What kind of military do we need?

Brilliant analysis from the officers at www.opfor.com: "The whole argument over the Army’s “transformation” can be encapsulated like this: During the Cold War we needed big, heavy, divisions with lots of men, tanks, self-propelled artillery, and armored personnel carriers. We needed this because we faced a similarly equipped enemy. After the Cold War, the unchallengeable American military had nothing to template itself against. For the decade of the 1990’s, the Army downsized, still trying to figure out how to effectively organize itself. Post 9/11, the military has two recent, and different, examples of how to organize itself for war against a medium-sized third world country. The first is the “lean and mean” force the overthrew the Taliban. This force package revolves around a small, light, maneuverable, dispersed force that is backed up by a lethal reserve force of US airpower and shock troops. The “big and bad” strategy was used in Iraq, and consisted of dual heavy-armored convoys plowing through Iraqi defenses into Baghdad. Both of these strategies worked in the past, and both are used exclusively for “initial entry” into a hostile country and neither addresses the post-conflict stabilization period. A strategy for war brings with it new requirements for manning, equipment, and training –so which one worked out better in the past? Which one will be more prevalent in the future? Let’s start out with the “Lean and mean” approach. Heavy reliance on already overtaxed SOF assets would require an increase in manning for those units back in the states. Can that be done while retaining the standards these units adhere to? Also, this strategy worked in Afghanistan, where alliances between warlords could be manipulated in order to provide ground forces. Such a strategy might not succeed in a country without active opposition groups to organize, arm, train, and then deploy against their government. Another fault with this strategy is that it tends to rely less on conventional soldering and more on machines to “force multiply” the few forces on the ground. This approach means: - More troops trained in UW (Unconventional warfare) - More money spent per soldier - More high-tech equipment - Less reliance on Reserves The armored fist that broke Iraq in three weeks will go down in history as one of the swiftest military campaigns ever conducted. However, in high country, jungle, mountains, or swamps the advantage of armor drops tremendously. Also, a troop movement as large as OIF one would be vulnerable to massive enemy rear-guard action if it faced any force more organized than the Baathist collective defense. ( we got a taste of this with the Jessica Lynch incident). This approach means: -More money spent on conventional armor (tanks, brads, sp arty) -Larger force requirements -With that, more reliance on reserves -Large troops centers become targets Now that I’ve ripped both of the strategies, lets talk about where we’re going. A large chunk of the Pentagon is leaning toward the FCS (Future Combat Systems) a collection of vehicles that are supposed to “force multiply,” at the expense of, say, more people. However, despite the successes of the past initial-entry ops, current force demands for Stability and Support operations (SOSO) throw both of these for a loop. In conclusion, we always plan to win the last war, not the next one. If that’s the case, thinking outside the box, which approach is better: bigger, or leaner, or some combination of both?

Mookie Sadr not doing too well..

From the erstwhile Captain: "Moqtada al-Sadr has never shown himself to be much of a military genius. One of his first forays into the war in Iraq got scathing reviews from John Burns in April 2004, who got an unplanned visit with his forces. Now Sabrina Tavernise reports for the New York Times that Sadr has lost command over a significant portion of his Mahdi Army and can no longer impose his discipline on it: The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has lost control of portions of his Mahdi Army militia that are splintering off into freelance death squads and criminal gangs, a senior coalition intelligence official said Wednesday. The question of how tightly Mr. Sadr holds the militia, one of the largest armed groups in Iraq, is of critical importance to American and Iraqi officials. Seeking to ease the sectarian violence raging across the country, they have pressed him to join the political process and curb his fighters, who see themselves as defenders of Shiism — and often as agents of vengeance against Sunnis.But as Mr. Sadr has taken a more active role in the government, as many as a third of his militiamen have grown frustrated with the constraints of compromise and have broken off, often selling their services to the highest bidders, said the official, who spoke to reporters in Baghdad on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly on intelligence issues. “When Sadr says you can’t do this, for whatever political reason, that’s when they start to go rogue,” the official said. “Frankly, at that point, they start to become very open to alternative sources of sponsorship.” The official said that opened the door to control by Iran. Sadr has never covered himself in glory on the battlefield, and this demonstrates that his strength may be largely illusory. Some Shi'ites like his ability to attack Sunnis, but it appears now that he may be getting too much credit. The Mahdi Army has a weak command structure and the operations it conducts look more like free-lancing as a rule. Under those circumstances, the surprise isn't that some have spun off their own operations, but that he could wield much power at all.Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has more respect and devotion from the Shi'ites than Sadr. Sadr has political power, but only because Sistani refused to enter into electoral politics. Sadr's weak position prompted him to align with Iran -- which would have been natural in any case -- but it has brought unintended consequences. The Sunnis have realized that Iran would have too much power with Sadr in control, and now they want the Americans to stick around. Sistani would have counseled self-sufficiency and independence from Iran, but Sadr argues for Teheran's influence. Once again, we see that Sadr has a bigger reputation than he's due. Whether his Shi'ite allies who reject Iran see this, we don't know. If they do, they may start arranging for a one-way ticket to his 72 virgins.

Al-Qaida in Iraq: 4,000 Insurgents Dead

(AP) An Islamic Web site on Thursday posted an audio recording purportedly made by the new leader of... CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq said in an audio message posted on a Web site Thursday that more than 4,000 foreign insurgent fighters have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. It was believed to be the first major statement from insurgents in Iraq about their losses."The blood has been spilled in Iraq of more than 4,000 foreigners who came to fight," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir - also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri - the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. The voice could not be independently identified. The Arabic word he used indicated he was speaking about foreigners who joined the insurgency in Iraq, not coalition troops. Al-Masri is believed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June.

Al-Qaida in Iraq: 4,000 Insurgents Dead

(AP) An Islamic Web site on Thursday posted an audio recording purportedly made by the new leader of... CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq said in an audio message posted on a Web site Thursday that more than 4,000 foreign insurgent fighters have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. It was believed to be the first major statement from insurgents in Iraq about their losses."The blood has been spilled in Iraq of more than 4,000 foreigners who came to fight," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir - also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri - the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. The voice could not be independently identified. The Arabic word he used indicated he was speaking about foreigners who joined the insurgency in Iraq, not coalition troops. Al-Masri is believed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June.

What happened in the war against Terrorism?

What Clinton Didn't Do . .and when he didn't do it. BY RICHARD MINITER Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT Bill Clinton's outburst on Fox News was something of a public service, launching a debate about the antiterror policies of his administration. This is important because every George W. Bush policy that arouses the ire of Democrats--the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, pre-emptive war--is a departure from his predecessor. Where policies overlap--air attacks on infrastructure, secret presidential orders to kill terrorists, intelligence sharing with allies, freezing bank accounts, using police to arrest terror suspects--there is little friction. The question, then, is whether America should return to Mr. Clinton's policies or soldier on with Mr. Bush's. It is vital that this debate be honest, but so far this has not been the case. Both Mr. Clinton's outrage at Chris Wallace's questioning and the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11" are attempts to polarize the nation's memory. While this divisiveness may be good for Mr. Clinton's reputation, it is ultimately unhealthy for the country. What we need, instead, is a cold-eyed look at what works against terrorists and what does not. The policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations ought to be put to the same iron test. With that in mind, let us examine Mr. Clinton's war on terror. Some 38 days after he was sworn in, al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center. He did not visit the twin towers that year, even though four days after the attack he was just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, talking about job training. He made no attempt to rally the public against terrorism. His only public speech on the bombing was a few paragraphs inserted into a radio address mostly devoted an economic stimulus package. Those stray paragraphs were limited to reassuring the public and thanking the rescuers, the kinds of things governors say after hurricanes. He did not even vow to bring the bombers to justice. Instead, he turned the first terrorist attack on American soil over to the FBI. In his Fox interview, Mr. Clinton said "no one knew that al Qaeda existed" in October 1993, during the tragic events in Somalia. But his national security adviser, Tony Lake, told me that he first learned of bin Laden "sometime in 1993," when he was thought of as a terror financier. U.S. Army Capt. James Francis Yacone, a black hawk squadron commander in Somalia, later testified that radio intercepts of enemy mortar crews firing at Americans were in Arabic, not Somali, suggesting the work of bin Laden's agents (who spoke Arabic), not warlord Farah Aideed's men (who did not). CIA and DIA reports also placed al Qaeda operatives in Somalia at the time.By the end of Mr. Clinton's first year, al Qaeda had apparently attacked twice. The attacks would continue for every one of the Clinton years. • In 1994, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who would later plan the 9/11 attacks) launched "Operation Bojinka" to down 11 U.S. planes simultaneously over the Pacific. A sharp-eyed Filipina police officer foiled the plot. The sole American response: increased law-enforcement cooperation with the Philippines. • In 1995, al Qaeda detonated a 220-pound car bomb outside the Office of Program Manager in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing five Americans and wounding 60 more. The FBI was sent in. • In 1996, al Qaeda bombed the barracks of American pilots patrolling the "no-fly zones" over Iraq, killing 19. Again, the FBI responded. • In 1997, al Qaeda consolidated its position in Afghanistan and bin Laden repeatedly declared war on the U.S. In February, bin Laden told an Arab TV network: "If someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting time on other matters." No response from the Clinton administration. • In 1998, al Qaeda simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224, including 12 U.S. diplomats. Mr. Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in response. Here Mr. Clinton's critics are wrong: The president was right to retaliate when America was attacked, irrespective of the Monica Lewinsky case. Still, "Operation Infinite Reach" was weakened by Clintonian compromise. The State Department feared that Pakistan might spot the American missiles in its air space and misinterpret it as an Indian attack. So Mr. Clinton told Gen. Joe Ralston, vice chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, to notify Pakistan's army minutes before the Tomahawks passed over Pakistan. Given Pakistan's links to jihadis at the time, it is not surprising that bin Laden was tipped off, fleeing some 45 minutes before the missiles arrived. • In 1999, the Clinton administration disrupted al Qaeda's Millennium plots, a series of bombings stretching from Amman to Los Angeles. This shining success was mostly the work of Richard Clarke, a NSC senior director who forced agencies to work together. But the Millennium approach was shortlived. Over Mr. Clarke's objections, policy reverted to the status quo. • In January 2000, al Qaeda tried and failed to attack the U.S.S. The Sullivans off Yemen. (Their boat sank before they could reach their target.) But in October 2000, an al Qaeda bomb ripped a hole in the hull of the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding another 39. When Mr. Clarke presented a plan to launch a massive cruise missile strike on al Qaeda and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan, the Clinton cabinet voted against it. After the meeting, a State Department counterterrorism official, Michael Sheehan, sought out Mr. Clarke. Both told me that they were stunned. Mr. Sheehan asked Mr. Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"There is much more to Mr. Clinton's record--how Predator drones, which spotted bin Laden three times in 1999 and 2000, were grounded by bureaucratic infighting; how a petty dispute with an Arizona senator stopped the CIA from hiring more Arabic translators. While it is easy to look back in hindsight and blame Bill Clinton, the full scale and nature of the terrorist threat was not widely appreciated until 9/11. Still: Bill Clinton did not fully grasp that he was at war. Nor did he intuit that war requires overcoming bureaucratic objections and a democracy's natural reluctance to use force. That is a hard lesson. But it is better to learn it from studying the Clinton years than reliving them.Mr. Miniter, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, is author of "Disinformation: 22 Media Myths that Undermine the War on Terror" (Regnery, 2005).

