War Blog
By: FrontPage Magazine
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, December 12, 2005
WAKE UP CALL FOR AHMADINEJAD
In the Sunday Times: Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
ISRAEL’S armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed.
The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations.
Iran’s stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern.
The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was “losing patience” with Iran.
A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?” That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.
Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the “point of no return” after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years. Sunday, December 11, 2005
In a world where Iran is rushing to acquire nuclear weapons, the UN’s toothless nuclear watchdog is focused on disarming everyone else: ElBaradei says nuclear arms should be taboo as slavery.
OSLO (Reuters) - The world should work to make nuclear weapons as universally condemned as slavery or genocide, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday after receiving the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the world had 27,000 nuclear warheads and “to me, that is 27,000 warheads too many.”
“The hard part is how do we create an environment in which nuclear weapons — like slavery or genocide — are regarded as a taboo and a historical anomaly?” ElBaradei, an Egyptian, said in his acceptance speech.
In a political party that has gone off the rails, and puts the acquisition of power above the interests of their own country, Joe Lieberman is a marked man: Lieberman’s pro-war views concern Dems. (Hat tip: Vinay.)
WASHINGTON - Sen. Joe Lieberman’s staunch stay-the-course defense of President Bush’s Iraq policies isn’t winning him any friends among fellow Democrats.
Lieberman’s pro-war views may be winning him praise from a grateful White House, but some Democratic colleagues see him as undercutting their party’s efforts to wrest control of Congress from the GOP next fall.
“He’s doing damage to the ability of Democrats to wage a national campaign,” said Ken Dautrich, a University of Connecticut public policy professor. “It’s Lieberman being Lieberman. And it’s frustrating for people trying to put a Democratic strategy together.”
Sensing political vulnerability in Bush’s handling of Iraq, Democrats are anxious to craft a compelling anti-war theme uniting the party for the pivotal midterm congressional elections.
Democrats hope a surging anti-war tide in 2006 can help them shatter the GOP’s 12-year lock on the House and win back the Senate for the first time since 2001.
“It’s not a tidal wave now, but the ingredients are starting to fall into place,” said veteran Democratic strategist Tad Devine.
Lieberman, who seems to relish his role as a maverick, is veering far from the Democratic script. His vocal support for the war, a stark and frequent reminder of the deep divisions among Democrats on how to end the war, makes him something of a marked man. Saturday, December 10, 2005
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
*
TALIBAN ISSUE DECREE URGING DEATH FOR KARZAI
An "Islamic decree" issued calling for death for Karzai. From Reuters:
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban guerrillas have issued an Islamic decree calling for President Hamid Karzai to be killed for serving American and British "infidels".
The decree, or fatwa, came in a 12-page, Pashto-language booklet distributed in the Afghan south. It reiterated a call for jihad, or religious war, against infidels and their slaves.
"It should be remembered that there is no difference between infidels and their agents and jihad against them has become incumbent," the fatwa said.
The document, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters at the weekend, was written by three Taliban Muslim scholars and approved buy a council of about 100, a Taliban spokesman said.
"Jihad against all the slaves of Americans and the British including Hamid Karzai has become incumbent and they deserve to be killed," it said. Sunday, December 11, 2005
IDF FOILS JERUSALEM TERROR ATTACK
He wanted to strike because of his "hatred of Jews." From Israel National News, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
A 20-year-old Palestinian arrived Saturday morning at the 300 roadblock south of Jerusalem. Border Guard police officers searched him and discovered that he was carrying two ready-to-use improvised explosive devices, a plastic gun and a knitted hat. The devices included explosives and nails. Sappers, who were dispatched to the area, detonated the charges in a controlled manner. The Palestinian, a resident of the village of Abadia near Bethlehem, was detained and taken into investigation. In his investigation, the young man said that he had planned on carrying out a terror attack in Jerusalem, claiming that he wanted to do so because of his "hatred of Jews." Saturday, December 10, 2005
http://jihadwatch.org
*
NATIVE TERRORISTS WARN ZARQAWI: BACK DOWN FOR ELECTIONS
The London Telegraph reports that the Iraqi "insurgencies" may come to loggerheads this week when the Iraqis go to the polls. The native Iraqis have made it clear to the Zarqawi faction that they intend to provide a clear road for Sunni voters to cast their votes and get the representation they need in the new, regular National Assembly:
Iraqi insurgents have signalled a major shift on January's parliamentary elections, urging Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al-Qa'eda militants not to attack polling stations. Ba'athist loyalists boycotted Iraq's last set of elections and intimidated would-be voters out of participation.
