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We are a nation at war in Afghanistan. Yet how much do you know about the war. It seems a war forgotten by a media far more concerned with Tiger Woods sex life than with what is happening in Kandahar. Fortunately, there is that priceless resource, Michael Yon, who provides a superb overview at the Small Wars Journal. Do pay Mr. Yon a visit.
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Obama, The Nobel Peace Prize & Justifications For War
The Nobel Peace Prize is an award Obama should have rejected when he was first told that he had won it. He has done nothing to rate this award - nothing beyond not being Bush, at least, and more often than not, treating America with the same disdain as your average European elite. As to the latter, there was none of that in Obama's acceptance speech yesterday. And indeed, his speech struck a note of realism that I honestly did not think he possessed. You can find the full text of his speech here.
That said, my major concern with his speech was that, for all he talked about "just cause" to engage in war - citing self defense and humanitarian intervention, he missed, it seemed to me, a major lesson of history. It is the lesson of WWII. The reality of that war was that, had Britain or France acted preemptively to challenge Hitler with military force in 1936 or 1937, WWII would not have occurred. It is a truth very much applicable to our modern Nazi's - the illegitimate Khomeinist regime currently ruling Iran. And yet, while at one point in his speech, Obama noted that negotiations would not and, in fact, did not end the threat of Hitler, he ignores, perhaps deliberately, that he is going down the same path with Iran.
At any rate, It was, in fact, perhaps the best speech he has given. to date. My personal favorite line of his speech was "for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice." That is shades of one of my favorite poems, Henley's Invictus.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Obama's First Real Challenge is North Korea (Updated)
North Korea seems determined to push Obama and South Korea as far as they can go. The threat from North Korea has gone from warm to hot - with a potential to get much hotter indeed. North Korea is acting bellicose, talking of a declaration of war. This after North Korea detonated a nuclear device, fired several missiles and reopened its nuclear plant in Yongbyon, all in violation of its treaty obligations. War is not outside the realm of possibility. Is Obama up to the task and what are his options to stop the North Korean nuclear program?
We last fought a declared war in Korea between 1950 and 1953. During one two week period in 1950, as the U.S. fought in the Chosin Resevoir area, we suffered 3,000 killed and 6,000 injured while killing 25,000 of the enemy. If we do go to war again in Korea, major engagements against the 1 million man standing army of North Korea would likely be about as bloody for soldiers but with the addition of countless civilian casualties. Indeed, war in Korea would make Iraq look like little more than a training exercise.
Update: The "Danger Room" at Wired.com posits similar bloodshed in any action defending against or attacking North Korea.
The terrain in Korea is mountainous. Korea is a web of small to medium valleys surrounded by steep and heavily wooded mountains whose apex is invariably a thin ridge. Larger valleys support dense population centers. War in this terrain is the opposite of war in the wide open Middle East. The latter is happy hunting ground for tanks and helicopters - blitzkreig warfare, if you will. South Korea, outside of the Chorwon Valley, is light infantry country where the warfare is slower and far more costly. Seoul, the capital of South Korea with over ten million inhabitants, sits within artillery range of North Korea. The conventional thinking was that it would likely come under heavy bombardment and chemical attack within the opening minutes of war in order to cause chaos and choke the roads to prevent reinforcement from the south. The heavily fortified DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) cuts across the 38th parallel, but the North Koreans have been tunnelling under that for half a century with an eye towards moving entire divisions in behind South Korea's front line defenses when war starts. Add to all of this that any such war has a real chance of going nuclear. It is a war we and the South Koreans would win, but not without tremendous loss. And there is the wild card of China. If war starts in Korea, would they again be sucked in on the side of their client, North Korea, as they were in 1950?
War in Korea has come close to reigniting on several occasions over the past half century, and cross border exchanges of gun fire, if not routine, still today occur with some regularity. Further, there have been deadly naval skirmishes between the two Koreas as late as 2002. Kim Il Sung often spoke of resuming war against South Korea, but his last memory of U.S. and R.O.K. forces up close and personal was getting his tail handed to him up around the Yalu River. His son, Kim Jong Il, the current leader, is a true megalomaniac and without his father's memory of the near calamity of 1950. I long thought Kim Jong Il so unbalanced and mecurial that he would force a war as soon as he took the reins of power. He didn't then, but he might now. China we know has been a large factor in staying North Korea's deadly hand over the years, but Kim Jong Il could always decide to roll the dice, particularly now as he is near the end of his life. The likelihood of this is influenced by how weak Kim Jong Il perceives the Obama administration to be.
Clearly, Kim Jong Il does not seem to impressed at the moment. North Korea, in violation of its treaty obligations, conducted a test fire of an ICBM in April. The response of the Obama administration and the UN was toothless. Thus, it is no surprise that only days ago, North Korea felt secure enough to reopen its nuclear plant in Yongbyon, engage in a test of a nuclear weapon, and launch still more missile tests. South Korea "responded to the nuclear test by joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led network of nations seeking to stop ships from transporting the materials used in nuclear bombs." North Korea has in turn responded by characterizing South Korea's act as an "act of war," announcing its withdrawal from the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War, and promising a military response if any of its shipping is interdicted for the purpose of searching for nuclear contraband.
As Bloomberg notes, "North Korea routinely issues threats directed at the U.S., South Korea and Japan, warning of military retaliation if they continue to take actions that the country’s leadership characterizes as threats to its security." That said, this is a bit different. Never has, to my knowledge, North Korea repudiated the 1953 Armistice. Never has the U.S. and South Korea threatened to interdict North Korean shipping. And we are now at a point where it is obvious that endless talks and offers of assistance - going on since 1994 - will not sway North Korea from its nuclear ambitions. That said, it has not stopped Sec. of State Clinton from again making calls for North Korea to return to the obviously useless "six party talks."
North Korea holds the potential to do grave damage to us in two ways. One is to sell its nuclear and rocket technology, if not the weaponry itself, on the blackmarket to the highest bidders. We know that this has gone on already, such as in the recently destroyed Syrian nuclear facility. North Korea's second threat is actual war to conquer the South. One, if not both, are virtually assured if Obama does not take action. If his only response is through the UN and a call to resume six party talks, he will have utterly failed his first test and we will all, sooner or later, pay a price for it.
The idea of interdicting North Korean shipping is certainly one option, but I could see that one being not particularly effective and with a real chance of igniting war. China, which supplies North Korea with virtually all of its fuel as well as many other supplies, holds the key to getting North Korea to back down militarily and give up its nuclear ambitions. Under the current circumstance, China has had no motivation to really lean on North Korea other than to stop actual war. All of this leads to Charles Krauthammer's brilliant suggestion yesterday that, in response to the latest provocations, we convince Japan to join the nuclear club.:
That is a bold suggestion, but it is one that makes complete sense. And indeed, I can't see any other real options. This hot potato is now in the hands of Obama and Clinton. Does anyone feel confident that they will rise to the occasion?
