The article by Bing West is probably the finest anlysis of what has gone wrong and will continue to go wrong when it comes to America fighting in the 21st Century.(See 1 and 1a below.)
===
Could Kerry be worse than Hillarious? Hard to believe but increasingly possible. You decide. (See 2 and 2a below.)
===
Tobin dumps on Trump for his Putin comment and deservedly so.
Trump is a very smart business person, a genius at selling his persona but when it comes to politics or comments pertaining to diplomacy his extreme utterings suggest an ignorance that cannot be disregarded.
I believe Trump would make a better president that most think because I assume he would surround himself with competent people who would not shirk their responsibility of telling it like they believe and he would probably listen. What would happen after that is anybody's guess.
That said, I still would prefer him over Hillarious because she is a known quantity and after Obama we may be forced to roll the dice once again.
I still have not seen a candidate from the Republican side who sends "a thrill up my leg" to quote an idiot media personality who makes big bucks.
===
Just a few things you can click on and learn about what is going on in some of our nation's states involving Muslims, Islam etc.:
- Allah in our Schools - Fethullah Gulen Style, AmericanThinker, Carol Brown
- Kansas: Jihad and Martyrdom Preaching Sheik Spoke at Overland Park Event, BingNews, Sam Neveil
- Michigan: Muslim Prayer Room Raises Questions at a Catholic School, WXYZ.com, Steven Hanson
- Missouri: Mosque That Wanted Ban on Criticism of Islam Holds Funeral for Texas Cartoon Jihadist, Jihadwatch.org, Robert Spencer
- Dr. Carson is Correct: Islam IS Incompatible with the US Constitution, definingthenarrative.com, Marianne Bernard
- Playing The Victim Card: Islamophobia and the United Nations versus the GOP, humanrightsvoices.org , Anne Bayefsky
===
Did Hillarious slip up with her Obamacare comment? (See 3 below.)
===
Whoever wrote this would be accused of being Politically Incorrect and a racist but the writer has made some valid points. (See 4 below.)
====
Dick========================================================================
1)
Obama's defeatist ISIS war calculus
The U.S. president thinks the costs to America of an all-out war on ISIS aren't justified. How would Reagan have acted if he'd been in office now?
Could President Obama’s strategy in respect of Syria be likened to Reagan’s? I confess the thought occurred to me as I read the reports of Obama’s off-the-record meeting with what the New York Times described as a group of “news columnists.” Obama confided that he was worried that a more robust intervention against the Islamic State (ISIS) by America could result in the deaths of 100 GIs a month.
The Times parked this news on its homepage after it was scooped by David Ignatius of the Washington Post. He reported after the meeting that there’s an “obvious if unspoken answer” to GOP attacks on Obama’s “not fighting harder against the Islamic State” — namely that “Obama doesn’t think this is an existential battle that’s worth the cost to the United States of an all-out war.”
That certainly takes me back — to 1983. That was when Iranian-backed terrorists bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, as well as a barracks for French paratroopers. The attacks took 305 lives, excluding those of the suicide bombers. The dead included 241 American military personnel, 220 of them Marines who were in Lebanon in the role of peacekeepers.
At the time, I was foreign editor of the Wall Street Journal and Ignatius was our star war correspondent. In the debate that emerged after the attack, he and I differed. I favored an escalation of the American presence — and calling the bluff of Syria, which was also implicated in the attacks and was vowing to make Damascus the “Hanoi of the Middle East.” Ignatius, as I recall, thought such a course imprudent.
In the event, Reagan made one of the most astonishing turnabouts of his presidency. His initial instinct — and vow — was to stick with it. He called the Speaker of the House, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, a Democrat, and the Republican majority leader in the senate, Howard Baker. “Phoned Tip & Howard Baker to express hope they’d stay firm on keeping the Marines in Lebanon,” Reagan wrote in his diary, adding: “Both said yes.”
Certainly America had enormous firepower in place. It included, just off the Lebanese coast, United States Ship New Jersey, a gargantuan weapon that is often called the most decorated battleship in the Navy. Not one but two aircraft carriers — the John F. Kennedy and Independence — were also in the region. Yet no sooner had Reagan hung up the phone, than the Congress started waffling.
Less than a week after the barracks were bombed, the Republican-controlled Senate voted to invoke the War Powers Act against Reagan for sending troops into Grenada to liberate the Caribbean Island from a Marxist coup. “Tip” O’Neill, albeit a Reagan favorite, described the president’s foreign policy as “frightening.” Suddenly, in February 1984, Reagan ordered the Marines to quit Lebanon.
What caused Reagan to change course so abruptly? Was it the kind of cost-benefit calculation of which David Ignatius gave us a glimpse in Obama’s thinking? Or was it that there were bigger fish to fry, given that we were in the depths of the Cold War with the Soviet Union? Reagan was a leader to whose judgment on strategic priorities the hawks were prepared to bow.
Yet to me the differences loom larger than the similarities. The Gipper’s strategy in the global struggle was the opposite of Obama’s. Behind Reagan’s foreign policy was a military buildup, an expansion of the Pentagon budget. Obama, by contrast, is downsizing the American military even as a war is in progress. They both negotiated. There were moments when Reagan, like Obama, was criticized from the right.
But Reagan, at a key moment in his dealings with the Soviet camarilla, stood up and, literally, walked out. That happened at Reykjavik, when Reagan sensed that he was being asked by the Soviet party boss, Mikhail Gorbachev, to give up the Star Wars strategic defense initiative. So Reagan legged it. Obama has looked away from, say, Iranian violations, rather than give up an agreement in respect of its nuclear ambitions.
It wasn’t until Reagan’s memoirs that the 40th president really explained himself on Lebanon. He wrote that, given the fact that Lebanon itself was unable to end its civil war, America’s own policy wasn’t working. Within the administration he then raised the bar on conditions that would have to be met before America intervened again. He didn’t get into it when, half a year after the Beirut bombing, he addressed a convention of Baptist fundamentalists.
Yet to me the differences loom larger than the similarities. The Gipper’s strategy in the global struggle was the opposite of Obama’s. Behind Reagan’s foreign policy was a military buildup, an expansion of the Pentagon budget. Obama, by contrast, is downsizing the American military even as a war is in progress. They both negotiated. There were moments when Reagan, like Obama, was criticized from the right.
