Recent claims have been made that Saddam Hussein had no connections to terrorists, or terrorism, or more specifically, just not to Al Qaeda or 9/11. Claims have also been made that before the invasion, Iraq was not a haven for terrorists.
Deroy Murdock, a Media Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and contributing Editor at National Review, has accumulated a considerable amount of material on the subject, supplying the sources for all of the items presented. The materials may be reviewed at the site Saddam Hussein’s Philanthropy of Terror.
Go check the material, then sit back, and decide for yourself.
::Update:: Typo and link fixed. Apologies.
Responding to Kerry’s “nuisance” comment from the NYT, President Bush said the following today in Hobbs, NM:
Just this weekend, we saw new evidence that Senator Kerry fundamentally misunderstands the war on terror. Earlier he questioned whether it was really a war at all, describing it as primarily a law enforcement and intelligence-gathering operation instead of a threat that demands the full use of American power.Now, just this weekend, Senator Kerry talked of reducing terrorism to, quote, “nuisance,” end quote, and compared it to prostitution and illegal gambling.
See, I couldn’t disagree more. Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying terrorist networks, and spreading freedom and liberty around the world!(Cheers, applause.)
Even if we destroyed a thousand terrorist networks and spread freedom and liberty around the world one country after another, wouldn’t there always be new terrorist networks somewhere out on the horizon?
Will we know when we’ve finally defeated the abstract notion called “terror,” or will this be a perpetual war?
[by Robin Burk of Winds of Change.NET]
What to do about North Korea? This long blog entry is a summary of a much longer, detailed analysis of what hasn’t worked so far - and why.
Given years of starvation, the brutal if canny dictatorship of Kim Il Jung and the occasional exploding train, why hasn’t the North Korean state collapsed?
Nicholas Eberstadt predicted they would, several years ago. Today, however, North Koreans are no longer starving and they pose a serious threat to international stability. Eberstadt has a thought-provoking article out in Policy Review that examines The Persistance of North Korea. And his conclusions are strongly stated: US aid begun in 1998 not only allowed the NORK regime to survive, it also directly enabled them to proliferate deadly missiles and WMD technologies on the black market. North Korea, he argues, is following a deliberate policy of living off of foreign aid, while bulding a self-sustaining economy based on creating demand for its arms and WMD products by fostering instability around the world.
Before getting into the details (statistics, policy statements), Eberstadt looks for a parallel situation in history to North Korea’s persistance and finds one from a century ago. In what is certainly going to be viewed by some as a provocative charge, he compares the situation with North Korea a few years ago to the Franco-British campaign at Gallipoli in WWI, in which 100,000 lives were lost in a futile attempt to bring down the tottering Ottoman empire — and finds disturbing parallels.
Let’s say it’s 2002 and France is eager to install a democratically-elected, pro-Western government in Iraq but the U.S. is opposed.
How would France have achieved its objective?
(Since this is a “what if,” saying that France would not have wanted to do that is not a proper response. If it makes it easier, you are permitted to assume that the bribes to France had stopped and they wanted to keep the money flowing or similar. Concentrate on what comes before the invasion - if any - instead of concentrating on how the after-invasion would have been handled.)
In the wake of the Beslan atrocity, conventional wisdom holds that Russia faces two impossible demands: on the one hand, the need to offer Chechnya concessions to eliminate “root causes” of the terror, and on the other hand, the need to project strength and avoid the acknowledged pitfalls of appeasement. Armed Liberal has righly eviscerated the IHT’s William Pfaff for identifying concessions (“just give it to them”) as a solution to the problem of terror. At the same time, even Matt Yglesias can get in touch with his inner Kissinger long enough to write about the “amply justified fear that such concessions would only encourage further attacks.” This is a dilemma – but it’s a false one.
In Armed Liberal’s thread on Pfaff, I advanced the following metaphor:
What is “The Bush Doctrine?” Good question.
The Bush Doctrine refers to the core ideas informing American foreign policy since 9/11. It’s the framework that guides American strategies, decisions and debates in the Global War on Terror. Other Presidential doctrines like the Monroe Doctrine and Truman Doctrine have framed key departures from past American practice, and the Bush Doctrine is no different. While it represents an especially sharp shift away from past American approaches to the Mideast, for instance, its changes are far-reaching and extend well beyond that region.
Other Presidential doctrines have gone on to become American policy, remaining largely in force even as the parties in power and their specific tactics changed. America’s 2004 election, however, may revolve around the country’s embrace or rejection of The Bush Doctrine as a set of guiding principles.
Americans should understand The Bush Doctrine before they head to the polls. Others should understand it in order to better understand America’s viewpoint, actions, and choices in the years ahead.
Fortunately, Indepundit’s summary reduces its essentials to simple language. Indepundit’s post has deeper links and background, but let’s recap the key points:
"Something I've noted in quite a number of blogs, however, is lots and lots of problems identified, and plenty of talk about those problems, but typically not much offered in the way of proposed solutions.... I'd be very curious to know what you, or Gary, or Praktike, or others here think we need actually need to do, specifically, to solve the problems western civ is facing.
- How DO we encourage some sort of Islamic reformation (or do we at all, and instead just let them sort it out on their own)?
- How DO we reconcile the tremendous cultural gap between the West and Islam?
- How DO we do a better job encouraging political reform in the Muslim world?
- What can we, as private citizens do, to help all of this along?"
Fair qestions. Comments, other blog posts addressing this issue, et. al. are being compiled via our comments section.
N.B. Just be sure to use this format to make all URLs live...
"Highlighted Text":http://theurl.com/ creates a live link
(which becomes...) Highlighted Text creates a live link
As I have said before here on Winds Iran’s Spoiling Attack, Iran will have nuclear weapons early in the next Presidential Administration. This realization is starting to dawn on Media opinion makers overseas and in America. Unfortunately, the Media don’t want to follow the logic chain to its final conclusion and are missing important signs and portents of what is to come — namely, America’s preparations for the military conquest and occupation campaigns against the Iranian Islamic Republic.