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Obama & Lessons From Sir Winston
"The British, during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, we don’t torture—when the entire British—all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. And the reason was that Churchill understood you start taking shortcuts, and over time that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country." - President Obama at his 100 Days Press Conference In 1919, Churchill wanted to fully invest the White Revolution and end Boshevism before it took hold and became the communist state of the Soviet Union. In 1933, Churchill argued strongly in favor of threatening military force against Nazi Germany to stop their rearmanent, [thereby aborting WWII]. In between, he argued against backing Ibn Saud and the Wahhabis to take over Arabia, seeing in them and their poisonous Wahhabi Islam a threat to the entire Western World. Amazing, that this one man clearly saw the three greatest threats to Western Civilization of the past century, and had we but listened to him at any of those junctures, how many tens of millions of lives would have been spared? Indeed, if Obama is to look for inspiration anywhere, he could do no better than Sir Winston. For example, Churchill could hold the key to explaining to Obama that his Marxian view of capitalism is supremely misguided. As Churchill once said, Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart. And Obama would do well to understand that his populist rhetoric damning capitalism and "obscene profit" is utterly backward. Churchill once stated, after listening to another damn the profit motive: The substance of the eminent Socialist gentleman's speech is that making a profit is a sin, but it is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss. And as to Obama's plans to tax the wealthy in order to fund his world record out of control spending - and to tax all of us indirectly to bring us into his vision of a new era of green prosperity - Churchill would no doubt tell Obama that such an effort is nothing if not counterproductive: . . . [F]or a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. Indeed, Chuchill would undoubtedly tell Obama that the socialism he seeks to impose on us in America has already been tried and that it failed at every turn. As Churchill pointed out, it is a utopian ideology, doomed to failure in all but two locales: There are only two places where socialism will ever work - in Heaven, where it is not needed, and in Hell, where it is already in practice. Further, there is little doubt that Churchill would have harsh words for Obama and his handling of the growing threat to the West by Iran's mad mullahs. He would no doubt explain the inevitable outcome of attempting to placate an aggressive menace rather than standing up to it early on. Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war. But alas, I think Obama's brief foray into an examination of the life and wisdom of Winston Churchill is not to be. Other then his superficial look at Sir Winston through the deeply distorting lens of Andy Sullivan, it would appear that Obama lacks any interest in Churchill. We can gather that from, if not else, his decision to have the White House's bust of Winston Churchill returned to Britain. The Americans will always do the right thing . . . after they've exhausted all the alternatives." Given the current alternative we have chosen, I do hope that Churchill's words still ring true.
Obama turns to Winston Churchill to support his policies. He would be better advised to turn to Sir Winston for guidance on what policies to follow in the first instance.
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That was Obama's attempt to justify his decision to, as Michael Sheuer described it, elevate "his personal beliefs" to a position of greater importance than "protecting [our] country, . . . homes and . . . families." Except that Obama - whose knowledge of western history, at least outside of Marx and Engels, appears to be paper thin - got it wrong. It seems that he lifted these lines from not Churchill, but excitable Andy Sullivan. Churchill never said that, and by all accounts, Churchill was willing to do whatever he thought necessary to win at war, including fire bombing entire German cities and arguing for the summary execution of Nazi officers.
That said, at least Obama is at last turning for inspiration to one of the towering icons of Western Civilization.
And that is indeed what Sir Winston Churchill is. He was a unique man of amazing intellect, prescient vision and brutal wit. He appeared on history's stage just as three major threats to Western Civilzation were forming. He saw each clearly and urged action before they could metasticize. As I wrote some time ago:
Nonetheless, the rest of us can take heart from the words of Churchill as we contemplate the fact that we elected Obama and now must live through his attempts to radically change our country. As Churchill observed of our forebearers:
Friday, August 15, 2008
Walid Phares On Iran's Continuing Acts of War
Iran is employing Hezbollah to train Iraqi assassination squads with the intent of reintroducing them into Iraq. This is neither surprising nor, for that matter, in any way out of character for the mad mullahs. Terrorism expert Walid Phares weighs in on Iran's acts of war and adds a recommendation that we should be supporting elements who want to institute democracy in Iran.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Russia Invades Georgia
Russian and Georgian troops fought Friday over the disputed Caucasus region of South Ossetia as world powers implored the two nations to end the violence. Read the entire article. And there is this assessment from Chris Borgen at Opinio Juris: The separatist conflicts in the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have often been termed “frozen conflicts,” along with other long-standing separatist crises in Moldova and Azerbaijan (and some would add Kosovo). There are many reasons why these conflict have been seemingly intractable. Factors ranging from Russian assistance to the separatists (especially in the Georgian and Moldovan cases), a sense of ethnic difference (justified or not), historical grievances, and factions that seek to derail negotiated solutions are problems in all of these conflicts. Read the entire post. Russia is playing a dangerous game. It appears that they are using their support of Iran as an ace in the hole to tie down the U.S. and, after NATO refused Georgia's entry over the Bush's dissent, are now seeking to make their play to reestablish a bit of their empire.
This is a dangerous situation. CNN is reporting that Russia, which has never given up its imperealist designs on the old Soviet states, has now invaded Geogia.
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This from CNN:
News reports documented fierce clashes between Georgian and Russian forces -- engagements that caused deaths, property damage, and population displacement in South Ossetia, a pro-Russian autonomous region of Georgia.
Much of the fighting was in and around the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, where black smoke from fire wafts overhead, Interfax news agency reported.
One U.S. State Department official involved in the diplomacy called the conflict a "very dangerous situation" and said diplomatic moves are afoot around the globe to stop the flare-up.
Georgia -- located on the Black Sea coast between Russia and Turkey --appealed for diplomatic intervention, but stressed it was not asking for military assistance.
Georgia's president said: "All day today, they've been bombing Georgia from numerous warplanes and specifically targeting (the) civilian population, and we have scores of wounded and dead among (the) civilian population all around the country," President Mikhail Saakashvili told CNN in an exclusive interview.
"This is the worst nightmare one can encounter," he said.
. . . About 150 Russian armored vehicles have entered South Ossetia, Saakashvili said, and Georgian forces had shot down two Russian aircraft.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax, said Russians had died because of Georgia military operations in South Ossetia.
Russia "will not allow the deaths of our compatriots to go unpunished" and "those guilty will receive due punishment," he said. "My duty as Russian president is to safeguard the lives and dignity of Russian citizens, wherever they are. This is what is behind the logic of the steps we are undertaking now."
South Ossetia, with a population of about 70,000 people, declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s, but it was not internationally recognized. Many ethnic Ossetians feel close to Russia and have Russian passports and use its currency.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it sent "reinforcements" to South Ossetia to help the Russian peacekeepers already stationed there.
Interfax news agency quoted the Georgian Foreign Ministry as saying strikes by Russian aircraft killed and wounded personnel at a Georgian airbase, and that Russian planes have been bombing Georgian territory throughout the day. Georgian officials also report four Russian aircraft shot down.
. . . Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his counterparts in the United States and Germany and the European Union's foreign policy chief that Georgia was the aggressor and should immediately withdraw its troops from South Ossetia.
. . . By early evening Friday, Georgian Cabinet minister said the country's forces have taken control of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, Interfax reported.