Now guerrillas in the volatile Anbar province say they are prepared to protect voting stations from al-Qa'eda fighters.
Ali Mahmoud, a former army officer and rocket specialist under Saddam's Ba'ath party, said: "We want to see a nationalist government that will have a balance of interests. So our Sunni brothers will be safe when they vote."
The rhetoric sounds even tougher than one would imagine between competing factions of an effort with the same primary goal -- to remove the Americans from Iraq by scaring them out of the country, a tactic that so far has only been effective against the Democratic Party leadership. One of the former Ba'athist leaders of the Saddamite remnants has openly called Zarqawi an "American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation". It doesn't sound like the Iraqis who went underground have appreciated Zarqawi's attempts to exchange one foreign occupation with another foreign tyranny.
It demonstrates that the Iraqis, even the Sunnis, have begun to understand the importance of the upcoming elections and the fact that Americans won't leave until the country has been secured for democracy. They're not ready to turn in their weapons yet, but a strong showing for the Sunnis at the ballot box might result in a deal for the native Iraqi insurgency to turn in their weapons to the new Iraqi Army. That will place even more pressure on the Zarqawi network to give up and get out.
It's beginning to look a lot more like victory -- everywhere but in Howard Dean's office and the American media, which continues to ignore these developments. Sunday, December 11, 2005
www.captainsquartersblog.com
*
www.daybydaycartoon.com
*
COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS WASHINGTON POST STYLE
This Washington Post article recounts the debate within the administration over whether to proceed with last January's Iraqi elections on schedule. According to the Post, the president's top advisers were split, with no clear consensus. However, President Bush didn't wait for consensus. Rather, he insisted that the elections go forward as scheduled.
Post reporters Peter Baker and Robin Wright are not inclined to give Bush credit for making what surely was the correct decision. Eventually, they concede that what they choose to describe as "deadline democracy" managed to "propel the process forward and appears on the verge of creating a new government with legitimacy earned at the ballot box [while resulting] in a constitution often described as more democratic than any in the Arab world." But they nonetheless characterize Bush's decision as "one with distinct costs and benefits," suggesting that by proceeding on schedule the administration "failed to produce the national accord it sought among Iraq's three main groups, producing a schism that could loom beyond Thursday's elections."
This claim strikes me as nonsense. Baker and Wright do not even attempt to explain how delaying the January elections would have produced a "national accord." The only clear consequence of delay would have been to alienate Shiite leaders like the Ayatollah Sistani upon whose support we depend. Beyond that, delay simply would have kept the three factions frozen where they were.
Indeed, late in their piece Baker and Wright admit that holding the elections in January broke the stalemate and caused the Sunnis to begin earnest participation in the democratic process. "In a dramatic shift after the January elections," they write, "Sunni groups that had boycotted the election and therefore won only 16 of 275 seats in parliament declared they wanted to help write the constitution." Baker and Wright make this concession only by way of attacking subsequent decisions by the administration. But it fully vindicates Bush's decision to proceed with the January election. Don't expect the Washington Post to acknowledge this, though. Sunday, December 11, 2005
THE DEMOCRATS HAUL OUT ANOTHER VET
This time it's Senator Daniel Inouye, who served heroically in World War II. The Democrats obviously think the Republicans' new ad attacking their "Surrender Now" position on Iraq is effective; Drudge reports:
Today, Senator Daniel Inouye, the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, released the following statement:
"As a Veteran of World War II, I know what it’s like to fight a war and put your life on the line every day. I also know what it takes to win a war, and I know that politics and an attack machine like the President’s plays no part in it.
"The Republican Party’s latest ad is a shameful and disgusting attempt to distract the American people from the problems in Iraq. It may improve the President’s political fortunes, but the American people and our troops will pay the price. I hope that President Bush realizes how shameful it is to play politics when what we really need is leadership, and that he will direct his Party to take down this ad immediately."
This is really one of the dumbest statements we've seen from the Democrats yet. Inouye says he "knows what it takes to win a war." But the Democrats aren't talking about how to win in Iraq, they are talking about abandoning the effort. That is to say, losing.
Inouye says the ad seeks to "distract the American people from the problems in Iraq." Actually, of course, there is no chance the American people will forget that there are problems in Iraq, since nearly every news report about the country focuses exclusively on those problems. What Inouye wants is for all the news to be bad all the time, and for the Republicans to refrain from pointing out that in fact, notwithstanding the problems, we are not losing in Iraq. We are winning. It is not defeat in Iraq the Democrats fear, it is victory. They are scared to death that it is happening before their eyes.