Midterm elections will affect national security..

Ken Mehlman: 2006 Is Not Like 1994 by Robert B. Bluey; Human Events Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman spoke to me yesterday about the GOP’s prospects in November, what a Democratic-led Congress would do, the RNC’s advanced get-out-the-vote drive and the role of conservatives in the blogosphere. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You've been very optimistic about the Republicans' prospects this year. Can you tell us why Republicans will win in November? Well, I think what I’ve hopefully been is realistic about the prospects. I, early in the year, said to my colleagues in the congressional and senatorial committees and I said to members of Congress that I think we’re in a very challenging environment, and I think unless we do the right things we could be in trouble.I, at the end of the day, think the reason we’re going to keep our majorities is that most voters, when offered a choice, are going to choose in favor of lower taxes, not higher taxes. They’re going to choose in favor of moral clarity and strength in the face of a terrorist enemy. And they’re going to choose in favor of candidates that believe that judges ought to interpret the law, not legislate it from the bench. And if you look across the board, while ever election is different, those are some common issues and common ideas.What’s interesting is that the mainstream media divorces ideas out of politics. They say it’s just like ’94 because people are unhappy. Well, people are concerned. At the end of the day, though, we won in ’94 because the American people liked our ideas. The Democrats’ biggest challenge is they don’t like their ideas. And so I think the most important thing we need to remember in politics are the ideas. Democrats have tried to make these elections about a national referendum on certain issues. Do you think it will come down to national issues or is it going to be decided on local issues?I think there’s really a combination of factors. I think there certainly is going to be local choices, but in many of those cases, the choices on the ballot involve issues that are of national importance. So in a lot of races, there will be a debate on whether we should have the Patriot Act, or if the Patriot Act should have been killed, as the Democrat leaders wanted to do. In a lot of districts, there will be a debate over whether judges ought to take “under God” out of the Pledge, or we don’t think there ought to be judges who are doing that. In a lot of races, there will be a debate over whether we favor higher or lower taxes. All of those are national issues that will have an impact in particular races. Can you tell us what you think a Senate and a House led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would look like and what Americans could expect from them?Well, the first thing we know we could expect from an economic perspective is $2.4 billion in higher taxes because they’ve already said they will repeal the Bush tax cuts. We can expect about $2.3 billion in higher spending, which is what the Senate Democrats have proposed in spending increases over the last five years. We certainly know the Democrat leaders have said that they were proud that they killed the Patriot Act last year. They’ve called for the investigation or even impeachment of the President for a surveillance program. So what I think you’d see is a lot of the tools we need to win the War on Terror would potentially be weakened. I think you’d see our generals and our military leaders, instead of fighting the terrorists, would have to worry about fighting subpoenas because a lot of these folks have said they want to have massive political investigations into the war. I think you’d see a block on judges who are constitutionalists because the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee would be a gentleman, Mr. Leahy of Vermont, who has supported 22 filibusters already.If you, like I do, believe that Americans who are going to change jobs a lot in their lifetime ought to not worry about losing healthcare—and the way you fix that problem is by giving individuals ownership of their own healthcare—then you worry like I worry about the fact that they will oppose reforms like that and make healthcare more expensive, more bureaucratic with more government involvement. All of those are things you’re likely to see. Do you think that if Democrats control the House they would follow the lead of someone like Congressman John Conyers and maybe launch an impeachment inquiry?Well, certainly that’s a real possibility. We have to assume that they could do that. But the bottom line is, it seems to me, again we know at a minimum there would be massive investigations and massive censuring potentially, and certainly he has said that’s a possibility, so I think we need to look at all those factors. Now without giving away any secrets, could you explain what the RNC is doing with its get-out-the-vote efforts?The RNC will spend more resources to keep the Republican majorities in Congress than the RNC’s ever spent in its history by a factor of many times. We will spend $60 million on two fundamental things. The first fundamental thing we’re going to spend the money on is TV ads in key races around the country. And the second thing will be in voter-turnout activities—mail, phone, helping build infrastructure and all that. In addition to that $60 million, over the last two years when I’ve been chairman, one of my biggest focuses has been in changing how Republicans identify and turn out voters, so that we’re able to do it in a more household-by-household basis, as opposed to a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. The reason for doing that ought to interest a lot of your viewers and listeners. The reason is this, I’ve long believed that there are many conservatives who are out there who many people don’t know about because they either live in big cities where there aren’t a lot of conservatives or they live in Democrat-leaning areas.In ’04, Republicans increased our support from 26% to 39% in cities over 500,000. We did that because for the first time ever, if you were a conservative or you were pro-life or you were a Republican and you lived in a big city, you suddenly heard from the campaign or the party. We’ve now done that in all 50 cities, and I think it’s a very exciting model. I’ve long believed that those of us who are right-of-center—I’ve often analogized we’re like nightingales. Nightingales don’t sing until they hear other nightingales sing, and then they sing a song. And the reality is, if you think about the conservative movement, Barry Goldwater was the first guy to preach a solid conservative message. What happens the first year he runs? Conservatives take over the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan’s the next guy who does it. We have a conservative America. Then Newt Gingrich does it. And we know the effect of that is a conservative Congress for the first time ever.In ’04, it was the first time since 1936 that the President wins re-election and his party gains seats. It’s no accident that it occurred when we had a conservative President running a grassroots campaign that could reach out to every neighborhood in every area because we could reach people by household, not just by larger demographic groups. The fact that we can do this nationally, I think, is one of things that I am proudest of achieving because I think it will be good for conservatives for a generation. Do you think the so-called values voter, who played such a key role in 2004, will have such an impact in 2006? Well, I think absolutely. I think values voters are critically important. There was an article by Dick Armey in the Wall Street Journal that he called, “Pocketbook Conservatives.” I think that certainly that people who are concerned about the coarsening of the culture, who are concerned about the fact that you’ve got judges who are making decisions that the people ought to make, have real stakes in this election.I think when they think about the fact, Do you want a Roberts and Alito on the court or do you want those guys filibustered? Do you want private property protected or do you want people to take it? Do you want a minor daughter to have access to an abortion without parental consent or do you believe that she ought to be able to? All of those are important questions. In these next 43 days, what message can we expect to hear from President Bush? I think the President will continue to talk about lots of different messages. Certainly the most important message he’ll talk about is the fundamental challenge we face—the existential threat of Islamofacism. We face a threat, that in my opinion, like the World War II or the Cold War threat is ideological in nature, involves a movement and fundamentally is a threat to the American way of freedom. You’re going to hear the President talk about what we’ve got to do as a nation to beat that threat.And finally, much is made of the left's successful use of the Internet as both a fundraising vehicle and means to spread a message. How are Republicans and conservatives doing in comparison? We’re doing it right now talking on this website. I get a report each month of right-of-center vs. left-of-center websites and the number of web traffic. We’ve got much more web traffic than they do.We’ve used the Internet as an organizing tool. What I just described in how we organize helps overcome the left’s advantage because of unions and trial lawyers. And finally, I think the right benefits from the fact that bloggers help sometimes correct the mainstream media.So I think it’s an incredibly exciting time to be a conservative because technology is empowering us to reach new people. It’s empowering us to spread our message. It’s empowering us to get out the vote. And all of those are areas we are focused on.

More treason from inside our intel agencies..

