War on Islamism

Quick, While the LIVs Are Distracted…..

tiredoflibbs4 Comments

While the LIV’s focus is on obamacare, Putin, Gwenyth Paltro’s split, the missing flight and other nonsense, CIA’s Libyan station chief put’s to rest that the Obama administration’s talking point that the whole thing started as a protest.

The chief stated at hearings there was no protest and a result of terrorist attacks on the embassy.

What difference does it make at this point in time? -thanks Hillary.

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/31/cia-ignored-station-chief-in-libya-when-creating-t/

UPDATE:

While the LIVs are distracted Democrats scramble for damage control. Pro Gun Control Democrat State Senator Leland Yee Arrested for GUN TRAFFICKING among other corrupt acts, for campaign contributions.

Charges include:

  • Clandestine meetings with an undercover agent to secure as much as $2 million in high-power weaponry in exchange for payments to Yee and his political campaign. In one of those meetings, Yee assures the agent, who holds himself out to be East Coast Mafia, “Do I think we can make some money? I think we can make some money.”
  • Deals with an agent posing as an Atlanta businessman backing a fictitious software company called Well-Tech, seeking Yee’s help, including an attempt to secure a contract with the state Department of Public Health in exchange for a $10,000 check for the secretary of state campaign,
  • Offering to help an agent posing as an Arizona medical marijuana industry insider looking to expand into California. Yee, again in exchange for campaign contributions, introduced the undercover agent to unidentified legislators and promised political support, particularly if elected to statewide office.
  • An agreement, at the urging of the undercover agent through Jackson, for Yee to honor the Ghee Kung Tong, the organization of suspected Chinese crime kingpin Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, with a proclamation, despite the senator’s worries about Chow being a “gangster.” Yee signed the proclamation in exchange for a campaign check from the agent.

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_25453464/leland-yee-corruption-case-state-senator-faces-uphill

Little mention in the media.  Meanwhile, HE STILL GETS PAID WHILE SUSPENDED.  It is interesting to note that his bail was HALF that of the so-called creator of the video that “caused the protests in Benghazi”…. only in California.

Lessons from Lost Wars in Afganistan and Iraq

Mark Noonan5 Comments

With the capture of Fallujah by al-Qaeda-linked Islamists and the clear deterioration of Afghanistan, it is time we both admit these wars have been lost, and draw some conclusions about them.

1.  Get out of the UN.  It was set up to keep the peace; peace was broken less than two years after it was set up when India and Pakistan went to war.  An organization to keep global peace which can’t stop a major war from happening is useless.  All the UN does these days is add an extra layer of bureaucracy on to the world and hamper quick, decisive action.  Kowtowing to the pretense that the UN can keep the peace just puts American policy in a bind.  Before we can do anything with UN approval, we have to get our enemies in China and Russia to agree to it – and if you think the hard heads running those countries will ever operate altruistically then you are certifiable.  When it suits them, they’ll foster wars, civil wars, insurrections, death, slaughter and disease – and prevent us from getting UN approval to stop it.  Worthless organization.  Corrupt and expensive, as well.  Better to do away with it.

2.  We must never hazard our armed forces in battle again except as a result of a declared state of war against a specific nation or group of nations.  The fatal flaw in our post-9/11 operations – and for this Bush bears a great deal of responsibility – was the fact that we didn’t declare wars.  We made terrorist groups and trivial individuals like bin Laden the primary enemy, rather than grappling with the real problem: all terrorist and Islamist activity is the result of State-sponsorship.  The men who flew the planes in to the World Trade Center were not free agents – various nations had a hand in setting the stage.  Even if they knew nothing of the pending attack, nations like Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Saudi Arabia had provided money, weapons, training, safe havens and other services to the Islamist group(s) which planned and carried out the attacks.  By making “terrorism” the thing to fight against and bin Laden the enemy, we essentially let the real enemy off the hook.