The Novosti news agency, citing the South Ossetian government, said Georgian tanks and infantry attacked Tskhinvali and "a large part of the city has been destroyed. Over 15 civilians have been killed, several buildings are on fire in the city center, and the local parliament building has burned down."
. . . Violence has been mounting in the region in recent days, with sporadic clashes between Georgian forces and South Ossetian separatists.
Georgian troops launched new attacks in South Ossetia late Thursday after a top government official said a unilateral cease-fire offer was met with separatist artillery fire.
Alexander Lomaia, the secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said Georgian troops responded proportionately to separatist mortar and artillery attacks on two villages -- attacks he said followed the cease-fire and call for negotiations by Saakashvili.
Russia said a Georgian attack on a military barracks left a number of Russian peacekeepers dead.
Russian peacekeepers are in South Ossetia under a 1992 agreement by Russian, Georgian, and South Ossetian authorities to maintain what has been a fragile peace. The mixed peacekeeping force also includes Georgian and South Ossetian troops.
Saakashvili said the Russian invasion of South Ossetia was pre-planned.
"These troops that are in Georgia now -- they didn't come unexpectedly," the president told CNN. "They had been amassing at the border for the last few months. They claimed they were staging exercises there and as soon as a suitable pretext was found, they moved in."
Georgia , however has been in the unenviable position of having two distinct separatist regions: one in Abkhazia and the other in South Ossetia. Russia has taken an increasingly interventionist stance on the situation in Georgia, especially since Kosovo’s declaration of independence. I have heard many experts express concern that, of the frozen conflicts, one (or both) of the Georgian conflicts were at greatest risk of becoming real wars. In part, this is because Russia is most easily able to exert direct influence as both regions border Russia and Russia can easily roll in the tanks, as it has done today.
This crisis points out an interesting divergeance between how Russia talks about international law and how the EU and US do, as I’ve written about here. In short, when it comes to the frozen conflicts the EU and the U.S. focus on the international norms concerning sovereignty, territorial integrity, and that self-determination does not lead to a right of secession. Russia, however, tends to focus on norms concerning minority rights and the ability of states to defend the interests of “co-nationals.” Seemingly in an attempt to fortify the “co-nationals” argument, Russia has been recently providing passports to just about anyone in Abkhazia or South Ossetia who asked for one. Russia then argues that these people–who had until then lived their lives in Georgia–are best understood as Russian citizens. This “passportization” policy has been widely criticized. This argument based on minority rights and the protection of co-nationals seems to be at the heart of Russia’s explanations of its invasion of Georgia. . . .
Saturday, July 26, 2008
AP Weighs In On Iraq, Saying We Are Winning The War
Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago. Read the entire article, there is much more. AP's coverage of war has been, til this article, unrelentingly negative. Indeed, they put the "agenda" in "agenda journalism" with their reporting on Iraq over the past three years. But this is a fair report and I cannot perceive any hidden agenda. My hat's off to the AP on this one.
Two heavyweights at AP, Robert Burns, chief military reporter, and Robert Reid, chief of bureau in Baghdad have reviewed the situation in Iraq and concluded: "The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost." They finally report the obvious. Admittedly, they toss in a backhanded slap towards Bush and a mischaracterization of McCain's position on Iraq, but for the AP, those are nothing more than boilerplate.
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This from AP:
Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.
That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.
Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.
This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press this past week there are early indications that senior leaders of al-Qaida may be considering shifting their main focus from Iraq to the war in Afghanistan.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the AP on Thursday that the insurgency as a whole has withered to the point where it is no longer a threat to Iraq's future.
. . . Shiite militias, notably the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, have lost their power bases in Baghdad, Basra and other major cities. An important step was the routing of Shiite extremists in the Sadr City slums of eastern Baghdad this spring — now a quiet though not fully secure district.
Al-Sadr and top lieutenants are now in Iran. Still talking of a comeback, they are facing major obstacles, including a loss of support among a Shiite population weary of war and no longer as terrified of Sunni extremists as they were two years ago.
Despite the favorable signs, U.S. commanders are leery of proclaiming victory or promising that the calm will last.
. . . People are expressing a new confidence in their own security forces, which in turn are exhibiting a newfound assertiveness with the insurgency largely in retreat.
. . . Statistics show violence at a four-year low. The monthly American death toll appears to be at its lowest of the war — four killed in action so far this month as of Friday, compared with 66 in July a year ago. From a daily average of 160 insurgent attacks in July 2007, the average has plummeted to about two dozen a day this month. On Wednesday the nationwide total was 13.
Beyond that, there is something in the air in Iraq this summer.
In Baghdad, parks are filled every weekend with families playing and picnicking with their children. That was unthinkable only a year ago, when the first, barely visible signs of a turnaround emerged.
Now a moment has arrived for the Iraqis to try to take those positive threads and weave them into a lasting stability.
The questions facing both Americans and Iraqis are: What kinds of help will the country need from the U.S. military, and for how long? The questions will take on greater importance as the U.S. presidential election nears, with one candidate pledging a troop withdrawal and the other insisting on staying.
Iraqi authorities have grown dependent on the U.S. military after more than five years of war. While they are aiming for full sovereignty with no foreign troops on their soil, they do not want to rush. In a similar sense, the Americans fear that after losing more than 4,100 troops, the sacrifice could be squandered.
U.S. commanders say a substantial American military presence will be needed beyond 2009. But judging from the security gains that have been sustained over the first half of this year — as the Pentagon withdrew five Army brigades sent as reinforcements in 2007 — the remaining troops could be used as peacekeepers more than combatants.
. . . Although Sunni and Shiite extremists are still around, they have surrendered the initiative and have lost the support of many ordinary Iraqis. That can be traced to an altered U.S. approach to countering the insurgency — a Petraeus-driven move to take more U.S. troops off their big bases and put them in Baghdad neighborhoods where they mixed with ordinary Iraqis and built a new level of trust. . . .
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Obama Would Rather Lose A War Than An Election
You may remember John McCain from when he was occaionaly covered in the news in the weeks prior to Obama's foreign tour. Here he is spelling out the character difference between he and Mr. Obama, whose ever changing positions on Iraq seem to have their motivation in partisan politics.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Is It Time To Declare V-I Day?
The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won. . . . Read the entire article. Michael Totten is a bit less sanguine, but not all that much: "The war in Iraq is all but over right now, and it will be officially over if the current trends in violence continue their downward slide. That is a mathematical fact." Read the entire article. . . . The Iranian leaders responsible for Iranian policy in Iraq – principally Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Brigadier General Qassim Soleimani, commander of the Qods Force – also remain determined. They are retraining and re-equipping thousands of fighters who fled the most recent Iraqi and Coalition operations in Basra, Baghdad, and Maysan Provinces. Read the entire article. The news that Al Qaeda in Iraq has been soundly beaten and is on the verge of annihilation, was met with worries and a quick call to action on Capitol Hill today. In an attempt to salvage some semblance of victory for the embattled fighters, Congressional Democrats voted early Thursday to approve funding that would provide desperately needed supplies for the group. Read the entire post. There is much more.
So have we won the war in Iraq?