When even the New York Times begins to admit that “diplomacy” has failed, you know we are headed for the final acts of this drama. Fareed Zakaria has just recognized some of the implications of Iran’s nuclear program in his latest column in Newsweek. This is Zakaria’s key passage:
“That’s where things stand now, with the clock ticking fast. If Iran were to go nuclear, it would have dramatic effects. It would place nuclear materials in the hands of a radical regime that has ties to unsavory groups. It would signal to other countries that it’s possible to break the nuclear taboo. And it would revolutionize the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Egypt would feel threatened by Iran’s bomb and would start their own search for nuclear technology. (Saudi Arabia probably could not make a bomb but it could certainly buy necessary technology from a country like Pakistan. In fact, we don’t really know all of the buyers who patronized Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan’s nuclear supermarket. It’s quite possible Saudi Arabia already has a few elements of such a program.) And then there is Israel, which has long seen Iran as its greatest threat. It is unlikely to sit passively while Iran develops a nuclear bomb. The powerful Iranian politician Ali Rafsanjani has publicly speculated about a nuclear exchange with Israel. If Iran’s program went forward, at some point Israel would almost certainly try to destroy it using airstrikes, as it did Iraq’s reactor in Osirik. Such an action would, of course, create a massive political crisis in the region.”
If anything, Zakaria is gravely underestimating the time line America is working with. Articles from London papers in late July make that clear…. Read The Rest…
USA Today editorializes on John Kerry’s plan for Iraq, some pieces of which seem to be missing or unrealistic:
It all sounds so good and plausible and logical. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, so say his advisers, didn’t dwell much on his plans for Iraq at last month’s convention — a turn-away-and-you-miss-them 55 words or so in a 45-minute speech — for good reason. The nation, they say, needed to get acquainted with him as a person. So it was more about biography: presenting the Vietnam War hero, the man who would transfer his courage under fire to the tough role of commander in chief.
That is the norm for conventions. But take a trip to www.johnkerry.com, Kerry’s campaign Web site, and just what a President Kerry might do in Iraq remains elusive.
The reasons have partly to do with the politics of the Democratic Party, which is torn between the many who opposed the war in the first place and the few, like Kerry himself, who supported it. But the result is that with the election just three months away, Kerry has done little to separate his views from those of President Bush.
Both want more international military and financial help, a stable and relatively democratic government, an intensive training of Iraqi security forces and a gradual drawdown of U.S. troops. But who wouldn’t? The question is how to get there.
Kerry’s main difference with Bush, and one he underscores, is that he would be better able to get other countries to help by returning to a more traditional inclusiveness. Involving allies heavily in everything from reconstruction to discussions on Iraq’s future, Kerry says, is the way to bring more international troops to Iraq, lessen anti-U.S. hostility and start bringing U.S. troops home.
Kerry might, indeed, be better received than Bush, who has angered allies by trying to dictate policies from Iraq to global warming. But help in Iraq isn’t likely to be on the way anytime soon — at least not in numbers that would change the U.S. burden.
Since the Cold War, Europe has slashed defense budgets, and NATO already is stretched thin stabilizing Afghanistan. Even if more forces were found, the question remains: How would their inevitably small numbers change the role of the 140,000 U.S. troops already there?
Kerry suggests that they might be used to train Iraqi troops and patrol Iraq’s borders, but that, presumably, would leave the U.S. to fight the insurgency until an Iraqi force could manage on its own.
Nor are Muslim forces the answer. They could even exacerbate the problem. Workers from Muslim countries are already being targeted by hostage-takers.
Politically, the war’s unpopularity in both Europe and the Muslim world gives their leaders powerful political incentives to stay out. Kerry suggests that sharing economic opportunities, such as oil contracts, would bring others in. But so far, the insurgency is driving companies away, even those from areas eager to share in the contracts, such as Turkey.
Bush faces the same issues, of course, but he is forced to defend his actions frequently. Challengers prefer to camp out in the chorus of critics and offer generalized solutions.
Thirty-six years ago, Republican candidate Richard Nixon made a similar pitch for ending the Vietnam War: He slammed the Democrats as incompetent, called on allies to bear more of the burden and suggested that he had a plan to end the war that he couldn’t disclose until he was in office.
Four years later, he still had no answer.
Iraq isn’t Vietnam, and Kerry’s plan isn’t quite as opaque as Nixon’s, but the historical echoes are strong enough to suggest that if Kerry has a credible proposal for Iraq, he needs to fill in the blanks.
JK: The aftermarth of the 9/11 Commission needs to step beyond the beyond the petty partisanship that both Gary Farber and “Sgt. John Stryker” have written about here. In response, I committed Winds of Change.NET to follow-ups that would feature intelligent, non-partisan commentary from both sides of the aisle. Amitai Etzioni is a professor, blogger and founder of The Communitarian Network, a very interesting liberal/centrist group. This open letter was circulated to network members for commentary, and is reproduced here with permission.
He argues that “The focus on past experience — which has other sources, but which is further fostered by the Commission’s hearings — drives the government and the public to focus on two fronts in the war against terrorism while grossly neglecting the third and most important front.”
Dear Mr. Kean,
As a sociologist who has studied American society for the last 40 years, I am deeply concerned about the impact of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States on the public, federal agencies, and the White House. The cumulative and considerable effect seems to be to encourage one and all to better prepare themselves against the kind of attacks that we had faced in the past rather than focusing on the greatest dangers that we next face. The 9-11 Commission hearings so far indicate that the Commission presumes a symmetry between what we lacked last time — for instance, open communication between the CIA and FBI and domestic spying of the kind MI-5 provides in the UK — and what we need to parry major new attacks. Thus, the Commission unwittingly is contributing to a malaise that military historians have long studied: fighting the last war rather than preparing for the next one.
