Category: Terror War

Ramadi was a windfall for ISIS forces when Iraqi forces abandoned their equipment to flee the advancing thugs. According to the Associated Press;

A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, estimated that a half dozen tanks were abandoned, a similar number of artillery pieces, a larger number of armored personnel carriers and about 100 wheeled vehicles like Humvees. He said some of the vehicles were in working condition; others were not because they had not been moved for months.

Yeah, well, the looted British cannons from Fort Ticonderoga that appeared on the heights of Bunker and Breed Hills didn’t turn the tide of that battle, but the casualties that the British suffered as a result limited their operations around Boston after that and resulted in their evacuation from Boston eventually. But that’s just history. It can’t happen again.

Anyway, we haven’t got rid of that Dempsey guy yet, so we still get treated to his wisdom;

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, issued a written statement Monday that suggested Ramadi will trigger no change in the U.S. approach.

“Setbacks are regrettable but not uncommon in warfare,” Dempsey said. “Much effort will now be required to reclaim the city.”

They knew that Ramadi has been on the verge of toppling for a month, it seems to me that knowledge would have triggered some sort of reaction in the form of increased application of air power, or something. I know the Delta raid was supposed to be a distraction from the fall of Ramadi, I just know it. But this “setbacks are…not uncommon in warfare” attitude is just stupid, especially when they had time to prevent the setback.

Like I said earlier today, a defensive battle is easier than an offensive battle – if the Iraqis couldn’t hold the city, they’re sure going to have a hard time taking it back.

They should just give Dempsey administrative leave until his retirement date. It’s obvious that he has his mind on that seven-figure job that he’s taking, because his head hasn’t been in the war for the last four years or so.

Our buddy, Kristina Wong at The Hill says that yesterday, the Pentagon finally called Ramadi a failure;

“It was a failure of a lot of things, leadership being one of them, tactics being one of them,” said Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren.

He added, however, “it’s important to note that war is a fluid thing, there’s victories, but the enemy does get a vote and in this case, the enemy was able to gain the upper hand,” he said.

It’s also a failure of a Pentagon that fights from the White House.

Our buddy, Katrina Wong at The Hill reports that the Pentagon is convinced that their strategy to win against ISIS, whatever that is, is still working, you know, despite the fact that the battlefield looks like they’re losing. We mentioned a few days ago that the Iraqi city of Ramadi had fallen to the thugs, but the Pentagon says don’t worry, we can get it back;

“We still believe the strategy is working,” Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters.

“Ramadi is an urban environment that is among the very toughest to fight in,” Warren added in an acknowledgement that U.S. air power alone is no panacea for the city. “It is an environment that limits the ability of airpower, so it creates unique challenges,” he said.

Warren said the Pentagon would accept help from Shia militia fighters — even though many are believed to be backed by Iran — to retake the city.

It seems to me that the “tough urban environment” is more suited to defense than offense, well, that’s been my experience, anyway, unless things have changed in the last one million years. If they had trouble defending Ramadi, they’ll have a harder time trying to retake it. I’m thinking that no one thought this through – well, unless their strategy includes getting a metric-shit-ton of Shia militiamen killed.

But, according to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, there is no strategy, only micromanagement of the Pentagon from White House functionaries;

I think the first thing is we don’t have a strategy at all. We’re basically sort of playing this day-to-day, and I think our interests remain important in the Middle East.

Yeah, well, f*** you, Gates. Why didn’t you speak up when you had a voice and when you could have been a hero instead of a poo-flinging chimp in the back of the room?

You know, if the Pentagon was serious about the war against ISIS, if they were serious about taking back Ramadi, this victory parade would have been interrupted by some guy zeroing his 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon;

The Christian Science Monitor writes about a kind of rehab center founded by the Saudis to cure jihadists with art therapy, water aerobics classes, ping-pong, Jacuzzis, and gourmet chefs at the Mohammad bin Naif Counseling and Care Center. The article claims that they have an 88% success rate and that they’re treating 250 reformed terrorists;

In a three-month program, crafted and advocated by current Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammad bin Naif, Saudi officials transfer former jihadists from the kingdom’s five high-security correctional facilities who have completed their jail sentences to the care center on the outskirts of Riyadh.

The program employs a team of clerics, theologians, and shariah experts to correct “misconceptions” spread by jihadist ideology and guide patients to the “true path of Islam.”

Armed with dozens of hadiths, or sayings, from the prophet Mohammad and volumes on Islamic jurisprudence dating back to the 8th century, religious experts spend daily sessions with patients to debunk jihadist groups’ various claims.