And if so, what next?
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The counterinsurgency phase of the war - the one that started after the six week victory over Saddam's military, the one that picked up steam between Iran's creation of the Mahdi Army and al Qaeda's barbarous acts, is over. We have won. New war may well yet come, but you can mark the calendar on the counterinsurgency.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has been crushed and is no longer a coherent force. Sadr's Mahdi Army has been crushed and is now demobilized. Many of its leaders and thousands of followers have fled to Tehran. There are remnants of al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army still inside Iraq and they are able to conduct discrete acts of mayhem. But they are being relentlessly pursued by U.S. and Iraqi forces, they are unable to regroup. Both have been broadly rejected by the people of Iraq, and Iraq no longer presents a hospitable environment for these organization to again easily take root.
There is no ongoing civil war inside Iraq. Ethno-sectarian deaths were at zero in May and June 2008. The Iraqi government controls virtually all of Iraq, including Sadr City and Basra, and the Iraqi government has emerged as a nationalist force. The Iraqi government has met 15 of the 18 bench marks that were set by the U.S. - and embraced by Mr. Obama - as the measures of progress towards reconciliation and a stable country. The bench mark regarding the oil law is moot for the moment as all oil revenues are being fully and fairly shared even in the absence of a law. Provincial elections will be held this year.
Today, the U.S. military turned over full control of Diwaniya Province to the Iraqi government. That marks the tenth province turned over to Iraqi control. Anbar Province, deemed lost a little over a year ago, is expected to be turned over to Iraqi control in a matter of days. The other seven provinces are expected to be turned over by years end.
Virtually all of the goals of the surge have been met. And as to our forces in Iraq, if current trends continue for July, it will result in the lowest loss of U.S. life to hostile fire in Iraq during any one month period since June, 2003. This continues a steady decline in U.S. casualties in Iraq over the past months. The biggest enemy many of our soldiers in Iraq face now is boredom.
Michael Yon, taking stock of the current situation in Iraq, had this to say:
While we can claim victory in the counterinsurgency, the threats to Iraq are still extant. Al Qaeda is a transnational organization and al Zawahiri would love nothing more than an opportunity to reinfest Iraq and destroy the Awakening movements. Iran, currently housing thousands of Sadrists who escaped the offensives, is training and rearming these people, hoping to reintroduce them into Iraq and take another crack at Lebanization. Indeed, Iraq is an existential challenge to Iran and, like a shark that will die should it ever stop swimming, Iran's theocracy may come to an end if they fail to dominate Iraq.
Fred Kagan, writing at the WSJ, views the situation similarly and has several recommendations:
Past patterns suggest those fighters will return to Iraq and attempt to restart attacks against Coalition Forces in time to disrupt Iraqi elections and to affect America's voting. Their attacks are likely to be more spectacular, but less effective at disrupting Iraqi government and society.
If America remains firm in its commitment to success in Iraq, success is very likely. The AQI and Shiite militias at present do not have the capacity to drive Iraq off course – unless both the U.S. and the Iraqi government make a number of serious mistakes.
The most serious error would be to withdraw American forces too rapidly. That would strengthen the resolve of both al Qaeda and Iran to persevere in their efforts to disrupt the young Iraqi state and weaken the resolve of those Iraqis, particularly in the Iraqi Security Forces, who are betting their lives on continued American assistance.
The blunt fact is this. In Iraq, al Qaeda is on the ropes, and the Shiite militias are badly off-balance. Now is exactly the time to continue the pressure to keep them from regaining their equilibrium. It need not, and probably will not, require large numbers of American casualties to keep this pressure on. But it will require a considerable number of American troops through 2009.
Recent suggestions in Washington that reductions could begin sooner or proceed more rapidly are premature. The current force levels will be needed through the Iraqi provincial elections later this year, and consideration of force reductions makes sense only after those elections are over and the incoming commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, has evaluated the new situation.
The benefits to the U.S. from seeing the fight through to the end far outweigh the likely costs. For one thing, Iraqis have shown their determination to increase their oil output, currently averaging 2.5 million barrels a day, as fast as they can – something that can only happen if their country is secure.
Far more important is the opportunity in our hands today to work with a Muslim country in the heart of the Arab world to inflict the most visible and humiliating defeat possible on al Qaeda. Success in Iraq also makes it possible to establish a strategic partnership with a legitimate, democratic majority-Shia state that is aligned with the U.S. against Iran.
Recent comments by some Iraqi leaders about the current negotiations for a status-of-force agreement – made in the context of an increasingly heated election season in Iraq, and with the desire to improve Iraq's bargaining position in the negotiations – do not call the U.S. partnership into question. As we recently found in Baghdad, even the most outspoken advocates of rapid American force reductions strongly insist on a strategic partnership with America that helps Iraq stand up to Iran. Most of Iraq's military leaders are unequivocal about the need for a continued U.S. force presence.
The Iraqi government and people – whose surging anti-Persian feeling is more obvious every day – have already shown their willingness to push back against Iranian intervention. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's attack on Iranian-backed forces in Basra, followed by Iraqi-led operations in Baghdad, central Iraq and Maysan, is proof of Baghdad's willingness. Helping Iraq to succeed is our best hope of finding a way of resolving our differences with Iran over the long term without coming to blows.
It is time for Americans to recognize it's a whole new ballgame in Iraq. The civil war is over, American troops are not an "irritant" fueling the unrest, and far from becoming dependent upon us, the Iraqi government and the army show more determination every day to run their country and to protect it. But they continue to want and need our assistance.
We will likely see significant force reductions from Iraq over the next several months and I would not be surprised to see force reductions below those of pre-surge levels by September. There is still a mission to keep the remnants of al Qaeda and the Special Groups under constant pressure. And there is a need to maintain significant combat power to dissuade Iran from any unwise moves for the foreseeable future.
And lastly, while this victory may come as good news to most Americans, clearly that is not the case for all who nominally claim the title of "American." TNOY has an exclusive on the efforts of a coalition of the far left Code Pink, the Breasts Not Bombs group and Congressional Democrats, all of whom are in crisis mode over the issue of how to shore up al Qadea before it is too late:
“There is no question but that they are in a bad way,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “What began as a glorious campaign against the American occupiers, has taken a turn for the worse. These culturally equal individuals have been shot at, had missiles fired at them, and been made to miss at least one of their five daily prayers on several occasions. What’s more, our polling data shows that a full 100% of them are living below the poverty line! If it weren’t for that fact that many of them have dual citizenship between their home countries and Holland, they wouldn’t even be receiving welfare payments or free health care. But I have sponsored legislation that will go a long way towards turning the tide back in favor of these brave freedom fighters.”
Pelosi’s bill calls for two battalions of Code Pink protesters to be sent to Iraq immediately. They will be deployed at key positions to block advancing U.S. Marines. . . .
