Target Centermass

Category: War on Terror

  • McCarthy CIA Leak 101

    Have you fallen behind in the Mary McCarthy story and need to play a little catch-up? Allah, writing over at Hot Air, Michelle Malkin’s new endeavor, has put together a great CIA leak primer.

    This is one of those stories where, if you miss the first 48 hours, you end up feeling so far behind the curve that you tune it out and never bother with it again. So here’s a round-up of news and blog coverage which, while longish, will bring you up to speed.

    Hat tip to Ace.

    Over the last few days, this story has continued to throw chum into the water, and several bloggers appear to be on the verge of a feeding frenzy. Keeping a calm head but happily tearing into the mess, Protein Wisdom‘s Jeff Goldstein adds his thoughts to those of two heavyweights in the political opinion arena, James Taranto and Christopher Hitchens. I highly recommend you start with Allah’s primer before venturing into the world of Goldstein, whose work will be considered extra credit for this intro course.

  • Osama Tape: Reactions and Rejections

    A new tape from terrorist-mastermind-in-hiding, Osama bin Laden, surfaced yesterday.

    Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden urged his followers to prepare for a drawn-out conflict with the Western world in a new audiotape broadcast Sunday, blaming what he called “a Crusader-Zionist war” for a long list of attacks on Islam in places from Darfur to Denmark.

    “Your aircraft and tanks are destroying houses over the heads of our kinfolk and children in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Pakistan. Meanwhile, you smile in our faces, saying: ‘We are not hostile to Islam; we are hostile to terrorists,’ ” bin Laden said, according to excerpts of the audiotape attributed to him and broadcast by the al-Jazeera network.

    It was the first time bin Laden had been heard from since Jan. 19, when he offered “a long-term truce” if the United States and its allies withdrew their forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and allowed Islamic fundamentalists to rebuild those countries instead.

    Before that, the 49-year-old Saudi had been publicly silent for more than a year. His face has not been seen since he appeared in a video recording broadcast a few days before the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

    The Counterterrorism Blog‘s Walid Phares does a solid job of narrowing Osama’s ramblings down to ten key bullet points. Of course the overblown Islamist talking point of the Danish Mohammed cartoons is on the list, as are the following:

    1. Hamas: Despite the fact that we (including Ayman Zawahiri) warned (Muslim Palestinians) not to take part in elections in general, the victory of Hamas shows that there is a “Crusader Zionist War against Islam.” Cutting foreign aid to the Palestinians because of Hamas victory proves that war.

    […]

    3. Sudan: The Bashir Government is failing in stopping the Crusader War in Sudan. The Crusaders (Britain) has pushed the southerners (Blacks) to separate. The US has armed them and is supporting them. And now, because of tribal tensions in Darfour, the Crusaders are planning on intervening there. We are calling on the Jihadists to fight them in Darfour and Southern Sudan.

    Today, Sudan and Hamas rejected Osama’s accusations.

    The Sudanese Government and Hamas have rejected Osama bin Laden’s criticism of the West for waging war against Islam.

    In a tape broadcast on al-Jazeera TV, which US intelligence believes is authentic, bin Laden criticised the Sudanese Government for agreeing to a US-backed peace deal for the troubled south of the country.

    He also inveighed against the Palestinians’ Hamas-led Government for breaking what he said was a taboo against “joining infidel assemblies” and entering Parliament.

    Despite moves taken by Sudan and Hamas that might be seen as in step with Washington’s stated goal of peace and democracy for the region, bin Laden said the US was planning to send troops to southern Sudan “to steal its oil”.

    The West’s rejection of Hamas showed it was waging “a Crusader-Zionist war” against Muslims.

    […]

    A Hamas spokesman said: “We are interested in good relations with the West.” In Sudan, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sudan was not concerned with mujahideen or any crusade.

    Polimom, Too‘s Daryl Hooper looks at these and other negative reactions from the world of Islam after making the following observation:

    Perhaps Polimom’s missing something (won’t be the first time), but from where I’m sitting this morning, the biggest reaction to Osama bin Laden’s latest tape is from the West. Polimom wonders whether Osama has spent just a tad too long in his cave – because he’s looking somewhat out of step.

    Besides the obligatory Crusader references and unsurprising cartoon squawking, Osama had to mention Israel. I mean, he just had to — it’s in the radical Islamist handbook. This time, though, Chad Evans over at In the Bullpen fears there may be more than just hot air and checking off an Osama-tape requirement behind this Israel reference.

