This comes from an article regarding the trial of Salim Hamdan. The point has been argued before, but not really as an admission from a member or al Qaeda:In advance of attacks, Mr. [Ali] Soufan [a top counterterrorism investigator] said, Mr. Hamdan would often be alerted to prepare vehicles for a rapid move, in case of an American retaliation. He added that Mr. Hamdan came to believe that Washington's failure to launch massive retaliations after the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa and the 2000 Cole bombing emboldened Mr. bin Laden. The al Qaeda leader believed the U.S. would never send ground troops to pursue him in Afghanistan, Mr. Soufan said.
Thanks, Clinton administration! Bin Laden said it himself, people follow a strong horse over a weak horse. And, in the late 1990s leading up to 9-11-2001, Bin Laden clearly saw himself as the strong horse, especially because of the lack of a strong response by the US government again and again during a series of brazen attacks throughout the 1990s.
After the 2000 USS Cole bombing, key Clinton figures met to discuss a response to the attack. The meeting included Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, CIA Director George Tenet, Richard Clarke, who was basically the counterterrorism czar, and Attorney General Janet Reno. Richard Clarke was the only Clinton official in that meeting who urged a strong military response. The others demanded more "proof," which is difficult when the perpetrator incinerated himself in the attack, or fretted over our image as strongman before the Muslim community, or, in Janet Reno's case, argued that a military response against Bin Laden's Afghanistan camps might
Indeed, in Richard Miniter's book "Losing Bin Laden," he related an exasperated CIA official, Michael Sheehan, asking of Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them [the Clinton administration] to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"
Apparently so. One can argue Bush's incompetence prior to Gen. Petraeus (historical note -- it took Abraham Lincoln eight tries with seven generals to find his savior general: Irvin McDowell, George McClellan, John Pope, McClellan again, Ambrose Burnside, Joe Hooker, George Meade, Ulysses S. Grant), but one cannot argue with facts. Everyone thought the US would certainly be struck again by terrorists after 9-11. Nobody would have predicted 7 years straight without it. Beyond our technological advantages finally being utilized (what the far left mistakenly terms "domestic spying") it's hard to argue that our strong military responses in Afghanistan and Iraq have not given al Qaeda second thought about their tactics, even as they commit brazen acts of violence against Europe, which never replies with a military response.
And so, one wonders should a President Obama take control, will the foolish over-lawyered hand-wringing on our international image, dealing with terrorism strictly as a law enforcement issue but never as an issue of national defense, etc., simply bring us back to the Clinton era, when we hamstrung our own intelligence and investigative personnel to the point that terrorists struck us at home with ease?
Labels: 9-11, bin Laden, Clinton, military, terrorism, war on terror
Late last week, Gallup published its annual survey of public confidence in U.S. institutions.
At the top, with an impressive combined "great" or "a lot" approval of 71% sits the military, described since 2003 as presiding over a "failure" in Iraq.
At the bottom of the heap, displacing HMOs as our worst institution, one finds the second branch of government, our Congress, at 12%. The Gallup folks noted it is "the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question." Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, come on down! You've made history.
-- Dan Henninger
Labels: Congress, corruption, democrats, earmarks, Iraq, military, Petraeus
I suppose I might eat the words but were I a betting man I'd wager that one day we'll group Jeremy Hall and Scott Beauchamp in a single breath. I don't buy Spc. Hall's claim either.
Labels: Iraq, Journalism scandals, media bias, military
I liked this commentary by Erik Swabb, a Marine who served in Iraq. A common misnomer about the surge regards numbers; that is, people like to promote the idea that we invaded with too few troops and that the surge by General Petraeus worked because we simply added more boots on the ground.
Democratic candidates for president, for instance, cite General Eric Shinseki's pre-war (mis)estimate that several hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed in Iraq. The notion is totally misleading, as what Petraeus did he did with just 40,000. How one gets 300,000+ from about 160,000 is beyond me.