Well, the comments to my two posts below confirm that one shouldn’t blog under the influence of dextromethorphan - cold tablets and la grippe make for fuzzy thinking in my case, it appears.
So let me clarify a few things.
First, I do think we’re at war. But it’s not the traditional ‘mobilize the nation’ kind of war, it’s a war that will, sadly, be long-lasting, relatively low-intensity, and messy. Because it’s that kind of a war, many of the historic responses to a more intensely focussed, limited in time war - like those to World War II - aren’t appropriate.
They aren’t appropriate for two reasons; because they won’t do much good, and because by themselves, they won’t help us win.
Gary Farber’s home blog is Amygdala.
Transcript here of the press conference of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, better known as “the 9/11 Commission.”Will you listen, or will you be partisan?
GOVERNOR KEAN: As we said at the outset, we look back so that we can look forward.Our goal is to prevent future attacks. Every expert with whom we spoke told us an attack of even greater magnitude is now possible and even probable. We do not have the luxury of time. We must prepare and we must act.
JK: On July 9, 2004, Robin Burke published a must-read article on the transformations underway in America’s military and intelligence communities. It was good enough to make our all-time Best Of… category, and the outstanding discussions that Robin led made it even better. Helicopter pilot and Air Force Special Operations Command planning officer John Lance was invited to stitch some of his comment posts into a Guest Blog article.
My Thoughts On Military Transformation, Done Right
by John Lance
As an Air Force special operations guy since 1995, I might be able to shed some light on this whole ‘transformation of the military’ thing. ‘Transformation’ has turned into one of those buzzwords that comes along every couple of years, becomes the trendy new ‘in’ thing, then fades away to be replaced by a new one. 15 years ago, it was ‘Quality’, we were going to use TQM concepts to improve the military and use the ‘peace dividend’ wisely. 10 years ago, it was RMA, ‘Revolution in Military Affairs. 5 years ago, it was ‘Jointness’. Now, it’s ‘Transformation’ and everybody is jumping on the bandwagon.
I definitely think tech has a big role on the battlefield (hell, I’m a SOF helo pilot, I love having Blue Force Tracker, IDAS/MATT, DIRCM and all the other alphabet-soup toys on my Pave Low helicopter). I think the ‘conventional’ military would do well to emulate the way SOF does business. The problem that I see is one of prioritization. All of the money that should be used to ‘transform’ the most important piece of tech on the battlefield, communications, is being wasted on high-priced major weapons programs with huge cost overruns.
People always say you should criticize something if you don’t have a plan. Well, here’s my idea of what the military needs to concentrate on in order to ‘transform’ in the middle of a shooting war:
Instapundit links to Oxblog’s analysis of the Istanbul Summit, and publishes part of an email by reader Eric Bainter, who worked in NATO during the 80s and 90s. Bottom line: given NATO’s gaps in both capabilities and will, how real is the alliance? It’s an important question, and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s recent comments are sobering.
Patrick Belton’s summary of the key issues facing NATO is solid, and he also throws some worthwhile advice for both Bush and Kerry. In some ways, however, he begs the larger question about NATO and its future - and there was one item in particular that could be misleading. We’ll address both issues.
Patrick notes:
“What comes out of this is a capabilities gap. Of 1.4 million soldiers under Nato arms in October 2003, allies other than the US contributed all of 55,000.”
I’ve read over their complete statement on the subject and am in the process of preparing a full point-by-point critique of it, but just based on what I’ve read so far, this reads like a media report rather than a serious piece of analysis.
There are so many omissions of rather important points of data, misleading statements, or claims that are demonstrably false, notably the claim that the al-Qaeda role in the Riyadh National Guard and Khobar Towers bombings was ambiguous or that there is uncertainty as to whether or not al-Qaeda was involved in either the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the proto-9/11 Oplan Bojinka. The frequent references to bin Laden’s public statements on subjects like the Riyadh bombing as providing insight into whether or not he actually ordered the attack is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the commission. The claim that the public signatories of bin Laden’s declaration of war did more for show than anything else is likewise more than enough to make anyone who has carried out a serious study of the Egyptian or Pakistani Islamists grit their teeth.
Gary Farber’s home blog is Amygdala.
The larger issue of current public debate is far greater than torture.
In past wars, presidents have claimed special powers. During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and allowed accused traitors to be tried before military courts. Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an order authorizing the military to intern thousands of Japanese Americans.In those instances, however, the president acted with the approval of Congress. Rarely, if ever, have the president’s advisors claimed an authority to ignore the law as written by Congress.
The legal memo, written last year for the Defense Department and disclosed this week, did not speak for President Bush, but it claimed an extraordinary power for him. It said that as the commander in chief, he had a “constitutionally superior position” to Congress and an “inherent authority” to prosecute the war, even if it meant defying the will of Congress.
We’ve covered Abu Ghraib extensively at Winds of Change.NET, from regular briefing links and the Kurdistan Observer’s perspective and the Abu Ghraib’s horrors under Saddam to:
Time for a legal perspective. Bob Harmon is a former US Army Reserve Military Police officer, and current head of the Marin County California ACLU. As Trent Telenko noted in his recommendation: “Bob has a unique perspective of the problems there from both the military and international legal points of view.” He has published one law review article on the Yamashita command-responsibility case, which is very much on point re: Abu Ghraib, and like Trent he has also covered sexual harassment in the military.