Finally, Inouye denounces the Republicans for "playing politics" on Iraq. This is hilarious. The ad shows Democrats saying that we have no chance to win in Iraq and should pull out. How is it "playing politics" to let the American people know what the Democrats are saying? Are the Democrats ashamed of their own words? And why isn't it "playing politics" when the Democrats launch one false, vicious attack after another against the administration, but only when the administration defends itself?
The truth is that the Democrats have never done anything about Iraq other than to play politics. When they thought it was to their political advantage, they pretended to support the war. The moment they thought it was to their political advantage to abandon our soldiers' efforts, that's what they advocated. They pretend that no progress is being made in Iraq when they know that is not the case, and they try to shout down anyone who disagrees with them. What is prompting the present hysteria is that they are afraid the Iraq issue isn't playing the way they expected it to. What a party! Two and a half years into a war, and they're still trying to keep their options open.
Amir Taheri reports from the annual awards program put on by the Foreign Press Association in London:
[T]here was an even bigger reason why I was interested in the occasion. The FPA had decided to award its very first prize for a dialogue of cultures to Akbar Ganji, an Iranian investigative reporter who is on a hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison.
Together with several colleagues, I had been trying for months to persuade the Western media to take an interest in Ganji, a former Khomeinist revolutionary who is now campaigning for human rights and democracy. But we never got anywhere because of one small hitch: President Bush had spoken publicly in support of Ganji and called for his immediate release.
And that, as far as a good part of the Western media is concerned, amounts to a kiss of death. How could newspapers that portray Bush as the world's biggest "violator of human rights" endorse his call in favor of Ganji?
To overcome that difficulty, some of Ganji's friends had tried to persuade him to make a few anti-American, more specifically anti-Bush, pronouncements so that the Western media could adopt him as a "hero-martyr." Two years ago, similar advice had been given to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was made to understand one stark fact of contemporary life: You will not be accepted as a champion of human rights unless you attack the United States.
Ebadi had accepted the advice and used her address during the prize ceremony in Oslo to launch a bitter attack on the United States as the arch-violator of human rights. ***
Would Ganji adopt a similar tactic in order to get media attention in the West? The answer came last January and it was a firm no.
The result was that Ganji, probably the most outspoken and courageous prisoner of conscience in the Islamic Republic today, became a non-person for the Western media. Even efforts by the group Reporters Without Frontiers, and the International Press Institute, among other organizations of journalists, failed to change attitudes towards Ganji.
How utterly sickening.
So, it was heart-warming to see the FPA honor Ganji as a champion of freedom. An audio-message from Ganji's wife, smuggled out of Iran, was broadcast, creating the evening's highest moment.
But the evening took a sharp turn for the worse when a "UNICEF ambassador" took the stage to award the prize to the absent Ganji. The "ambassador" was apparently unknown to Taheri, who describes her as "a petite middle-aged lady dressed all in black... [who] was introduced as one Bianca Jagger." Ah, yes, the same Bianca Jagger who was observed in Nicaragua by P.J. O'Rourke, who chronicled her desolation at the electoral defeat of the Communists there, and consigned her to the "lonely hell of the formerly cute." Taheri continues:
She started by telling us about her recent trips to Tehran and Damascus, presumably the two capitals of human rights that she likes best, and how she had been told "by officials and others" that she and other Westerners had "no moral authority" to talk about human rights and freedom.
She then proceeded by saying it is all very well to remember Ganji but that should not prevent us from remembering "those held in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, and all other secret prisons" that the United States is supposed to be running all over the world.
Taheri points out some of the rather obvious difference between Ganji, who is imprisoned for the crime of being a journalist, and those who are imprisoned for being terrorists. But this distinction was apparently too subtle for the famously-dense Bianca J.:
Having swallowed my anger, I gave the "UNICEF Ambassador" a piece of my mind. She seemed surprised. No one had ever told her such things, especially not in a polite society of dinner jackets and long robes. "Is Ganji the same as the alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay?" I asked.
"Well, yes, I mean no, I mean yes," she mumbled. "But they are all prisoners, aren't they?"
It was eventually explained to Mr. Taheri that Bianca "had once been married to a British pop singer." He concludes:
Well, it had been a good evening. In the end, however, as the lady's husband had once crooned: I could get no satisfaction. Saturday, December 10, 2005
www.powerlineblog.com
*
HAMAS: PEACE IS TOO BORING
The terrorist group Hamas, which has emerged as the most popular political group with Palestinians over the past year, has shifted its position on truce with the Israelis again. Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' leader, claims that the truce has Hamas ... well, rather bored:
The leader of Hamas said Friday his group was growing weary of its pact with the Palestinian Authority to avoid conflict with Israel.