Swabb's commentary makes that clear: the surge and our remarkable success in Iraq in 2007 was less to do with numbers than strategy. It's what Petraeus did with those troops -- how we fought, not how many we fought with -- that mattered.The blunders of the early years are well-known. Trained for conventional warfare, the Army and Marine Corps were unprepared for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. Commanders emphasized killing or capturing insurgents, not securing the population as counterinsurgency doctrine emphasizes. U.S. units were stationed on large bases and didn't develop the critical relationships with local leaders that only come from living among the people.
When units did interact with Iraqis, the interaction ranged from fruitless patrols in Humvees zipping through town to draconian operations that detained scores of innocent people. The Sunni insurgency only grew in this environment, attracting al Qaeda and spurring the growth of Shiite militias.
After a costly learning process, the military increasingly "gets it" when it comes to irregular warfare. The Army and Marine Corps published a new counterinsurgency manual that legitimized the radically different strategy that the Iraq War required. Pre-deployment training now includes realistic scenarios that test units' ability to build relationships with local leaders and partner with host-nation forces.
Commanders, from the small-unit level to the general ranks, increasingly understand that population security, political reconciliation and economic development create legitimate government, which saps insurgents' strength. As a result, conventional forces are now performing counterinsurgency missions at a level that many experts thought impossible.
My old unit returned from Iraq last spring after serving in a city in Anbar Province. As a mechanized reconnaissance company, its traditional mission focused on scouting for Soviet-style armored forces. The unit's performance in Iraq more closely resembled that of the Green Berets.
Soon after occupying its forward outpost, the company met heavy insurgent attacks. But it did not over-react with mass detentions and other alienating tactics.
Instead, the Marines took a patient approach to win the support of the population and eject the extremists hiding among them. They partnered with Iraqi police, established a pervasive security presence throughout the city, and worked with local leaders to improve basic services, governance and the economy. Such tactics used to be rare, but are now increasingly the norm, thanks to Gen. David Petraeus's dogged emphasis on seeing counterinsurgency conducted by all units.
The Sunni tribal uprising that's driven al Qaeda from Anbar Province and Baghdad wouldn't have occurred without U.S. forces grasping the complexities of irregular warfare. Iraqi Sunnis rejected the oppressive version of Islam that al Qaeda imposed -- but feared the consequences of resisting. By showing a willingness to help, U.S. troops presented a more trustworthy and less-threatening partner than al Qaeda, a remarkable achievement considering the vast religious and cultural differences between Americans and Iraqis.
U.S. commanders reached agreements with tribal leaders to accept their members into local security forces and establish combat outposts among the populace. Knowing that their families were safe from reprisals, the tribes gained the confidence to go after al Qaeda. Now U.S. officials are considering whether to adopt a similar model for Pakistan's Northwest Frontier.
It remains to be seen whether the new counterinsurgency strategy will lead to a peaceful, democratic Iraq. Success ultimately depends on the ability of Sunnis and Shiites to overcome decades of mistrust and antagonism. But the current approach has created an opportunity for political reconciliation, as Sunnis have demonstrated that they reject al Qaeda's campaign of terror against Shiites. The new strategy is also helping to prevent the establishment of an al-Qaeda safe haven in Iraq -- and in this sense, it has already proven its worth.
The strains on the military are real. However, overemphasis on the "eroding" capabilities of the armed forces belies the incredible emergence of an irregular warfare capacity in the world's greatest conventional military.
This hard-fought transformation faces resistance from advocates of the status quo in the military, and thus is easily reversible without political support. Such support is something Democrats and Republicans should be able to agree on.
Labels: Iraq, military, Petraeus
Robert Kaplan wrote a recent essay arguing that American society has forgotten how to field an effective military because that society "believes little is worth fighting for..."