NYT Calls Iraq For Obama
A tough Iraqi general, a former special operations officer with a baritone voice and a barrel chest, melted into smiles when asked about Senator Barack Obama. Read the entire article. Based on what I have read to date, it would appear that the only clique that wants the U.S. out of Iraq quickly are those in league with Iran. The Sunnis want us to stay for at least a decade, the Kurds are ready to apply for statehood (if accepted, it would mark a major step towards Obama's goal of leaving office with 7 new states having been added to our country), and the vast majority of the Shia do not want us leaving for the forseeable future. Indeed, when it comes to "occupiers," many Shia believe it is Iran, not the U.S., that seeks to be the permanent occupation force.
It's official. Obama has the Iraq vote sewn up - at least if the NYT is to be believed today. The article has all the typical NYT biases on full display, and the author even goes so far as to suggest that Obama's highly undefined plan to leave a residual force in Iraq might well be sufficient to meet Iraq's security needs. Once beyond the agenda part of the NYT's agenda journalism, the article gets interesting. Iraqis seem to look favorably on Obama because they see him as having "Muslim roots." They are also quite leary of his plan to quickly drawdown all combat forces.
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This from the NYT:
“Everyone in Iraq likes him,” said the general, Nassir al-Hiti. “I like him. He’s young. Very active. We would be very happy if he was elected president.”
But mention Mr. Obama’s plan for withdrawing American soldiers, and the general stiffens.
“Very difficult,” he said, shaking his head. “Any army would love to work without any help, but let me be honest: for now, we don’t have that ability.”
Thus in a few brisk sentences, the general summed up the conflicting emotions about Mr. Obama in Iraq, the place outside America with perhaps the most riding on its relationship with him.
There was, as Mr. Obama prepared to visit here, excitement over a man who is the anti-Bush in almost every way: a Democrat who opposed a war that many Iraqis feel devastated their nation. And many in the political elite recognize that Mr. Obama shares their hope for a more rapid withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.
But his support for troop withdrawal cuts both ways, reflecting a deep internal quandary in Iraq: for many middle-class Iraqis, affection for Mr. Obama is tempered by worry that his proposal could lead to chaos in a nation already devastated by war. Many Iraqis also acknowledge that security gains in recent months were achieved partly by the buildup of American troops, which Mr. Obama opposed and his presumptive Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, supported.
“In no way do I favor the occupation of my country,” said Abu Ibrahim, a Western-educated businessman in Baghdad, “but there is a moral obligation on the Americans at this point.”
Like many Iraqis, Mr. Ibrahim sees Mr. Obama favorably, describing him as “much more humane than Bush or McCain.”
“He seems like a nice guy,” Mr. Ibrahim said. But he hoped that Mr. Obama’s statements about a relatively fast pullout were mere campaign talk.
“It’s a very big assumption that just because he wants to pull troops out, he’ll be able to do it,” he said. “The American strategy in the region requires troops to remain in Iraq for a long time.”
. . . Even as some Iraqis disagreed about Mr. Obama’s stance on withdrawal, they expressed broad approval for him personally as an improvement over Mr. Bush, who remains unpopular among broad portions of Iraqi society five years after the war began. No one interviewed expressed a strong dislike for Mr. Obama.
Saad Sultan, an official in an Iraqi government ministry, contended that Mr. Obama could give a fresh start to relations between the Arab world and the United States. Mr. Obama has never practiced Islam; his father, whom he barely knew, was born Muslim, but became a nonbeliever. Mr. Sultan, however, like many Iraqis, feels instinctively close to the senator because he heard that he had Muslim roots.
“Every time I see Obama I say: ‘He’s close to us. Maybe he’ll see us in a different way,’ ” Mr. Sultan said. “I find Obama very close to my heart.”
Race is also a consideration. Muhammad Ahmed Kareem, 49, an engineer from Mosul, said he had high expectations of Mr. Obama because his experience as a black man in America might give him more empathy for others who feel oppressed by a powerful West. “Blacks suffered a lot of discrimination, much like Arabs,” Mr. Kareem said. “That’s why we expect that his tenure will be much better.”
. . . Mr. Obama has advocated a withdrawal that would remove most combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. Despite some fears about such a departure, that stance is not unpopular here. Many Iraqis hate American forces because soldiers have killed their relatives and friends, and they say they want the troops out.
“Of course I want the American forces to leave Iraq,” said May Adnan Yunis, whose sister was killed, along with a female and a male co-worker, when they were gunned down by American soldiers while driving to work at Baghdad International Airport three weeks ago. “I want them to go to hell.”
After the killings, a statement by the American military describing the three employees as “criminals” who shot at the soldiers inflamed Iraqi officials even more. In a rare public rebuke of the American military, the Iraqi armed forces general command described the American soldiers’ actions as crimes “committed in cold blood.”
For General Hiti, who commands a swath of western Baghdad, the American military is a necessary, if vexing, presence. He ticks off the ways it helps: evacuating wounded Iraqi soldiers, bringing in helicopters when things go wrong, defusing bombs, getting detailed pictures of areas from drone planes.
But the issue of withdrawal is immensely complex, and some of the functions mentioned by General Hiti would not be affected under Mr. Obama’s plan. The senator is calling for the withdrawal of combat brigades, but has said a residual force would still pursue extremist militants, protect American troops and train Iraqi security forces.
. . . But for some Iraqis the American presence remains the backbone of security in the neighborhood. Saidiya, a southern Baghdad district, was so brutalized by violence a year ago that a young Iraqi television reporter who fled thought he would never come back. But a telephone call from his father in December persuaded him to return. An American unit had planted itself in the district, helping chase away radicals. The family could go out shopping. They could drive their car to the gas station.
“The Americans paved the way for the Iraqi Army there,” said the young man, who married this year. “If they weren’t there, the Iraqi forces could not have taken control.” Even so, he agreed with Mr. Obama’s plan for a faster withdrawal. American forces “helped the Iraqi Army to get back its dignity,” he said. “They are qualified now.”
But Iraq is now a complex landscape. Some areas are subdued, and others are still racked by violence and calibrating troop presence will be tricky.
Falah al-Alousy is the director of an organization that runs a school in an area south of Baghdad that was controlled by religious extremists two years ago. Former insurgents turned against the militant group, but local authorities still rely heavily on Americans to keep the peace; the Iraqi Army, largely Shiite, is not allowed to patrol in the area, Mr. Alousy said.
“Al Qaeda would rearrange itself and come back, if the Americans withdraw,” he said. As for Mr. Obama’s plan for withdrawal, “It’s just propaganda for an election.”
Most Iraqis dislike the fact that their country is occupied, but a few well-educated Iraqis who have traveled abroad say they would not oppose a permanent American military presence, something that Mr. Obama opposes. Saad Sultan, the Iraqi government official, said his travels in Germany, where there have been American bases since the end of World War II, softened his attitude toward a long-term presence. “I have no problem to have a camp here,” he said. “I find it in Germany and that’s a strong country. Why not in Iraq?”