"There is no room for truce. I say to our brothers in the [Palestinian] Authority that we are witnessing political stagnation," Khaled Meshaal said in a fiery speech at a rally in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
"I say it loud and clear, we will not enter a new truce. Our people are preparing for a new round in this struggle," Meshaal said.
Hamas much prefers blowing up women and children in pizzerias than the actual work of statecraft, ie, building political consensus and campaigning for support on issues like sewage systems, monetary policy, and so on. That type of work requires erudition and intellect, after all, while strapping a bomb on a teenager only takes a little salesmanship and the complete lack of a soul. Apparently Hamas' terrorist core has discovered what the rest of us already knew -- that they qualify in spades for the latter but by and large lack most of the former.
The excuse du jour results from the hoary triangle offense that the Palestinians have used for years. This time, as is often the case, Islamic Jihad sat out the truce so that they could continue to launch rocket strikes into Israel. Israeli response against IJ then allows the other two terrorist groups -- Hamas and Fatah -- to claim that the Israelis broke the truce and then all three resume their attacks on Israeli civilians. However, this may be the first time that Hamas has come out and admit that without war, they have no reason to exist and no interest in politics other than as a means to conduct the annihiliation of Israel.
We need to press the Europeans to list Hamas as a terrorist group and to cut off their funding once and for all. They will never be a partner for peace -- and neither will the Palestinian Authority which coordinates with both Hamas and IJ to continue the cycle of violence. Until the Palestinians themselves decide they want peace instead of war, they will get what they deserve -- and we should stop holding back the Israelis from walling out the Palestinians on their own terms in the absence of serious attempts to resolve the issues. They have paid for that policy with far more terrorist attacks on civilians than our nation would ever tolerate. We should quit demanding that the Israelis show forebearance any longer.
DOUBLE PLUS GOOD AT THE WEEKLY STANDARD
The upcoming issue of the Weekly Standard has two excellent articles that provide people with absolutely essential information on the war in Iraq. First is Stephen Hayes' report on the documents that the DIA refuses to release under a Freedom of Information Act request which appear to refute the conventional narrative of the war. Hayes has gained access to the index for these documents, but even though the documents remain unclassified, the DIA refuses to release them or to provide access for Hayes:
FOR THE SECOND TIME IN recent weeks the Department of Defense has denied a request from The Weekly Standard to release unclassified documents recovered in postwar Iraq. These documents apparently reveal, in some detail, activities of Saddam Hussein's regime in the years before the war. This second denial could also be the final one: According to two Pentagon sources, the program designed to review, translate, and analyze data from the old Iraqi regime may be shuttered at the end of December, not just placing the documents beyond the reach of journalists, but also making them inaccessible to policymakers.
As a consequence, the ongoing debate over the Iraq war and its origins is taking place without crucial information about the former Iraqi regime and its relationships with presumed U.S. allies and known U.S. enemies. Despite the determined shredding and burning efforts of regime officials in the dying days of Saddam Hussein's government, much of this information still exists--in handwritten documents, in videotapes and audiotapes, in photographs and satellite images, on computer hard drives. All told, the U.S. government has in its possession more than 2 million "exploitable" items from the former Iraqi regime (the intelligence community's term of art for information it thinks might be useful). According to sources with knowledge of the project, now two and a half years old, only 50,000 documents have been translated and fully exploited. Few of those translated documents have been circulated to policymakers in the Bush administration. And although one of the translated documents was leaked to the New York Times last summer, none of the others has been released, formally or informally.
The result: Much of today's debate about the threat posed three years ago by Saddam Hussein's Iraq is based on past assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies that we now know had no real sources on the ground in Iraq.
Here are a few descriptions of documents Hayes has discovered in the captured Iraqi documents:
* Intelligence coded memo by two IIS officers containing info on various topics; weapons boat, Palestinians training in Iraq, etc.
* Concerning mass graves found in the south: Check for nuclear radiation, identify bodies, ensure that CNN is the first news agency onsite. Any funerals should have an international impact. Signed by Hussein.
* Various correspondence e.g. visa forms, trade delegations, full reports on the connections between Abu Sayaf and the Qadafi Charity Establishment. Report on a certain individual traveling to Pakistan and involvements with bin Laden.