One of the conclusions of his essay regards The Powell Doctrine, which was reborne from hardships in the course of the Iraq war.The Powell Doctrine, in which then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell advised that the United States should not get involved in a war without overwhelming force, a near-certainty of victory and a clear exit strategy, seems overly self-constraining to many. But if one views the Powell Doctrine as a way to avoid middle-sized wars (or little wars that through miscalculation can become middle-sized ones), it makes very good sense for the needs of a non-warrior democracy like ours. Powell understood that in these wars the lack of a broad-based warrior mentality is clearly a disadvantage.
The problem, though, is that it often isn’t clear what will become a middle-sized war and what won’t. The Powell Doctrine was used by many a realist as an argument not to get involved in Bosnia in the 1990s. But we inserted troops anyway, and it did not turn out to be a messy, bloody “in-between” war. The gradual stabilization of the former Yugoslavia and the expansion of NATO to the Black Sea suggest that the Balkan interventions of 1995 and 1999 were in the nation’s interest. On the other hand, few if any of those who supported the March 2003 invasion of Iraq expected it to become a middle-sized war that would go on for years. Simply never to get involved anywhere, except in the smallest deployments, or in bigger ones without the absolute certainty of a clean victory, invites defeat by an abdication from the responsibility that comes with power. Alas, the Powell Doctrine is wise for some important purposes, but unavailing for others.
Labels: military, powell, war on terror
Petraeus Helping Pick New Generals; Army Says Innovation Will Be Rewarded
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 17, 2007; Page A01
The Army has summoned the top U.S. commander in Iraq back to Washington to preside over a board that will pick some of the next generation of Army leaders, an unusual decision that officials say represents a vote of confidence in Gen. David H. Petraeus's conduct of the war, as well as the Army counterinsurgency doctrine he helped rewrite.
The Army has long been criticized for rewarding conventional military thinking and experience in traditional combat operations, and current and former defense officials have pointed to Petraeus's involvement in the promotion board process this month as a sign of the Army's commitment to encouraging innovation and rewarding skills beyond the battlefield.
Labels: Iraq, military, Petraeus
Via Michelle Malkin's website, I found this link to a post feeding all the Scott Thomas Beauchamp proponents a little well-deserved crow.
Written by John Rohan it's a long list of diatribes by liberal bloggers who dedicated their time to smearing anyone who dared question Beauchamp's lack of evidence in his (now) baseless occusations and purported eyewitnessed atrocities. Rohan called the post "one of the few articles that has been pure joy to write."
It's a sad reflection on a liberal community that was oh-so-ready to believe the absolute worst about our servicemen and women without even a shred of proof. Even more comical was their justification and rationale once the first Beauchamp lie was exposed -- one of his (supposed) accounts occured before he even got to Iraq.
The most entertaining reminder regarded the cheerleading by Andrew Sullivan, a former The New Republic writer and (yet another) classic liberal who was for the war before he was against it.A note of background: Andrew Sullivan used to work for TNR, and is the one who hired Stephen Glass , another well-publicized fraud. That may be why he reacted very differently to this story than he did to this similar 2004 story of fraudulent Iraq abuse photos printed in the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror)
Also, Sullivan on 27 July:[Sullivan] Well, I trawled through the various knuckle-dragging websites and there's still no actual, you know, evidence that he fabricated anything. Maybe he did. First-person war-stories are always hard to verify beyond a shadow of a doubt, no? But if Malkin can't dredge up something and fling it by now, no one can.
Sullivan, again on August 2:[Sullivan] Read TNR's accounting. It is as I predicted: honorable and, except for one small inaccuracy, it checks out. All the aspects aggressively challenged by the usual propaganda organs have been verified and corroborated. The military is now conducting its own investigation. Given the record of such formal investigations, I'm not as confident in the Pentagon as I am in TNR. Can we now expect apologies from the people who smeared and maligned the magazine and its soldier-reporter? I doubt it. The attackers are not the kind to acknowledge their own errors.