FUBAR: Reflections on the 15-6 Report
by Bob Harmon
The Army’s 15-6 report on the incidents in the Abu Ghraib prison, and at other holding facilities in Iraq, suggest much more than the abuses themselves…
The Context for Analysis
The most important fact in examining this issue is that we are at war. Many of us believe, with good reason, that this war is as dangerous to our country as any war we have fought in the last 100 years. Furthermore, the key in this war is changing the minds of those who would commit terrorist acts against us or those who would employ or aid them. This is extraordinarily important. given the newly appreciated combination of two factors: the potential capability of a few terrorists to cause vast damage possible with weapons likely to be available to terrorists if we lose this war ( nuclear weapons, possibly with additives like cobalt to create much worse fallout than normal, contagious, possibly genetically engineered biological agents, and less deadly weapons such as dirty bombs, non-contagious biological weapons, and chemical agents like “nerve gas”); and, the existence of loosely coupled terrorist movements which have the intent to cause such damage and are willing to sacrifice their lives in the process.
This situation has never before existed in the history of man.
Even those who do not believe the war situation to be as dangerous or widespread as stated above should understand that many American’s lives are at daily risk in Iraq.
1) Why this scandal is an important issue.
2) The perpetration of and the punishment for those acts, including the punishment of the appropriate members of the chain of command.
3) Whether there was a cover-up for political reasons.
4) The release of the photographs and the failure to prevent that leak.
5) Damage Control in the War on Terror
6) The Need for Interrogation
Why This Scandal is Important
The primary importance of this issue is the damage to the War on Terror from the release of the photographs. Because the Middle Eastern Islamic world counts on rumors (and hostile satellite TV) for information due to the suppression of news by its non-democratic regime, these pictures will validate any rumors of
American abuse of Arabs (or Persians or other Muslims) of bad intentions of Americans towards Iraq, of lack of American respect for Arabs. This will validate those who spread those rumors, granting additional weight to other rumors (we are there only to steal their oil, the Jews are behind this and want to wipe out Islam or drink Islamic blood, etc – the standard anti-Semitic and anti-American libels), our women are disrespectful (which, of course, they are by Islamic standards, but that one picture of the female guard pointing and mocking a male prisoner’s genitals hits right at the heart of this issue in a way very damaging to us).
In the absence of the pictures, this is not an important issue. It is a case of what happens in war – rare instances of serious misbehavior by soldiers, usually properly punished, as is in process now. It is rare because the American Armed Forces are normally very professional, but is impossible to prevent completely. Ironically, the very rarity of this action in Vietnam is one reason that Vietnam Veterans harbor much ill will towards John Kerry, because he claimed that we did far worse acts, and that they were normal, daily, and approved by many levels of command. Already, Kerry partisans are using this event to justify his 1971 statements.
Military Justice System
As far as I know, the military justice system was and is working. I don’t know the details, but those who are analyzing it need to do so without the hindsight bias of knowing that the photographs were released (since at the time of the investigation they were not). Furthermore, we must recognize that the military justice system does offer protections to soldiers (not as many as the civilian system), and regardless of their actions, those soldiers have to be afforded due process. Given the circumstances, the process needs to be reasonably transparent (consistent with our objectives in the War on Terror). Whether it should be fully transparent should depend on the impact that would have on the war, not the desires of the press or politicians either defending or opposing the administration.
Cover-up for Political Reasons
There does not appear to be a political cover-up, although I suspect some levels of cover-ups will be found in the Pentagon. The investigations were announced long ago. If the announcements did not include details, that is appropriate for two reasons: the right of even those sadistic guards to justice, and more importantly in this case, the damage the details would cause to the war effort by their impact on the Middle Eastern population.
Release of the Photographs
This entire investigation should have been classified at the top-secret level, because the resulting damage is at a level corresponding to the release of top-secret information. Furthermore, it would have allowed the proper punishment of whoever gave this to the press, which is severe for that class of information (although whistle-blower laws might have prevented the prosecution). Much of the judgment of whether classification was appropriate depends on who knew about the existence and amount of dissemination of the photographs.
However, given the irresponsible and gotcha nature of our press, this classification, had the details leaked out, would of course been criticized as a political cover-up and would have created even a larger scandal. Given the irresponsible nature of the Democrats and Kerry, much damage to our war effort would have been made from this “scandal.” Kerry is already capitalizing on this event.
Whoever released those photographs to the press caused the nation enormous damage. It is important that the individual and any in the chain who passed the information rather than reporting it to appropriate authorities be tracked down and punished (and that includes any authorities who were notified and failed to take appropriate action). Those individuals, probably without realizing it, caused the nation as much damage as the original perpetrators. They should be suitably punished. Furthermore, anyone in the command structure who knew, or should have known, of the existence and characteristics of those photographs is guilty of negligence if they failed to take appropriate action to ensure the secrecy of the photographs – including notifying their superiors and properly controlling their subordinates.
The way those photos traveled through the press needs to be reported, although I don’t know if it will. Those who chose to publish the pictures first are deserving of the condemnation of the American people, as they contributed immense damage to the war effort. The press’ job should not be to report everything, but to act responsibly. Somebody did not. Whether that somebody was American press or not is of course important, in any case.
Sixty Minutes is apparently the first source in the media. Americans who understand that we are at war should now understand that Sixty Minutes is
irresponsible and has gravely damaged the nation. I would argue that they and their sponsors should be boycotted
Of course, Sixty Minutes has the First Amendment right to produce programming which results in the deaths of Americans, but we have the right, as citizens whose lives and those of our loved ones are now at increased risk to hold them accountable for their incredible irresponsibility.. Sixty Minutes did not have a duty to publicize those pictures and should not have done so. The arrogance of many in modern media is shown by their <a
href=”http://www.tinyvital.com/BlogArchives/000292.html”>Code of Ethics and how they actually behave regarding it.
The press’ job should not be to report everything, but to act responsibly.
The only excuse for the actions of Sixty Minutes would be an absolutely certain knowledge that the pictures would be released anyway. Even then, they had a duty, as American citizens, to notify the Administration of what was coming, in order to allow the United States to minimize the damage to our war effort. Political issues should not come into this. They should have treated this revelation the same as if they had discovered a bomb about to go
off in a military installation, except in this case, it would be a very, very big bomb.