But Reagan, at a key moment in his dealings with the Soviet camarilla, stood up and, literally, walked out. That happened at Reykjavik, when Reagan sensed that he was being asked by the Soviet party boss, Mikhail Gorbachev, to give up the Star Wars strategic defense initiative. So Reagan legged it. Obama has looked away from, say, Iranian violations, rather than give up an agreement in respect of its nuclear ambitions.
It wasn’t until Reagan’s memoirs that the 40th president really explained himself on Lebanon. He wrote that, given the fact that Lebanon itself was unable to end its civil war, America’s own policy wasn’t working. Within the administration he then raised the bar on conditions that would have to be met before America intervened again. He didn’t get into it when, half a year after the Beirut bombing, he addressed a convention of Baptist fundamentalists.
Instead Reagan devoted almost his entire speech to an account of the horror by the chaplain of the 6th United States fleet, Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, who’d gone into the rubble with a Catholic chaplain. Reagan also quoted what he called a Scottish ballad: “For those defeats that we’ve had so far, we are hurt; we are not slain. We’ll lie us down and rest a bit, and then we’ll fight again.”
Seth Lipsky is editor of The New York Sun. He was foreign editor and a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, founding editor of the Forward and editor from 1990 to 2000.
1a)STANFORD UNIVERSITY- HOOVER INSTITUTION
How We Fight in the Twenty-first Century: Winning Battles While Losing Wars
By Bing West (A former assistant secretary of defense and combat Marine, West has written nine books about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.)
This essay addresses why America is performing poorly in 21st Century warfare. War is the act of destroying and killing until the enemy is broken morally, and no longer resists our policy objectives. But President Obama eschews the war he claims to be fighting. Our generals have imposed rules of engagement that lengthen war and increase civilian casualties. Our enemies do not fear us, and our friends do not trust us. America is fighting a war without direction or leadership.
Policy Planning.
We invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq with inchoate plans and inadequate forces to establish post-war security and governance. After winning the first battle in both countries, President George W. Bush offhandedly decided to build democratic nations, a task for which our State Department and USAID had no competence or interest. By default, the mission fell to our military, also without competence but with unflagging devotion and determination.
In both countries, our true enemies were rabid warriors determined to win or die. For us, the wars were limited-fought with few forces and many restraints. When the Islamists proved dedicated to an unlimited struggle, we reversed course and withdrew. True, President Bush did increase US forces in Iraq in 2007 and that stabilized the country. However, in 2008 he agreed with the sectarian, serpentine Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to withdraw all American troops by 2011. He threw away his success.
When 2011 arrived, President Barack Obama went against the recommendations of the intelligence community, the Pentagon, and the State Department. Instead of politically maneuvering to keep a residual force to check al-Maliki's dark instincts, Obama pulled out all our troops. He fulfilled Bush's foolish promise. Al-Maliki then proceeded to oppress the Sunnis, leading to the reemergence of the extremists now called the Islamic State. Obama quit, but Bush made it easy for him to do so.
Mr. Obama claimed Afghanistan was the war that had to be won. But as in Iraq, he headed for the exit. To avoid a humiliating collapse before he departs the White House, he will keep perhaps eight thousand US troops there in 2016.
On balance, the results in Iraq or Afghanistan were not worth the costs in American casualties, money, and global influence. Several (at least the following seven) policy lessons may be drawn.
First, the Pentagon should project for the president the length of time to achieve a desired post-war end state. In Iraq and Afghanistan, that meant staying for twenty or more years. From the start, Bush failed to explain this to the public. He did not even try to set the conditions in Congress and in the press for a long-term presence, as in South Korea.
Second, if our troops are killing and dying because the indigenous troops are not capable enough to stand on their own, then our commanders have the right and the obligation to select the leaders of those local forces. American diplomats chose Karzai and Maliki behind the scenes. Both choices were disasters. Yet due to unthinking allegiance to the word "democracy," we allowed those solipsistic, incompetent "elected" leaders to promote whom they chose within the ranks of the police, military, and other government agencies. Like Great Britain before us, we were a colonial power. Unlike the Brits, we did not select the commanders of the indigenous armies we were training, equipping, and paying.
Third, we granted sanctuaries to the enemy. Our military after Vietnam had vowed never again to fight such a war. But we forgot that vow. We invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy al-Qaeda. In December of 2001, the core of that organization and its top leaders were trapped in a mountainous region called Tora Bora. Rather than employ a nearby Marine brigade and special operations forces, the American commander, General Tommy Franks, relied upon Afghan warlords whose motley troops allowed the al-Qaeda force to move across the border into Pakistan. That was a grave, unforced military error. Then, in a triumph of legalism over common sense, Bush decided not to cross the border in hot pursuit to destroy the fleeing terrorists.
Afghanistan steadily deteriorated after that. Yet we persisted for fourteen years in fighting an enemy while giving him a 1,500-mile-long sanctuary. Similarly, we knew where the al-Qaeda safe houses were in Syria, just across the border from Iraq. But we didn't bomb them. We granted our enemy sanctuary.
Fourth, in such countries we should influence the politics through covert means, just as we did in Europe after World War II and occasionally during the Cold War. This includes channeling money, communications channels, and ease of transportation. Politics determines who gets what, when, and why. We fight wars to shape political ends. Influencing indigenous politics during a war should be a goal, not an out-of-bounds marker.
Fifth, we decided not to capture our enemy. In the twentieth century, many more combatants were captured than killed. Today, we don't capture anyone. The gross pictures from Abu Ghraib, the political storm over water-boarding and Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo and prosecute terrorists as criminals forced our military to turn over all captured enemies to corrupt Iraqi and Afghan officials. Most of those once in prison are now free, while the wars continue. Our troops call it "catch and release." America has no comprehensible judicial system for war in the twenty-first century.
Sixth, we remain at war rhetorically, while refusing to fight with determination. How do we fight? The administration launches one or two drone strikes each month. White House spokesmen have bragged that the president routinely reviews dossiers and selects those to be killed. A commander in chief deciding upon a war fighting tactic calls into question management priorities. It also signals an incapacity to think strategically, illustrating that he views war as a set of morally wrenching discrete decisions to kill about one hundred enemies each year.