Monday, June 30, 2008
Interesting Posts From Around The Web - 1 July 2008
Slapstick Politics hosts a guest blogger who was particularly impressed by the precision of Scalia’s opinion in Heller. It is well worth a read to savor the taste of the seminal originalist opinion of our time. Iraq, Afghanistan, War & the Military Thunder Run has a superb roll-up from mil-blogs and other war related news. Oil & Economics From Markedmanner, oil hit another all-time high today. Supply is so tight that any problem with any large producer causes a big jump in the futures contracts. That combined with the weak dollar is causing tremendous problems. Obama Discriminations post on former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger who compares Obama’s pre-emptive race bomb with the tactics he observed from Joe McCarthy. Socialism Down under at a Western Heart, a good essay that takes a stab at defining the various classes of socialists and the left. Republicans Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion questions the efficacy of donating to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Their strategy is apparently to hide their affiliation and run against McCain. Who dreamed up this strategy, Howard Dean? Global Warming Aurora reports from down under that Kevin Rudd is preparing to tank Australia’s economy in the name of global warming. Read the post. It sounds quite dire. UK & Europe Blue Crab Boulevard blogs on political correctness gone absolutely stark raving bonkers in Sweden. Israel Soccer Dad has an exceptional post on the proposed deal to trade Samir Kuntar to Hezbollah for the remains of two dead Israeli soldiers. Angel at Woman, Honor Thy Self believes PM Olmert is foolish to make a trade of a terrorist who murdered a child for the remains of two Israeli soldiers. Solomnia is troubled by the same issue. Islam Ironic Surrealism has a chilling highlight reel from the film "Suicide Killers", by Pierre Rehov – a documentary at the culture, ideology and tactics that go into the making of Islamist suicide bombers. History A great post with lots of links of Pre-WWII Americana and more at the Irish Elk. Entertainment Under the Hill has a movie review of Wall-E. They love it. Humor Lot’s of oil. No Caribou. Looks like a great place for exploratory drilling – from Power and Control.
The most interesting posts from around the web, all below the fold . . .
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Art: The Declaration of Independence, John Trumbull
Second Amendment
As Transterrestrial Musings points out, a lot of people who support a robust Second Amendment right will pulling the lever for McCain in November. The reason – as I also pointed out here - an Obama presidency will likely see the Heller decision rendered a nullity. Power and Control thinks likewise.
Meryl Yourish is exercising her Second Amendment rights after the Heller decision.
Soob blogs on the thought process of gun control advocates, as demonstrated in the Fox News panel Sunday morning. Meanwhile, the Educated Shoprat blogs a case study in the practical benefits of a robust Second Amendment.
Carl at No Oil For Pacifists has a great post on the whining and lamentations of the left in the wake of the Heller opinion. The whine that really gets me comes from those who claim the 1939 Miller case was precedent for holding that the Second Amendment did not grant an individual right. The only people who can possibly spout such nonsense and believe it are people who have never read the case and have no understanding of the law.
In the UK, from whom we inherited the Second Amendment right, the Adam Smith organization ponders the erosion of their own rights.
Bizzyblog wonders how the media will spin the lowest two month death total for U.S. forces in Iraq from all causes since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Seven years after 9-11, the war on terror has been a great success on all major fronts. Four Right Wing Whackos have the new Dem line: "Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!"
A great quote from John Adams posted at Power and Control.
A very good post from Callimachus giving his thoughts on the reality of war, total war, and the costs of finding war too brutal to fight to win.
On Jan. 5, Lance Cpl. Robert Crutchfield, home on leave, was shot in front of his girlfriend during a mugging and later died. Red Alerts is following the story and posts that the two thugs who committed this crime will face the death penalty.
From This Ain’t Hell, Dems latest attempts to tie the explosion in oil prices to some highly nebulous Bush big oil agenda. It does not seem to be working. Kollarow is blogging on polls showing the vast majority of Americans favor drill for oil offshore and in ANWR. Even 40% of Democrats are starting to think that a rig or two in ANWR is sounding pretty good. From Pam Meister, Drill Here, Drill Now. Freedom Now ponders our oil woes and Democratic obstructionism – not only at home, it seems, but abroad also.
Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion has a great blog addressing the canard repeated ad infinitum concerning there is no need to lift the moratorium on ANWR, offshore drilling or the exploration of oil shale when "Big Oil needs to drill in the 68 million acres they already have leased."
Eye on the World posts that Obama tosses Wessley Clark under the bus after Clark’s unconscionable comments on McCain’s service to our country yesterday. Clark is pure ambition unsaddled with ethics.
Comments Confederate Yankee, the saddest thing about Obama’s military experience is that "the only person he knows with the experience of getting a bomb on target is Bill Ayers."
Jammie Wearing Fool notes the new Democratic talking point: "so McCain was tortured, big deal." These people have a deficit of class matched by their deficit of sense. Gay Patriot also weighs in, and then notes "The more attacks I see from the left the more convinced I become that theirs is a party of hate." In truth, the default position for an increasing majority on the left is not to argue issues, but to demonize those whom they do not agree with. I think "party of hate" only scratches the surface.
Obama supports equal pay for women, just not in his campaign staff – per the Jawa Report.
Vocal Minority posts on Larry Elder, a black conservative, who responded to a query from a fellow African American. Elder explains in detail why he is supporting McCain over Obama. It makes for a good read.
Joshua Pundit posts on Iraq’s decision to sue the UN over the oil for food program – and there is an Obama connection.
Are Obama trolls gaming Google to get anti-Obama blogs shut down? It appears that way. The Irate Nation has the story. The Anchoress also blogs this, along with other stories.
See the Samizdata quote of the day, and then this on the triumph of collectivism in the U.S. and Europe.
I concur with Stop the ACLU that unions are no longer of benefit to our nation. The benefits unions provided to America ended long ago when the worst of employer abuses likewise ended. And with that thought in mind, please note that full and accurate information is the very coin of democracy – and literally so when it concerns the taxpayers coin. Apparently, unions in Washington do not see it that way.
Insanity in the UK posted by Dhimmiwatch. The UK is about to deport a Pakistani family that converted to Christianity even though they face a threat of death for that in their home country. This as the UK hosts a rogues gallery of the world’s worst terrorists that they cannot deport for precisely the same reason. Meanwhile, Shield of Achilles blogs on another honor killing of a young girl in the UK.
In the Netherlands, charges dropped by prosecutors against Geert Wilders for insulting Islam. Dinah Lord posts that the decision included the finding that the legislator's comments were part of a legitimate debate. That debate does not extend to the utterly ludicrous UN Human Rights Council which will now, per Europe News, entertain no discussion of Islam. Anyone who does not realize that this is an existential conflict isn’t paying attention.
Seraphic Secret has an articulate and chilling post on "jew hating savages of Paris" and wherein he makes the point that "Jews are the canaries in the coal mine of civilization."
Political InSecurity posts that MI-5 is warning that al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks in the UK using NHS ambulances.
From LGF - According to the study "Imams in Germany," up to 20 percent of preachers belong to the more conservative, fundamentalist strand of Islam. The study also discovered that only one fifth of imam’s possess academic qualifications."
IslamistWatch posts that surgical hymen restoration – i.e., to present as a virgin – are the rage in Europe among Muslim women. And it is on the welfare dime in the UK and Denmark because the women face threats of violence if they are not virgins when married.
Islam In Europe posts a comprehensive round-up of Islamist related news occurring in Europe.