This leads to Rumsfeld. There is no question in my mind that Rumsfeld owes America an apology. That he failed to do so in yesterday’s press conference was
wrong and worrisome. The failure to apologize was only justifiable if the apology would have damaged our war effort (which I doubt). Rumsfeld is ex-military and knows the principle that he is responsible for the failures of his subordinates. He should show it.
Rumsfeld knew that photographs existed. If he knew the nature of them and failed to take measures to assure they wouldn’t be released, he should be fired or if he is really that critical to the war error, a watchdog should metaphorically be strapped to his ankle to compensate for his obvious lack of judgment in the areas of information warfare and politics.
Bush has chosen to publicly punish Rumsfeld by reprimand. That may be sufficient. It is, for an administration that normally does not go public against its
members, a severe punishment. You don’t replace wartime leaders if you don’t have to, but let’s see the facts – to use a trite but useful phrase: “what did
he know and when did he know it,” and what did he do about it.
A careful reading of Bush’s comments today shows that he plans to have Rumsfeld remain on his cabinet, but he did not say he would remain defense secretary.
Damage Control in the War on Terror
President Bush did the right thing by appearing on Arabic television - assuming that what was actually broadcast was his entire appearance and it was properly translated. Whether he should have directly apologized or not I would leave to those who understand the various Arab cultures. I would not, by the way, listen to the Middle Eastern “experts” at most universities, as that field has been taken over by a single ideology which is anti-American.
As an aside, and as I have suggested before, diplomatic or covert action needs to be taken against media outlets in the middle east which are consistently anti-American and which lie about us. We should not do this to Iraqi media, as that would be counterproductive to the creation of democracy, unless those media directly incite violence, as Sadr’s did. But the opinions of individuals in the region are critical to the war effort. The stations which intentionally inflame our enemies with what they know to be lies, and whose reporters are conveniently present at ambushes where our soldiers are killed, are objectively agents of the enemy, are very harmful to us, and appropriate action needs to be taken against them.
If the administration is not actively working to reduce the damage from Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Iranian stations broadcasting in Arabic, then it is failing in an important theatre of this multi-theater war.
The Need for Interrogation
In a guerilla war and counter-terrorism operations, intelligence is extremely important and hard to get. On the one side, we need to encourage people to come forth, and that is done by winning trust and providing rewards and safety. Read the old Chief Wiggles blog from the time he was working in the Green Zone as an intelligence officer to get a good perspective on this.
At the same time, captured hostiles need to be interrogated. A few of the actions shown in those photographs may have been appropriate measures, if done in the right circumstances, for the right reason, under the control of well trained interrogation experts.. Every indication is that this was not the case. Furthermore, most of the actions are not permissible or, for that matter, effective. Although intelligence personnel may have been involved, they didn’t provide proper supervision or were themselves out of control.
We need to make sure that our ability to carry out hostile interrogations using powerful techniques is not lost due to this event. That would greatly increase the strategic damage to our cause, and would be the sort of improper political restrictions that hurt us during the Cold War.
It is the nature of men that when faced with an impending doom, they will do something, anything, to avert it, even if that brings doom down upon themselves sooner and more surely then if they had done nothing. Such was the case in ancient Greek tragedies. So it was with the World War Two Nazis and Imperial Japanese. So it is now with Iran’s Mullahocracy in their “spoiling attack” on America in Iraq.
Dan Darling, Michael Ledeen, and Wretchard of Belmont Club (here and here) have all recently gone on documenting at length the size and scope of the Iranian and Iranian hired Syrian attacks in Iraq, and in Ledeen’s case what needs to be done about it. What they haven’t done is explain the wider pattern in terms of the Iranian objectives for their spoiling attack.
In the comments section of “Daily Kos - Again”, Amy Alkon asks:
“…as a sort of common-sense-loving moderate…I keep waiting for somebody to offer me a reasonable explanation of the following:The US is attacked in the most major way ever on our shores, by Osama Bin Ladin and co. We respond, not by decimating Osama and his evil followers, but by waging war on…Iraq! ….Come on — somebody answer me - not with defending the current administration in mind as you write every word - but by persuading me with the (supposed) common sense behind what we did.”
That’s an in-depth question, Amy, and it demands an in-depth answer. So let’s look at the situation as if you were in charge back in 2002. Here’s your Presidential briefing. Now consider what you want to do.
Iraqi bloggers and others report that Al Jazeera and Al Arabia present many inflamatory stories. Those stations are acting as propaganda arms for the anti-American and pro-Jihadist forces.
We are dealing with people who have a value system in which pride and shame are very important. Al Jazeera et. al. play upon this to create rage.
Our first amendment rights do not extend to foreign, hostile operations. These stations are acting as enemy combatants. It is time to fix this problem.
.
We are in a war about ideologies - democracy vs. radical Islam. The middle east has long run on rumors, and the worse rumors are often the ones that spread the farthest. We can win all the battles we need in Iraq, and yet create recruits for Al Qaeda as a result of biased and inflamatory news coverage.
If we are serious about this war, why haven’t we corrected this situation with Al Jazeera and Al Arabia? We know that some Al Jazeera personnel were on Saddam’s payroll. Who knows what other malevolent forces are exerting similar influence on them.
We should be able to covertly take over those operations by the use of sufficient incentives with their host governments or standard intelligence techniques to turn their staff into our assets, by blackmail, bribery, threats, sparrows, or whatever.
In the worst case, we should block the satellite uplinks using electronic counter-measures or pressure the host governments or the satellite owners into stopping the broadcasts.
Instead, we have finally put up our own Arabic channel. It’s a good idea and long overdue, but it is not enough. Good propaganda should be able to significantly improve the situation in the middle east. It should also be able to teach about democracy, teach about the United States and other allies, and paint our ideological opponents in the worst light. It should be used to encourage the Iranian unrest. It can inform people of how to make enormous amounts of money by giving us good intelligence. It should even be able to use true Islamic scholars to attack the more militant Islamic interpretations which are used by our enemies.