Palestinians training in Iraq? I thought that Iraq had no connections to terrorists, according to the media. Of course, by media I mean CNN -- the agency that Saddam Hussein wanted to ensure got first access to gravesites in case the mass graves ever got found. Presumably Saddam ordered this because in February 2001 (when this order was written), Eason Jordan had corrupted the media outlet enough that Saddam could trust CNN to broadcast a cover story blaming the bodies on the American use of depleted-uranium shells during Gulf War I. The third appears to connect Iraq not just to Osama bin Laden but also to the al-Qaeda linked Islamic terror efforts in the Phillippines.
Read all of the frustration Hayes has suffered trying to get the DIA to release these documents. While you're there, be sure to read Fred Barnes' demolition of the poll numbers that Democrats have thrown around in their debate over the past month about the 80% of Iraqis who want the Americans to immediately withdraw from their country:
If we knew the "internals" of the poll's sample, we could say for sure whether 82 percent of a representative sample of Iraqis said they favored immediate withdrawal. I contacted Rayment, who broke the poll story, and learned the sample size (1,264 Iraqis), but not the breakdown of Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds. That remains unknown, at least publicly. It matters, though. If the sample consisted disproportionately of Sunnis, for example, that would explain a high number of respondents who want U.S. forces to withdraw immediately. However, it wouldn't be a faithful reflection of overall Iraqi opinion.
Earlier polls tell a different (and clearer) story, though still not one that's favorable to keeping American troops in Iraq indefinitely. In March 2004, a BBC poll of 2,500 Iraqis found that 51 percent opposed the continued presence of coalition troops in their country. And in May 2004, a poll in six Iraqi cities, including ones with significant Sunni populations, put the percentage of Iraqis who want coalition forces to "leave immediately" at 41 percent. And 55 percent said they would feel safer if those forces left.
Be sure to read the entire analysis. Until we know more about how this survey got conducted and the sample used, it seems prudent to treat this as an outlier at best, and potentially dishonest. Saturday, December 10, 2005
www.captainsquartersblog.com
*
The Washington Post comes out in support of legalizing the Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt’s Ugly Election. (Hat tip: Bubbaman.)
The administration’s next steps will be crucial: Will it support the legalization of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has renounced violence and endorsed democracy — and which has proven it has the support of millions of Egyptians? Will it demand freedom for Ayman Nour and support the independent civic movement that has demanded genuine political reform? Will Mr. Mubarak’s behavior be linked to the $1.8 billion in annual U.S. aid Egypt receives? Egyptians will now see if Mr. Bush is serious about defending the cause of freedom in the center of the Middle East.
I thought I couldn’t be amazed any more by mainstream media’s absolute cluelessness, but once again I’ve been proven wrong. Saturday, December 10, 2005
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
*
FAILING GRADE
From VOA: US Blasts Security Council for Failing to Condemn Terror Attack in Israel.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton issued a statement Tuesday unequivocally condemning the bomb attack in the Israeli town of Netanya that killed at least five people. The unusual action came after a U.S. attempt to have the statement issued by the Security Council was rejected.
Diplomats attending the meeting say several Council members raised concerns about language in the U.S.-drafted document. Ambassador Bolton, however, blamed Algeria for quashing the measure by objecting to a passage urging Syria to close offices of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which claims responsibility for the attack. ...
The U.S. envoy later read the text of the statement to reporters, and lashed out at the Council for what he called "failing to speak the truth".
He said "you have to speak up in response to these terrorist attacks. It's a great shame that the Security Council couldn't speak to this terrorist attack in Netanya, but if the Council won't speak, the United States will."
Algeria's U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Baali said he had objected to what he called a "lack of balance" in the U.S.-drafted statement.
What kind of "balance" can we expect of the U.N.? EYE on the UN reports that Israel wasn't even shown on a map displayed at a recent U.N.-sponsored "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People."
Meanwhile, who does the U.N. Security Council continue to treat with kid gloves? Iran, whose president, "Wipe Israel off the map" Ahmadinejad, was in the news today for denying the Holocaust. Friday, December 9, 2005
www.coxandforkum.com
*
THE FACE OF TERROR
"Mustapha Akkad, a Syrian-born Hollywood producer, complained in 1998: "in Hollywood, Muslims are only terrorists" (Quoted in Laurie Goodstein, "Hollywood Now Plays Cowboys and Arabs," The New York Times, November 1, 1998). Today, at a hotel in Amman, Jordan, he and his daughter Rina, 33, were killed by Muslim terrorists. (November 9, 2005).