    This latest audio tape is in a long line of Al Qaida communications that speak about Israel, but the group has always treated the Israeli situation like a red headed step-child only pulling it out when it needs support. As I have stated in regards to previous communications pertaining to the increased rhetoric over Israel, I think Al Qaida is making inroads into attack Israel and I think their first real hit will be a large one. We already know Al Qaida is in Gaza, and AQ in Iraq did launch a rocket into Northern Israel. Because the Hamas-run government won’t do anything about it, AQ will likely hit Israel. The group needs the support such an attack would garner.

    Here’s hoping Chad is wrong about this, though unfortunately it does pass the sniff test. And that dovetails in nicely with my initial reaction to the tape — Osama has seen the focus in the war against radical Islamist expansionism shift away from him as events of late have elevated the stories of Hamas’ attempt to take the political reins of the Palestinian Authority and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iraq recently appears to have been a break-even, as the terrorists, Saddamites and insurgent Sunnis plod along (hat tip to the western media who have facilitated this appearance) against the fledgling Iraqi government, its Coalition military allies, a determined American president and an majority of the Iraqi people growing sick of the bloodshed.

    As I have often stated, our war is against far more than Osama bin Laden; rather, it is against the twisted aspects of his civilization that allowed his likes to fester. Osama, however, needs the concentration to be on him, meaning the both attentions of the West and the world of Islam, for the war to be the brand of jihad he desires. Of late, his organization has been unable to pull off anything of substance, and even the lesser accomplishments have only been small but bloody strikes by affiliates such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that, while effective in many western news reports, may be actually backfiring locally. No, bin Laden built his biography on fighting the great fights, be they as part of the efforts against the Soviets in Afghanistan or dramatic strikes against the United States. A large stab at Israel might suffice to rekindle Osama’s importance in the Islamist world and return the war to the jihad of his choice … until Iran counters.

  • Iran’s Enemy Lies Within

    The Guardian brings us a viewpoint opposing American military reaction against Iran and its nuclear ambitions, a view with some valid points.

    Internal political divisions and economic weaknesses may present a bigger threat to the longevity of the Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than the US and Israeli air forces combined, a report published yesterday suggests.

    The study, entitled Understanding Iran and produced by the Foreign Policy Centre, warns that military action against Iran’s suspect nuclear facilities could have disastrous consequences. “The only chance of modifying Iran’s behaviour in the short term will come from a serious effort to engage with the current leadership,” it says.

    While the work contains much validity and I have often in the past pointed towards the seething popular desire for democracy among a large portion of the Iranian population, the article trips up slightly here with it’s vague reference to the “short term.” More on that in a bit.

    Echoing calls for direct US-Iran talks made by Germany, the UN’s nuclear agency, and US politicians, the European thinktank’s report urges the creation of a Middle East security organisation similar to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It proposes mechanisms for facilitating dialogue to end the nuclear impasse and address other friction points. But in suggesting increased “economic, cultural, educational and social exchanges as a way of empowering the Iranian people and ultimately forcing the regime to loosen its restrictive practices” it also highlights the potentially fatal schisms and vulnerabilities of a government often portrayed as united in defiance of the west.

    “Behind the scenes a fierce struggle is under way. In one camp is President Ahmadinejad, his supporters in the Revolutionary Guards and the paramilitary force known as the Basijis, and messianic fundamentalists inspired by the teachings of Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi. In the other camp is Iran’s embattled democratic movement [and] an array of forces that benefited from the status quo before Ahmadinejad came to power, including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.”

    The outcome of this battle was uncertain, but what was clear was that direct US intervention would play into the hands of the hardliners. “A strategy that gambles on a popular uprising to bring down the current regime runs the risk of undermining those very forces it purports to want to help.”

    Back to that short-term matter. The article makes no effort to define the short term in length of years but does obliquely mention the messianic fundamentalism of the current leader (much more on that here). Does the short term that this article suggests bearing out fall inside the barrier of nuclear capability and will to use it that a deranged, messianic Iranian leader needs? If so, great for all. If not, the article is pretty much worthless. Also, the article doesn’t imply but clearly states that American military intervention against an Iranian nuclear program would clearly play to the favor of the ruling Iranian radicals. I simply don’t accept that as a certainty — there are far too many variables. What if the assaults were relatively clean? What if they were timed with popular riots that were assisted? The article errs, in my opinion, by speaking with a claimed clairvoyance that the author cannot possess.

    The piece goes on to show some of the domestic factors accumulating against the current radical Iranian government.