From a recent article in Al Riyadh;

A total of 30 persons were recently graduated from Prince Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Rehabilitation centers in Riyadh and Jeddah respectively, it was reported here today. A security spokesman at the Ministry of Interior said that 13 persons who previously followed the deviant thought were graduated from Riyadh-based Prince Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Rehabilitation Center while 17 were given clearance by Jeddah-based twin facility after having benefited from the religious, social, psychiatric, historic, scientific, sports, technical, vocational programs, symposia and lectures.

OK, well, another way to combat “deviant thought” is to shut down the sources of deviant thought. If the madrases weren’t allowed to teach the message of the jihadists, there wouldn’t be a need for rehabilitation. But, I’m just thinking out loud here.

Wiki says that the rehab center claimed 100% success rate until a couple of their grads released a threatening video and the government had to go out and re-arrest and re-educate nine other graduates of the program.

That all might work over there in the region, but I have a hard time thinking that it would work here. Prospective jihadists are already awash in luxury, compared to their Middle East brethren. Our culture is so broken, this kind of rehabilitation would never work. Take, for example, Zubeidat Tsarnaev, the mother of the surviving Boston Bomber;

Tsarnaev, who currently lives in Dagestan, insisted that her sons were being preyed upon by America for protecting Muslims throughout the world. (She’s claimed that her sons were set up ever since the bombing occurred.)

“May god bless those who helped my son,” she wrote to a support group on the Russian social media VKontakte, according to Vocativ. “The terrorists are the Americans and everyone knows it. My son is the best of the best.”

Says the woman who lived in the lap of luxury at the expense of the American taxpayer.

You may never see this again, I know I’m shocked that it even happened. I’ve known Jim Hanson for nearly a decade and I’ve never seen him awake at 6:30 in the morning;

He does make some good points, though, despite the early hour. While we’re all glad that Abu Sayyaf has been properly ventilated, that all of the raiders came back unharmed, what is the deeper meaning of this whole thing, in regards to the overarching strategy? By the way, what is the overarching strategy? The news of this success is overshadowed by the news that Ramadi fell to ISIS this weekend in Iraq.

The contested city of Ramadi fell to the Islamic State group on Sunday, as Iraqi forces abandoned their weapons and armored vehicles to flee the provincial capital in a major loss despite intensified U.S.-led airstrikes.

While this raid was a tactical success, the strategy seems to be failing – the Iraqis, who US troops are there to train and make confident threw down their weapons an ran away. Our air forces being the Iraqi air force isn’t helping, apparently.

Sunday’s retreat recalled the collapse of Iraqi security forces last summer in the face of the Islamic State group’s blitz into Iraq that saw it capture a third of the country, where it has declared a caliphate, or Islamic State. It also calls into question the Obama administration’s hopes of relying solely on airstrikes to support the Iraqi forces in expelling the extremists.

Yeah, well, this administration, a few months ago, was telling us how well the counter-insurgency in Yemen was working – whoops. It’s almost as if this administration has the reverse Midas touch.

BBC reports that 3,000 Iran-backed Shia troops are moving towards Ramadi to liberate the city. John Kerry has confidence in them, so they have that going for them;

The US has said it is confident the capture of Ramadi can be reversed.

Speaking in South Korea, Secretary of State John Kerry said: “I am convinced that as the forces are redeployed and as the days flow in the weeks ahead, that’s going to change.”

The reverse-Midas touch.

So the new thing among Republicans is to criticize our involvement in Iraq and our war against Saddam Hussein. Jeb Bush spent the whole week walking back from his support of his brother’s decision on Fox News earlier. Of course, Rand Paul is against anything that makes sense. Lindsey Graham, who voted for the war, still owns his vote. On the other side, of course, is Hillary Clinton who says that she was for the war in Iraq before she was against it. Bernie Sanders has always been against the Iraq War.

The candidate that gets my vote will not equivocate on the Iraq War. That war should have been fought and there is no way around that. In my opinion, it was fought 12 years late – the politicians and the hand-wringers should have let me go to Baghdad in 1991 when I could see the city from where we ended the Gulf War. But between those years from the premature end of the 1st Gulf War until the march to Baghdad in 2003, Saddam Hussein had paid bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel encouraging terrorists in Israel.

When the UN put a no-fly zone in place to protect the Kurds and Shi’ites from Hussein, Hussein’s Army took pot shots at US and British aircraft enforcing the mandate. When Hussein wanted to get his political way, he would rattle his saber at Kuwait again, causing Bill Clinton to deploy US troops to the region to line up on the Iraq-Kuwait border with the prepositioned equipment that the US taxpayer was funding.