Occasionally, the White House will supplement the drone strikes with a raid by our special operations forces, especially the SEALs. This garners huge favorable press, projecting an image of American superstar invulnerability. No wonder each SEAL vies to receive the most publicity. Distributing photos of the entire National Security Council mesmerized by the video of a squad raid encapsulates a strategic instinct to focus on the capillaries.
War is the act of relentlessly destroying and killing until the enemy is broken physically and morally, and no longer resists the advancement of our policy objectives. By that definition, Obama eschews war. He has declared the Islamic State will be destroyed. But his actions belie his words.
Seventh, our feckless war fighting policies over the past seven years have gravely diminished the respect of our adversaries and the trust of our friends. We refused to provide Ukraine with weapons after the Russians invaded. After declaring a "red line" if Assad used chemical weapons, Obama asked Russia to help him out. Now Russian aircraft in Syria are bombing the rebels Obama armed in the hope of overthrowing Assad. In Iraq, Iranian troops have replaced American troops. Obama's retort is that both Iran and Russia won't achieve anything more than he did. At the same time, Obama signed a nuclear agreement with Iran and lifted sanctions, without submitting a treaty to the Senate. In sum, Russia and Iran have undermined American credibility and military power in the Middle East, while China steals on a gigantic scale in cyberspace and exerts control over the South China Sea.
Currently, America has ceased to be the major power-player in the Middle East. Unless confronted by an absolute disaster, Obama will finish out his presidency without applying any more force than occasional bombing against the Islamic State. Russia and Iran will remain the more dominant military actors, along with the Islamic State. Under Iranian influence, Iraq will remain at war, divided between the Shiite and Sunni areas.
Fighting the War
We have done a miserable job at policy planning. But how are we doing on the battlefield? How do we fight that is really different from the twentieth century?
The most obvious difference is our overwhelming conventional superiority. That was clear when we took back Kuwait in 1991. It was reinforced in the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and of Iraq in 2003. The world has never seen the likes of it. Yes, Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon ... there have been numerous victorious armies and conquests. But none like this, none with such global reach and so few casualties.
What happened here, and why? In the twentieth century, the major wars were fought on an industrial scale. The combatants on opposing sides possessed the same sets of conventional weapons-machine guns, artillery, tanks, ships, vehicles, and aircraft. In the opening decade of the twenty-first century, only America could quickly, and at low cost, destroy all those weapons possessed by any other country.
Why? Because for a brief period-two or three decades?-our military technology had outstripped the rest of the world. The Soviet Union had collapsed, China had not caught up, and no other hostile nation was remotely in our technological league. Most telling was our leap forward in air-to-ground surveillance, detection, and destruction. Militaries cannot move or be supplied without vehicles. Every artillery tube, every internal engine, every human face emits heat that shines like a spotlight. Use any computer or cell phone, walk outdoors, drive down a road-and someone above is watching, electronically or physically. Our air-to-ground surveillance and firepower are astonishing.
Yet we did not win the battles, much less the wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Simple: the enemy adapted. He took off his uniform and used our morality and befuddlement as jiu-jitsu to overcome our technological advantages. By hiding among the people, he was safe from our firepower. The enemy lived in the cities and villages, or hid across the border, coming together in small groups and choosing when and where to initiate contact against our patrols. The Vietnam-era tactic of fire and maneuver has gone away. Our troops wear armor and gear weighing about ninety pounds. They cannot run a hundred meters without being exhausted. So when the enemy shoots, a patrol gets down and returns a vicious volume of aimed fire. Except you rarely see a target, because the enemy isn't stupid. He has selected a covered position before opening fire. Most firefights last less than fifteen minutes, because once a gunship or aircraft comes overhead, the enemy is doomed. So he shoots and scoots. Thus the war goes on and on, because the enemy will not commit suicide by massing or wearing uniforms.
The Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan did not fight fiercely and stand their ground against our troops. Our training, shooting skills and firepower were overwhelming. The enemy may have been a farm boy, a terrorist from Yemen, a former Iraqi soldier, a youth from a Pakistani madras, a Taliban from Kabul-whomever. They all learned to stay about four hundred meters away from American troops, because every grunt now has a telescopic sight and most are qualified as expert riflemen.
The suicide bomber was a threat to our vehicles and fixed outposts. But it never expanded into an enormous threat. The YouTube videos posted by the Islamic State from the 2015 battles in Iraq suggest an exponential growth. From anecdotal evidence, it appears the suicidal truck bomber is as much a threat as was the kamikaze during the Okinawa campaign in 1945.
There was no solution to the improvised explosive device (IED). There were hundreds of thousands of them, because mixing fuel and fertilizer and packing them into a plastic jug is too easy ever to be stopped. IEDs have to be tolerated on a battlefield just as is a rifle. It's a simple tool and therefore commonplace. We shouldn't forget that in Vietnam, we lost over 10,000 killed to mines and booby traps-20 percent of all our fatalities.
What was new in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was not the profusion of the IED/land mine; instead, it was the reduction in the number of American fatalities. Much has been written about "the magic hour," meaning: get every wounded to an aid station within sixty minutes. True, the ratio of killed to injured dropped from 4-to-1 in Vietnam to 7-to-1 in Iraq. The underlying reason was better training in life-saving drilled into every squad, along with the tourniquet. Most wounded die from exsanguinations. They bleed out because the tourniquet is inadequate. Not anymore. The modern tourniquet with its twist and snap is as much a breakthrough for the grunt as was the stirrup for the horse rider.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the doctrine of counterinsurgency prevailed. Practically, this meant our troops patrolled by walking about three miles a day in heavy gear in formations of fifteen to twenty men. The idea was to clear a populated area of the enemy by walking around repeatedly. Once the enemy pulled out or was killed, the friendly platoon or company would hold that area until Iraqi or Afghan forces were capable of holding it on their own. The local forces, in conjunction with local officials, were then to use American funds to build projects in order that the people would see a material reason for supporting their government.