Do we have good propagandists? We need people with the quality and methods of Radio Free Europe. I’m afraid we might have Voice of America types, who have never been that effective.
by Armed Liberal
Lots of folks are pointing to the new TNR blog, Iraq’d. I’m of two minds on it (as I am on many things), so let me hit the three points that define the gap.
The blog opens with a strong statement:
If you’re a pro-war liberal, chances are you’re probably feeling burned right now. The case for the Iraq war rested on three pillars: The danger of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, with the clock ticking on a nuclear capability; the danger of Saddam Hussein’s connections to Al Qaeda; and the human rights imperative of deposing one of the world’s most despicable regimes and assisting newly-freed Iraqis in building a democracy. Well, it turns out that Saddam didn’t have much in the way of WMD, or even ongoing WMD programs. And it also appears that his ties to Al Qaeda were tenuous at best. So all that’s left for the war rationale is the human-rights-and-democracy argument, which for liberals is intuitively appealing (or should be).
Uh, no. In fact, hell no.
The case for the war in Iraq was made on September 11, 2001, in New York City.
Donald Sensing and Steven Den Beste discuss al-Qaeda's strategy. Den Beste thinks they don't have one, beyond "waiting for God" to ensure their victory. Rev. Sensing, drawing on both his military and religious backgrounds, explains that this doesn't mean what Steven thinks it does.
A very good and illuminating exchange, which Ray extends rather nicely.
Last week, Armed Liberal wondered if getting the Russians involved in Iraq might help the U.S. position and put more boots on the ground. Our readers replied, mostly in the negative. News from the Fridge even kicks in this StrategyPage link called "The Coming Peacekeeper Disaster in Iraq". Doesn't sound good. At the same time, it's undeniable that U.S. forces are stretched very thin right now.
If more international forces aren't the solution, what is?
P. sums up a good deal of the debate over this issue in "Iraq and Force Needs", and Melana Zyla Vickers does an equally good job of summing up a few things the U.S. could do to relieve the soldiers' burden. An official answer came in Dan's Winds of War last week, as CENTCOM chief Gen. Abizaid and Donald Rumsfeld provided some details regarding the number of Iraqis mobilized thus far during one of their press conferences. It's probably more than you think.
So, there you have it. The debate, the options, and the official position. What do you think?
Three authors. Three in-depth perspectives. Three mental toolsets. All relevant. Welcome to the winds of Change.NET Krell Mind Machine...
Michael Totten has an excellent article up on Tech Central Station. Suicide bombing is spreading, he says, and it's time to ask ourselves honestly: Is it possible to support a Palestinian state without encouraging terrorists elsewhere?
"There is a moral case to be made for a Palestinian state. There's a strategic and "realist" case to be made for it, too. But it is trumped by the need to contain a fast-spreading barbarism. No country on Earth should appease or surrender to terror. Peace at any price has a price tag too high. A devastating wave of suicide attacks in Moscow, London, New York, and Bombay is a real possibility and would distort and deform our societies beyond recognition."He thinks a 2-state solution is possible, but the "Roadmap" isn't the way there. As Totten notes, and this really is the crux of the whole issue:
"The trouble with the road map isn't that Palestinians won't cooperate. The problem is there's no punishment if they don't."Instead, Michael proposes a sequence that's far more likely to produce serious results. He makes a powerful case on an important subject... perhaps the best-made case I've yet seen re: the Roadmap and what should replace it.
CNN is practically throwing a virtual tickertape parade for Iraqi doctors for attending to POW/hostage Jessica Lynch's injuries and keeping her fed, cared for, and informed.
You know, like the Geneva Convention demands. Odd how CNN isn't falling over itself to praise the Coalition for its beyond-the-call-of-duty treatment of Iraqi POWs.
Let's see what was done:
Doctors and nurses at Nasiriya's main hospital say they defied senior Iraqi military leaders and Baath Party officials to care for a wounded American soldier who was held prisoner there for more than a week.Ahmed Muhsin, a resident doctor at the hospital, said he and other medical workers smuggled food and news of advancing coalition forces to Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was under constant guard while being treated for two broken legs, a broken arm and a fractured back.
There was no immediate way to independently confirm the doctors' claims.
Saad Abd Alrazaq, a hospital administrator, said Lynch was in shock when she arrived at the hospital. He said that she was given plasma and two transfusions, and that he gave her clothes from his wife's closet because she was covered by little more than a sheet.
"She had no family in Iraq, and we felt we were her family," Alrazaq said. "We would visit her often, sometimes with my children."
Lynch and a number of other soldiers from the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, along with several from other units, were listed as missing in action after Iraqi forces ambushed their convoy March 23 near Nasiriya. The 19-year-old native of Palestine, West Virginia, a supply clerk with the 507th, was rescued April 1 in a commando raid on the hospital.
Lynch's rescuers also discovered the bodies of nine other missing soldiers.
Muhsin said Lynch's guards beat her and tried to stop doctors from checking on her more than twice a day, but that he and others on the staff would give her biscuits, oranges, milk and medicine from their own limited supplies.
"She suffered from [the soldiers]," he said. "Largely she suffered from them."
The hospital staff said they thought it was their duty as Muslims to give Lynch the best possible treatment. Islam, they said, teaches that prisoners of war should be treated well.
If I recall correctly, the Iraqi Information Minister (aka Baghdad Bob) shouted that all American POw's would be treated according to the Geneva Convention. According to the Iraqi delegate to the Arab League Summit that coincided with the conflict, the claim was made that the Iraqis would treat all prisoners by what they said a higher standards, which they claimed was the Islamic way of treating prisoners of war. (Never mind the fact that portions of the Koran hold infidel captives in conflict as holding zero status and their Islamic captors are free to kill, maim, rape, and mutilate them)
If it weren't for the doctors managing to circumvent the Ba'athist guards and attend to Jessica, she would have been afforded neither.