*
REPORTING LIVE FROM THE PRINCETON EX-TERRORIST EVENT
The full context of this story is here: Princeton Censors Ex-PLO Speakers; Likely to Hire PLO ProfessorI am currently at the Princeton Radisson press conference with the panel of three ex-terrorists (Walid Shoebat, Zak Anani and Ibrahim Abadallah). It is chilling. I have just shaken the hand of a man who has killed 223 people during Lebanon's militia violence. Hearing them talk about what they have done and the zeal with which they recount their former Jew-hatred is completely unsettling. Each of the ex-terrorists have either killed or seriously injured people. Each of the ex-terrorists has had attempts on his life. One of the panelists mentioned he has been attacked 15 times and has had his daughter injured as a retaliation for his speaking. One of the panelists (Ibrahim Abadallah) was born and raised in Dearborn, Michigan. Each of the panelists agree that recruitment by terrorist organizations was not significant to their having become terrorists. Rather, terror is part of the "fiber of the culture" and joining terror organizations was organic and natural. They agreed that terror indoctrination permeates Muslim society. Fortunately, they were all able to deprogram themselves, primarily through conversion to Christianity. Here are some quotes from the panelists: Walid Shoebat: "There is no wall in the area where I grew up that was not filled with grafitti, with slogans such as 'we knock on the gates of heaven with the skulls of Jews.'" Zak Anani: "The problem is not land. It is generations of hatred passed from one generation to the next." Ibrahim Abadallah: "My hatred for the Jews permeated my heart. I hated the Jews with all my heart, my soul and my passions. Anything I could do to harm the Jewish state, the Jewish people, I would do." [Ironically, Abadallah had attended a Quaker school in Dearborn.] "The text [Koran] tells you who your enemy is. The Jew first, then the Christian. Hence the hatred for America." I just asked a question to the panel about the recent reports of the Palestinian election of a Fatah member named "Hitler" in Jenin and the fact that at least 25 PLO members go by the name of Hitler or Abu Hitler. Could any of them comment personally about how Nazism was perceived? Walid Shoebat: "Mein Kampf has been a best-seller throughout the Muslim world. Haj Amin Husseini, who was a guest in my family's home, was nicknamed the Fuhrer of the Muslim World." "There was never any excuse given for Nazis for their hatred of Jews. When it comes to Islamic terrorists, we make all the excuses in the world" Ibrahim Abadallah: "Most Arabs consider Hitler a hero precisely because he killed 6 million Jews." Shortly after the press conference was a lecture. I will hopefully write up my notes later. Right now, however, I am feeling shock over what I witnessed and amazement that such people have the possibility of redemption. Update (Dec. 9): Now that I have been able to sleep, I am still in shock, but I have had time to figure out why. I have been intimately involved with the Middle East for all of my adult life. I understand the problem of Islamic extremism intellectually, but I am at heart a Westerner. My core belief in living a constructive life is reflected throughout Western society. In years of living in Israel I have never had a serious encounter with anyone who does not want to peace for the benefit of Arabs as well as for Jews. Over and over, the speakers emphasized that they were entirely suffused with hatred and motivated by the desire for vengeance. While Shoebat was a polished speaker, it was the American Abadallah who was the most disturbing. His English was obviously perfect and he spoke in a reserved way using Western terms like "belief system." At times, though, he would switch to talking about his former hatred and he would appear possessed by a different spirit entirely. The words were, of course unsettling. Over and over he would say some permutation of "I hated the Jews with all my heart, my soul and my passions." But the experience of seeing how his body behaved when he said those words was thoroughly disturbing, because they were totally foreign. Walid Shoebat gave many disturbing examples, including a long list of names of his extended family members who were involved in terrorism. On the day that his cousin had been killed by Israeli security in foiling his attempt to bomb the Ben Yehuda Street pedestrian mall, his Aunt Fahima distributed the traditional wedding candies to celebrate her dead son's marriage to the 72 virgins awaiting him. Walid related how, as children, they were taught in a mosque about teachings of a great war in the "end of days." The boys asked many questions about the details of raping the women who would be captured, and the imam calmly reassured them repeatedly of its permissibility. He described how one night a man announced to his neighbors that he would "cleanse the honor of his family" by killing his daughter in public. Many people arrived at the appointed time to witness the murder. He related how his friends were giggling in school the next day as they related the details of her decapitation, including how the head was only connected to the body by a small strip of skin. After the Israelis arrested the man, his entire community contributed to a fund to bail him out of prison. The highlight of the evening was during the question period. Walid Shoebat dealt with the pre-written question:
What can be done? What can we do? How can we live in peace? He said to the diverse audience: "This question could have only been written by a Jew." The author admitted that was true and everyone laughed. He answered that it is a Jewish tendency to rush to seek a peaceful solution, but that he felt the question was backwards. He admonished the audience to stop asking what the solution is and to start seeking to understand the problem. The problem has never been understood, which is why the attempted solutions have failed. The problem is Islamofascism, he explained. The problem is the utter brainwashing, the hatred that is literally taught from birth. The problem has nothing to do with land, or with jobs, or any of the other explanations that he heaped contempt upon throughout the presentation. I, who understand that problem better than most, can never understand the problem at an emotional level. And that frightens me. Friday, December 9, 2005www.iris.org.il/blog
*
SHIFT IN OPERATIONS
The Wild West of Anbar isn't so wild anymore; the terrorists shift back to the core.