Militarily, the goal was to win over the people. Thus, rules of engagement were designed to place severe limits upon the use of indirect firepower (mortars, artillery, rockets, or bombs). Even one civilian casualty caused bitter complaints, although the Islamists were responsible for three out of four killed or wounded.
On our side, there was a yin and yang to a war that had no endpoint. Over the last four years in Afghanistan, it became common for a platoon commander to say, "My mission is to get every one of my men back home in one piece." Why risk your men when no one could tell you what defined victory? Why go across a field after taking some fire to check out the compound, when you could call in indirect fire? The incentive at the patrol level was to call in indirect fire.
On the yang side, the incentive of the senior commanders was not to allow indirect fire. The longer we stayed, the more frustrated the top command became with the lack of population cooperation. Every civilian casualty translated into some official complaining. So the more rigorous became the rules, especially in Afghanistan. It finally got to the point that the word of the forward air controller (FAC) on the ground was not good enough. The pilot was required to cross-examine the FAC before executing the mission, and a lawyer and/or another pilot back in an operations center miles away also had to authorize the strike.
Today, eight out of ten US attack aircraft return from missions over Islamic State territory without striking any target. To do so, the pilot needs the permission of a senior American officer in an operations center hundreds of miles away. This enormous caution-and expense-to protect the lives of every civilian is unprecedented in history. The richest country in the world can only do it. However, it gravely slows down the pace of a war and allows the enemy to recuperate indefinitely.
These rules of engagement cannot be sustained when we again fight an enemy who can and does kill us. So far in the twenty-first century, our helicopters and aircraft have been almost invulnerable. Our losses have been very, very small. Similarly, our forces on the ground have not been under pressure. They are not attacked by doughty infantry in full battalions like the North Vietnamese, supported by heavy artillery. When we again fight heavy, sustained battles on a large scale, some commanders claim we can change these highly restrained rules of engagement at the snap of the fingers. More likely, the rules have sapped the aggressive spirit the high command must share with the warriors on the battlefield.
Lastly and regrettably, I must mention the growing trend of victimhood. Our society does not celebrate and single out the heroes. Instead, it tries to compensate those who psychologically or physically did not return home able to fully cope. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides some level of health care for less than half of our veterans. A minority of veterans use the VA. If all who had served turned to the VA for medical assistance, the VA system would collapse.
Yet the VA is now reporting that more 40 percent of all individuals getting out of the service after four years-and the wars essentially are over-apply for compensation for mental or physical injury. During the Vietnam War, the VA had five injury categories; today, it has seventeen. The more free money is available, the more will apply for that money. What does that do to the internal morale of a service when some in every squad put in claims, and others do not?
Summary.
In summary, our enemies do not fear us and our friends do not trust us. Sensible steps can turn that around, but that depends upon the next commander in chief. So far in the twenty-first century, due to our vast wealth and technologies, we have not been sorely tested. Our beloved nation does not have a martial spirit, and perhaps does not need one. It does need a military inculcated with a warrior spirit.
Our largest deficit is national will. Consider our actions over the past decade. In 2004, we destroyed the Iraqi city of Falllujah in order to root Islamist terrorists. Then in 2011, we pulled our troops out of Iraq, despite predictions that Iraq would fall apart. In 2009, we demanded Assad leave power in Syria, but did not use military force to accomplish our demand. In the resulting civil war partially caused by our blunders, Islamist terrorists seized half of Syria and Iraq.
In November of 2015, the Islamists - now called ISIS or ISIL - massacred 130 civilians in Paris. But the American political system was unable to unite behind committing forces, as we did in Fallujah a decade ago. Why? Our commander-in-chief has rejected deploying Americans in ground combat, because he believes eternal war is the nature of the Muslim Middle East. He refuses to utter the word 'Islamist terrorist.' So does the Democratic contender to be our next commander-in-chief. The Republican candidates are divided. Our Congress will not even debate a resolution to authorize the use of ground forces, for fear of how the vote would affect re-election.
President Bush rashly overstepped in extending war to include nation-building. President Obama ideologically retreated by imposing restraints that encouraged our enemies. Congress proved irrelevant, lacking the cohesion to play its Constitutional role in declaring for - or against - war. As 2015 ends, a leaderless America is drifting. That should scare us all.
By Bing West (A former assistant secretary of defense and combat Marine, West has written nine books about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.)
This essay addresses why America is performing poorly in 21st Century warfare. War is the act of destroying and killing until the enemy is broken morally, and no longer resists our policy objectives. But President Obama eschews the war he claims to be fighting. Our generals have imposed rules of engagement that lengthen war and increase civilian casualties. Our enemies do not fear us, and our friends do not trust us. America is fighting a war without direction or leadership.
Policy Planning.
We invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq with inchoate plans and inadequate forces to establish post-war security and governance. After winning the first battle in both countries, President George W. Bush offhandedly decided to build democratic nations, a task for which our State Department and USAID had no competence or interest. By default, the mission fell to our military, also without competence but with unflagging devotion and determination.
In both countries, our true enemies were rabid warriors determined to win or die. For us, the wars were limited-fought with few forces and many restraints. When the Islamists proved dedicated to an unlimited struggle, we reversed course and withdrew. True, President Bush did increase US forces in Iraq in 2007 and that stabilized the country. However, in 2008 he agreed with the sectarian, serpentine Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to withdraw all American troops by 2011. He threw away his success.
When 2011 arrived, President Barack Obama went against the recommendations of the intelligence community, the Pentagon, and the State Department. Instead of politically maneuvering to keep a residual force to check al-Maliki's dark instincts, Obama pulled out all our troops. He fulfilled Bush's foolish promise. Al-Maliki then proceeded to oppress the Sunnis, leading to the reemergence of the extremists now called the Islamic State. Obama quit, but Bush made it easy for him to do so.
Mr. Obama claimed Afghanistan was the war that had to be won. But as in Iraq, he headed for the exit. To avoid a humiliating collapse before he departs the White House, he will keep perhaps eight thousand US troops there in 2016.
On balance, the results in Iraq or Afghanistan were not worth the costs in American casualties, money, and global influence. Several (at least the following seven) policy lessons may be drawn.