Compare that with how the Iraqi captives have been treated. First real meals the've gotten since Allah knows when. No fear of being shot by their officers or loyalty-checking fedayeen.
Just wait to see who Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and the UN complain about.
The U.S. military keeps working on ways of keeping their warfighters safe. Jim Dunnigan looks at how recent innovations have helped cut down on infantry casualties.
How Liberals, Old Europe and the Media Will Attempt to Tell Us We Really Lost
(Continued from an earlier series)
Those who opposed any intervention in Iraq aren't going to go away and play nice once it's over. This is a look at some of the ways they will attempt to discredit the success of the Coalition forces in Iraq.
Attack #2: Too many civilians were killed.
Much has been made about the numbers of civilian casualties that have occurred since the war began. Baghdad, of course, loves civilian casualties because they make great television. Residents of Baghdad were even threatened with banishment and confiscation of property if they left the city during the war. On the flip side, the Coalition does not like coverage of civilian casualties for obvious reasons. In either event, after the war Iraq supporters will continue to throw out various statistics on civilian casualties in an attempt to imply that the Coalition forces were either deliberately attacking civilians or allowing their deaths through shoddy or careless use of munitions. Below is an historical comparison of the current casualty figures from the Iraq war to several well-known bombing campaigns in World War 2.
This is not to minimize by any means the deaths of civilians in war. However, the case cannot be maintained that the Coalition, either through intent or recklessness, is targeting civilians in Iraq. If they were, Iraqi civilian casualty figures would be ten or twenty times higher at a minimum, and most of Baghdad, Basra or any other city in Iraq would be all but leveled. Keep in mind the figures from the various bombings in World War 2 cited above were deliberate actions accomplished before "smart weapons" even existed. In addition, the aircraft in World War 2 carried far less ordinance on a per-aircraft basis and were shot down more often due to enemy action due to the methods of bombing. They were required to fly over the target city itself on very strict flight paths at low speed, thus increasing time on target and thus their vulnerability. With the advent of cruise missiles, laser-guided bombs and such, modern aircraft overfly the actual target only rarely, and the development of stealth technology - elements of which are built into more than just the F-117A or the B-2 - renders those that do far less vulnerable than their WW2 brethren. This says nothing about the improvement of lethality in modern weapons.
So if the Allies in World War 2 were able to inflict tens or even hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties using far less sophisticated aircraft and weapons, it is simply unsupportable that the Coaltion today is either recklessly or deliberately causing civilian casualties in Iraq.
The Washington Post Pentagon reporter Tom Ricks has (a bit) more information on the Marine commander who was relieved of duty that we linked to earlier.
Ricks reports:
Col. Joe W. Dowdy has been the officer in charge of the 1st Marine Regiment, one of the three major Marine Corps ground units fighting toward Baghdad. His regiment is reported to have been used to pin down Republican Guard units in the city of Kut while the other two major units, the 5th and 7th Marines, crossed the Tigris River on Thursday and raced toward Baghdad. Those units encountered heavy ground fighting yesterday on the outskirts of the capital and had at least three M1 tanks disabled by Iraqi fire.[...]
Dowdy's immediate superior, Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, has the reputation of being an extremely aggressive commander, which is regarded as a plus in the Corps.
[...]
"Jim Mattis was one of my battalion commanders during the first Gulf War," said retired Marine Gen. Carlton Fulford. "I have great confidence in his judgment. I know of Joe Dowdy by reputation, but not personally. He has a fine reputation."
The key to the situation, some officers suggested, is likely Mattis's views on how forcefully a unit should act in combat. "Jim Mattis is a very aggressive commander -- we wouldn't want it any other way," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Jack Klimp.
Most unusual.
In today's New York Times military historian Yagil Henkin looks at Israel's experience with urban warfare and how it might apply to the battle of Baghdad:
With American forces beginning their assault on Baghdad, their commanders would do well to take a close look at the hard-learned lessons of Israel's experience with urban combat.Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli antiterrorist strike last spring, generated plenty of controversy, but it also supplies a good model for military tactics. After a series of Palestinian suicide bombings, the Israel Defense Forces entered several densely populated West Bank cities, including Nablus and Jenin. Within just a week, Israel gained control of each of them.
Twenty-nine Israeli soldiers were killed in these battles, all but six of them in the battle for the Jenin refugee camp. Although the number of Palestinian deaths is, of course, hotly debated, the Israeli estimate is 132 killed in Nablus and Jenin. Compared with casualty figures from urban combat in recent years -- such as the fighting in Chechnya, where Russia's army lost at least 1,500 soldiers during its first assault on Grozny -- these numbers are astonishingly low.
Vietnam was the first "television war." We are in the logical extension of that now. Nightly we watch recaps and live shots of actual battlefields. Two days ago we watched the rescue of a soldier shortly after it happened. And at the same time people are criticizing the speed the coalition is progressing at. Were expectations too high? Probably. But do we also have too short of attention spans? Probably.
I think a lot of the problem is the glamourizing and rushing of history. It's hard for us to understand the time it took for past wars to take place. We watch war movies in a few hours without understanding the build-up, the reinforcing and strategic complications of the war that enabled the "action" to take place. But the problem is that no one wants to watch hours of cargo ships moving in and being unloaded. For example: "Saving Private Ryan" lasts 170 minutes. A lengthy movie by today's standards and filled with near constant action. However, if the movie showed the buildup and action proportionally, the buildup would last approximately 165 minutes with the action lasting about 5 minutes.
But audiences don't want to sit through 165 minutes of ships unloading and those are the same audiences who don't want to sit through 4 days of resupplying troops. But without the buildup, there would never have been a D-Day. And without supplies to the troops there would never be a Battle of Baghdad.