I wonder if there has ever been another six year period in American history where more Secret, Top Secret and Classified documents and discussions were leaked to the media. It seems about every two months there is yet another Secret project revealed: Gitmo issues, Echelon, NSA Wiretappings, CIA prisons, and just about every Top Secret NIE is leaked to the NY Times. We have a fifth column in Washington and I can not understand why more efforts have not been made to find them out and prosecute them. The Captain at Captain's Quarters has a good breakdown on the latest leak which hit this weekend. I agree with his analysis and have stated the same thing numerous times. The liberals would have stated back in 1944 that "at no time in history have more Nazis been fighting the United States." Of course, that was because we were finally starting to fight back: "The new National Intelligence Estimate will report that the Iraq War has amplified Islamist movements and created a new generation of jihadists, according to the New York Times, which saw an advance copy of the summary and spoke to several sources involved in its creation. (The Washington Post also reports on it here.) Mark Mazetti explains how the various intelligence agencies have concluded that our efforts to topple Saddam have inspired even more radicalism, but strangely absent from this report is how Islamist expansion managed to exponentially grow in the twelve years that we attempted to resolve the Iraq quagmire peacefully: A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official. It's a fascinating article, and one CQ readers should read in its entirety. It makes the classic logical fallacy of confusing correlation with causation, and the basic premise can easily be dismissed with a reminder of some basic facts. First and foremost, Islamist radicalism didn't just start expanding in 2003. The most massive expansion of Islamist radicalism came after the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when the Islamists defeated one of the world's superpowers. Shortly afterwards, the staging of American forces in Saudi Arabia to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait created the most significant impulse for the expansion of organized Islamist radicalism and led directly to the formation of al-Qaeda. It put the US in Wahhabi jihadist crosshairs for the first time. So should we have allowed Saddam to invest Kuwait rather than risk amplifying the Islamist impulse? Some might argue for that in hindsight, but it would have put all of our allies and trading partners at risk in the region, as Saddam would not likely have stopped with his "19th Province". It does mean that we should have gone all the way to Baghdad then and there, removing Saddam and doing what we're doing now twelve years earlier. We could have worked with a less-radicalized Shi'ite majority and an Iraqi population more inclined to trust American resolve -- and we would have left Saudi Arabia years before 2003.Unfortunately, we decided to allow Saddam to survive, and then got caught up in a 12-year war that only occasionally looked like peace. We had to keep tens of thousands of forces staged in Saudi Arabia, the action that prompted al-Qaeda's formation and mission in the first place, for a dozen years while we allowed Saddam to continually defy both the cease-fire agreement and sixteen UN Security Council resolutions. Either we had to acknowledge defeat in that war and retreat from the region after 9/11, or we had to end that twelve-year war in order to prosecute the war on terror in the region where terrorists lived.Did that make Islamists more angry? Yes, I'm sure it did, and it probably did give them a great propaganda tool for recruitment. However, here's the crux of the problem: no matter what we do to fight the Islamists and to establish liberal thinking in opposition to them, they're going to get motivated because of it. Even an abject surrender and a return to isolationism will not work, because their victory over us will be an even greater motivational force for Islamist expansion. We had to conclude the Iraq war in order to fight radical Islamist terrorists. We could not afford to allow Saddam to escape the noose -- which our erstwhile allies on the Security Council tried through the corruption of the Oil-For-Food program -- and to have his miltary on our flank in the region. When the planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, that truth finally dawned on Washington DC -- that the long quagmire in Iraq had seriously endangered the US in the region and beyond, and that we had to end the one war as a part of the new war that terrorist had thrust upon us. To put it bluntly, fighting terrorists and upsetting their plans for regional domination will make them mad. Creating opportunities for liberalizing democratic structures to thrive in their back yard will give them enough resentment among Islamists to recruit more terrorists. If we don't already know that much, then we haven't paid much attention. When George Bush warned us that this would be a long war, this is exactly what he meant. The only way to win this war is to give the people in the region better options than Islamic totalitarianism, and a success in Iraq will go a long way towards that goal.

More treason from inside our intel agencies..

I wonder if there has ever been another six year period in American history where more Secret, Top Secret and Classified documents and discussions were leaked to the media. It seems about every two months there is yet another Secret project revealed: Gitmo issues, Echelon, NSA Wiretappings, CIA prisons, and just about every Top Secret NIE is leaked to the NY Times. We have a fifth column in Washington and I can not understand why more efforts have not been made to find them out and prosecute them. The Captain at Captain's Quarters has a good breakdown on the latest leak which hit this weekend. I agree with his analysis and have stated the same thing numerous times. The liberals would have stated back in 1944 that "at no time in history have more Nazis been fighting the United States." Of course, that was because we were finally starting to fight back: "The new National Intelligence Estimate will report that the Iraq War has amplified Islamist movements and created a new generation of jihadists, according to the New York Times, which saw an advance copy of the summary and spoke to several sources involved in its creation. (The Washington Post also reports on it here.) Mark Mazetti explains how the various intelligence agencies have concluded that our efforts to topple Saddam have inspired even more radicalism, but strangely absent from this report is how Islamist expansion managed to exponentially grow in the twelve years that we attempted to resolve the Iraq quagmire peacefully: A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official. It's a fascinating article, and one CQ readers should read in its entirety. It makes the classic logical fallacy of confusing correlation with causation, and the basic premise can easily be dismissed with a reminder of some basic facts. First and foremost, Islamist radicalism didn't just start expanding in 2003. The most massive expansion of Islamist radicalism came after the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when the Islamists defeated one of the world's superpowers. Shortly afterwards, the staging of American forces in Saudi Arabia to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait created the most significant impulse for the expansion of organized Islamist radicalism and led directly to the formation of al-Qaeda. It put the US in Wahhabi jihadist crosshairs for the first time. So should we have allowed Saddam to invest Kuwait rather than risk amplifying the Islamist impulse? Some might argue for that in hindsight, but it would have put all of our allies and trading partners at risk in the region, as Saddam would not likely have stopped with his "19th Province". It does mean that we should have gone all the way to Baghdad then and there, removing Saddam and doing what we're doing now twelve years earlier. We could have worked with a less-radicalized Shi'ite majority and an Iraqi population more inclined to trust American resolve -- and we would have left Saudi Arabia years before 2003.Unfortunately, we decided to allow Saddam to survive, and then got caught up in a 12-year war that only occasionally looked like peace. We had to keep tens of thousands of forces staged in Saudi Arabia, the action that prompted al-Qaeda's formation and mission in the first place, for a dozen years while we allowed Saddam to continually defy both the cease-fire agreement and sixteen UN Security Council resolutions. Either we had to acknowledge defeat in that war and retreat from the region after 9/11, or we had to end that twelve-year war in order to prosecute the war on terror in the region where terrorists lived.Did that make Islamists more angry? Yes, I'm sure it did, and it probably did give them a great propaganda tool for recruitment. However, here's the crux of the problem: no matter what we do to fight the Islamists and to establish liberal thinking in opposition to them, they're going to get motivated because of it. Even an abject surrender and a return to isolationism will not work, because their victory over us will be an even greater motivational force for Islamist expansion. We had to conclude the Iraq war in order to fight radical Islamist terrorists. We could not afford to allow Saddam to escape the noose -- which our erstwhile allies on the Security Council tried through the corruption of the Oil-For-Food program -- and to have his miltary on our flank in the region. When the planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, that truth finally dawned on Washington DC -- that the long quagmire in Iraq had seriously endangered the US in the region and beyond, and that we had to end the one war as a part of the new war that terrorist had thrust upon us. To put it bluntly, fighting terrorists and upsetting their plans for regional domination will make them mad. Creating opportunities for liberalizing democratic structures to thrive in their back yard will give them enough resentment among Islamists to recruit more terrorists. If we don't already know that much, then we haven't paid much attention. When George Bush warned us that this would be a long war, this is exactly what he meant. The only way to win this war is to give the people in the region better options than Islamic totalitarianism, and a success in Iraq will go a long way towards that goal.

Interesting developments in Iraq..

From the Fourth Rail: "A Zarqawi Letter and a Potential Merger with Ansar al-Sunnah Divisions in al-Qaeda, moderation and a potential merger" The Iraqi government has released a letter that highlights the differences inside al-Qaeda. The letter was seized at the site of the death of former al-Qaeda in Iraq commander, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and was written by Attyia al-Jaza’ri. Al-Jaza’ri is described as "an Algerian high-ranking figure of al-Qaida," by the Stars and Stripes. Al-Jaza’ri means 'the Algerian', and he is a member of al-Qaeda's Mujahideen Shura, according to an American intelligence source. Al-Zarqawi is criticized for making military political decisions without asking higher leaders of al-Qaida outside of Iraq. Indeed, the letter writer criticizes al-Zarqawi and reminds him that he is viewed only as an operational commander, not as a political or religious leader. The letter says that senior al-Qaida leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan are “unhappy with methods in Iraq,” particularly attacks targeting civilians and possibly turning Iraqis against the group.Al-Jaza’ri purportedly asks al-Zarqawi to step down as al-Qaida in Iraq leader in favor of other, better-qualified men. Letters of this nature have been intercepted in the past,and have shown the internal divisions within al-Qaeda in Iraq and between al-Qaeda High Command and al-Qaeda in Iraq. In November of 2005, Ayman al-Zawahiri attempted to push Zarqawi away from a strategy that openly divided Sunnis and Shiites and alienated fellow travelers in the Jihadi world. During the formation of the Mujahideen Shura in February of 2006, there were serious questions in jihadi forums about the status of Zarqawi and his denial of a leadership position. In May of 2006, just prior to Zarqawi's death, there was a slew of information about the internal problems in al-Qaeda. Seized documents showed al-Qaeda had serious concerns about its strategy (or lack thereof) and prospects in Anbar province and Baghdad. Al-Qaeda's assassination program in Anbar highlights the fears that al-Qaeda was losing the support of religious and tribal leaders in the region. Attyia al-Jaza’ri's letter to Zarqawi makes sense in light of these other reports. While Zarqawi was popular in the rank and file, as well as with wealthy jihadi donors for his ability to fight and kill Westerners and the hated Shia, there were divides between him and senior al-Qaeda leaders inside and outside of Iraq. And one thing the communications make clear is there is contact with al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Qaeda High Command in "Afghanistan and Pakistan." This also reinforces the fact that al-Qaeda is still a centralized organization exerting influence in the theaters of war. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri certainly aren't operating from caves and constantly on the run. The death of Zarqawi has provided an opening for al-Qaeda in Iraq to 'moderate' its message (all in relative terms of course.) Gone are the days of Zarqawi beheading videos and screeds against Shiites. While al-Qaeda still desires a Shiite-Sunni civil war, this isn't being called for in jihadi press releases and statements. The targets are now 'collaborators.'This moderation has allowed al-Qaeda in Iraq to reach out to Ansar al-Sunnah, one of the most powerful jihadi organization operating in Iraq. Evan Kohlmann reports that the chatter in jihadi Internet forums indicates "a major effort is now underway to bring the notorious Ansar al-Sunnah Army in Iraq officially under the umbrella of Al-Qaida's Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC)." As Evan notes, Ansar al-Sunnah is a pro-bin Laden / al-Qaeda organization. "Active since at least mid-2003, Ansar al-Sunnah is one of the few Iraqi insurgent groups other than Zarqawi's Al-Qaida to openly advocate a pro-Bin Laden platform, to carry out suicide bombing attacks, and to distribute beheading videos on the Internet." An American military intelligence source indicates disagreements over Zarqawi's leadership style and methods have prevented a merger in the past. Ansar al-Sunnah's union with the Mujahideen Shura would be a coup for al-Qaeda, as previously only small, insignificant jihadi groups have incorporated. This merger would help legitimize al-Qaeda's standing in the Sunni community, and could mitigate some of the repercussions of the potentially damaging organization of the Anbar tribes against al-Qaeda and the national reconciliation program.