First, the Pentagon should project for the president the length of time to achieve a desired post-war end state. In Iraq and Afghanistan, that meant staying for twenty or more years. From the start, Bush failed to explain this to the public. He did not even try to set the conditions in Congress and in the press for a long-term presence, as in South Korea.
Second, if our troops are killing and dying because the indigenous troops are not capable enough to stand on their own, then our commanders have the right and the obligation to select the leaders of those local forces. American diplomats chose Karzai and Maliki behind the scenes. Both choices were disasters. Yet due to unthinking allegiance to the word "democracy," we allowed those solipsistic, incompetent "elected" leaders to promote whom they chose within the ranks of the police, military, and other government agencies. Like Great Britain before us, we were a colonial power. Unlike the Brits, we did not select the commanders of the indigenous armies we were training, equipping, and paying.
Third, we granted sanctuaries to the enemy. Our military after Vietnam had vowed never again to fight such a war. But we forgot that vow. We invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy al-Qaeda. In December of 2001, the core of that organization and its top leaders were trapped in a mountainous region called Tora Bora. Rather than employ a nearby Marine brigade and special operations forces, the American commander, General Tommy Franks, relied upon Afghan warlords whose motley troops allowed the al-Qaeda force to move across the border into Pakistan. That was a grave, unforced military error. Then, in a triumph of legalism over common sense, Bush decided not to cross the border in hot pursuit to destroy the fleeing terrorists.
Afghanistan steadily deteriorated after that. Yet we persisted for fourteen years in fighting an enemy while giving him a 1,500-mile-long sanctuary. Similarly, we knew where the al-Qaeda safe houses were in Syria, just across the border from Iraq. But we didn't bomb them. We granted our enemy sanctuary.
Fourth, in such countries we should influence the politics through covert means, just as we did in Europe after World War II and occasionally during the Cold War. This includes channeling money, communications channels, and ease of transportation. Politics determines who gets what, when, and why. We fight wars to shape political ends. Influencing indigenous politics during a war should be a goal, not an out-of-bounds marker.
Fifth, we decided not to capture our enemy. In the twentieth century, many more combatants were captured than killed. Today, we don't capture anyone. The gross pictures from Abu Ghraib, the political storm over water-boarding and Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo and prosecute terrorists as criminals forced our military to turn over all captured enemies to corrupt Iraqi and Afghan officials. Most of those once in prison are now free, while the wars continue. Our troops call it "catch and release." America has no comprehensible judicial system for war in the twenty-first century.
Sixth, we remain at war rhetorically, while refusing to fight with determination. How do we fight? The administration launches one or two drone strikes each month. White House spokesmen have bragged that the president routinely reviews dossiers and selects those to be killed. A commander in chief deciding upon a war fighting tactic calls into question management priorities. It also signals an incapacity to think strategically, illustrating that he views war as a set of morally wrenching discrete decisions to kill about one hundred enemies each year.
Occasionally, the White House will supplement the drone strikes with a raid by our special operations forces, especially the SEALs. This garners huge favorable press, projecting an image of American superstar invulnerability. No wonder each SEAL vies to receive the most publicity. Distributing photos of the entire National Security Council mesmerized by the video of a squad raid encapsulates a strategic instinct to focus on the capillaries.
War is the act of relentlessly destroying and killing until the enemy is broken physically and morally, and no longer resists the advancement of our policy objectives. By that definition, Obama eschews war. He has declared the Islamic State will be destroyed. But his actions belie his words.
Seventh, our feckless war fighting policies over the past seven years have gravely diminished the respect of our adversaries and the trust of our friends. We refused to provide Ukraine with weapons after the Russians invaded. After declaring a "red line" if Assad used chemical weapons, Obama asked Russia to help him out. Now Russian aircraft in Syria are bombing the rebels Obama armed in the hope of overthrowing Assad. In Iraq, Iranian troops have replaced American troops. Obama's retort is that both Iran and Russia won't achieve anything more than he did. At the same time, Obama signed a nuclear agreement with Iran and lifted sanctions, without submitting a treaty to the Senate. In sum, Russia and Iran have undermined American credibility and military power in the Middle East, while China steals on a gigantic scale in cyberspace and exerts control over the South China Sea.
Currently, America has ceased to be the major power-player in the Middle East. Unless confronted by an absolute disaster, Obama will finish out his presidency without applying any more force than occasional bombing against the Islamic State. Russia and Iran will remain the more dominant military actors, along with the Islamic State. Under Iranian influence, Iraq will remain at war, divided between the Shiite and Sunni areas.
Fighting the War
We have done a miserable job at policy planning. But how are we doing on the battlefield? How do we fight that is really different from the twentieth century?
The most obvious difference is our overwhelming conventional superiority. That was clear when we took back Kuwait in 1991. It was reinforced in the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and of Iraq in 2003. The world has never seen the likes of it. Yes, Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon ... there have been numerous victorious armies and conquests. But none like this, none with such global reach and so few casualties.
What happened here, and why? In the twentieth century, the major wars were fought on an industrial scale. The combatants on opposing sides possessed the same sets of conventional weapons-machine guns, artillery, tanks, ships, vehicles, and aircraft. In the opening decade of the twenty-first century, only America could quickly, and at low cost, destroy all those weapons possessed by any other country.
Why? Because for a brief period-two or three decades?-our military technology had outstripped the rest of the world. The Soviet Union had collapsed, China had not caught up, and no other hostile nation was remotely in our technological league. Most telling was our leap forward in air-to-ground surveillance, detection, and destruction. Militaries cannot move or be supplied without vehicles. Every artillery tube, every internal engine, every human face emits heat that shines like a spotlight. Use any computer or cell phone, walk outdoors, drive down a road-and someone above is watching, electronically or physically. Our air-to-ground surveillance and firepower are astonishing.
