Target Centermass

Category: War on Terror

  • The Cowards’ Approach to War

    For over a year now, the media and the leftists have demanded for the Bush administration to voice an exit strategy from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many on the right, sans media, have wondered about the exit strategy from Bosnia for years.

    What is our exit strategy from the Korean conflict? Did Truman ever voice one?

    What is our exit strategy from our bout with the Axis powers of Germany and Japan? Surely FDR announced an exit strategy to the American public in World War Part Deux.

    Well, yes, he did. Speaking almost a year before Pearl Harbor, FDR spoke of “no end save victory” in the defense of liberty and freedom. This is how he led the American and Allied efforts in WWII, demanding the unconditional surrender of the Axis countries of Germany, Italy and Japan. He did not fight for a stalemate. He did not settle for a return to pre-war boundaries. He fought to win.

    It is my belief that the very concept of exit strategy is a self-defeating idea. To have any strategy other than victory as the objective is a mistake. A stated and accomplished list of milestones may insure a “peace with honor,” but it in no way guarantees a desired outcome in the long term. War is not the end-all be-all solution to the world’s problems; however, when war must be waged, it must be waged to win. American lives should not be tossed aside for the sake of a tie or, worse yet, an honorable defeat when victory could have been attained had we, as a people, had the stomach for it.

    I have been unable to find any military or political usage of the phrase “exit strategy” prior to the Viet Nam War. Certainly, this is the conflict that popularized the term.

    Stated bluntly, exit strategy is a planned way of disengaging short of victory. Contingency planning in the event of defeat is needed and understandable; planning a withdrawal, based on milestones and dates decided by political needs and not long-term requirements, without defeat but before victory is achieved is indefensible. And yet, this is just what has been demanded by the media during practically every American military involvement of the last thirty years.

    Yes, in the short term, this does have the effect of reducing casualties within a given conflict. Unfortunately, it serves to set the stage for greater loss of life in the next conflict. It is the cowards’ way of waging war, deferring the losses to those fighting later.

  • Iraqi Group Threatens to Kill Zarqawi

    FoxNews.com is reporting that a video of a group of Iraqis threatening Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been send to al-Arabiya television.

    A group of armed, masked Iraqi men threatened Tuesday to kill Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search) if he did not immediately leave the country, accusing him of murdering innocent Iraqis and defiling the Muslim religion.

    The threats revealed the deep anger many Iraqis, including insurgent groups, feel toward foreign fighters, whom many consider as illegitimate a presence here as the 160,000 U.S. and other coalition troops.

    I would rather see such threats coming from the Iraqi security forces, but vigilante justice is preferable to al-Zarqawi’s injustices until the security forces are capable and reliable enough for the task. Also, it is encouraging to see some practitioners of Islam standing up for the tenets of their faith violated by these Islamist terrorists.

    In the video, three men, their faces covered with Arab headscarves, were flanked by rocket propelled grenades and an Iraqi flag. The man speaking had a clear Iraqi accent.

    “We swear to Allah that we have started preparing … to capture him and his allies or kill them and present them as gift to our people.” the man said. “This is the last warning. If you don’t stop, we will do to you what the coalition forces have failed to do.”

    Al-Zarqawi, said to be connected to Al Qaeda, is believed to be behind a series of coordinated attacks on police and security forces that killed 100 people only days before U.S. forces handed over power to an Iraqi interim government.

    His followers have also claimed responsibility for the beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg (search) and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il (search).

    Hopefully, this is a sign that the Iraqis have had enough and are reaching the point that they’ll fight for their own future.

  • France, Iraq to Re-Establish Relations

    The AP is reporting that France and Iraq will renew diplomatic ties shortly.

    After a 13-year interruption, France and Iraq (news – web sites) intend to re-establish diplomatic relations within the next few days, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed Monday.

    Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi met Monday with Bernard Bajolet, France’s highest diplomatic representative in Iraq, and discussed restoration of ties that Saddam Hussein (news – web sites) broke off in 1991 during the Gulf War (news – web sites), a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

    “Mr. Allawi said he wanted to do it as fast as possible so that France can participate in the reconstruction of Iraq,” the spokesman said. “We welcomed that very positively.”