From this:
...Nearly two weeks into the campaign, the Brits are managing somehow to fit in to Iraq. It's hot and dirty, there's no beer and not all the natives are friendly. But they will make the best of it - "crack on", as everyone around here says... The same cannot be claimed for the Americans. The further they advance, the less comfortable they seem with their surroundings, a condition that can have terrible results, as the killing of women and children at a checkpoint shows [? --ed.]...The British troops, by contrast, seem remarkably well disposed towards the Iraqis, even though among those smiling and cadging cigarettes are men who would be happy to kill them... British soldiers seem to have a natural sympathy for the poor foreigners they habitually find themselves having to sort out and a mild interest in the political and cultural forces that created the mess. If they are in a place long enough, they play football with the local men and sleep with and sometimes marry their sisters [link --ed.].
The American troops whom I have come across appear uninterested in their immediate surroundings. They do, though, pay attention to their leader and seem to accept the White House version of what this is all about. They talk without embarrassment about honour and duty. The boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne [link --ed.] feel these things as profoundly as any American, but they would die of shame before they uttered the words...
Many, probably most, Iraqis are willing to be persuaded that the Americans are in their country as liberators, not invaders. To do that, American soldiers have to not only curb their trigger-happy ways, but also come out from behind their Ray-Bans. They must start to recognise when it is time to forget the rule book and think of local sensibilities. They should learn to do simple things like waving at the children and saying hello in Arabic to their elders. In short, they must work harder to show that they belong to the human race...
Beneath the dollops of anti-Americanism and the British jingoism, he does have somewhat of a point.
"Nuclear Genocide? Piercing Depleted Uranium Myths," by Ronald Bailey
One of the more hysterical claims of the Left in recent years is that the United States, because it used anti-tank shells made with depleted uranium (DU) to expel Iraq from Kuwait, has caused numerous and massive birth defects in Iraqi babies. People such as the playwright Harold Pinter claim that many Iraqi babies have been born horribly deformed with blood gushing from every orifice.
Pinter claimed that radiation levels in Iraq are extremely high and I countered that it seems absurd that an anti-tank shell, even hundreds of them, could raise the general radiation level in an area the size of Iraq. Also, if there are deformities among babies how come they're not being reported in Kuwait? After all, we expelled Iraq from Kuwait and many of the shells would have landed in Kuwait.
Well, it turns out we both missed the issue with the anti-tank shells. It's not radiation levels -- I was right about that -- but the DU dust that comes off the shell as it pierces the tank. Unlike standard anti-tank munitions, an anti-tank shell becomes sharper as it pierces the tank. In the process DU dust is spread within about a 50-yard radius of the impact area.
So, does the dust from these shells lead to cancers and birth defects in babies as Pinter suggests? The evidence says no. Iraq started making the claim of birth defects several years ago and when the World Health Organization (WHO) offered to investigate, Iraq refused to allow it. There have been studies done and none have concluded that DU causes birth defects or leads to an increased risk of cancer. The Pentagon thinks, as pointed out below, that Iraq simply wanted the shells outlawed so they wouldn't have to face them in a war again.
It still amazes me that some people such as Pinter, Pilger and Chomsky will believe any nonsense spouted by Iraq -- a closed society where information is under state control -- but won't believe our own government -- which is open to public scrutiny -- even when studies are done to back up their assertions. I can only conclude that they have made up their minds that the United States is evil and will accept, unthinkingly, any suggestion that supports their thesis.
"The United States has conducted two nuclear wars. The first is against Japan in 1945, the second in Kuwait and Iraq in 1991." So declares activist Helen Caldicott in a half-page ad placed by a Japanese anti-nuclear group in the March 24 New York Times. If you didn't hear about the Persian Gulf Hiroshima, it's because she's actually referring to depleted uranium (DU) munitions. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark says that these "are an unacceptable threat to life, a violation of international law and an assault on human dignity." Using them results in a "deterioration of genetic health" and "genocide," declares anti-nuke activist Tim Judson. The Green Party claims that they are "the likely cause of numerous health problems in thousands of Gulf War veterans and their families, including cancer, leukemia, tumors, and high rates of birth defects because of genetic damage."DU is 1.7 times denser than lead, and munitions encased in it are self-sharpening, enabling them to drill 25 percent further through armor. (Armor-piercing tungsten alloy munitions, by contrast, blunt and mushroom when they hit.) This self-sharpening process produces DU dust, most of which falls to the ground within 50 yards of its impact. Such weapons are used most frequently against enemy tanks. DU is also used to clad many U.S. armored vehicles, thus making them largely impenetrable to conventional anti-tank munitions. It is also used for counterweights in airplanes to help keep them level, and as radiation shielding to protect health care workers from exposure to medical X-rays.
DU is a by-product—activists would say a waste product—of the process of separating the highly fissionable U-235 isotope out of uranium to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. It is called "depleted" because most of the lighter uranium isotopes, U-234 and U-235, are removed from natural uranium, leaving behind uranium consisting of 99.8 percent of U-238. The result is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium.
[....]
If DU is not notably harmful to human health or the environment, why the fierce opposition to it? A lot of it has to do with conventional anti-nuclear activism: Some people automatically object to anything that hints of nuclear radiation. Second, some of the opposition is the result of a successful Iraqi disinformation campaign claiming that exposure to DU had caused thousands of cancers and birth defects to innocent civilians. When the WHO offered to investigate the claims, Iraqi officials flatly refused the offer. Other than trying to gain international sympathy, Pentagon officials argue that one of the real aims of the Iraqi campaign was to get DU munitions outlawed internationally so they would not have to face them again.
Retired US Army Major and Methodist minister Donald Sensing compares the suicide attacks of the Japanese kamikazi in WWII and those of Islamists of various stripes.