We know who the bad actors are in this – we know which nations routinely sponsor terrorism and Islamism.  If we are attacked by Islamist terrorism, then we should go to war with the nations which cause the problem.  Declared war – no “we’re not at war but we’re bombing the heck out of things” sort of quasi-war we’ve engaged in since Korea.  There are diplomatic and economic reasons why we don’t declare war – I’m fully aware of that.  Being at war poses a host of problem.  But it also clarifies things.  Let’s the enemy know our intentions are serious and they’d better get surrendering or at least making funeral arrangements.

3.  Force the enemy to surrender – and the more humiliating the surrender, the better.  Humble their pride, beat them to the ground.  Hammer them with more power than they can well imagine, hold nothing back.

4.  Be quick about it.  Getting out of the UN will help in this – it was because we felt we had to diddle around with the UN that we didn’t go in to Iraq until 2003 rather than mid-2002.  Don’t sit around trying to rebuild things after one nation or area of an enemy nation is conquered – other than maintaining the infrastructure we need for further military operations, the local population is on its own.  And if the local population can’t be trusted, then kick them out of where we are.  Don’t leave our troops at the mercy of people who want to plant road side bombs – once one goes off, everyone within 10 miles of that road is moved more than 10 miles away from it.

5.  Once the enemy has surrendered, be sure we take things to compensate us for having to go through the trouble.  Let the world know that not only will challenging the United States lead to massive death and destruction, but reparations payments and/or cession of territory to the United States.  No more, “go ahead and fight us and we’ll not only be gentle in fighting back, but we’ll rebuild you once we’re done”.

6.  And, thus, no nation-building.  We go in, fight, force them to surrender, take what we want, and then we leave.

All of this might seem harsh, but I believe it is less harsh than ten-year-long, inconclusive military-economic-political operations which are hamstrung by politics.  Had we declared war on the morrow of 9/11 upon Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya, the whole thing probably would have been over by 2004 with a complete American victory, our enemies surrendering to us, humiliated and paying us reparations until 2024.  Probably fewer dead, overall – and us at peace for the last 10 years.

Edward Snowden, NSA Leaker: Hero or Fool?

Mark Noonan32 Comments

Well, he outed himself – a former CIA and NSA employee until just recently working as a contractor for the NSA is the man who leaked the spying plan.  Now, what to make of it?

I’m not sure if he’s a hero or a fool – but he does have some guts because at the very least, Uncle Sam is going to want to drop on him like a ton of bricks.  Whether or not that happens remains to be seen – now that he’s self-outed and not easily detainable by the government, things might not go so bad for him.  What he’s done, in strictly legal terms, probably carries a lot of “20 to life” terms.  We’ll have to see how this plays out.

I’ve been pondering this whole mess and I’ve come to the conclusion that the ultimate problem we have is a misunderstanding of just what the threat is.  The government – especially under Obama, who is desperate to propagate the myth that Islamist extremism poses no great threat to the United States – is engaging in massive intelligence gathering in a desperate effort to stave off terrorist attacks before they happen.  Of course, we have seen how well this works in Boston.  Now, of course the government probably has thwarted a large number of attempted attacks – but can’t tell us about them because to do so would reveal sources and thus jeopardize ongoing efforts to keep after the terrorists.  But, also, Boston does show that even the most massive intelligence gathering leaves gaps.  In other words, no matter how much data they mine on us and everyone else in the world, they will never catch all the terrorists – and the terrorists will keep after us, forever, unless we stop them, permanently.

Permanently stopping them means going to war with them and chasing them to the ends of the earth and killing or taking all of them.  Now, will we do that?  Not now.  Not just because Obama is unable to see the threat, but because America is tired of fighting the Islamists.  American wars can go upwards of 5 years, but no longer – we just don’t have the patience beyond that.  Especially if there’s no clear-cut goal in sight.  We’ll have to wait until the Islamists hit us again, very hard, and then hope we have leadership which sees the path to true strategic thinking.

