over Al Qaeda to the victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001. On September 13, 2007, Sheik Sattar was assassinated by an improvised explosive device. Since then, his brother Sheik Ahmad has led the awakening movement.

    So, I guess this will lead the Democrats to cry that Iraq is invading Afghanistan and it’s, of course, Bush’s fault.

    Hat tip to an emailer named Faith Jones.

  • Chavez to FARC; guerilla war is over

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    In a surprising turn of events, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez called on FARC to lay down their weapons (Associated Press/Fox News link);

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday urged Colombian rebels to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and end a decades-long armed struggle.

    Chavez sent the uncharacteristic message to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia’s democratically elected government were unjustified.

    “The guerrilla war is history,” Chavez said during his weekly television and radio program. “At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place.”

    Why would Chavez make such an announcement? Well, if you read my other blog “Tall & Rich” you’d know that Saturday Colombia captured a couple of Venezuelans delivering ammunition to FARC terrorists. You’d also know that INTERPOL has substantiated ties between FARC and the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela. This is Chavez way of deflecting the impending criticism.

    But, FARC has no such intentions;

    Yet a FARC statement posted Sunday on a Web site sympathetic to its cause suggested the group is far from laying down its arms.

    Written by rebel leader Luciano Marin Arango, alias “Ivan Marquez,” and dated June 5, the statement demands that new elections be called to oust Colombia’s government and Congress. The FARC’s “strategic objective is the taking of power for the people,” the statement said.

    It also claimed that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has backed plans to kill Chavez and leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

    Seems to me, at the rate leaders of FARC are giving up the ghost, it’d be hard to find someone to call themselves a FARC commander these days.

    Crossposted at Tall & Rich.

  • Saturday arrests in Iraq

    Friday, two Shi’ite extremists surrendered to American troops, one of whom turned out to be a Hezbollah operative working for Iran to train the anti-government Mahdi Army according to the Associated Press;

    Two Shiite militia leaders surrendered to American soldiers Friday, while tens of thousands of supporters of hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr streamed out of mosques to protest against an agreement which could keep U.S. troops here for years.

    The arrests and demonstrations occurred on the eve of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s trip to Shiite-dominated Iran, his second visit there in a year.

    U.S. officials allege that Iran is arming and training Shiite militiamen and encouraging a public campaign in Iraq against the proposed U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which the Iranians oppose.

    Today, according to another Associated Press article in the Wall Street Journal, US troops arrested yet another pair of Iran-linked terrorists yesterday;

    U.S. soldiers in Baghdad captured an Iraqi arms dealer and “assassination squad” leader responsible for trafficking Shiite extremists in and out of neighboring Iran for training, the military said Sunday.

    The arrest reinforced long-standing U.S. allegations that Iran arms, trains and funds Shiite Muslim militiamen inside Iraq — charges that Tehran denies. It also coincided with a two-day visit to Iran by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his second such trip in a year.

    The Iraqi prime minister, himself a Shiite, is struggling to keep Washington happy while reassuring Iran, the largest Shiite nation, that a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security agreement would not make his country an American launching pad for attacks on Iran.

    The U.S. arrest campaign against Shiite militiamen with alleged ties to Iran was likely to be on the agenda for Mr. Maliki’s talks with Iranian officials.

    U.S. soldiers, acting on intelligence from other Shiite militiamen already in custody, captured the Basra-based “special groups” leader late Saturday at a hideout in eastern Baghdad, according to a military statement. “The wanted man is alleged to be a commander of an assassination squad in Basra, an arms dealer with connections to Iran and a document counterfeiter,” the statement said. He also arranges transportation of criminals into Iran for training, and then back into Iraq, it said. One of the leader’s aides was also arrested without incident.

    More of these connections to Iran will be found as long as the US and Shi’te Iraqi President Maliki remain reticent about confronting the Islamic Republic over these incursions into the sovereign state of Iraq.

    The AP also reported that six al Qaeda folks were rounded up yesterday;

    Meanwhile, the military said in another statement that it captured six more suspected Sunni extremists Sunday in the northern city of Mosul, including an alleged al Qaeda in Iraq leader and another man who is a wiring expert in charge of a bombing cell there.

    It’s clear that Iraq will not be a safe democracy as long as Iran is allowed to operate with impunity. With elections in the US this year, we can expect these Iranian incursions to result in a big drive to influence the results.