The Iraq Intelligence Service had been caught trying to plot the assassination of George HW Bush. It was discovered that Abu Nidal, the founder of Fatah of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, wanted for terrorist attacks in 20 countries, resulting in the deaths of more than 200 people, was found hiding out in downtown Baghdad for a decade or so. Despite reports to the contrary, al Qaeda was operating in Iraq before the US invasion.

Despite other reports, there were indeed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that news has been allowed to dribble out in the last few years. But, more importantly, Hussein wasn’t cooperating with UN inspectors who were trying to disarm Hussein in that regard. Sanctions against Iraq, much like the sanctions against Iran these days, were impacting the people, but not the government royalty.

You can argue all day about how the war in Iraq was fought and I’ll agree with you, mostly. But to say that war wasn’t worth the costs is to forget the lessons of Iraq. In 2006, George W Bush taught us that you don’t stop fighting a war just because people get mad at you. You fight it to a successful conclusion – and then you honor your commitments to security.

The insurgency in Iraq hoped that the US would leave Iraq due to the political pressure their insurgency put on the politics in the US. The last thing they expected when the Democrats won control of Congress in 2006 was that Bush would double down in Iraq with the “Surge” – that’s what broke the back of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Strength is what wins against those people, not ambiguity.

What caused the rise of ISIS was the fact that the Obama administration sent the message that they weren’t interested in the Middle East. They rushed for the exits from Iraq so they had a campaign slogan for the 2012 elections. They watched North Africa burn without so much as raising a finger. When ISIS took Fallujah, the Obama Administration promised support to the Iraqis that they never delivered until Mosul fell six months later.

Like I said, you can complain about the way the war was fought, but you can’t dispute the fact the war should have been fought. So, 2016 candidates, please, don’t make me vote for Lindsey Graham.

The White House is claiming that US forces killed an ISIS chieftain in an operation that was approved by the President. According to CNN;

The ISIS commander, Abu Sayyaf, was killed after he fought capture in the raid at al-Omar in eastern Syria, Carter said in a statement. His wife, an Iraqi named Umm Sayyaf, was caught and is being held in Iraq.

Carter said he had ordered the special forces raid against the terror group, also known as ISIL, at the direction of President Barack Obama. All the U.S. troops involved returned safely.

“Abu Sayyaf was involved in ISIL’s military operations and helped direct the terrorist organization’s illicit oil, gas and financial operations as well,” Carter said in the statement. “The operation represents another significant blow to ISIL, and it is a reminder that the United States will never waver in denying safe haven to terrorists who threaten our citizens, and those of our friends and allies.”

The New York Times reports a bonus for the raiders;

“The operation also led to the freeing of a young Yazidi woman who appears to have been held as slave by the couple,” Ms. Meehan said. “We intend to reunite her with her family as soon as feasible.” The Yazidis are a religious minority persecuted by the Islamic State.

But, you know, so much for not using US troops in direct action. Not that I’m against it or anything – just sayin’….

Fox News reports that the Pentagon thinks that the war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq is just jom-dandy the way things are, well, except for the fact that in recent days the group of thugs have successfully occupied an oil refinery and they’re closer to Baghdad;

“We believe across Iraq and Syria that Daesh is losing and remains on the defensive,” said Marine Brig. Gen. Thomas D. Weidley, chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the international campaign fighting the Islamic State.

And, oh, yeah, according to the Associated Press, ISIS has occupied and destroyed a government compound in Ramadi;

The advance marked a significant setback for the Iraqi government in its long fight to defend Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, where Iraqi forces have made little progress against the extremist group despite months of U.S.-led airstrikes.

The capture of the compound — which houses a police headquarters as well as provincial and municipal offices — followed a coordinated attack in which three near-simultaneous suicide car bombs killed at least 10 police officers and wounded dozens more, Ramadi’s Mayor Dalaf al-Kubaisi said. He said two Humvees previously seized from the Iraqi army were used in the attack.

But, not to worry, that great strategist – the fellow that Obama put in charge of winning the war against terror – is on the job;

The White House said Vice President Joe Biden called Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Friday to reaffirm U.S. support in light of the attacks on Ramadi. It said Biden promised expedited security help, including delivery of shoulder-fired rockets and other heavy weaponry to counter militant car bombs.

I’m sure the Iraqis feel better now. They got the same promises when Falluja fell about 18 months ago. Those promises took nearly a year to reach fruition.

The good news is that the administration doesn’t plan to increase the presence of US troops, but you know, everyone who has ever complained about the military-industrial complex and how corporations are the only ones who profit from war aren’t saying anything now. The war in Iraq promises to be a money pit for US taxpayers for decades, and mostly because we’re fighting a no-win, pin-prick, limited action battle instead of the intensive no-holds barred all-out war that the region needs to win against the ISIS cancer.