    France, always there for the Francs. Nevertheless, this is a good move for the fledgling Iraqi government and its efforts to establish legitimacy.

  • Wash. Post: No Sarin in Rounds Found by Poles

    Just back from my Independence Day weekend in Amarillo, Texas, and I find the Washington Post has stated the artillery rounds claimed by the Poles to have cyclosarin (see my entry on July 2) were not , in fact, chemical rounds.

    Sixteen rocket warheads found last week in south-central Iraq by Polish troops did not contain deadly chemicals, a coalition spokesman said yesterday, but U.S. and Polish officials agreed that insurgents loyal to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and foreign terrorist fighters are trying to buy such old weapons or purchase the services of Iraqi scientists who know how to make them.

    The Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad said in a statement yesterday that the 122-millimeter rocket rounds, which initially showed traces of sarin, “were all empty and tested negative for any type of chemicals.” The statement came just hours after two senior Polish defense officials told reporters in Warsaw, based on preliminary reports, that the rocket rounds contained deadly sarin and that actions by the Polish unit in Iraq kept them from being purchased by militants fighting coalition forces.

    I find it interesting that FoxNews and BBC, where I originally read the story, have printed no such correction. I also find it interesting that what the Washington Post and the Coalition Press Information Center refer to as “preliminary reports” were described by the Poles as “Laboratory tests …. done by U.S. experts” only hours earlier.

    However I may wonder about both sides of the story, I felt I had to post it.

  • Iraq Seeks European Help With Security

    Iraq is requesting training assistance from France and Germany for its security forces.

    Iraq (news – web sites)’s deputy foreign minister appealed Friday to France and Germany to help build and train the country’s security forces, saying the new Iraqi government wants to broaden its relations beyond Washington and London.

    This is a very sharp move, if I’m reading this correctly. By going straight to the heart of our erstwhile allies, the new Iraqi government can present an argument that it is not just a U.S. puppet while still getting a valuable commodity. Also, if agreed that the training is in Europe, France and Germany have little ground on which to base a refusal.

    “We want balanced relations with all the countries of the world, and we are seeking the help of the international community to build a new Iraq built on democracy and respect for human rights,” al-Bayati said.

    This paints the Euros into a corner: help the new Iraqi government find stability and thus strengthen the American chance of long-term success or look like schmucks on the world stage.

  • No One Asked Us

    Here is a great article on the Iraq invasion, written by a Marine Corps Reserve major (now Lt. Colonel) who took part in the fighting.

    I killed many Iraqi soldiers, as they tried to kill me and my Marines. I did it with a radio, directing air-strikes and artillery, in concert with my British artillery officer counterpart, in combat along the Hamas Canal in southern Iraq. I saw, up close, everything the rest of you see in the newspapers: dead bodies, parts of dead bodies, helmets with bullet holes through them, handcuffed POWs sitting in the sand, oil well fires with flames reaching 100 feet into the air and a roar you could hear from over a mile away.

    I stood on the bloody sand where Marine Second Lieutenant Therrel Childers was the first American killed on the ground. I pointed a loaded weapon at another man for the first time in my life. I did what I had spent 14 years training to do, and my Marines — your Marines — performed so well it still brings tears to my eyes to think about it. I was proud of what we did then, and I am proud of it now.

    Along with the violence, I saw many things that lifted my heart. I saw thousands of Iraqis in cities like Qurnah and Medinah — men, women, children, grandparents carrying babies — running into the streets at the sight of the first Westerners to enter their streets. I saw them screaming, crying, waving, cheering. They ran from their homes at the sound of our Humvee tires roaring in from the south, bringing bread and tea and cigarettes and photos of their children. They chattered at us in Arabic, and we spoke to them in English, and neither understood the other. The entire time I was in Iraq, I had one impression from the civilians I met: Thank God, finally someone has arrived with bigger men and bigger guns to be, at last, on our side.