  • Hegseth: Obama must go to Iraq

    Pete Hegseth, Chairman of Vets for Freedom writes in the Wall Street Journal this morning that Barack Obama’s refusal to go to Iraq only undermines Obama’s credibility on the war against terror and more specifically the war in Iraq;

    Mr. Obama continues to insist that “Iraq’s political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war” – despite the passage of numerous pieces of benchmark legislation by the Iraqi Parliament and unequivocal evidence of grassroots reconciliation across the country.

    Mr. Obama also continues to claim that America has “simply thrown U.S. troops at the problem, and it has not worked” – despite the dramatic reduction in violence in precisely those areas of Iraq where American forces have surged, and since handed over to Iraqi Security Forces.

    And of course, Mr. Obama persists in his pledge to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq, on a fixed timeline, beginning the moment he enters office – regardless of the recommendations of our commanders on the ground, regardless of conditions on the ground, and regardless, in short, of reality.

    America is longing for an informed and principled debate about the future of Iraq. However, such a debate seems unlikely if the Democratic nominee for president won’t take the time to truly understand the dynamics on the ground, let alone meet with commanders.

    The time for talking points is over. Too much is at stake. When will Mr. Obama finally return to Iraq and see the situation for himself?

    Well, I’ll explain it to you, Pete; If Obama were to go to Iraq, he’d be without teleprompters and handlers – he’d be just another lanky, jug-eared bonehead without the adoring crowds waving signs and cheering. He’d look like the uncoordinated doofus he is. He’d be Barack Obama Unplugged.

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    If he went to Iraq, he’d either have to lie about what he would see with his own eyes, or he’d have to admit that he’s been wrong the last several months – and he’d have to reformulate his policy on Iraq to something the Code Pink and the MoveOn.org special interest groups couldn’t tolerate. Obama would have to admit that John McCain and George W. Bush were right all along – that wouldn’t sit well with anyone being funded by George Soros.

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    I mean, why should Obama mar his perfect record of plausible deniability? As long as he never goes to Iraq, he can say he was given bad information. Just like his stupid remarks that he never heard Jeremiah Wright’s hate speech in church, just like yesterday when he said that the Tony Rezko who was sentenced to prison isn’t the Tony Rezko Obama knew all of these years. Obama doesn’t want to know the truth, he just wants to parrot vacant platitudes that attract the empty-minded zombies.

  • Army torments soldiers with gunfire

    The Washington Post, obviously uninformed about the nature of the business of the Army, accuses the Army of tormenting soldiers with the sound of gunfire inside a military base;

    Army Sgt. Jonathan Strickland sits in his room at noon with the blinds drawn, seeking the sleep that has eluded him since he was knocked out by the blast of a Baghdad car bomb.

    Like many of the wounded soldiers living in the newly built “warrior transition” barracks here, the soft-spoken 25-year-old suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. But even as Strickland and his comrades struggle with nightmares, anxiety and flashbacks from their wartime experiences, the sounds of gunfire have followed them here, just outside their windows.

    Across the street from their assigned housing, about 200 yards away, are some of the Army infantry’s main firing ranges, and day and night, several days each week, barrages from rifles and machine guns echo around Strickland’s building. The noise makes the wounded cringe, startle in their formations, and stay awake and on edge, according to several soldiers interviewed at the barracks last month. The gunfire recently sent one soldier to the emergency room with an anxiety attack, they said.

    I’ve lived at Fort Benning and there are ranges every where – because it’s mainly a training facility for infantrymen. Infantryman shoot guns day and night. And, funny thing, none of the soldiers have been complaining about it;

    “Fort Benning is a training unit, so there is gunfire around us all the time,” said Elaine Kelley, a behavioral health supervisor at the base hospital. If a soldier had a severe problem, it would have been identified, she said.

    Lt. Col. Sean Mulcahey, who recently took command of the Warrior Transition Battalion, where wounded soldiers are assigned, said: “No soldier has talked with me about the ranges.” If it is an issue, “we will address it,” he said, stressing that the battalion’s mission is “getting those soldiers to heal.”

    So if no one complained to the commander of the unit, how did the Washington Post find out about it?

    Soldiers interviewed said complaints to medical personnel at Fort Benning’s Martin Army Community Hospital and officers in their chain of command have brought no relief, prompting one soldier’s father to contact The Washington Post.

    Emphasis is mine. I’m sure the father thinks he’s helping, but the Washington Post isn’t very helpful.

    Under Army rules, commanders of warrior transition units are supposed to enforce “quiet hours.” Officials said the location of the barracks for wounded soldiers, along with a $1.2 million Soldier and Family Assistance Center, was chosen for its proximity to central facilities such as the hospital.