Chavez's Histrionics Shock Even America's Critics

BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun September 21, 2006 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/40129 UNITED NATIONS — Playing to the anti-American crowd at the U.N. General Assembly yesterday, President Chávez of Venezuela put on a nightclub act, rolling his eyes, crossing himself, looking up to the heavens, and calling President Bush "el diablo." His histrionics were by no means the only bizarre behavior in a room where any insult hurled at Mr. Bush had a good chance of winning easy applause. But even diplomats from countries that rarely see eye to eye with America were taken aback by Mr. Chávez's remark."Did he really say that? Did he go that far?" Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing of China, who attended bilateral meetings all day and was not present for Mr. Chávez's speech, asked. Mr. Li said he wondered whether the Venezuelan leader's comments were mistranslated from the Spanish. "It's hard to see it as helpful," the British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, told The New York Sun."The devil is right at home, the devil, the devil himself is right in the house," Mr. Chávez said to giggles, then applause in the hall of the General Assembly. "And the devil came here yesterday," he added, crossing himself and looking theatrically upward. "Yesterday, the devil came here, right here, right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of," he said. "Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world, truly, as the owner of the world."Mr. Chávez, a firebrand populist who has used his country's vast petroleum reserves to travel the world — including to China — to build coalitions opposing what he calls American "hegemony," said Mr. Bush is "the spokesman for imperialism," and characterized Washington's policies as "domination, exploitation, and pillage of the peoples of the world." Like any showman, he began the speech brandishing a prop — a weighty Noam Chomsky book, "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," that is filled with musings on themes similar to those Mr. Chavez struck. "The first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States," he said, waving the book in the air. The history of the General Assembly is replete with strange behavior, usually carried out by characters who try to gain attention with their anti-American views. In 1960, Nikita Khrushchev famously took off his shoe and banged it on the U.N. Security Council table. In 1974, Yasser Arafat brought a pistol. Fidel Castro often wielded an even more dangerous weapon: deadly speeches lasting hours.On Tuesday, a close ally of Mr. Chavez's, President Morales of Bolivia, brought along another prop. Raising a coca leaf in the air to advocate his country's major agricultural crop, he asked the assembly, "Does this look like a drug to you?"Mr. Chavez has spent much of his country's money recently to marshal worldwide support for his campaign for Venezuela to become one of the 10 elected members of the Security Council. Diplomats predict the country will soon be elected, and that when it does, Mr. Chavez will go to routine council meetings normally attended only by ambassadors. But Mr. Chavez did not have the last word yesterday. Noting that the Venezuelan president had the right to "exercise freedom of speech in Central Park too and say pretty much whatever he wanted," the American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said, "Too bad President Chavez doesn't extend the same freedom of speech to the people of Venezuela."

Enough Apologies

By Anne Applebaum Washington Post Tuesday, September 19, 2006; Page A21 Already, angry Palestinian militants have assaulted seven West Bank and Gaza churches, destroying two of them. In Somalia, gunmen shot dead an elderly Italian nun. Radical clerics from Qatar to Qom have called, variously, for a "day of anger" or for worshipers to "hunt down" the pope and his followers. From Turkey to Malaysia, Muslim politicians have condemned the pope and called his apology "insufficient." And all of this because Benedict XVI, speaking at the University of Regensburg, quoted a Byzantine emperor who, more than 600 years ago, called Islam a faith "spread by the sword." We've been here before, of course. Similar protests were sparked last winter by cartoon portrayals of Muhammad in the Danish press. Similar apologies resulted, though Benedict's is more surprising than those of the Danish government. No one, apparently, can remember any pope, not even the media-friendly John Paul II, apologizing for anything in such specific terms: not for the Inquisition, not for the persecution of Galileo and certainly not for a single comment made to an academic audience in an unimportant German city. But Western reactions to Muslim "days of anger" have followed a familiar pattern, too. Last winter, some Western newspapers defended their Danish colleagues, even going so far as to reprint the cartoons -- but others, including the Vatican, attacked the Danes for giving offense. Some leading Catholics have now defended the pope -- but others, no doubt including some Danes, have complained that his statement should have been better vetted, or never given at all. This isn't surprising: By definition, the West is not monolithic. Left-leaning journalists don't identify with right-leaning colleagues (or right-leaning Catholic colleagues), and vice versa. Not all Christians, let alone all Catholics -- even all German Catholics -- identify with the pope either, and certainly they don't want to defend his every scholarly quotation. Unfortunately, these subtle distinctions are lost on the fanatics who torch embassies and churches. And they may also be preventing all of us from finding a useful response to the waves of anti-Western anger and violence that periodically engulf parts of the Muslim world. Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate -- should the pope have said X, should the Danish prime minister have done Y -- are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting. By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice. All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously? Maybe it's a pipe dream: The day when the White House and Greenpeace can issue a joint statement is surely distant indeed. But if stray comments by Western leaders -- not to mention Western films, books, cartoons, traditions and values -- are going to inspire regular violence, I don't feel that it's asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and unite, occasionally, in its own defense. The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers. I don't see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too.

More Troops for Iraq?

From the Captain at Captains Quarters: The New York Times takes a look at a question that has plagued the Iraq mission from the beginning, and which continues to stir debate to this day. With the latest alarming reports coming out of Anbar, Thom Shanker asks whether more troops would improve the situation -- and gets a mixed response: In the lawless villages and empty deserts of Anbar Province, the Sunni heartland that provides safe haven for indigenous insurgents and foreign terrorists, what could an American commander do if more troops showed up? This tantalizing “what if?” is being debated with renewed intensity after it was revealed last week that a Marine Corps intelligence assessment said Anbar’s dire security situation could be improved only by injecting more economic aid and a division’s worth of troops to reinforce the current 30,000-strong coalition contingent. ... The answer is, they would help, in the short term. But many military analysts also warn that sending in another division — anywhere from 12,00 to 15,000 troops — could create more problems. An extra division could flood the zone in Anbar, a province the size of Louisiana stretching from the west of Baghdad to the Syrian border. Currently, the American military is continuing its “clear, hold and build” policy: pushing insurgents from key towns, sending in Iraqi and coalition forces to maintain security and trying to rebuild local governments and businesses. Despite the return of some insurgents, the military points to successes in cities like Falluja. But troops can’t begin to secure other important towns like Ramadi, Haditha and Hit. In my debate at Macalester College last week, the same question got asked of the panel, and I had no ready response. In the beginning, the light, fast-moving force that toppled Saddam Hussein appeared perfectly designed for the mission. We left a small footprint and moved like lightning into Baghdad, surprising Saddam and his henchmen and crushing his regime in three weeks. Since then, the numbers have not appeared strong enough to maintain law and order, especially in the beginning. Many wondered why the US disbanded the Iraqi Army, but in truth the army disbanded itself; they deserted as soon as the Coalition cut them off. Saddam's police also disappeared, leaving the cities and towns in a state of chaos, a situation that the Pentagon anticipated but in smaller scope.As a result, the Coalition forces wound up policing Iraq as well as fighting an ongoing insurgency, and that has stretched the forces in Iraq farther than anyone desired. The US had no choice but to train new security forces, recruiting from the people oppressed by Saddam Hussein before the invasion, a process that necessarily takes a long time to accomplish. Three years after the end of Saddam's reign, the elected Iraqi government and the US has finally begun to field enough Iraqi troops to start securing entire provinces.Not Anbar, however, and Shankar reports that adding another division would create as many problems as it would solve. At a point in time where the Iraqis expect to see fewer Americans and more Iraqis on patrol. They could help in securing the Syrian border, a particular problem in Anbar, and perhaps do more rebuilding in some areas. It could also help hold down the insurgency in cities such as Ramadi. The US wants to have its end-game strategy in place, and adding new troops -- even if we could find them -- would not appreciable alter what the Pentagon and the Iraqi government see as the trajectory of the mission. The key remains the training and deployment of native Iraqi forces. The US can clear areas, but it takes the Iraqis to hold them, and adding more troops will not alter that fact. A larger deployment in the beginning would have made the job easier, perhaps, but not at this point. What will likely happen is that US forces freed from assignments elsewhere will go to Anbar and Baghdad instead of coming home immediately. Iraqi forces have taken over one province entirely and are poised to replace Coalition forces in three or four more before the end of the year. American troops in those areas will almost certainly get shifted to the hot spots in an effort to play the string out a little longer while Iraqi security forces come up to speed. As Anbar commander Maj. General Richard Zilner tells Shanker, the ultimate solution will have to come from the Iraqis.UPDATE: This news helps, of course:Nearly all the tribes from Iraq’s volatile Sunni-dominated Anbar Province have agreed to join forces and fight Al Qaeda insurgents and other foreign-backed “terrorists,” an influential tribal leader said Sunday. Iraqi government leaders encouraged the movement. Twenty-five of about 31 tribes in Anbar, a vast, mostly desert region that stretches westward from Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have united against insurgents and gangs that are “killing people for no reason,” said the tribal leader, Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi. The Times tries to pour a little cold water on the announcement, questioning how much enthusiasm will accompany their efforts, but the public nature of the agreement carries a lot of weight. It looks like Zilner has made quite a bit of effort to fulfill his own prophecy by winning support from the tribal leaders.