    The report looks at other pressures on the government: a population of over 70 million, of whom 65% are younger than 25; a largely state-dominated economy prone to corruption; an energy industry starved of investment that is producing steadily less oil for export, and a youth culture increasingly circumventing controls on foreign media and internet access.

    ‘According to the government’s own estimates some 900,000 new jobs are needed annually to accommodate the burgeoning labour force and prevent an increase in unemployment, officially at 16%, unofficially at over 20%,” the report says. It also focuses on gender discrimination, human rights abuses (including executions of minors and repression of minorities), and attempts to suppress free speech and independent media.

    All these contentious issues, it suggests, carry the seeds of change from within and in the longer term could be catalysts for ending Iran’s post-1979 theocracy. But if the west was to understand Iran, it had to understand itself – and recognise that clumsy outside attempts to jump-start reform were likely to be counterproductive.

    While all valid, the use of these points to support an argument for inaction by the West in the vaguely-declared “short term” actually need to be considered as a reason for possible action — and most assuredly current planning — by the West. While these points may eventually completely undermine the current tyrants of Iran, they very well may be the same factors that force those radical rulers into immediate bloody, fiery action against Israel, Iraq, Europe or other allies within their range … or even possibly on our shores in the form of terror activity.

    While I believe a large chunk of Iranians ache for freedom and democracy, this does not assure that the nation will become friendly before it produces tragedy. Also, American intervention does not guarantee a nationalistic arrousal by the Iranian people for their current government, though that would be a possibility depending on circumstances. Simply put, there are too many alternatives available that undermine the occasional, though possibly deadly if accepted, certainties of this article.

  • Pentagon Releases Extensive Gitmo List

    Forty-freakin’-one different nationalities in da house.

    The U.S. government released the first list of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison on Wednesday _ the most extensive accounting yet of the hundreds of people held there, nearly all of them labeled enemy combatants.

    In all, 558 people were named in the list provided by the Pentagon in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit by The Associated Press. They were among the first swept up in the U.S. global war on terrorism for suspected links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

    The list is the first official roster of Guantanamo detainees who passed through the Combatant Status Review Tribunal process in 2004 and 2005 to determine whether they should be deemed “enemy combatants.”

    Gitmo — putting the “global” in Global War on Terror.

    Admittedly, GWoT is a poor name for the current conflict; though the “G” and the “W” portions are accurate, the “T’ refers only to a particular tactic employed by our enemy. Personally, I feel that the name World War IV is more accurate, leaving the oft-dreaded III to the collection of hot engagements and steamy standoffs that comprised the more commonly-dubbed Cold War.

  • Tonight’s Good Read

    Gates of Vienna brings us “The Fall of France and the Multicultural World War,” a lengthy look at the prospects of Europe in the face of expansionist Islam. There’s a lot of food for thought here, but understandably not a lot of cheer.

    Hat tip to CDR Salamander, who ties it to another similar piece before posting his two cents worth.

  • Light Blogging Notice and a Warning

    In case y’all hadn’t noticed, my blogging of late has been sparse and sporadic. With my wedding less than three weeks away, expect that trend to continue. Part of that will be because of work. If I’m not working, I’ll be working on the wedding. If not the wedding, I’ll be working on moving in with my new bride. If not working on moving, I’ll be working out — hey, I don’t want to look too shabby on our Hawaiian honeymoon. I’ll try to blog when I can, but I figure I’m just going to need to squeeze in some down time somewhere.

    If anybody is interested in chipping in on the blogging, drop me an email.

    In the meantime, go give this look at the Iranian president’s motivation for his country’s nuclear ambitions and consider yourself warned about the fanatical nature of one of our enemies (hat tip to Chap).

  • Continuing My Recent Trend

    There once was a time in the not-too-distant past when I really blogged. I think.

    No real writing tonight — instead, I’m offering up some tasties from the fine sites on my blogroll and their internet cousins.

    Chad Evans at In the Bullpen takes a look at how the radical Islamist movement is increasingly utilizing the internet.

    Nearly five years after 9/11, there can be considerable debate whether or not radical Islam as an ideology has grown. I believe it has, but the measure of whether or not the ideology has spawned future terrorists is not known. What is known is that jihadis using the Internet to disseminate their ideology has grown and grown at a rather alarming rate.

    In the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s report, a twenty percent increase of jihadi sites is cited over the previous year.

    […]

    The question on everyone’s mind is what are we doing to stop this? Sadly, I don’t think we are doing much to prevent these sites from operating and growing.

    Military Matters‘ Uncle Jimbo, a frequent contributor over at Blackfive, questions the media’s assualt on what is essentially a military psy-ops effort. Preach it, Uncle.