Meanwhile, I think I’ve had enough of this intelligence gathering.  We need laws specifically prohibiting any government employee, at any level, from obtaining or retaining data on any American without a warrant – and the warrants must have an expiration date, upon which the target of the warrant is informed of its existence and 100% of the data collected in connection with it – seriously; all the original documents mailed to the target so he can see what was found (I’d like it to be no more than 90 days, but others I’ve discussed it with say it has to go longer – but it must have a drop dead date).  Intelligence gathering overseas and among foreigners I don’t give a darn about – knock yourself out, NSA.  But on Americans?  No.  Dad fought on Saipan and Grandpa in the Argonne to stop this very sort of nonsense from happening.  Enough is enough.

 

Wars Don’t “End”: They are Won, or Lost

Mark Noonan35 Comments

In light of Obama’s recent statement that the war must end, I just wanted to point that out.  Wars don’t end, they are won, or lost.  And if you want to know the difference then think of it like this:  if you aren’t winning, then you are losing.  Anyone want to argue that we are winning the war against that ideology which launched an attack on us on 9/11?

Obama is abdicating his responsibility for the safety of the United States.  He wants to pretend the war is over so that he can move on to other things.  His bet is that nothing particularly nasty will happen between now and January 20th, 2017.  He may be right about that – the Islamists are likely to be busy in Libya, Egypt and Syria for the next few years and while they will seek to launch attacks on us, their primary goal will be to consolidate their control over those Muslim nations.  But the war goes on – we may want it to end, but they don’t want it to, and in war it only takes one to tango.

Unless we fight them they will not be stopped – and the longer we refuse to fight them, the stronger they will get and the more bloody and difficult the eventual war will be.  Like the leaders of Britain in 1938, Obama had a choice between war and shame – he choose shame.  He’ll get war, too.  Though the really terrible part of the war may not come as long as Obama is in office.  But come it will – the Islamists are certain they are on the wave of victory and that they will conquer the entirety of Western Civilization.  You might think it foolish.  It might well even be extremely foolish – but it is no more foolish than Hitler thinking he could conquer the world.  It doesn’t matter if its foolish – if the fools think it can be done, they will try it.  And, right now, the fools very much think it can be done…and we’re doing nothing to convince them otherwise.  Indeed, we’re encouraging them – by Obama’s actions – to think that they’ve got it made.

 

Fight or Die

Mark Noonan55 Comments

In light of the cowardly way we ran and hid in Boston when two terrorists were loose; given the reaction of the British crowd to a soldier being massacred by two Muslims in Britain; as we watch the Swedes endure day after day of Islamist youth on a rampage, I’ve come to a conclusion.  It was neatly solidified when Walter Russell Mead quoted In Flanders Fields in his Memorial Day column:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Mead correctly points out that the poem does not call for us to feel sorry for the dead, but to carry on their fight.  Mead was more of a mind to remind us not to just pity, but to remember and to honor what the dead fought for.  For me, its a slightly different take.  As a person who had read libraries of history with a definite concentration on military matters, I remember all of the men of our civilization who have fought.  To me, any man who took up arms in his nation’s cause and who did his duty honorably and nobly is worthy of my respect and remembrance – and my best efforts to see that what is right and good in our civilization is defended.  Of course those who died for my nation hold pride of place in my heart and mind, but I spare a thought, from time to time, for those British who died for King and Country; those Russian who bled for their Tsar; those Kaisertreu Hapsburg soldiers who faced hopeless odds at Sadowa.  All of them stood forth and did their duty as men, as Christians and as citizens of our common civilization.

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A New GOP Foreign Policy: How to Get it Wrong

Mark Noonan90 Comments

David Goldman over at Pajamas Media writes an article about how the GOP is about to get it wrong on foreign policy:

…We Republicans now find ourselves painted into a corner. The public doesn’t trust us with guns. That’s why Rand Paul has gotten his fifteen minutes of fame (and if it turns out to be more than fifteen minutes, we are in trouble). It’s satisfying at one level to watch Rand Paul beat up Obama’s nominee for CIA director, but he represents a nasty brand of isolationism.