RightTruth posts on a fascinating book by John Press, Culturalism. It poses the opposite of the insane doctrine of multiculturalism. "Culturism holds that majority cultures have a right to define, protect and promote themselves. By that light, preventing the building of mega-mosques is a reasonable culturist policy. Multiculturalism holds that all cultures are the same and that Britain has no core culture. That is obvious rubbish. Then they use the word racism to slander anyone who does not agree. Culturism is a word that can combat the abuse of Western nations with the words multiculturalism and racism." You could also call it common sense.
Dutchblog Israel posts on the slow diminution of democracy as violence by Islamists comes to be seen as a justifiable method of political expression.
To call what is going on in the UK a decline in academic standards at the hands of the socialist Labour government is a grotesque understatement. MK has the story.
Dave in Boca has a fascinating post with a lot of personal insights on the al Dura affair and the circle the wagons irrespective of the facts approach being taken by the French media to protect a reporter who should be jailed for life for the bloodshed he has caused.
And see Shrinkwrapped’s exceptional essay on the al Dura affair and its reverberations. "The parallels between the Al-Dura blood libel and the Haditha slander suggest that the American elites are coming to closely resemble the Israeli elites in their ready acceptance of guilt and their aesthenic reactions to accusations of evil intent and atrocity against those who protect us."
A new Holocaust – only this one aimed at Christians in Muslim lands. Persevere has the story and links. DhimmiWatch has the story of the religiously motivated kidnapping and torture of Coptic Christians and Churches in Egypt. Christians Under Attack has the story of state discrimination against Christians in a province in Indonesia and attacks against converted Christians in Iran as the state ponders whether to start executing converts again.
Verum Serum reports on a Saudi marriage officiant who says that there is no minimum age for marriage – you can marry as young as one year old - though the groom should wait a few years before sexual intercourse. The Dhivehistan, a Maldives blog, posts on two pre-pubescent child brides in Yemen who have run away and both filed for divorce. In fairness to Yemen, this is a major story who many in the country are hoping will lead to a reexamination of the practice. The problem is that the Koran records the 50+ year old prophet taking a 6 year old bride and then having sex with her when she was 9.
At the Whited Sepulchre, a memo from a Jihadist Safety Consultant. It is hilarious.
From FireBase America, the Italians are fighting back. Compare that with a day in the life of a French Police Officer at the Covenant Zone.
Sake White has posted on the Islamic slave trade – a trade which has lasted over 14 centuries and, in some areas, continues today.
From Gates of Vienna: "Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun."
The Truth posts on the decision of the Canadian HRC to dismiss charges against Mark Steyn and Muslim unhappiness therewith.
The American Jingoist blogs on the shaky legal ground on which stands the Virginia Islamic Academy.
Elder of Ziyon posts on some real tin foil hat level paranoia – this time of the Persian variety.
Politics & Pigskins salutes the passing of George Carlin. At Blogs of War, Carlin doing his 7 Words You Can’t Say On Television routine.
D.C. Comics has revived Catwoman – with a spin. She is now a lesbian. Deansworld comments on the likelihood of success of this new marketing ploy.
Heh – KG has the New Zealand Navy.
The good folk at Vast Right Wing Conspiracy have felt the muse and been moved by Obama to write new lyrics for an old song, Hey, Hey, Hey, Another One Under The Bus . . .
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
History, War and Diplomacy In The Middle East
John McCain and Barack Obama are now engaged in a long-distance dispute over whether talking to America’s enemies is integral to America’s security . . . “It was… written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged [the Muslims’] authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon wheoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” Though a period of paying tribute and douceurs (or “softeners” — expensive trickets and toys) to Islamic pirates would continue, the words of ‘Abd al-Rahman Adams were chilling enough to leave Adams and Jefferson in no doubt as to the sanguinary and messianic nature of their adversary. “An angel sent on this business,” lamented Jefferson, “could have done nothing” to placate such men. He called them “sea dogs” and a “pettifogging nest of robbers.” The episode preceded further acts of piracy against American vessels and the imprisonment and sale of its crews and passengers, and was enough to get Jefferson to overlook his wariness of federalism and agree to a Constitution with a strong central government capable of building and keeping a powerful navy. . . . Read the entire article. It is exceptional.
I've blogged before (see here) on the first and longest of America's foreign wars in a post that also includes Winston Churchill's first hand, non-p.c. observations of Islam and the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. Michael Weiss at PJM has a great post on that first foreign war against the Islamic pirates of the Barbary Coast and its relationship to politics today.
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This today from Michael Weiss:
McCain has not so subtly assailed Obama as an “appeaser” for his stated willingness to sit down with the Iranian leadership about its nuclear weapons program and sponsorship of jihadism in Iraq — and never mind for now if that leadership consists of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Ali Khamenei. Meanwhile, Obama has repeatedly labeled McCain a kind of hyper-Bush militarist of the shoot first, sign treaties later school of foreign policy. McCain has hinted at Chamberlain and Munich, always a histrionic conversation-ender in matters of these sort, and Obama has sheepishly downplayed the Iranian threat by contrasting it against the Soviet one, and, without any hint of irony, indicating Kennedy’s talks with Khrushchev in Vienna, and Reagan’s momentous mini-summit with Gorbachev in Reykjavik as proof that toughness and diplomacy are not mutually exclusive concepts. (One witty editorial in The New York Times reminded Obama that Camelot’s finest hour was not its Austrian kibitz with the Russian premier, an event that laid all the psychological bricks, so to speak, for the erection of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis.)
Oddly though, in their rush to analogize by way of chivvying each other, neither candidate has actually pulled an example relevant to the region of the globe now under discussion. The Middle East, a term coined by Alfred Thayer Mahan, one of McCain’s boyhood idols, is where both American warfare and American diplomacy began in the late 18th century, as our infant republic faced its first post-Revolutionary struggle against the evocatively named Barbary States of the Ottoman Empire.
Jaw-jaw competed with war-war, all right, with the latter eventually winning out.
The regencies of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers (future homes of Muammar Qaddafi, Yasser Arafat, and the Islamic Salvation Front, respectively) had been hosting and sponsoring Islamic piracy since the Middle Ages. Scimitar-wielding corsairs would regularly interrupt the flow of trade and traffic along the coasts of North Africa, seizing European vessels and taking their crews into bondage. Cervantes wrote his first play, in the 16th century, about the dread corsairs, and by the 18th, the American colonies had a minor seagoing presence in the Mediterranean protected by the redoubtable British Navy. But the Crown was reluctant to war against so petty an antagonist, preferring to pay “tribute” to the Barbary States instead, as a shopkeeper would protection money to the mafia. After the U.S. broke away from England and became its own nation, however, the geopolitical dynamics changed, as did the American equanimity with doing business with pirates.