    I have difficulty with the press pushing back every time it finds out the military doesn’t trust it to inform the American public, or the world, about our operations. Every time they sniff out any foray into information warfare, they begin with the propaganda meme, and attempt to discredit it. Yet the same folks will bemoan the inability of the administration to stir public sentiment in our favor at home or anywhere else. It would be nice for the media to admit they have waged an aggressive propaganda campaign of disinformation and disinterest in anything positive that has actually harmed our war effort and made our work in Iraq more difficult.

    I am not blaming the press for the current situation in Iraq, except as an agent spreading doom and gloom.

    Protein Wisdom‘s Jeff Goldstein looks at the same effort with similar conclusions. As an aside, I ain’t shy about thinking that Jeff’s mix of off-the-wall zanyand dead-on-target analysis makes him one of the best in the blogging arena.

    Whenever I mention that the tenor of mainstream media coverage of this war is troublesome—and that it may indeed have a material impact on how successful the campaign ultimately is—I am met with scoffs from anti-war types who insist that their dissent has no effect on the situation on the ground in Iraq, and that in fact, their willingness to speak Truth to Power is part of the great tradition of this country, and one of the few things left that the Bushies haven’t beaten into the dirt with their fascist boot heels.

    Of course, this is a strawman argument: my gripe is not against dissent, but rather against intentional and purposeful misrepresentations growing out of ideology.

    And it is ironic, I think, that the anti-war crowd spends so much time noting how their “dissent” has no measurable impact on the waging of the war—even though it should be obvious that public opinion is driven largely by the media representation of the war and its prosecution—and then turns around and finds troubling a “propaganda” campaign they claim is being waged by the military.

    Evidently, some words do have an impact, though I guess to many in the anti-war crowd, some propagandists are more equal than others.

    Finally, Unqualified Offerings brings us a blog post. It has comments. Generic hat-tip-type acknowledgement to JohnL at TexasBestGrok, who calls it the world’s greatest blog posting ever.

  • Quick Morning Links

    Sorry, but work kept me ’til well past midnight last night, so I just thought I’d throw out a couple of things I’d hoped to comment on before plans went astray.

    From Sgt. Hook, there’s this piece called “No Tears in Heaven.” I don’t really know what to excerpt from it; just read it.

    Also, Chap points us to the latest from one of my favorites, Ralph Peters, as he looks at the festering situation with Iran.

    The most dangerous error we could make in our sharpening confronta tion with Iran is to con vince ourselves that its leaders will act rationally. Few wars are rooted in dispassionate analysis. Self-delusion sparks most such catastrophes.

    The power brokers in Tehran may be on the verge of misjudging America’s will and resources as profoundly as did the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941, or al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001.

    Stalin misread America’s will when he acquiesced in the Korean Communist invasion of the south. So did Castro, when he imagined that he could impose a tyrannical regime on Grenada.

    Saddam Hussein misread America, too. Twice. First, when he convinced himself that he could grab Kuwait with impunity, and, second, when he did his weapons-of-mass-destruction fan dance. (Bulletin for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad: Don’t play the I’ve-got-weapons-you’d-better-be-afraid-of card.)

    Given that historical record, what should we expect of a radical-theocrat regime that has no serious grasp of American psychology, that rules an embittered populace it longs to excite and unify, and that believes it’s literally on a mission from God?

    In recent weeks, Tehran has anxiously publicized its tests of surface-to-surface missiles, of air-to-ground missiles and even of torpedoes. The intended point is that, if the shooting starts, Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers – disrupting the global economy – while striking any other target between Israel and Afghanistan.

    The crucial question is whether the Iranians are still playing at brinksmanship, hoping to spook us into passivity as they build nuclear weapons, or if they’ve already convinced themselves that a conflict with the United States is inevitable.

    Given the closed nature of Iran’s ruling clique, it’s impossible to know.

    Indeed, the meaning of such publicly-displayed tests are something to be pondered at, something I’ve trifled with recently. Please read Peters’ column in its entirety, though I want to highlight his conclusion with which I agree most strongly.

    Should Tehran ignite a combat exchange, we need to ensure not only that Iran’s nuclear-weapons program is crippled, but that its broader capabilities are shattered.

    Militarily, it will be time for our Air Force to prove its worth, with the Navy in support. Iran’s recent experience of conflict is of attrition-based land warfare. But there’s no need for us to employ conventional ground forces inside Iran (special operations troops are another matter). We’ll have to watch the Iraqi and Afghan borders, but our fight would be waged from the air and from the sea.