(Neither, apparently, is Andrew Sullivan. As of right now, he has not issued an apology for these statements)
Never expect the cluelessly self-absorbed to apologize or correct their inaccurate assumptions. A guy like Sullivan is way to narcissistic to do that.
And, like I wrote two weeks ago, I love the liberals' new Orwellian definition of "innocent until proven guilty" -- for backward thinkers like Sullivan it isn't the accuser Beauchamp who has to provide evidence of wrong doing, but rather the military that has to provide evidence of his fabrication!
How about MR. Sullivan be asked to prove a negative? Can just ol' anyone write into TNR without proof and claim that Sullivan is, say, implicated in the Michael Vick dog fighting ring, expect it to be published by TNR, and further expect Sullivan to have to "prove" it false? Well, if Sullivan were a soldier in Iraq they could. Call it liberals against liberty.
And Sullivan's "one small inaccuracy" was indeed the damn crux of Beauchamp's entire story! How could Beauchamp claim that the 'horrors of war' turned him into an uncaring amoral jerk if he was already acting like one before he ever stepped foot in Iraq?
Expect Beauchamp to one day work for these people and become them. Like John Kerry's "Winter Soldier" fabrication, he'll never have to prove a thing. And the anti-war liberals will just repeat it like it's fact, evidence be damned.
Labels: antiwar loonies, Beauchamp, media bias, military
[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] General [Peter] Pace's fate is one more example of Mr. Bush's recent habit of abandoning those most closely identified with his Iraq policy. Paul Wolfowitz received only tepid support from Treasury while he was besieged at the World Bank, while I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may soon go to jail because the President has refused to pardon him. With Mr. Libby, what is Mr. Bush afraid of -- jeopardizing his 33% approval rating? A pardon would be a two-day story. His opponents can't hate Mr. Bush more than they already do, and his supporters would cheer to see the President standing by the man who stood by him when others in his Administration cut and ran.
-- WSJ editorial noting how the current Bush administration is nothing more than a reincarnation than his father's, only perhaps with a little less spine if that's even possible.
Labels: base betrayal, loyalty, military, read my lips, the moderate trap
I don't normally blog about Hollywood types when they display stupidity. In the case of The View's departing co-host Rosie O'Donnell especially, demonstrating that she's a moron should be, by now, self-evident to all.
In fact, it's an insult to the world's morons to associate Rosie O'Donnell with them.[MRC] Tuesday's The View marked the fourth anniversary of President Bush's famous "mission accomplished" announcement with Rosie O'Donnell's predictable rants against the war and the administration. "How many more years and how many more dead kids?" she asked about President Bush's insistence on continuing to fight in Iraq," charging: "It's just, you know, it's way over the amount of people killed on September 11th. We've killed more Americans than any terrorist ever did in this war."
With Rosie's logic Truman and FDR are war criminals because more Americans died (400,000+) during the course of the Second World War than by the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor (@2,400).
Indeed, we weren't even attacked by Germany -- rather, the United States leadership chose to make war with the Germans because we understood it wasn't about death counts but about spreading liberty in regions where there was at the time very little. With Rosie's childish mind we should have stopped at 2,400 and certainly not killed 7.5 million Germans and 2.6 million Japanese. No matter that in doing so future generations in those two states, Europe and the Far East were able to live in peace and prosperity.
O'Donnell and Lake then went on slur our military soldiers as uneducated and poor and certainly not bright enough to make decisions about enlisting themselves. That a Heritage Foundation study debunked these lies during a 2003-2005 study matters not to O'Donnell, Lake, their ignorant ilk or apparently, ABC.
Heritage, by the way, found that "wartime U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers. Recruits have a higher percentage of high school graduates and representation from Southern and rural areas. No evidence indicates exploitation of racial minorities (either by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). Finally, the distribution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than that of the entire youth population."
Labels: Iraq, military, nonsense