    Let there be no mistake, those of you who don’t believe in this war: the Ba’ath regime were the Nazis of the second half of the 20th century. I saw what the murderous, brutal regime of Saddam Hussein wrought on that country through his party and their Fedayeen henchmen. They raped, murdered, tortured, extorted, and terrorized those in that country for 35 years. There are mass graves throughout Iraq only now being discovered. 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, out of Camp Pendleton, liberated a prison in Iraq populated entirely by children. The Ba’athists brutalized the weakest among them, and killed the strongest. I saw in the eyes of the people how a generation of fear reflects in the human soul.

  • Polish Troops Find Sarin Warheads

    It seems more WMD has surfaced in Iraq.

    “We were mortified by the information that terrorists were looking for these warheads and offered $5,000 apiece,” Dukaczewski said. “An attack with such weapons would be hard to imagine. All of our activity was accelerated at appropriating these warheads.”

    Dukaczewski refused to give any further details about the terrorists or the sellers of the munitions, saying only that his troops thwarted terrorists by purchasing the 17 rockets for a Soviet-era launcher and two mortar rounds containing the nerve agent for an undisclosed sum June 23.

    There’s a lot of scary aspects to this story. First, these were almost in terrorist hands, so what do they already have? Second, I see no way that we will ever be able to account for all of Iraq’s WMD, leaving us to never have a good knowledge of the scope of the danger we face. Third, the left still refuses to acknowledge the existence of WMD.

    The warheads all contained cyclosarin, multinational force commander Polish Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek said.

    “Laboratory tests showed the presence in them of cyclosarin, a very toxic gas, five times stronger than sarin and five times more durable,” Bieniek told Poland’s TVN24 at the force’s Camp Babylon headquarters.

    “If these warheads, which were still usable, were used on a military base like Camp Babylon, they would have caused unforeseeable damage.”

    The tests were done by U.S. experts, who were conducting more.

    The munitions were found in a bunker in the Polish sector, but Polish officials refused to be more specific.

  • A Letter to the American People

    The Iraq-America Freedom Alliance took out a full-page ad in the USA Today, extending their hands “in friendship and gratitude to the American people.”

    When freedom is born where it has never existed, the desire of all people to live in peace and dignity will only grow. With America’s support, we know that someday Iraqi children will dare to dream the same dreams as American children.

    I believe the children are the future … damn you, Whitney Houston, get out of my head!

  • Report: Al-Qaeda Spells Out Iraq Attack Strategy in Handbook

    It seems that an al Queda document covering their early 2004 strategy in Iraq has been found and authenticated.

    “We consider that the Spanish government cannot suffer more than two to three strikes before pulling out (of Iraq) under pressure from its own people,” said the document obtained Wednesday by AFP from Raido France Internationale’s regional office in Beirut.

    “If these (Spanish) forces remain after the strikes, the victory of the socialist party would be near-guaranteed and the pullout of Spanish forces from Iraq would be on its agenda,” said the document, distributed ahead of the March 11 attacks in Madrid.

    Pegged the Spanish.

    But most of the chapter is about Spain, considering that the pullout of Spanish troops would “constitute a pressure on the British (military) presence that (Prime Minister) Tony Blair would not be able to bear.”

    Underrated the Brits.

    “They should not carry out any operation targeting the daily life of the Iraqi people or its future, such as the basic services or education, except for oil which should not be exploited under occupation,” it said.

    So, we’re not the only ones playing the “hearts and minds” game. Hmmmm … seems like continued terror and suppression might be a hard sell compared to freedom and a better, safer life for future Iraqi generations.

    We might pull this off yet, if we stand fast at the ramparts. I still call it iffy; we may have pulled off the freedom of South Vietnam had not the American left seized defeat from the jaws of victory after Tet.

  • Reaping the whirlwind

    USNews.com: Fouad Ajami: Reaping the whirlwind (6/28/04)An intriguing look at what the Saudis face now that the terror they allowed to be loosed upon the world comes home.

    You can’t bless terror in the streets of Jerusalem and condemn it in Arabia: Once emboldened, as they have been in recent years, the religious extremists were bound to think that the battle for Arabia itself might yet be won.