    If we’re pulled into war, we need to strike hard and fast – before Iran’s allies can make mischief in international forums. We should destroy as much of Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure as possible, eliminate its air force and air defenses and wreck its naval facilities beyond repair – no matter the collateral damage. The madmen in Tehran must pay an unbearable price.

    The results within Iran would be unpredictable. Fiercely nationalistic, the country’s core Persian population might unify behind the regime, setting back our hopes for an eventual rapprochement with a post-Islamist government.

    […]

    But a half-hearted military response to Iranian aggres sion would only strengthen the confidence of our enemies and invite future confrontations.

    We pulled too many punches in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and now we’re paying the price. If Tehran drags us into war, we should make the conflict so devastating and painful that even our allies are stunned.

    I’ve expressed similar thoughts, too, about our assault on Iraq and its aftermath when I wrote the following:

    [The] primary difference between the Iraqi occupation and the post-WWII occupations of Japan and Germany was that the people of the former Axis countries absolutely knew that they had been defeated. So much of the Iraq takeover had been intended to diminish the hardship on the populace and wrap things up in a speedy manner that I don’t think this feeling of defeat was ever sent to the Iraqi people and the Arab world. We shredded a military and the world barely knew it.

    That kindness and efficiency has been paid for in blood. Peters is correct when saying, should our hand be forced with Iran, we cannot be seen as so kind again in the eyes of our enemies.

  • What I’m Reading Right Now

    From sci-fi/horror novelist Dan Simmons, whose work I’m unfamiliar with but may have to investigate, is this piece of speculative fiction on our society, our enemies and the Long War. It’s interesting so far, with some tasty little lessons from history thrown in the mix.

    Hat tip to LGF.

  • 24 Wis. Communities Vote for Iraq Pullout

    Well, here’s some heartening news … for our enemies on the ground in Iraq.

    Thousands of voters turned out in Wisconsin to offer a purely symbolic but heartfelt message: Bring the troops home from Iraq.

    By margins overwhelming in some places and narrow in others, voters in 24 of 32 communities approved referendums Tuesday calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

    Joy Kenworthy, 78, of Madison, doesn’t mind that the nonbinding referendums have no bearing on federal policy. She was one of more than 24,300 voters in the state capital who gave 68 percent support to a referendum calling for the pullout.

    “I thought this war was ill-advised from the moment it started,” she said.

    In addition to Madison, those communities supporting the measures included the Milwaukee suburbs of Shorewood and Whitefish Bay, and the western city of La Crosse. Those voting down the measure included the northwestern city of Hayward and the south-central city of Watertown, where 75 percent of voters disapproved.

    […]

    Such measures have been passed by city councils and voters in other states, including Vermont, which served as a model for Wisconsin’s effort, said Rachel Friedman, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

    The group, which helped organize Tuesday’s initiatives, is already looking at ways to take the referendums into more communities. Elected officials can’t ignore the results, especially as the November election season looms, Friedman said.

    “They have seven months to listen to us, to the voters and to do the right thing,” she said. “The people have spoken. This is what democracy looks like.”

    The morale of soldiers — and their safety — could dip when they hear about such referendums passing, said Bill Richardson, treasurer of Vote No To Cut And Run, a group that opposed the measures.

    Perhaps it’s time to change the Wisconsin motto from “Forward” to “Retreat.”

    Boots and Sabers‘ Owen, a resident of Wisconsin, played down the referendums as he monitored the results.

    Then it hit me, who cares? All but two or three of the communities are tiny communities. Even if 31 out of 32 pass, it still represents an incredibly small percentage of the population – especially when you consider that the turnout is very low. I suspect that the Green Party and anti-war activists who organized this, targeted a bunch of small communities because they knew that it would only take a few hundred votes to win them. That way, at the end of the day, they can claim that 25 out of 32 (or whatever) referenda passed.

    Frankly, I’m hesitant to really care much about an orchestrated and obvious PR event.

    So, I guess my reaction is…. whatever. It really doesn’t matter all that much. It is not a reflection of public opinion in Wisconsin, much less the country. Furthermore, the referendums are meaningless because Shorewood doesn’t have a say in foreign policy.

    Seeing that the referendum received a little over 24,000 votes in Madison, a city of about 220,000 that includes over 40,000 at the fairly liberal University of Wisconsin, I suspect Owen is correct that these results are in no way indicative of the general population of the state.

    Still, the message that it sends must some warm fuzzies to any of our enemies that hear the news. No good can come from this, but American blood can.