An American Hero: Rick Rescorla

From Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette... "Have you seen the movie We were Soldiers? A good one, in my opinion. Given just a couple hours to tell a tale I think all in all the folks involved did a commendable job. Perhaps it's hard to go wrong, given the source material. We Were Soldiers Once, And Young is an account of the battle at Ia Drang Valley, fought in the still early phases of the war in Viet Nam. The book was written by Hal Moore, who was then a Lt Col and commander of the American troops in the valley, and Joe Galloway, a reporter who was at the battle. Their collaboration is a truly human account of men at war- including the enemy viewpoint, as Galloway and Moore's efforts at capturing the battle on paper were thorough enough to include interviews with survivors from the other side. Take a look at the cover. The prominent figure is Rick Rescorla, described thusly on the LZ Xray web page: No sleep for 48 hours. Grimy, unshaven, filthy uniform. Canteens loose, dogtags hanging out, pocket unbuttoned, helmet strap hanging. No insignia of rank, sleeves up. Dirty fingernails. His bayonet is fixed; trigger finger alert and ready for action. Lt. Rick Rescorla, Platoon Leader, B Co 2/7 Cav in Bayonet Attack on the morning of 16 Nov 1965(1) This is not a posed shot; this is a man moving forward into combat. Eyes forward. Ready. On that day, the PAVN Commander knows that he had severely weakened and damaged the defenders in the Charlie Co sector the previous morning. What he does not know is that a fresh company - B Co 2nd Bn 7th Cav, had taken over the position after that engagement. That company, unmolested the previous afternoon, had cut fields of fire, dug new foxholes, fired in artillery concentrations, carefully emplaced it's machine guns and piled up ammunition(1). Rescorla directed his men to dig foxholes and establish a defense perimeter. Exploring the hilly terrain beyond the perimeter, he came under enemy fire. After nightfall, he and his men endured waves of assault. To keep morale up, Rescorla led the men in military cheers and Cornish songs throughout the night(2). Rescorla knew war. His men did not, yet. To steady them, to break their concentration away from the fear that may grip a man when he realizes there are hundreds of men very close by who want to kill him, Rescorla sang. Mostly he sang dirty songs that would make a sailor blush. Interspersed with the lyrics was the voice of command: ?Fix bayonets?on liiiiine?reaaaa-dy?forward.? It was a voice straight from Waterloo, from the Somme, implacable, impeccable, impossible to disobey. His men forgot their fear, concentrated on his orders and marched forward as he led them straight into the pages of history.(3) The PAVN assaults four separate times beginning at 4:22 AM. The last is at 6:27 AM. They are stopped cold, losing over 200 dead. B Co has 6 wounded. At 9:55 AM, a sweep outward is made which results in more enemy dead and the position secured(1).The next morning, Rescorla took a patrol through the battlefield, searching for American dead and wounded. As he looked over a giant anthill, he encountered an enemy machine-gun nest. The startled North Vietnamese fired on him, and Rescorla hurled a grenade into the nest. There were no survivors(2).Rescorla and Bravo company were evacuated by helicopter. The rest of the battalion marched to a nearby landing zone. On the way, they were ambushed, and Bravo company was again called in for relief. Only two helicopters made it through enemy fire. As the one carrying Rescorla descended, the pilot was wounded, and he started to lift up. Rescorla and his men jumped the remaining ten feet, bullets flying at them, and made it into the beleaguered camp. As Lieutenant Larry Gwin later recalled the scene, "I saw Rick Rescorla come swaggering into our lines with a smile on his face, an M-79 on his shoulder, his M-16 in one hand, saying, 'Good, good, good! I hope they hit us with everything they got tonight?we'll wipe them up.' His spirit was catching. The enemy must have thought an entire battalion was coming to help us, because of all our screaming and yelling."(2)"My God, it was like Little Big Horn," recalls Pat Payne, a reconnaissance platoon leader. "We were all cowering in the bottom of our foxholes, expecting to get overrun. Rescorla gave us courage to face the coming dawn. He looked me in the eye and said, 'When the sun comes up, we're gonna kick some ass.' " Sure enough, the battalion fought its way out of Albany. Rescorla left the field with a morale-boosting souvenir: a battered French Army bugle that the North Vietnamese had once claimed as a trophy of war. It became a talisman for his entire division.(4) Lt Rescorla survived that engagement and many others. He had grown up in a village on England's southwest coast and left at age sixteen to join the British military. He'd fought against Communists in Cyprus and Rhodesia. He then came to America, he said, so that he could enlist in the Army and go to Vietnam. He welcomed the opportunity to join the American cause in Southeast Asia. He worked his way up through the ranks to Sergeant before being commissioned.The epitome of the young warrior, he was the sort that England seems to have bred in abundance for centuries: the type of young man who in times past went forth from Britain and created an empire upon which the sun never set. England happened to be fresh out of wars in the 1960s, so Rescorla became an American and fought in ours.(3) More stories from Viet Nam: The survivors of the 7th Cavalry still tell awestruck stories about Rescorla. Like the time he stumbled into a hooch full of enemy soldiers on a reconnaissance patrol in Bon Song. "Oh, pardon me," he said, before firing a few rounds and racing away. "Oh, comma, pardon me," repeats Dennis Deal, who followed Rescorla that day in April 1966. "Like he had walked into a ladies' tea party!" Or the time a deranged private pulled a .45-caliber pistol on an officer while Rescorla was nearby, sharpening his bowie knife. "Rick just walked right between them and said: Put. Down. The. Gun." recalls Bill Lund, who served with Rescorla in Vietnam. "And the guy did. Then Rick went back to his knife. He was flat out the bravest man any of us ever knew."(4) After fighting in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and used his military benefits to study creative writing at the University of Oklahoma. Literary minded, even before college he had read all fifty-one volumes of the Harvard Classics and could recite Shakespeare and quote Churchill. He had started writing a novel about a mobile-air-cavalry unit, and had several stories published in Western-themed magazines. He eventually earned a bachelor's, a master's in literature, and a law degree. Rescorla then moved to South Carolina for a brief teaching career. He left for greener pastures; jobs in corporate security eventually led him to Dean Witter in 1985. He moved to New Jersey, commuted to Manhattan, and rose to become vice-president in charge of security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. And, oh by the way, was still in the Army, as a Reservist, having advanced to colonel before retiring in 1990.Rescorla's office was on the forty-fourth floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. The firm occupied twenty-two floors in the south tower, and several floors in a building nearby. In 1990 Rescorla and Dan Hill, an old Army friend, evaluated the security, identifying load bearing columns in the parking garage as a weak point. A security official for the Port Authority dismissed their concerns. On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb exploded in the basement.Rescorla ensured that every one of his firm's employees was safely evacuated, and was the last man out of the building. Rescorla met his wife while running barefoot. Still determined to be a writer he had been scripting a play set in Rhodesia, based on his experiences there. Few of the native Rhodesians had worn shoes, which was why, he explained to her, he had to feel what it was like to run barefoot. Some insight into the man's character: Rescorla may have told Susan that he was running barefoot as research for a play, but he had already been running barefoot in Africa, and then at Fort Dix, toughening his soles to the point where he could extinguish a fire with his bare feet. He told Hill that if he lost his boots in combat it wouldn't matter. This was something he'd absorbed from his years in Africa. "You should be able to strip a man naked and throw him out with nothing on him," he told Hill. By the end of the day, the man should be clothed and fed. By the end of the week, he should own a horse. And by the end of a year he should own a business and have money in the bank.(2) Small wonder that the final chapter of the story goes like this:In St. Augustine, Dan Hill was laying tile in his upstairs bathroom when his wife called, "Dan, get down here! An airplane just flew into the World Trade Center. It's a terrible accident." Hill hurried downstairs, and then the phone rang. It was Rescorla, calling from his cell phone. "Are you watching TV?" he asked. "What do you think?" "Hard to tell. It could have been an accident, but I can't see a commercial airliner getting that far off.""I'm evacuating right now," Rescorla said.Hill could hear Rescorla issuing orders through the bullhorn. He was calm and collected, never raising his voice. Then Hill heard him break into song: Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming; Can't you see their spearpoints gleaming? See their warriors' pennants streaming To this battlefield. Men of Cornwall stand ye steady; It cannot be ever said ye for the battle were not ready; Stand and never yield! Rescorla came back on the phone. "Pack a bag and get up here," he said. "You can be my consultant again." He added that the Port Authority was telling him not to evacuate and to order people to stay at their desks. "What'd you say?" Hill asked. "I said, 'Piss off, you son of a bitch,' " Rescorla replied. "Everything above where that plane hit is going to collapse, and it's going to take the whole building with it. I'm getting my people the fuck out of here." Then he said, "I got to go. Get your shit in one basket and get ready to come up."Hill turned back to the TV and, within minutes, saw the second plane execute a sharp left turn and plunge into the south tower. Susan saw it, too, and frantically phoned her husband's office. No one answered.About fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. It was Rick. She burst into tears and couldn't talk."Stop crying," he told her. "I have to get these people out safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I've never been happier. You made my life."Susan cried even harder, gasping for breath. She felt a stab of fear, because the words sounded like those of someone who wasn't coming back. "No!" she cried, but then he said he had to go. Cell-phone use was being curtailed so as not to interfere with emergency communications.From the World Trade Center, Rescorla again called Hill. He said he was taking some of his security men and making a final sweep, to make sure no one was left behind, injured, or lost. Then he would evacuate himself. "Call Susan and calm her down," he said. "She's panicking." Hill reached Susan, who had just got off the phone with Sullivan. "Take it easy," he said, as she continued to sob. "He's been through tight spots before, a million times." Suddenly Susan screamed. Hill turned to look at his own television and saw the south tower collapse. He thought of the words Rescorla had so often used to comfort dying soldiers. "Susan, he'll be O.K.," he said gently. "Take deep breaths. Take it easy. If anyone will survive, Rick will survive."When Hill hung up, he turned to his wife. Her face was ashen. "Shit," he said. "Rescorla is dead."(2) The rest of Rick Rescorla's morning is shrouded in some mystery. The tower went dark. Fire raged. Windows shattered. Rescorla headed upstairs before moving down; he helped evacuate several people above the 50th Floor. Stephan Newhouse, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, said at a memorial service in Hayle that Rescorla was spotted as high as the 72nd floor, then worked his way down, clearing floors as he went. He was telling people to stay calm, pace themselves, get off their cell phones, keep moving. At one point, he was so exhausted he had to sit for a few minutes, although he continued barking orders through his bullhorn. Morgan Stanley officials said he called headquarters shortly before the tower collapsed to say he was going back up to search for stragglers. John Olson, a Morgan Stanley regional director, saw Rescorla reassuring colleagues in the 10th-floor stairwell. "Rick, you've got to get out, too," Olson told him. "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out," Rescorla replied.Morgan Stanley officials say Rescorla also told employees that "today is a day to be proud to be American" and that "tomorrow, the whole world will be talking about you." They say he also sang "God Bless America" and Cornish folk tunes in the stairwells. Those reports could not be confirmed, although they don't sound out of character. He liked to sing in a crisis. But the documented truth is impressive enough. Morgan Stanley managing director Bob Sloss was the only employee who didn't evacuate the 66th floor after the first plane hit, pausing to call his family and several underlings, even taking a call from a Bloomberg News reporter. Then the second plane hit, and his office walls cracked, and he felt the tower wagging like a dog's tail. He clambered down to the 10th floor, and there was Rescorla, sweating through his suit in the heat, telling people they were almost out, making no move to leave himself. Rick did not make it out. Neither did two of his security officers who were at his side. But only three other Morgan Stanley employees died when their building was obliterated. (4)However, over 2600 employees of Dean Whitter walked out of the south tower and in to the rest of their lives that morning. Incredibly, you can "meet" Rick Rescorla via video interview made in 1998. He discusses Ia Drang and beyond, with some chilling words for the world today. Remind yourself as you watch and listen that he was speaking in 1998. Must see. Amazing. Listen to the man and then you can add your signature to an online petition calling on the President to award the Medal of Freedom to Rick Rescorla. A PETITION TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH TO AWARD THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM TO C.R.?RICK? RESCORLA FOR HEROISM AND GALLANTRY BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY ON SEPTEMBER 11,2001. MR. RESCORLA CAME TO THIS COUNTRY AS AN IMMIGRANT TO BECOME AN OFFICER IN THE ARMY. MR RESCORLA SERVED WITH SUCH DISTINCTION AS AN OFFICER IN VIET NAM THAT ALL WHO SERVED WITH HIM CONSIDER HIM THE BRAVEST MAN WE HAVE EVER KNOWN. HE WAS HIGHLY DECORATED FOR HIS BRAVERY AND LEADERSHIP IN COMBAT. HE BECAME A US CITIZEN AND SOUGHT A HIGHER EDUCATION OBTAINING A BACHELOR AND MASTERS DEGREE AT UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA AND FURTHER OBTAINING A LAW DEGREE BEFORE SERVING A AS TEACHER AT USC LAW SCHOOL BEFORE BEING LURED TO THE WORLD OF COMMERCIAL BANKING. MR. RESCORLA?S SPECIALTY WAS SECURITY AND SECURITY LAW. IN 1993 HE WAS THE LAST MAN OUT OF THE TRADE TOWERS AFTER EVACUATING EVERYONE. ON SEPT.11TH IN SPITE OF BEING TOLD HIS BUILDING WAS NOT IN DANGER, HE IMPLEMENTED THE EVACUATION PLAN HE HAD DEVELOPED FOR HIS FIRM, MORGAN STANLEY. AS A DIRECT RESULT OF HIS EFFORTS THAT DAY AND HIS QUICK ACTION, OVER 2600 EMPLOYEES WERE SAVED. MR RESCORLA WAS LAST SEEN GOING UP TO RESCUE PEOPLE WHO WERE UNABLE TO GET DOWN. HIS ACTIONS REFLECT THE VERY BEST ABOUT AMERICA, ITS CITIZENS AND ITS DREAMS. THE UNDERSIGNED URGE YOU TO RECOGNIZE MR RESCORLA BY BESTOWING THIS HIGHEST HONOR TO THIS MOST DESERVING MAN. People who knew Rescorla note that all this is exactly what he wouldn't want. He shunned public praise for his past heroism, kept his war photos and medals in a closet, and told his wife he didn't want to see the Mel Gibson movie based on "We Were Soldiers" when it came out. To the friends he left behind, his death made a kind of cosmic sense on a day when the universe was out of order: The right man in the right place at the right time. He left in a blaze of glory. With no parade. Rescorla was a man who didn't need to be reminded of the high price of freedom. However we do.(4) Perhaps a Shakespeare quote then? "His life was gentle, and the elements So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world 'This was a man!'"

