Target Centermass

Category: Middle East

  • Media and Morale in Iraq

    The same news piece, a survey on morale among U.S. Army troops stationed in Iraq. The same data. So many different ways to look at it.

    First, let’s look at the unnecessarily negative headline.

    Army: GI morale low in Iraq

    Why do I say unnecessarily negative? The piece, by far the shortest of the three that I will examine, has a negative headline followed by a brief, mostly positive story of improvement. Also, I just pick up some negative vibes of consensus without a frame of reference from the header. It’s hard to put a finger on the problem, but the assertion of “majority” in the following story comes off as less dismaying.

    Majority of Soldiers Say Iraq Morale Low

    A majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq say morale is low, according to an Army report that finds psychological stress is weighing particularly heavily on National Guard and Reserve troops.

    […]

    The report said 54 percent of soldiers rated their units’ morale as low or very low. The comparable figure in a year-earlier Army survey was 72 percent. Although respondents said “combat stressors” like mortar attacks were higher in the most recent survey, “noncombat stressors” like uncertain tour lengths were much lower, the report said.

    The headline is accurate, as the following paragraph I quoted shows. How lengthy was my omission before the story actually reached the supporting figures? I had to jump eleven paragraphs in a sixteen-paragraph story. I would put forth that the slim majority of those who felt their unit morale was low was quite tucked away. More about the unit morale issue in a bit, but I’d like to say that this version of the reporting does not exactly waste the intervening paragraphs.

    National Guard and Reserve soldiers who serve in transportation and support units suffered more than others from depression, anxiety and other indications of acute psychological stress, the report said. These soldiers have often been targets of the insurgents’ lethal ambushes and roadside bombs, although the report said they had significantly fewer actual combat experiences than soldiers assigned to combat units.

    The report recommended that the Army reconsider whether National Guard and Reserve support troops are getting adequate training in combat skills. Even though they do less fighting than combat troops, they might be better suited to cope with wartime stress if they had more confidence in their combat skills, it said.

    Only 55 percent of National Guard support soldiers said they have “real confidence” in their unit’s ability to perform its mission, compared with 63 percent of active-duty Army support soldiers. And only 28 percent of the Guard troops rated their level of training as high, compared with 50 percent of their active-duty counterparts.

    While confidence in training could be a reasonable difference in attitudes between reserve and guard troops, I would put forth another difference as contributing to disparities between support and combat personnel — a sense of control. I would be interested to see the numbers comparing those who drive or ride along, fearing the likes of an IED, and those who actually go forth with the intent to confront the enemy.

    Another point: did you notice that the majority of those saying unit morale was low was comprised of both the “low” and “very low” groupings, but the reporting of reservist support focused only on the “real confidence” sector. I would surmise that their was also a “confidence” option; how do those two groups collectively compare with the full-time troopers in a similar position? Is the discrepancy severe, or are we watching degrees of confidence being spun in a different manner than morale?

    Now, on to a third piece.

    Morale of soldiers in Iraq improving, Army survey finds

    Holy crap, a positive and accurate headline. See, how tough was that?

    Morale among U.S. soldiers in Iraq has improved since the start of the war in 2003, and the soldiers’ suicide rate dropped by more than half last year, according to an Army mental-health survey released yesterday.

    The Army’s second Mental Health Advisory Team report paints an improving picture of how soldiers are handling their tours and how medical personnel are dealing with mental-health problems. The team surveyed more than 2,000 soldiers from August to October and concluded that aggressive efforts to improve mental-health care and to make soldiers aware of the stresses of combat have succeeded.

    A majority of soldiers fighting in Iraq, however, reported that morale is still a problem, with 54 percent saying their unit morale is “low” or “very low,” and 9 percent reporting “high” or “very high” morale.

    During the first survey in late summer 2003, 72 percent of soldiers reported low morale.

    Balanced and accurate.

    This story also includes a little morsel left out of the other two representaions.

    The survey also reported that when soldiers were asked about their own morale — as distinct from their unit’s morale — there was improvement from 2003 to 2004: 52 percent described their morale as low or very low in the first survey, and that dropped to 36 percent in 2004.

    Based on this detail, all three of these stories could have said morale was high. Two chose to go negative. Hmmm…

    To sum up, two points and a question.

    First, individual morale is up, and apparently significantly so.

    Second, the individual’s confidence in the unit is improved but still negative. Why the dichotomy? I would submit the difference can be attributed to the nature of soldiering. The soldier has five basic jobs: performing his mission in a competent and professional manner, bitching, whining, grumbling and gossipping. It’s the human reaction to a situation where an individual’s control over his activities is greatly impaired and his outlets for tension are limited. The soldier’s own bitching and moaning are white noise to him, nothing more than a release. The result is an individual, confident in his own abilities, who is inundated with the same grumbling from those around him. But hey, I’m not a shrink; that’s just a common-sense way at viewing the difference, in my view. To back this up a bit and possibly support my idea, I would like to see the raw numbers on unit confidence, including both the confident and really confident categories.

    Now, to that important question, I know we did morale and psychological surveys among our troops during World War II, but did we publish them before the world while still engaged? Did we give the enemy (both foreign and domestic) the ability to spin and impair our efforts?

  • Survey: 25K Civilians Killed in Iraq War

    A recent study has set a new guidepost for anti-war arguments — the death of 25,000 innocent Iraqis.

    Nearly 25,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the Iraq war, according to a group that tracks the civilian death toll from the conflict.

    The Iraq Body Count — a London-based group comprising academics and human rights and anti-war activists — said on Tuesday that 24,865 civilians had died between March 20, 2003 and March 19, 2005 [Jeez, London-based? I’d have waited a wee bit longer if I were them].