We nonetheless have to state the obvious: The only way to prevent Syria’s living hell from spreading to Iraq and Lebanon is to neutralize the main source of instability: Iran. Republicans should rally behind Gen. James Mattis, whom Obama fired as head of Central Command. Gen. Mattis told a Senate committee March 6 that sanctions aren’t working, and that Tehran ”enriching uranium beyond any plausible peaceful purpose.” The United States should not only remove Iran’s nuclear program, but also destroy Revolutionary Guards bases and other conventional capability that the Tehran regime employs to destabilize its neighbors. And the U.S. should throw its full weight behind regime change. With Iran out of the picture, the local conflicts–horrific as they are–will remain local. I do not believe that either Egypt or Syria can be stabilized, but it is possible to limit the spread of their instability. The prospect of a prolonged Sunni-Shi’ite war in the region will be horrific past the imagining of most Americans. Secondary conflicts will erupt around it, including long-frustrated minorities like the Kurds, who have created a functioning de facto state in northern Iraq.

We Republicans have to cure ourselves of the illusion that we can engineer the happiness of other cultures with an inherent antipathy to Western-style democracy. Where the Muslim world is concerned, optimism is cowardice. And we have to persuade the American people that selective, limited military action against Iran will not draw the United States into a new land war…

Goldman gets it right in that he identifies Iran as the central problem.  He also gets it right in declaring that we have to give up all illusions and no longer seek make the Muslim world in to a pluralist, democratic civilization.  But he gets it flat wrong when he condemns Paul’s “isolationism”, and the reason he gets it wrong is in, “we have to persuade the American people that selective, limited military action against Iran will not draw the United States into a new land war…”.  In other words, we should engage in another round of limited war.  My friends, that is poison.  One thing that I’ve learned – and most especially since 9/11 – is that the one type of war Americans can’t win is a limited war.  We’re just not built for that sort of thing.  In war, Americans are an all or nothing people:  we either go all the way in, or we should stay all the way out.

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The John McCain Crazy Train

Mark Noonan6 Comments

Allahpundit rounds up some reports on McCain digging himself ever deeper in to the Ruling Class hole over Paul’s filibuster – best comment:

“Senator McCain is obviously well aware of the politics of this – he just doesn’t care,” said one McCain aide. “He’s doing what he thinks is right. Unlike many of these guys, he’s actually been involved in a few national security debates over the years. He knows that jumping on the Rand Paul black helicopters crazytrain isn’t good for our Party or our country, no matter what Twitter says.”

Just to clarify, “black helicopters crazytrain” is those people who think that we’ve built concentration camps in Montana and that blue helmeted UN troops are already here, ready to declare martial law.  Paul isn’t within a country mile of such people.  But I’ll tell you who is crazy – John McCain and all those establishment types, left and right, who think that we’re going the right thing in our War on Terror policies.

Those who have been reading this blog over the years know that I was an ardent supporter of President Bush’s policies regarding terror.  100% support of the invasion of Iraq.  Still think it was the right thing to do.  I believe that Iran is a gigantic threat and that we will have to deal with it militarily.  But for goodness sakes, what happened between 2003 and today should cause some re-assessment of the best way to go about things.  Clearly, maintaining relationships with Muslim tyrannies in the name of “anti-terror” policies is asinine.  Clearly, giving Muslims the ability to freely vote for their own government doesn’t mean they’re going to vote for a government we like.  Clearly, the Islamist radicals are more determined that ever – and ever more brutish in their treatment of non-Muslims (seriously; just google “Muslims attack church” and see how many hits you get, and how many very recent events).

The height of insanity is our decision to continue military aid to Egypt – including providing powerful F-16 aircraft – a Muslim Brotherhood regime which is the enemy of everything we hold dear.  That is insane – and anyone want to bet where McCain stands on that?  Paul is crazy for wanting a simple declaration that the President may not kill Americans on American soil without due process?  Whatever you say, McCain.