Yet we did not win the battles, much less the wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Simple: the enemy adapted. He took off his uniform and used our morality and befuddlement as jiu-jitsu to overcome our technological advantages. By hiding among the people, he was safe from our firepower. The enemy lived in the cities and villages, or hid across the border, coming together in small groups and choosing when and where to initiate contact against our patrols. The Vietnam-era tactic of fire and maneuver has gone away. Our troops wear armor and gear weighing about ninety pounds. They cannot run a hundred meters without being exhausted. So when the enemy shoots, a patrol gets down and returns a vicious volume of aimed fire. Except you rarely see a target, because the enemy isn't stupid. He has selected a covered position before opening fire. Most firefights last less than fifteen minutes, because once a gunship or aircraft comes overhead, the enemy is doomed. So he shoots and scoots. Thus the war goes on and on, because the enemy will not commit suicide by massing or wearing uniforms.
The Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan did not fight fiercely and stand their ground against our troops. Our training, shooting skills and firepower were overwhelming. The enemy may have been a farm boy, a terrorist from Yemen, a former Iraqi soldier, a youth from a Pakistani madras, a Taliban from Kabul-whomever. They all learned to stay about four hundred meters away from American troops, because every grunt now has a telescopic sight and most are qualified as expert riflemen.
The suicide bomber was a threat to our vehicles and fixed outposts. But it never expanded into an enormous threat. The YouTube videos posted by the Islamic State from the 2015 battles in Iraq suggest an exponential growth. From anecdotal evidence, it appears the suicidal truck bomber is as much a threat as was the kamikaze during the Okinawa campaign in 1945.
There was no solution to the improvised explosive device (IED). There were hundreds of thousands of them, because mixing fuel and fertilizer and packing them into a plastic jug is too easy ever to be stopped. IEDs have to be tolerated on a battlefield just as is a rifle. It's a simple tool and therefore commonplace. We shouldn't forget that in Vietnam, we lost over 10,000 killed to mines and booby traps-20 percent of all our fatalities.
What was new in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was not the profusion of the IED/land mine; instead, it was the reduction in the number of American fatalities. Much has been written about "the magic hour," meaning: get every wounded to an aid station within sixty minutes. True, the ratio of killed to injured dropped from 4-to-1 in Vietnam to 7-to-1 in Iraq. The underlying reason was better training in life-saving drilled into every squad, along with the tourniquet. Most wounded die from exsanguinations. They bleed out because the tourniquet is inadequate. Not anymore. The modern tourniquet with its twist and snap is as much a breakthrough for the grunt as was the stirrup for the horse rider.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the doctrine of counterinsurgency prevailed. Practically, this meant our troops patrolled by walking about three miles a day in heavy gear in formations of fifteen to twenty men. The idea was to clear a populated area of the enemy by walking around repeatedly. Once the enemy pulled out or was killed, the friendly platoon or company would hold that area until Iraqi or Afghan forces were capable of holding it on their own. The local forces, in conjunction with local officials, were then to use American funds to build projects in order that the people would see a material reason for supporting their government.
Militarily, the goal was to win over the people. Thus, rules of engagement were designed to place severe limits upon the use of indirect firepower (mortars, artillery, rockets, or bombs). Even one civilian casualty caused bitter complaints, although the Islamists were responsible for three out of four killed or wounded.
On our side, there was a yin and yang to a war that had no endpoint. Over the last four years in Afghanistan, it became common for a platoon commander to say, "My mission is to get every one of my men back home in one piece." Why risk your men when no one could tell you what defined victory? Why go across a field after taking some fire to check out the compound, when you could call in indirect fire? The incentive at the patrol level was to call in indirect fire.
On the yang side, the incentive of the senior commanders was not to allow indirect fire. The longer we stayed, the more frustrated the top command became with the lack of population cooperation. Every civilian casualty translated into some official complaining. So the more rigorous became the rules, especially in Afghanistan. It finally got to the point that the word of the forward air controller (FAC) on the ground was not good enough. The pilot was required to cross-examine the FAC before executing the mission, and a lawyer and/or another pilot back in an operations center miles away also had to authorize the strike.
Today, eight out of ten US attack aircraft return from missions over Islamic State territory without striking any target. To do so, the pilot needs the permission of a senior American officer in an operations center hundreds of miles away. This enormous caution-and expense-to protect the lives of every civilian is unprecedented in history. The richest country in the world can only do it. However, it gravely slows down the pace of a war and allows the enemy to recuperate indefinitely.
These rules of engagement cannot be sustained when we again fight an enemy who can and does kill us. So far in the twenty-first century, our helicopters and aircraft have been almost invulnerable. Our losses have been very, very small. Similarly, our forces on the ground have not been under pressure. They are not attacked by doughty infantry in full battalions like the North Vietnamese, supported by heavy artillery. When we again fight heavy, sustained battles on a large scale, some commanders claim we can change these highly restrained rules of engagement at the snap of the fingers. More likely, the rules have sapped the aggressive spirit the high command must share with the warriors on the battlefield.
Lastly and regrettably, I must mention the growing trend of victimhood. Our society does not celebrate and single out the heroes. Instead, it tries to compensate those who psychologically or physically did not return home able to fully cope. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides some level of health care for less than half of our veterans. A minority of veterans use the VA. If all who had served turned to the VA for medical assistance, the VA system would collapse.
Yet the VA is now reporting that more 40 percent of all individuals getting out of the service after four years-and the wars essentially are over-apply for compensation for mental or physical injury. During the Vietnam War, the VA had five injury categories; today, it has seventeen. The more free money is available, the more will apply for that money. What does that do to the internal morale of a service when some in every squad put in claims, and others do not?
Summary.
In summary, our enemies do not fear us and our friends do not trust us. Sensible steps can turn that around, but that depends upon the next commander in chief. So far in the twenty-first century, due to our vast wealth and technologies, we have not been sorely tested. Our beloved nation does not have a martial spirit, and perhaps does not need one. It does need a military inculcated with a warrior spirit.
Our largest deficit is national will. Consider our actions over the past decade. In 2004, we destroyed the Iraqi city of Falllujah in order to root Islamist terrorists. Then in 2011, we pulled our troops out of Iraq, despite predictions that Iraq would fall apart. In 2009, we demanded Assad leave power in Syria, but did not use military force to accomplish our demand. In the resulting civil war partially caused by our blunders, Islamist terrorists seized half of Syria and Iraq.