Honoring our Heroic Marines..

WTC rescuer: Film is fine BY SID CASSESE Newsday Staff Writer September 14, 2006 A black former Marine honored by Nassau lawmakers yesterday for helping to find two Port Authority officers trapped in Twin Towers rubble on 9/11 said he's not bothered by being portrayed as a white man in Oliver Stone's recent movie "World Trade Center.""I'm not upset with that at all," said Jason Thomas, 32, of Columbus, Ohio, an officer in the state Supreme Court there. "I saw what the movie was trying to get its audience to see - the devastation."Thomas grew up in Hempstead and graduated from Uniondale High School. His schoolmate, Legis. Kevan Abrahams (D-Hempstead), led the move to honor him. The sergeant heard of the attack from his mother, Iris Thomas, when he dropped by her Hempstead home. Although released from active duty a year earlier, he donned his fatigues and rushed to the site. He met another former Marine, Staff Sgt. David Karnes, of Connecticut, and they decided to start a rescue mission."At that particular site - at Church Street, across from the Century 21 [department store] - there were no rescuers," Thomas said. "It was about 3 p.m. when we went across this beam. Karnes was ahead of me. I thought I heard something from this black hole on my left with smoke coming from it. I hollered for Karnes, and we both lay on the beam and hollered: 'United States Marines! Is anybody there?' We heard this faint voice." Thomas said he and Karnes dug with a shovel for nearly two hours before shouting for help from other rescuers. "We finally got the first guy out at about 3 a.m.," he said.Thomas said Stone sent him a letter of apology for the misrepresentation and producer Michael Shamberg took him out to dinner in Manhattan. "Some people knew I was there, but nobody knew how to contact me," said Thomas, who worked at the site for 2 1/2 weeks. The legislature also honored Karen Denise Menjivar, 21, a poet from Uniondale.

NATO letting us down once again..

From the always outstanding Captain at www.captainsquarters.com: NATO's Secretary-General has publicly scolded member nations for reneging on their commitments to supporting the mission in Afghanistan, apparently despairing of getting the promised level of troops. The rebuke comes as a demonstration of a consistent refusal of Europe to fight the war on terror, even against the Taliban of Afghanistan, which most Europeans concede was a necessary step after 9/11: THE political head of Nato appealed yesterday for alliance members to provide hundreds more troops for the mission in southern Afghanistan. With most of the fighting burden falling on the shoulders of the British, US, Canadian and Dutch troops in the South, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Secretary-General of Nato, said that some countries had failed to live up to their promises on troop numbers.In an interview with the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, he said that he could not accept a scenario in which Nato members would fail to supply the necessary troops. Alliance foreign ministers will meet in New York next week to discuss the crisis. Mr de Hoop Scheffer said: “I am calling for alliance solidarity because some nations are carrying more of the burden than others.” He was speaking out after The Times revealed that many Nato members had made it clear they had no intention of sending more troops. General James Jones, the American Supreme Allied Commander Europe, has asked for another 2,500 soldiers for southern Afghanistan.Britain can hardly do more. The UK has over 5,000 troops in Afghanistan already and many more than that in southern Iraq. The Italians now have troops in both countries as well as Lebanon. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Turkey have shrugged their shoulders, and now NATO wants the Poles to fill the gap that the rest of the alliance has ignored. Perhaps people might recall the insistence of Europe and many here in America on engaging Afghanistan and Iraq through international alliances. We tried in both cases, and we had a lot more support from our allies with Afghanistan, as it had created much less controversy than the war against Saddam Hussein. Our relief by NATO was supposed to show America the benefits of "true" international coalitions in dealing with the complex problems of Southwest Asia. However, once again, we see that the global community lacks the fortitude to make good on their promises and meet the challenge of their own demands. The same nations that scolded us over our supposedly unilateral approach now refuse to answer the phone when NATO calls on them to meet their pledges of troop support. The French do not belong to NATO, but the rest of Europe will blithely sit and watch Afghanistan's new democratically-elected government fall victim to a resurgent Taliban rather than lift a finger to help. Even Germany, with 2700 troops stationed in the quiet north, refuses to redeploy to assist the US, UK, and Canada in the more volatile southern region.As with Lebanon, we hear a lot of posturing from Europe on how to conduct war and demands to implement their peace strategies. When it comes time to put themselves on the line for their strategies and goals, they increasingly go AWOL.

Jewish warrior falls in defense of our Country..