RAMADI, IRAQ: If you have a discussion with military officers in Western Anbar Province about the current and future status of military operations in the region, invariably the conversation will lead you to the reconstruction efforts of the Coalition. The phrases “switching from kinetic to non-kinetic operations” or “moving from kinetic operations to reconstruction” are often voiced.
Just the other day while at Al Asad Air base, I joined a group of senior staff officers of Regimental Combat Team – 2 in mid conversation at dinner, and the topic of the discussion was reconstruction efforts in a small strategic city in Anbar. Their concerns were the state of a water treatment plant, the status of schools and assisting in rebuilding them, electric power generation, and other mundane municipal issues. While these topics may seem less than glamorous to military officers, they astutely recognize their importance in countering the insurgency.
Major Tom Shoemake, the commander of the Civil Affairs Team in Hit, explains the mission, “Civil Military Operations is just another form of counterinsurgency warfare. Its predominantly a non-kinetic counterinsurgency tool. It takes place after the kinetic operations complete. After the fighting stops, you are not going through neighborhoods busting down doors, now you have to go in security and stabilization mode, you have to execute Civil Military Operations, you’ve got to get the power back on, drinking water is available, the essential services people need are there, the businesses are open. Its a whole different skill set.”
The dispersed nature of the towns along the Western Euphrates River Valley was once seen as an obstacle, but is now working to the Coalition’s advantage. The small communities make it easier for the Coalition to determine the tribal relationships and inner workings of the cities, and easier to identify members of the insurgency.
Major Shoemake explains how he gathered information in the city of Hit, with a population of 30,000. “First thing I did when I came in town was I knocked on doors and talked to the people. I can read the intelligence reports, listen to the mayor, listen to town council, but the heart of it comes from the people and that’s where I started. I started by meeting and talking to the people knocking on doors, going to markets, stopping on street corners, small businesses. It took three weeks before I had a picture of what was going on in the city… It gave me a solid picture of what I was up against.”
The impact of Major Shoemake’s efforts can be determined by the enemies he has made. The insurgents are actively targeting him. Just the other day, the terrorists detonated a large bomb in the center of the city market teaming with women and children in an attempt to kill him. One of his Marines was wounded in the blast.
As the Coalition continues to work to shut down the ratline from Syria, consolidate the gains from Operations Rivergate and Steel Curtain, and rebuild the small cities along the Euphrates River Valley, the core of the insurgency has moved back to the central environs of Iraq. Terrorist attacks continue in the capital of Baghdad. The city of Ramadi remains a battleground between the Coalition and the insurgency. Less than an hour ago incoming mortar fire landed about 300 yards from where I was sitting. The two rounds were quickly answered by counterbattery fire of the Army’s Paladin guns.
The larger cities give the insurgents cover due to the large populations. The foreign terrorists – al-Qaeda hit teams and suicide squads – which are responsible for the more craven acts of violence, can more easily blend in with the diverse peoples of the city.
But al-Qaeda in Iraq does not have complete immunity in the cities. In the past, the insurgency Ramadi has fought al-Qaeda to prevent them from slaughtering Shites and over the murder of Sunni sheikhs. Recently, residents of Ramadi turned in al-Qaeda in Iraq’s Amir Khalaf Fanus, also known as “The Butcher”.Fanus was number three on the most wanted list in Ramadi, and “wanted for criminal activities, including murder and kidnapping.” These are methods the terrorists and insurgents use to cow and intimidate the population.
The Coalition is taking further steps to improve the security presence in Ramadi. A press release from the 2nd Marine Division states “an additional 1,200 Iraqi Security Force soldiers have recently been stationed in Ramadi. Approximately 1,000 Iraqi Special Police Commandos and a mechanized Iraqi Army company completed their planned movement into the city.” The mechanized company, made of of Soviet era T-55 battletanks and BMP armored personnel carriers conducted its first patrol of Ramadi today.