In November of 2015, the Islamists - now called ISIS or ISIL - massacred 130 civilians in Paris. But the American political system was unable to unite behind committing forces, as we did in Fallujah a decade ago. Why? Our commander-in-chief has rejected deploying Americans in ground combat, because he believes eternal war is the nature of the Muslim Middle East. He refuses to utter the word 'Islamist terrorist.' So does the Democratic contender to be our next commander-in-chief. The Republican candidates are divided. Our Congress will not even debate a resolution to authorize the use of ground forces, for fear of how the vote would affect re-election.
President Bush rashly overstepped in extending war to include nation-building. President Obama ideologically retreated by imposing restraints that encouraged our enemies. Congress proved irrelevant, lacking the cohesion to play its Constitutional role in declaring for - or against - war. As 2015 ends, a leaderless America is drifting. That should scare us all.
============================================================
2)
| US lawmakers blast Kerry for 'bending over backward to placate Iran' |
Republicans blast Secretary of State John Kerry for suggesting recently tightened visa waiver restrictions can be "waived" for Iran to avoid jeopardizing nuclear deal • "Iran doesn't get to veto U.S. security measures," says Rep. Robert Dold.
Israel Hayom Staff
"Recent changes in the visa requirements will not in any way prevent us from meeting our JPCOA requirements," says U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
|
Photo credit: AP |
The deadly terrorist attacks in Paris in November and in San Bernardino this month have prompted the U.S. Congress to legislate a series of laws to combat terrorism, including a change in visa requirements in an effort to prevent terrorists from entering the country.
But Washington is so divided at present that even this law has sparked political controversy.
The legislation, passed and signed into law last week with overwhelming support, aims to restrict the automatic granting of visas to individuals who travel to countries that have a high risk of terror involvement.
Republican lawmakers lambasted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday, who, after Iran charged that the new visa waiver restrictions could jeopardize the recently reached nuclear deal, sent a letter to Iran's foreign minister indicating that the restrictions could be circumvented.
"Recent changes in visa requirements passed in Congress, which the administration has the authority to waive, will not in any way prevent us from meeting our JPCOA requirements," Kerry wrote to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the nuclear agreement between Iran and Western powers.
Kerry's insinuation that the administration would "waive" the requirements on Iran riled Republicans on Capitol Hill, with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce remarking that "instead of bending over backward to try to placate the Iranian regime, the White House needs to be holding it accountable for its recent missile tests, its continued support for terrorism, and its wrongful imprisonment of Americans."
Meanwhile, 20 members of the House of Representatives, including key committee chair people, have written a letter to Kerry stating that it is "beyond belief" that he would capitulate in such a way to Iranian pressure.
"The visa waiver reform law, which passed the House of Representatives with near-unanimous support and was subsequently included in legislation signed by the president ... surely applies to Iran, which has been designated by the U.S. Department of State as a state sponsor of terror for over 20 years," said the letter, written by Rep. Robert Dold and signed by 19 others.
"There is no legitimate justification to create a special exemption for Iran from an anti-terrorism and security law that was specifically designed to include Iran. Iran does not get to veto U.S. security measures," it said. "While we understand that Iranian officials have expressed their anxieties to you that this new provision could undermine business opportunities in Iran by international investors, it is beyond belief that those concerns would supersede a newly enacted U.S. law designed to protect the American people from terrorism."
2a) US Legislators Press Kerry to Shutter US PLO Office for Funding Terrorism
Some members of the U.S. Congress are pushing Secretary of State John Kerry to close the Washington, D.C. office of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The reason? The PLO is not only a primary source of incitement for terrorism, including murder, against Israelis, it also is a direct funder of that terrorism.
In the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987, Congress forbade the PLO from establishing or maintaining an office in the United States. However, each year since 1994, a President has signed a waiver allowing the PLO office in Washington, D.C. to remain open.
At the end of last week Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.-11) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and more than two dozen other legislators called on the State Department to revoke the PLO's waiver to maintain an office in Washington.
The letter was signed by 32 members of Congress (see the list at the end of this article) who cited the very careful and credible news source Palestinian Media Watch report that "the PLO funds funds terrorism by paying “salaries” to Palestinians who are put in Israeli jails as a way of rewarding and incentivizing terror attacks."
PMW revealed that the PLO, every year, provides about $150 million to convicted terrorists imprisoned in Israel's jails or to their families of deceased terrorists. The worse the act of terrorism and the longer the prison term, the more money is "awarded" to each terrorist or terrorist survivor's family. At least some of that money, by the way, can be traced to American government funds (i.e. U.S. taxpayer money).
The Secretary of State and President Barack Obama have repeatedly lectured the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Arabs to "end the incitement," as if the two were equally engaged in that wrongdoing. In addition to the calls from this administration to cease the incitement, both Houses of Congress just this fall unanimously passed resolutions condemning continued Arab incitement. But the legislators were outraged to learn that not only does the Palestinian Arab leadership openly agitate for attacks on Israelis and glorify murderers and attempted murderers of Israelis, but they actually pay the terrorists explicitly for committing that terror.
“Our close ally Israel is enduring another wave of Palestinian terrorism in the form of car-ramming, rock-throwing, and brutal knife attacks,” Sen. Cruz said. “These horrific acts of terrorism are due to the continued incitement and glorification of violence by Palestinian leadership.
"Just last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the recent attacks a ‘justified popular uprising’ following his remarks in September, in which he said, ‘We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.’
"It is long past time for the United States to hold the PLO and its leaders accountable for engaging in such rampant incitement, for celebrating the murder of Jews, and for providing payment to Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israel and their families. We must make it clear such actions are blatantly unacceptable and close the PLO office in Washington, D.C.”
“For too long the PLO has not just tolerated acts of terrorism against the Israeli people - but incited others to commit acts of violence in the name of jihad,” Rep. Meadows said. “It goes against everything we stand for as an American people to allow the PLO to retain an office in our nation’s capital, considering its long and well-documented history of encouraging violence and terror against our Israeli allies. It’s time we send a clear signal that the United States does not tolerate extremism and demonstrate our unwavering support for our allies in Israel by revoking this waiver.”