Marine Felt Calling After 9/11 Attacks By Leef Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 12, 2006; Page B02 Colin Wolfe was in sixth grade, fixated on girls, sports and the challenges of being a preteen, when a group of Marines visited his Manassas elementary school. He returned to his Manassas home that afternoon with their presentation swimming in his head. Perhaps, he told his parents, he might enlist one day. Wolfe, 19, of Manassas was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Hundreds of mourners attended his funeral. It was just childhood talk, his parents reasoned. Their son was a skilled ballet dancer, performing since childhood with a local dance company, and he had smarts. Perhaps he would go to college. Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Wolfe was 14 when the twin towers fell, and like so many, he watched in horror as the Pentagon burned on cable news channels. He was just a boy, but the call to action that he felt struck deep. In the years that followed, he collected articles depicting the attacks and search for Osama bin Laden. He talked with friends and family about the war on terror and visited the Pentagon and Ground Zero in New York. And when he graduated from Osbourn High School in Manassas last year, he did the one thing he felt in his heart that was right: He enlisted in the Marines, ready to fight."Like a lot of kids, he had a sense of wanting to serve his country, but 9/11 crystallized that in him," said Mark Wolfe, his father. Pfc. Colin J. Wolfe, 19, was deployed to Iraq in July. He was killed Aug. 30 in Anbar province, when the Humvee in which he was riding struck a roadside bomb.Yesterday, family and friends gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the slain Marine. His parents picked Sept. 11 for the burial, believing it to be a fitting tribute to a young man who gave his life for his country in Iraq. "He knew what he was fighting for and what he was all about," Mark Wolfe said. "He believed he was serving the country, protecting the country. He had made his choice." Colin was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and was posthumously promoted to lance corporal. Hundreds of mourners -- among them Virginia Sens. George Allen (R) and John W. Warner (R) as well as Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) -- gathered at the graveside under a threatening, gray sky.Wolfe, 19, of Manassas was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. They listened as a bugler played taps, the instrument's echoes fading softly across the field of grass and gravestones. They watched spellbound as six marines folded the American flag draped over Wolfe's coffin with precision.The motorcade to the cemetery -- one of the largest for a casualty of the Iraq war, according to cemetery officials -- was led by a small police escort.Family members said Wolfe wasn't planning a career in the military. He just felt he had a job to do -- and not as an officer, either. Wolfe's father said he wanted to be on the front lines, doing the real work, he said.Mark Wolfe said his son's battalion has lost six Marines in the past few weeks, a heavy toll that drives home the danger of their jobs."People in the general public don't realize how hard they fight and how many risks they take," Mark Wolfe said. "It's war." But Colin Wolfe knew it was war. He looked on the conflict in Iraq with the same gravity as he viewed World War II, his father said.Shortly after Colin graduated from high school, his family traveled to France, where they drove from Paris to Omaha Beach, the famous Normandy landing site during the allied invasion of World War II. They were there, Mark Wolfe said, to pay their respects.For Colin, who had just enlisted, it was "hallowed ground." He pointed out to family members headstones marked with the Star of David -- a symbol of Jewish heritage, like his own. Mark Wolfe said he last spoke with his son on Aug. 19. The phone conversation lasted 15 or 20 minutes, and Colin talked about the tedium of combat and how much the Iraqi children loved the Marines. His father said he stressed that the Iraqi soldiers were doing a good job, that they were to be trusted.The job might be progressing slowly, he told his father, but they were going to get it done. "We're winning," Colin said. "It's just going to take some time."

Remembering our September 11th Heroes..

I signed up to be a part of the 2,996 project. We bloggers will be paying our respects and honor to those lost on September 11, 2001. My hero is: Jean Marie Wallendorf age 23. Place killed: World Trade Center. Resident of New York, N.Y. (USA). Jean Marie Wallendorf will be honored by Jarred Fishman at the blog Air Force Pundit. This was the 1913th blogger to sign up for the 2,996 Tribute project. She was a physically beautiful woman, and I am sure a beautiful woman on the inside as well. Jeanmarie Wallendorf 'The Strongest Person I Had Ever Met' She was only 23 years old, tiny at 5-foot-2 and 115 pounds, but there was nothing weak or fragile about Jeanmarie Wallendorf. "She was definitely by far the strongest person I had ever met in terms of her desire to succeed and her desire to be happy in life," said her boyfriend, Joseph Wald. Wallendorf was hired at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods six months ago as a liaison between the research and trading departments. With no college degree, her sheer will to succeed and innate intelligence got her where she was, Wald said. "You can't argue with someone who knows what they're talking about," he said. "And she made sure that she did." She had always been that way, said Wallendorf's mother, Christine Barton of Stuart, Fla. Wallendorf, known as "Jaime" to her friends, had been working since she was 15. "She could do anything," Barton said. "Anything." She lived in New York as a young child and grew up mostly in Jupiter, Fla. She moved back to the city three years ago, and Wald first met her when she got a receptionist job at the brokerage he owns, EDGETRADE.com. "When I first met her, my first impression was that she was a beautiful girl that seemed very sharp," he said. As she moved up in his company, getting into operations, he said, "I got to know her as someone I could rely on to get the job done ... one of the most reliable, hard-working people I've ever met." Then, when the two fell in love, "It was more incredible than I could ever imagine," Wald said. Wallendorf left Wald's company, and, a year and a half ago, the couple moved in together in Bay Ridge. "She was on her way to achieving all of her goals, in terms of her personal and relationship goals, as well as professionally," Wald said. "It wasn't something over the horizon. She had done all the hard work already. It was within her grasp." Still, Wald said, Wallendorf wasn't so driven that she couldn't relax. The couple made the most of New York City together, exploring its restaurants, clubs and lounges. A natural dancer, Wallendorf didn't mind if the music was country or hip-hop."She loved to have a good time," Wald said. "She was a very fun person." Her mother agreed. "She could be so serious, very professional, and then the next second, she could be like a dumb blonde" in the best possible way, she said, recalling with amusement a mix-up at a wedding Wallendorf attended in Aruba, where she ended up in the bride's gown by mistake. "It was like an 'I Love Lucy' show," she said. Barton, who was 17 when she gave birth to Wallendorf, said her oldest daughter sometimes felt like a mother to her. "She was my daughter when I worried about her. I was her daughter when she worried about me," she said. "But we were really friends. That's why it's been so hard for me." Hard also for Wallendorf's four younger siblings, Joseph, 19, Mellanie, 15, Christopher, 8, and John, 5. They idolized her, her mother said. Whenever there was a problem with one of them, "she would say, 'Do you want me to talk to them?' and she did," said Barton. "They listened to her because she knew how to speak to them." Since Sept. 11, when Wallendorf was lost from her office on the 89th floor of Tower Two, Barton said she has found herself gravitating toward the city. She's done the 20-plus-hour drive from Florida five times. She hasn't yet broken the news to her youngest children that their big sister won't be home for Christmas."There's a part of me that wants somebody to come to me and say, 'Jeanmarie's OK,'" she said. Wald is similarly bereft. He's been thinking about the classic question, "Is it better to have loved and lost..." "If I was asked that prior to this, I wouldn't have had an answer," he said. "But after this, I can say that it is infinitely better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. As terrible as things are now, I just know that my life is richer forever because of her and that relationship."

Could Clinton have stopped Bin-Laden?

Did the Clinton administration fail repeatedly to kill or seize Osama bin Laden? His administration heads today insist not, and are accusing Disney/ABC of fabrication for claiming that they blew it in the upcoming miniseries "The Path to 9/11" which airs on Sunday the 10th. Los Angeles Times December 5, 2001 MANSOOR IJAZ Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn't respond. President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year. I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities. From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas. Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center. The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening. As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster. Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996. The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to "baby-sit" him—monitoring all his activities and associates. But Saudi officials didn't want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them. In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked Bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere. Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for Al Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden's personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks. Some of these men are now among the FBI's 22 most-wanted terrorists. The two men who allegedly piloted the planes into the twin towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, prayed in the same Hamburg mosque as did Salim and Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian trader who managed Salim's bank accounts and whose assets are frozen. Important data on each had been compiled by the Sudanese. But U.S. authorities repeatedly turned the data away, first in February 1996; then again that August, when at my suggestion Sudan's religious ideologue, Hassan Turabi, wrote directly to Clinton; then again in April 1997, when I persuaded Bashir to invite the FBI to come to Sudan and view the data; and finally in February 1998, when Sudan's intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi, wrote directly to the FBI. Gutbi had shown me some of Sudan's data during a three-hour meeting in Khartoum in October 1996. When I returned to Washington, I told Berger and his specialist for East Africa, Susan Rice, about the data available. They said they'd get back to me. They never did. Neither did they respond when Bashir made the offer directly. I believe they never had any intention to engage Muslim countries—ally or not. Radical Islam, for the administration, was a convenient national security threat. And that was not the end of it. In July 2000—three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen—I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States' closest Arab allies—an ally whose name I am not free to divulge—approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials. The offer, which would have brought Bin Laden to the Arab country as the first step of an extradition process that would eventually deliver him to the U.S., required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request Bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family—Clintonian diplomacy at its best. Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history. Mansoor Ijaz, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of a New York-based investment company.