In 1784, corsairs attacked the Betsy, a 300-ton brig that had sailed from Boston to Tenerife Island, about 100 miles off the North African coast, selling her new-made citizens as chattel on the markets of Morocco. The U.S. was not free of its own moral taint of slavery, of course, but it would be impossible to hasten the industrial development that would eventually render the agrarian-plantation economy obsolete if merchant ships could not be assured of safe conduct near the Turkish Porte. Other vessels, such as the Dauphin and Maria, were also seized, this time by Algiers, and the horrifying experiences of their captive passengers relayed back home were the cause for outrage. James Leander Cathcart described the dungeon in which he was being kept as “perfectly dark…where the slaves sleep four tiers deep…many nearly naked, and few with anything more than an old tattered blanket to cover them in the depth of winter.”
In response, Thomas Jefferson, then the Minister to France, suggested a multilateral approach of what we would now term “deterrence.” He asked that Spain, Portugal, Naples, Denmark, Sweden and France enter into a coalition with America to dissuade the regencies from their criminal assaults on life, liberty and the pursuit of international commerce. As Michael Oren, in his magisterial history Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to Present relates, “By deterring, rather than appeasing, Barbary, the United States would preserve its economy and send an unambiguous message to potentially hostile powers.” Jefferson thought it would impress Europe if America could do what Europe had failed to do for centuries and beat back the persistent thuggery of Islamists. “It will procure us respect,” said the author of the Declaration of Independence. “And respect is a safeguard to interest.”
This sober judgment fused the cold calculations of latter-day “realism” with the morality behind revolutionary interventionism: not only would America protect its citizens from plunder and foreign slaveholding; it would ensure that other countries under “Christendom” were similarly protected.
Though Jefferson found a stalwart Continental ally in a former one, the Marquis de Lafayette, France squelched the idea of a NATO made of buckshot and cannon. While waiting for funds that would never come from Congress for the construction of a 150-gun navy, the sage of Monticello resigned himself to further diplomacy with the enemy. In 1785, he dispatched John Lamb, a Connecticut businessman, to secure the release of hostages in Algiers, held by its dynastic sovereign Hassan Dey. Lamb failed ignominiously.
At the same time, John Adams, then minister to England, agreed to receive the pasha of Tripoli, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Ajar, in his London quarters to discuss a possible peace deal. Adams described his interlocutor as a man who looked all “pestilence and war,” a suspicion that was soon confirmed by the pasha’s demand of 30,000 guineas for his statelet, plus a 3,000 guinea gratuity for himself. He also did Adams the favor of estimating what it would cost the U.S. to broker a similar deal with Tunis, Morocco and Algiers — the total price for blackmail would be about $1 million, or a tenth the annual budget of the United States.
Adams was incensed. “It would be more proper to write [of his meeting with ‘Abd al-Rahman] for the… New York Theatre,” he thundered. He agreed with Jefferson that a military response was increasingly likely, but Adams doubted his country’s economic ability to sustain it. For the short term, he thought it better to offer “one Gift of two hundred Thousand Pounds” rather than forfeit “a Million annually” in trade revenue, which the pirates were sure to disrupt. Not long thereafter, Jefferson joined him in London to prevent the “universal and horrible War” and reach an accord with the refractory envoy from Tripoli. Both gentlemen of the Enlightenment, and comrades in revolution, affirmed America’s desire for peace, its respect for all nations, and suggested a treaty of lasting friendship with the regency. ‘Abd al-Rahman listened well, but his reply was one that would shock modern ears less than it did those of the two Founding Fathers:
McCain Explains The Clear Differences
This video is culled from a great post at Gateway Pundit rolling up a great series of McCain comments on Iraq and his criticism of his challengers embrace of defeat.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Obama, War and Political Expediency
[C]haracter matters in war, more so than in any other endeavor. By character I mean attempting to do what one perceives as right based on principles, even if doing so comes at great personal cost. It is the polar opposite of making decisions on the basis of expediency. In that post, I go on to demonstrate why the character of a commander is so critical, and that a person willing to subordinate their principles on the scales of political expediency is not acceptable as a wartime commander in chief. They will be less likely to prosecute the war to successful conclusion and their decisions will be more likely to endanger our soldiers. Read the entire post. . . . If Barack Obama eventually wins the Democratic nomination, his extraordinary rise may be traced to a speech on Oct. 2, 2002, at an antiwar rally in downtown Chicago. That day, Obama, then an obscure state senator, said: "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences." Read the entire article.
Michael Gerson documents how Obama has placed political expediency over principle on the issue of the Iraq War. This transcends the mere question of whether Obama is being less than honest with the American public and goes to the heart of whether we would want such an individual as Commander in Chief.
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I am inclined to take candidates at their word. But that said, even if Obama has no intention of withdrawing our soldiers from Iraq were he to be elected president, would we not want such an individual as commander in chief of our soldiers during time of war? As I have written before:
Within that rubric, Obama clearly falls on the side of a person who has demonstrated that he places political expediency over principles. Michael Gerson, in an excellent article in today's Washington Post, examines Obama's changing positions on the Iraq war and compares them to McCain's steadfast adherence to his principles.
For many Democrats, this prescience has given Obama the aura of a prophet. And this early opposition lends credibility to his current promise: to swiftly end the U.S. combat role in Iraq.
Recently, this pledge was called into question by Obama's now-former adviser, Samantha Power, who said: "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. senator. He will rely upon a plan -- an operational plan -- that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground."
. . . In a new article on Commentary magazine's Web site, Peter Wehner undertakes a thorough examination of Obama's record on Iraq. It is, shall we say, complex.
More than a year after the initial success of the invasion, Obama explained, "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." And he was correct. In July 2004, he argued that America had an "absolute obligation" to stay in Iraq until the country stabilized. "The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster," he said. "It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died."
Two months later, Obama criticized Bush's conduct of the war but repeated that simply pulling out would further destabilize Iraq, making it an "extraordinary hotbed of terrorist activity." And he signaled his openness to the deployment of additional troops if this would make an eventual withdrawal more likely.
In June 2006, Obama still opposed "a date certain for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops." "I don't think it's appropriate for Congress," he said, "to make those decisions about what happens in the field."
By late 2006, as public support for the Iraq war disintegrated and his own political ambitions quickened, Obama called for a "phased withdrawal." When Bush announced the surge, Obama saw nothing in the plan that would "make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that's taking place there" -- a lapse in his prophetic powers.
When Obama announced his presidential candidacy on Feb. 10, 2007, he stated, "I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008." Then in May and again in November, he voted against funding American forces in Iraq.
Wehner concludes that Obama is guilty of "problematically ad-hoc judgments at best, calculatingly cynical judgments at worst." And he notes that while McCain has been consistently right about Iraq in the years since the invasion -- highly critical of the early strategy and supportive of a successful surge -- Obama has been consistently wrong in supporting the early, failed strategy and opposing the surge, even as its success became evident.
. . . [T]here is little doubt that Obama has gained in political support among Democrats as his positions on Iraq have become progressively antiwar. His March 2008 withdrawal deadline -- which is up now -- would have undone the Anbar Awakening, massively strengthened al-Qaeda and increased civilian carnage. . . .
The Iraq war determined the paths for McCain and Obama. But there is a large difference between them. McCain eventually won his nomination because he showed political courage in the face of overwhelming pressure. Obama may eventually win his nomination because he surrendered to that pressure.
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