For now, whatever it is we were trying to do in the Muslim world has come a cropper.  It is time to withdraw and re-assess.  Now, there is that one in a million chance that our withdrawal will actually cool down the Islamists.  I very much doubt that.  More than likely, it will be interpreted as a sign of weakness and they will resume their attack at the earliest opportunity.  When that happens, however, we would be able to approach the whole issue un-tied to any past commitments and free to do what we wish.  To just keep going on, grinding out with what we’ve been doing and adding to it increased drone attacks doesn’t seem wisdom in my view.  To defend the President on drones simply because you want to be “tough on terrorism” is idiotic.  It is time for a change, and Rand Paul sees it; McCain doesn’t.

 

In Regard to the Muslim World, What Do We Do Now?

Mark Noonan99 Comments

The key take-away of the recent events in the middle east, for me, is that whatever we were trying to do in the Muslim world, it is now in shambles.  Whether one wants to take the leftwing/Islamist view that Islam is angered by our wrongdoing or if one wishes to point out that Islam has been the aggressor for more than a thousand years is immaterial – whether it is war or the olive branch we were trying to bring to the Muslim world, both our war and peace policies have failed.  We have no victorious war while also having no peace.  However we go forward, we should go forward as a blank slate.  The first thing for us to do, then, is to figure out what we want.

The Muslim world is a billion people sitting on a strategic crossroads and also containing a very large amount of the exceptionally valuable substance, oil.  This reality is just there – it can’t be argued with.  Whatever we might want, our policy has to take in to consideration that it is there and has to be dealt with.  So, the first thing we can dispose of is any concept that we can just entirely walk away and pretend it doesn’t matter.  For good or ill, the United States will be involved in the affairs of the Muslim world.  That said, we still have to define what we want our involvement to be.

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Ignoring The Scorpion..At OUR Peril.

Leo Pusateri67 Comments

Forgetting the Parable of the Scorpion…They pander and walk on egg shells, ever so careful not to affect Muslim “sensibilities” (while trampling roughshod over everyone else’s) and then sit back in wide-eyed, befuddled wonderment as Muslims turn on their benefactors.

The answer, of course, is simple. Those who follow the Koran, who choose to live in the 14th century, and who perform mayhem and murder in its name are evil. Treating them as moral equals (as their doctrine moral relativism dictates) doesn’t work, because they are NOT moral equals.

But as long as these liberal loons are in power- as long as they continue to think that these attavistic freaks will all of a sudden sing kumbaya if only we can convey our good intentions, expect to get stung again.

And again.



And again.



Hillary Clinton: How could this happen in a country we helped liberate? | WashingtonExaminer.com
washingtonexaminer.com
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 


The Arab Spring

Cluster27 Comments

The recent events in Egypt and Libya can only be considered as another direct attack on America, and again, our President is leading from behind. New revelations today support the notion that Obama is detached and out of his depth, as is his team around him, and his minions in the media. First of all we had the press release from the US Embassy in Egypt which was evidently not approved of by the White House as they distanced themselves in the beginning but then ultimately supported. However, considering that the press release is essentially an apology for our First Amendment rights, the White House should have disowned it, but needless to say, it’s obvious there is little coordination from the top. Secondly, it’s reported that the crowd was chanting “hey Obama, we are all Osama’s” which may be a direct condemnation of the reckless manner in which Obama and Biden constantly boast of killing OBL, like some school yard children would do. It was also learned today that the detached President hasn’t attended a PDB in the last week or so, and maybe had he attended those meetings, he may of learned of some of this in advance.

The Arab Spring has turned out to be a nightmare, and with Egypt getting more and more confident, Israel is starting to feel the heat, so what does Obama do? He tells Bibi Netanyahu that he doesn’t have the time to meet with him. He does have time however for Letterman and Beyonce, but not for one of our most trusted allies. How’s that for leadership? Folks, four Americans have been killed as a result of a muddled and apologetic foreign policy on behalf of our President and this is unacceptable. We deserve better.