It's Fascism -- And It's Islamic

By Victor Davis Hanson, Real Clear Politics September 7, 2006 George Bush recently declared that we are at war with "Islamic fascism." Muslim-American groups were quick to express furor at the expression. Middle Eastern autocracies complained that it was provocative and insensitive. Critics of the term chosen by the president, however, should remember what al-Qaida, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and other extremist Muslim groups have said and done. Like the fascists of the 1930s, the leaders of these groups are authoritarians who brook no dissent in their efforts to impose a comprehensive system of submission upon the unwilling. Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to kill any American they could find, and then tried to fulfill that vow on Sept. 11. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah bragged that "the Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them" - and then started a war. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, promises to "wipe out" Israel, and is seeking the nuclear means to do so. Sharia law and dreams of pan-Islamic global rule fuel their ambitions. Once again, they seek to fool Western liberals through voicing a litany of perpetual hurts. Like the Nazis who whined about the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I, and alleged maltreatment of Germans in the Sudetenland, for years Islamists harped about American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, the U.N. embargo of Iraq and the occupation of Gaza and Lebanon. But when each complaint was settled, another louder one sprung up; these grievances, it turned out, were pretexts for a larger sense of victimhood, jealousy and lost pride. And appeasement - treating the first World Trade Center bombing as a mere criminal justice matter or virtually ignoring the attack on the USS Cole - only spurred on further aggression. Islamic fascism is also anti-democratic and characteristically reactionary. It conjures up a past of Islamic influence that existed before the supposed corruption of modernism. Like Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, who sought to recapture lost mythical Aryan, Roman or samurai purity, so Islamic fascists talk in romantic terms of the ancient caliphate. Anti-Semitism is a tenet of fascism, then and now. But so is a generic hatred for unbelievers, homosexuals and blacks. The latter are slurred in the Arab media, while homosexuals were rounded up under the Taliban and the Iranian mullacracy. "Mein Kampf" sells well under its translated title "Jihadi." President Ahmadinejad recently suggested in a sympathetic letter to the German chancellor that the Holocaust was little more than an "alibi" used by the victors of World War II to keep the defeated down. Even now, it is hard to distinguish the slurs against Jews ("pigs and apes") used in the Middle Eastern media from the venom of Joseph Goebbels' propaganda. Goose-stepping and stiff-armed salutes at Iranian and Hezbollah parades are conscious imitations of past fascist armies. Some object that the term "Islamic fascism" is too vague to encompass the differing agendas of diverse groups such as the Wahhabis, al-Qaida and Hezbollah. But just as racist German Nazis found common ground with Asian supremacists in Japan, so too the shared hatred of the West trumps the internecine rivalries of present-day Islamists. The common denominators are extremist views of the Koran (thus the term Islamic), and the goal of seeing authoritarianism imposed at the state level by force (thus the notion of fascism). The pairing of the two words conveys a precise message: the old fascism is back, but now driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam. Others object that fascism conjures up images of past huge armies, and thus exaggerates only a moderate threat from today's ragtag jihadists. But Iran is seeking a bomb far more powerful than anything Hitler had at his disposal. About 2,400 Nazi V-1 buzz bombs in World War II reached their London targets. Nearly 4,000 Katyushas hit tiny Israel in about a month. And the petroleum of the Middle East is the lever by which the Islamic fascists hope to overturn an oil-hungry world. In contrast, the fuzzy "war on terror" is the real inexact usage. The United States has never fought against an enemy's tools - such as German submarines or the Soviet KGB - but only against those who employ them. Other groups today use terror - like narco-dealers and Basque separatists - but this war at this time is not against them. The real problem is not that "Islamic fascism" is inaccurate or mean-spirited, but that this identification earns such vehement disdain in Europe and the United States. That hysteria may tell us as much about the state of a demoralized West as the term itself does about our increasingly emboldened enemies. Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

Iran deploys locally-manufactured warplane

Hopefully soon to be scrap metal courtesy of our Raptors .. Associated Press Tehran, September 6, 2006 Iran deployed its first locally-manufactured fighter bomber plane on Wednesday during large-scale military exercises, state-run television reported. "The bomber Saegheh or Lightning is similar to (the American) F-18 but more powerful. It was designed, optimised and improved by Iranian experts," the report said. The report said the Iranian air force had commissioned Saegheh after many test flights in the past year.Television footage showed the takeoff and flight of the airplane. The plane had a small cockpit and only one pilot. It launched two rockets. "Saegheh is capable of launching both rockets and bombs," the report said. General Karim Ghavami, commander of Iran's Air Force, told state-run television that the war games were being held "to show the trans-regional forces that we are ready to defend our country up to the latest drop of our blood." The Islamic republic, which views the United States as a foe, is concerned about the US military presence in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. It also has expressed worry about Israeli threats to destroy its nuclear facilities, which the West contends could be used to make a bomb but which Iran insists are for civilian uses only. During manoeuvres dubbed "The Blow of Zolfaghar," which began in August 19, Iran test fired short range surface-to-surface, sub-to-surface missiles, new air defence system and laser bombs.Iran's military test-fired a series of missiles during large-scale war games in the Persian Gulf in March and April, including a missile it claimed was not detectable by radar that can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously. After decades of relying on foreign weapons purchases, Iran now says it is increasingly self-sufficient in its military equipment claiming it annually exports more than $100 million (euro81 million) worth of military equipment to more than 50 countries. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and the Saegheh fighter plane. The government has not said how many warplanes it will build. It announced in early 2005 that it had begun production of torpedoes.

Lebanon's Fuse

BY NIBRAS KAZIMI September 5, 2006 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/39089 The latest flare-up in Lebanon was not an isolated incident, but rather the beginning of a global war. Powerful historical forces are astir rendering diplomatic quick-fixes to no avail. Dormant hatreds are being awakened, and the Middle East is seized with the hallucinations of vengeful fever. It will turn ugly, bearing out the worst in every civilization, including the Western one.I was blissfully certain that this war would take at least another two years to kick-off, but I was very wrong. My mistake derived from believing that the jihadists were setting the time-table, but I was too fixated on the Sunni jihadists to take notice of the Shia ones and their state-sponsors. Many have conjured up explanations for why Hezbollah did what it did, and why Israel responded as it did. The result today is a far more diminished state in Lebanon, while the supremacy of Hezbollah's rhetoric and tactics is paramount and held in high esteem. Some Sunnis in Lebanon may be proud of what Hezbollah "achieved," but soon they will wake up to a new political reality: the balance of power has shifted in the favor of Lebanon's Shias.The Sunnis will ask themselves that persistent Lebanese question, "Who will protect me if a civil war breaks out again?" Certainly it won't be the young and bumbling Sa'ad Hariri. They will need a counterforce as ferocious as Hezbollah. The only option that fits this bill is the jihadists. There is a road that loops around the province of Akkar towards Lebanon's northernmost geographic lump. It passes many disturbing realities in Lebanon: Greek Orthodox villages depopulated through low birthrates and immigration, isolated Maronite towns buffered by high-altitude forests of pine and cedar, and the stark poverty of the majority of Lebanon's Sunnis. Akkar is considered the backwater to a backwater, but it is a net population exporter as poverty breeds numbers, yielding tens of thousands of young Sunnis. These are textbook conditions for multiplying the jihadist rank and file, especially since their ideas have been germinating in this environment through the numerous charities providing services that the Lebanese government, and the largesse of families like the super-wealthy Hariris, cannot deliver.Lebanon itself is not much of a prize for the jihadists, but it has immense strategic value as a base of operations against Syria and Israel. From the highlands of Akkar one can peer over the plains of Homs and Hama in Syria, former bastions of jihadism that are eager to settle a score with the Ba'athists and Alawites in charge. From another Sunni enclave to the southeast of the country, the shallow canyons give access to the suburbs of Damascus, and bring Israeli settlements within range of projectiles. This is ideal real estate for those who hope to relocate the epicenter of jihad to Syria, and to open a front against Israel, which seems to confer instant super-hero status upon those who do such as Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah. Lebanon today is the story of an impending Shia-Sunni clash. Lebanon's Christians in their varying denominations cannot demographically muster the strength to really matter in this fight. Those of them who can will run, and those who can't will shutter up and ride out the storm. It will be a long wait. Shia Iran and anti-Shia Saudi Arabia have too many assets and interests in Lebanon, and have been testing their respective strengths against each other for a while, resulting in heightened sectarian tensions over the last decade. Again, this is an ideal situation for the jihadists, who have made anti-Shi'ism one of the pivotal tenets of their ideology. Starting small, the fire will spread to Syria. The jihadists enter this fight with supreme confidence: they think they have done quite well for themselves in Iraq. They believe they have done this without state-sponsorship and against incredible odds: a hostile population and in the face of the world's fiercest fighting machine —the American military — and they have at least fought this battle to a draw. The jihadists believe they can outperform in Syria where a much weaker, and much more hated regime, currently holds sway. They also believe that the Hezbollah "victory" revealed an easily manipulated desire among the laypeople of the Middle East: a gullible longing for glory that is none the wiser since the time of Gamal Abdel-Nasser, finding more solace in the number of burning Israeli tanks rather than an increased GDP. The Syrian regime will fight like a cornered animal. It is this or annihilation for the Alawites. Initially, the Saudis will react as they have always reacted: exporting their jihadist problem abroad, and trying to keep a lid on those who are too obstinate to leave. For the time being, the Saudis have been successful about rolling up terrorist networks in their midst, but as the jihadists restructure and get smarter, the royal house in Saudi Arabia will begin sustaining debilitating damage. As more Shia communities in the Persian Gulf and the Levant come under attack, the Iranians will likely shirk such a cumbersome responsibility as leading the world's Shias. Suddenly, they will discover that their "Iranian" national interest is best served by staying out of this mess, and they will retreat. Turkey will be recruited in some form into this fight. The Turks, the swordsmen of Sunni Islam through the centuries, are too culturally, economically and militarily relevant to stand above the fray. What form their participation will take is an unknown at this point, but the increased radicalism of their own laypeople portends darkness. In Egypt, the regime will do its best to hold on as its young men get recruited by the jihadists. Europe, being so close to the explosion, will get singed here and there as its immigrant populations experiment with downloadable, do-it-yourself jihad. The Old Continent will also have to contend with prophesies promising Rome to the Muslims, and the enduring fantasy of recapturing lost Islamic domains in Spain, Sicily, and Eastern and Central Europe. Sadly, the thought process of many in the West is to think in terms of the last world war: Munich-style appeasement, internment camps, and mushroom clouds. Surely, the west needs to defend itself, but such extreme measures will spell the collapse of its moral advantage in the face of the terrorists who target innocents.This will only give the jihadists a further example to prove to all those impressionable Middle Easterners that democracy is an illusion. The world has reached this moment by underestimating the enemy, and now we risk much more by the overreaction of panicked societies. Explosions can sometimes fizzle out and get contained quickly. Or maybe this coming war is inevitable. What is certain is that leaders across the Middle East and the world need to get into crisis-management mode right now. This is not going away, the fuse has been lit in little Lebanon, and implications are grave for all.