The increased presence is designed to provide security for the election, and squeeze the insurgency and force the residents to make a choice between supporting the insurgents or rejecting them. The option to return to kinetic operations exists, however, as the inclusion of the mechanized Iraqi Army company makes clear.
ON ROUTE MICHIGAN
An IED sweep down the meanest street in Ramadi.
RAMADI, IRAQ: In war, the ability to adapt to the enemy’s tactics is crucial to maintaining the initiative. The insurgency in Iraq does not have the ability to defeat the Coalition using conventional means; in every engagement at the platoon size or greater, the insurgency has been thoroughly defeated. Because of this, the insurgency adapted its tactics and is relying on a political defeat of the largest Coalition partner, the United States, to achieve victory.
The two main tactics the insurgency has used are suicide bombs, which almost exclusively are executed by al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Improvised Explosive Devices. The suicide bombs make for stories of carnage and chaos, but often evoke a backlash from the Iraqi people and rarely kill American troops. IEDs, however, are the main cause of casualties among U.S. personnel. The insurgency’s hope is the steady trickle of deaths and injuries from IEDs will erode the will of the American public and cause the government to prematurely withdraw from Iraq.
The sophistication of the enemy IEDs has increased since their introduction after the fall of Saddam’s government in the spring of 2003. And so has the knowledge of the U.S. military’s IED hunters and the sophistication of their equipment.
One such IED hunting team is Dagger V of Task Force 54, which is comprised of Bravo Company, 54th Engineers from Bamburg, Germany, and various attached units. The main missions of Task Force 54 are to provide convoy escort duty, and clear roadways of IEDs and disarm them. Task Force 54’s area of operations is vast, spanning from the Syrian border to Fallujah.
The troops assigned to Task Force 54 are the perfect example of the adaptability of the U.S. military serving in Iraq. A good chunk of the equipment they trained on was left behind in Germany. Upon their arrival in country just weeks ago, they were trained to operate equipment such as the RG-31 and the Cougar, both specialized armored personnel carriers, and the Buffalo, which has a mechanical arm with a “claw” that can extend to sixteen feet to into the ground and interrogate and disable suspected IEDs.
These vehicles were selected for their survivability. Their unique v-shaped hulls are designed to deflect the blast impact from roadside bombs, and they are heavily armored.
I joined Lieutenant Colonel Shawn McGinley, the commander of Task Force 54, on a platoon-sized patrol to clear IEDs on Route Michigan, a stretch of road that bisects Ramadi and is the main route for military convoys.
LtCol McGinley described the road “as the most dangerous place in Ramadi, perhaps Iraq”, and the view of the street gives good credence to this belief. Route Michigan looks like a war zone, with destroyed facades of buildings, broken water and sewer lines dispensing their fluids into the streets, potholes in the streets and sidewalks from IED blasts and mortar fire, and barricades blocking the entrances from the side streets. Two armored Bradleys were destroyed here, and the track wheel rims were in full view as evidence. LtCol McGinley stated all of the damage has occurred since the fall of Saddam, and much of the heavy damage was caused by IEDs detonated by the insurgency.
We rode on the Buffalo, which comfortably seats six. The convoy was a mix of the Buffalo, RG-31s, Cougars, and up-armored Hummers. The engineers were visually searching for IEDs, and the vehicles crawled down Route Michigan at five miles per hour, with lights blazing, in an attempt to spot the bombs.
About halfway into the mission, the lead RG-31 spotted a large burlap bag near the center median of the road. The Buffalo moved in, the arm was extended, and the claw was used to interrogate the bag. They quickly discovered this was indeed an IED, made up of two 122mm artillery shells, a two liter bottle of gasoline, and the remote controlled detonating device. The IED was quickly disabled by the crew of the Buffalo and the rounds were prepared for detonation.
Further down the road, the body of an insurgent planting an IED was in full view on Route Michigan. He was killed by sniper fire just prior to the patrol.
The patrol completed its mission with no other incidents. It was a quiet night for this platoon. Another platoon discovered and disabled three IEDs elsewhere in the city. Sunday, December 11, 2005
http://inbrief.threatswatch.org
*
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
We have implemented a new commenting system. To use it you must login/register with disqus. Registering is simple and can be done while posting this comment itself. Please contact gzenone [at] horowitzfreedomcenter.org if you have any difficulties.
blog comments powered by
|
|