What the legislators seek in their letter is for the U.S. government to recognize that the Palestinian Arab leadership is continuously not only verbally inciting terror, but paying people to commit the most heinous terror possible. And concomitant with that recognition must be an immediate revocation of the PLO's waiver, and a shuttering of its U.S. office. Failing to make that acknowledgement and take the requested action makes a mockery of the U.S. government's calls for an end to incitement and its repeated claims to be anxious to bring peace to the region.
Of the 32 legislators who signed the letter, there are many whom one would expect to be on the list, who are not. For example, Rep. Lee Zeldin is the only New York representative to have signed. There are no representatives from Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and only one from Pennsylvania. Only one representative from New Jersey appears. And other than Senator Cruz, the remaining 31 are all House members. And no Democrats at all.
The following legislators, in addition to Meadows and Cruz, signed the letter:
David Brat (R-VA-07)
Ken Calvert (R-CA-42)
Curt Clawson (R-FL-19)
Carlos Curbelo (R-FL-26)
Ron DeSantis (R-FL-06)
Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-04)
Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL-25)
Jeff Duncan (R-SC-03)
John Fleming (R-LA-04)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ-05)
Paul A. Gosar (R-AZ-04)
H. Morgan Griffith (R-VA-09)
Jody Hice (R-GA-10)
Tim Huelskamp (R-KS-01)
Jim Jordan (R-OH-04)
Doug Lamborn (R-CO-05)
David B. McKinley (R-WV-01)
Jeff Miller (R-FL-01)
Alex Mooney (R-VA-02)
Gary Palmer (R-AL-06)
Stevan Pearce (R-N.M.-02)
Scott Perry (R-PA-04)
Bill Posey (R-FL-08)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL-27)
Matt Salmon (R-AZ-05)
David Schweikert (R-AZ-06)
Marlin Stutzman (R-IN-03)
Randy Weber (R-TX-14)
Ted Yoho (R-FL-03)
Lee Zeldin (R-NY-01)
=================================================================================
3)
Hillary Clinton may be open to repealing the medical devices tax that the Obama White House vociferously opposed–though it was delayed for two years with the recent $1.1 trillion budget agreement–but added that she feels the new health care law has helped “families avoid bankruptcy.” The RNC aptly noted that Mrs. Clinton supported an employer-based health care mandate for businesses that employ more than 25 workers back when she ran against then-Sen. Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary. It’s these mandates that are corroding the gears of the massive machine we call the U.S. economy (via NYT):
3)
Wait–Did Hillary Just Say Obamacare Hurts Workers?
By Matt Vespa
The war room at the Republican National Committee found this interesting exchange between Hillary Clinton and a voter at a campaign event in Iowa City on December 16, where the former first lady seems to admit that Obamacare is partially to blame for creating scores of part-time employees. In other words, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement is hurting businesses and workers.
Hillary Clinton may be open to repealing the medical devices tax that the Obama White House vociferously opposed–though it was delayed for two years with the recent $1.1 trillion budget agreement–but added that she feels the new health care law has helped “families avoid bankruptcy.” The RNC aptly noted that Mrs. Clinton supported an employer-based health care mandate for businesses that employ more than 25 workers back when she ran against then-Sen. Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary. It’s these mandates that are corroding the gears of the massive machine we call the U.S. economy (via NYT):
Guy has also mentioned how Obamacare has been a serial failure since Healthcare.gov started taking applications back in 2013. Sticker shock from the plans has hit many Americans, along with drastic premium hikes for those plans as we enter 2016. Moreover, the left has lost the narrative on health care, though the media fails to point this out.
While covering more people is certainly a goal, the real selling point during the 2009-2010 debate over this law, besides that brief bout of congressional wrangling over whether the bill funds abortion, dealt with controlling costs–not increasing coverage. The talking point of not going bankrupt if you get sick was the main selling point, as evidenced by the president’s remarks back in May of 2009.
Why wasn't coverage as prominent in this push? Because the vast majority of Americans had health insurance. After years of Bush-era spending, the Obama administration decided to portray themselves as deficit-reducing warriors, which turned out to be a very short ride. Most importantly, one of Obamacare’s architect’s, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel’s brother, pretty much said the law is failing to control costs. Earlier this month, United Healthcare, Obamacare’s largest provider, had their CEO admit that they shouldn’t have entered Obamacare’s new individual markets so quickly since it’scost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.
Obamacare is not working, and Clinton seems to admit that, or at least when it comes to American workers.
===========================================================
4)
What is happening in the USA? Think America! Obama came into office, before
Obama there was virtually no visible presence of Islam in America. All of a sudden, Islam is taught in schools. All of the sudden we must allow
prayer rugs everywhere and allow for Islamic prayer in schools and businesses.
All of a sudden we must stop serving pork in public places and
institutions. All of a sudden we are inundated with law suits by Muslims who are
offended by America. (For God's sake, they are IN America) All of a sudden
we must allow burkas to be worn everywhere even though you have no idea who
is covered up under them. All of a sudden Muslim training compounds are
popping up throughout the USA. All of a sudden Muslims are suing employers
for being expected to do their jobs. All of a sudden all of our aircraft
carriers are recalled for maintenance by Obama rendering the Atlantic
unsupported. All of a sudden our troops are withdrawn from the middle east.
All of a sudden there is no money for American poor, disabled veterans,
jobless Americans, hungry Americans, or displaced Americans but there is
endless money for Obama's refugee programs. All of a sudden Obama fills the
Federal Government with Muslims in key positions. All of a sudden there is
an ammunition shortage in the USA. All of a sudden Americans are
threatened by the Federal government for complaining about Muslims. All of a
sudden, the most important thing for Obama to do is disarm American Citizens.
Now, why is it so important for Obama to disarm America? Why? Because a
disarmed country is ripe for takeover by the Muslim Army that Obama has
imported into the United States. Nikita Krueschev, the Russian Dictator who
visited the USA in the 1950s said the USA could never be occupied by any army
because of its citizen Army. Obama knows this fact and is doing everything
within his power to disarm our Citizen Army. If Obama can't do it legally,
he will abuse his power and take every gun from America because he knows he
must do that to turn the USA over to Islam. Be wary and watchful. Obama's
actions speak far beyond his words.
No comments:
Post a Comment