    The hospital isn’t near any ranges – how stupid would that be to build a hospital near ranges. However, there are big booms emanating from the impact area that can be heard all the way into Columbus, Ga. You can hear rifle fire all night from miles away all over the post. I remember hearing the gunfire from the ranges while I stumbled from bar to bar on Victory Drive. My quarters were a few hundred yards from the hospital and the sound of gunfire never bothered me or my family.

    I’m not completely unsympathetic to people who suffer from PTSD from the war, but, I have to ask them what would be their solution to this problem? What would the Washington Post like the Army to do about it? Develop silent weapons? Stop training for night combat operations (our greatest advantage over every army on earth)? Or put these troops in sound-proofed cells?

    I’m sure the Washington Post has proof it’ll release later that that Dick Cheney has the sound from the ranges piped directly into soldiers’ rooms.

  • Obama’s Iranian advisor; Part II

    I’ve been pouring through some of the material available on this Trita Parsi fellow who is advising Barack Obama on his Iran policy and as near as I can tell, Obama is relying strictly on this one guy based strictly on his one book. In this BBC interview, Parsi states unequivocally that diplomatic relations should begin with Iran without preconditions so as not to derail the negotiations.

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    From Barack Obama’s campaign website;

    Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.

    In this screen shot of an exerpt from Parsi’s book, he expalins that we Americans are just a bunch of ignorant asses who believe that the problem in the Middle East is between a democracy (Israel) and a tyrannic regime and that we believe that because we believe everything the Israelis tell us to believe instead of a clash of cultures;

    untitled001.jpg

    Except we understand all of that and we didn’t need Obama or Parsi to tell us. From what I’ve read of Parsi’s book (admittedly just excerpts on Amazon), the West are just a bunch of rubes who don’t understand the Iranian’s true intentions. In this interview for the CFR, Parsi actually argues that the Iranians don’t have nuclear ambitions, they just want to look like they do…then stop developing the nukes just short of the actual warheads;

    Well, I think they definitely are looking for a nuclear option, being — as you mentioned — like Japan or Sweden or Belgium — having the capability to be able to go for a nuclear weapon, but stopping short of that. And that is exactly the same approach that the Shah took during the 1970s. He wanted to have the option, but he also recognized the strategic disadvantage for Iran to actually go for a weapon.

    […]

    So the Iranians do have strong incentives not going for a nuclear weapon, but because of them living in a very tough neighborhood, they definitely want to have the option. And I think that’s what they’re aiming for now. I don’t think they have made a strategic decision to go for a weapon, but if tensions between the United States and Iran were to increase further, then that decision would probably be reassessed.

    So I guess we just cross our fingers and hope that even though they go through all of the motions, they stop short of the goal. I guess that’s part of that “Hope” mantra from the Obama campaign.

    In this interview on CNN, Parsi waves away Ahmadinejad’s letter to the UN last year condemning liberal western democracies in an attempt to bully the West to delay sanctions. Parsi says it’s a plea for negotiations with the US, when it’s clearly not. He goes on to blame the US for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, when there are a 160 other nations in the UN – why does the US have to talk with everyone?

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    Parsi, of course, doesn’t mention the fact that relations with the Islamic Republic began with the seizure of our embassy and holding 50 hostages for 444 days. Ahmadinejad happens to be one of the perpetrators of that international crime. In this lecture to the Congressional Progressive caucus, Parsi falsely claims that the Bush Administration didn’t have a foreign policy towards Iran in the first four years. When did he make the “axis of evil” speech?

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    There’s always been a national policy towards Iran – just because Mr. Parsi disagrees with it, that doesn’t make it nonexistent. But Parsi’s philosophy shows through on Obama’s campaign website;

    Iran has sought nuclear weapons, supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region, and its leaders threaten Israel and deny the Holocaust. But Obama believes that we have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them. That’s why Obama stood up to the Bush administration’s warnings of war, just like he stood up to the war in Iraq.

    As a result of Obama listening to this bumbling halfwit hiding behind his sheepskins, Obama has become and easy target for John McCain (New York Times link);

    “We hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before,” Mr. McCain said at the pro-Israel lobby’s convention in Washington. “Yet it’s hard to see what such a summit with President Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another.”

    The Obama campaign countered that Mr. McCain “stubbornly insists on continuing a dangerous and failed foreign policy that has clearly made the United States and Israel less secure,” adding that during the Bush administration Iran had made gains with its nuclear program, that it had expanded its influence in the region through groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and that Hamas had taken over Gaza.

    Obama and Parsi just figure that since the Bush Administration hasn’t been able to unscrew what Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton left us, simply do the complete opposite. But that’s the way stuff happens on Bizzarro World.