    The group said 42,500 injuries were recorded as well.

    Actually, as cold as it may sound, those figures don’t sound unreasonable, given an entire country being militarily defeated and then subjected to two-plus years of ongoing terrorist activity, the burden of which has been cowardly projected upon the civilian populace by our enemies. Compare these numbers to the approximately 43,000 killed in the London Blitz by one side. Oh yeah, throw on over 139,000 Brits wounded for a twisted topping and the cruel but unfortunate numbers may come into perspective.

    The report also said that “U.S.-led forces were sole killers of 37 percent of civilian victims” and that “anti-occupation forces were sole killers of 9 percent of civilian victims.” It added that “criminals killed 36 percent of all civilians.”

    I’ll buy the 25K, but I’ll need to see a bit more substantiation for this distribution of blame. They seem a little light on the “anti-occupation” category, given the wealth of recent terrorist bloodbaths. As a little side note, please realize that “anti-occupation” is the latest buzzword from al Jazeera, where even the terrorists comprising Hezbollah are glorified as anti-occupation fighters.

    Still, this 25K figure is far more reasonable than the previous 100,000 that has been so flaunted by the leftists, defeatists and pacifists.

  • Iraq Over the Weekend

    Big truck go boom.

    I gave myself over to the Bard and the girlfriend and, hence, I am a little late with what I view as the big story of the weekend — the bloody carnage surrounding a tanker truck blown up by a suicide bomber. CNN.com reported yesterday as follows:

    A suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a propane fuel tanker parked near a gas station south of Baghdad Saturday evening, killing at least 60 and wounding as many as 100 people, police sources said.

    The massive blast occurred in the center of Musayyib along a dangerous stretch in Babil province known as the Triangle of Death about 45 miles south of the capital. Musayyib is predominantly Shiite.

    The explosion destroyed a neighboring apartment complex and damaged a Shiite mosque and surrounding businesses, police said.

    The tanker entered Musayyib after being searched at the city’s entrance and parked at the city center, according to police. The bomber, strapped with an explosive vest, approached the tanker and detonated. Police are calling it a coordinated attack, suggesting the tanker’s driver was part of the attack.

    Today, CNN upped the death toll to at least 90. As I am a day late and a dollar short on my coverage, I’d like to take a look at the fallout of the terror strike.

    First, let’s look at a follow-on piece from the Los Angeles Times.

    Blast Designed for Maximum Casualties, Officials Say

    The claim of that headline, as the terrorists certainly are not using “smart” technology and most assuredly ply their trade in blood, seems practically too obvious to even be stated. Anyway, according to the story, the collusion of the truckdriver is confirmed.

    On Sunday, law-enforcement officials in Baghdad and Hillah, the provincial capital, said the massive explosion that killed at least 90 Iraqis and wounded more than 150 at about the time of sunset prayers was part of an elaborate insurgent operation designed to inflict maximum civilian casualties.

    A police official in Baghdad said the license plate of a gasoline tanker detonated by a suicide bomber matched one stolen by armed bandits a few days earlier on the road between the capital and Fallujah. Police in Hillah said the suicide bomber, who was on foot, set off his explosives as soon as the tanker’s driver fled the scene.

    “These people harbor satanic ideas,” said the spokesman for the provincial police headquarters, a captain who asked to be identified by his nickname, “Abu Hareth,” for security reasons. “It was just like hell itself.”

    Any pretense that innocent civilians were not the intended targets must quickly fall by the wayside.

    The bomber apparently was sitting at a cafe along a traffic circle in the town’s main square, sidling up to the truck as it stopped across the roundabout from the People of Musayyib Hosseiniyeh, a Shiite mosque. Several witnesses said they spotted the driver escaping moments before the explosion.

    “The explosive belt is very hard for us to counter,” said Wathiq Jawad, a police detective in Hillah. “We cannot detect it.”

    Samir Ibrahim, a 30-year-old computer engineer, was surfing the Internet at a cafe in the square, a lively if modest commercial center of two- and three-story buildings filled with private doctors’ offices, outdoor clothing stalls, coffee and tea houses, pastry shops, ice vendors and cell-phone retailers.

    Ibrahim escaped the bombing unharmed but lost three cousins.

    “The truck was full of gas, and fire was floating in the air and burned the buildings that were close,” he said. “Most of the people who were there were shop owners and women who had come to shop or see a doctor.”

    The explosion charred a 300-foot black circle in the town center, damaging nearby buildings. As the fire erupted, mortar rounds landed near the police station and the hospital, adding to the chaos.

    Ibrahim watched in horror as men, women and children burned to death in a blast that destroyed 20 cars and torched ramshackle houses.

    “A little one was only 3 months old, and she did not make it,” he said.

    The terrorist sat at a cafe before the attack and had time to ponder those who would be his victims. He most assuredly knew that he was not striking a blow against “occupying infidels” but instead Iraqi women and children, shopkeepers and workers. To top it off, the bastards followed up by targeting the overwhelmed hospital with mortars.

    That said, I do want to point out a little needlessly negative spin in the Times piece as they look at the security aftermath.

    No fewer than eight checkpoints — manned by various teams of Iraqi Army, Iraqi police, Iraqi highway patrol and U.S. soldiers — dotted the 40-mile road from Baghdad to central Musayyib, which was closed to vehicular traffic.

    Such measures offered little protection against suicide bombers on foot like the one who struck Musayyib.

    While true that these efforts may offer little enhanced protection against suicide bombers, they do limit the opportunity for the bomber to utilize a stolen tanker truck for enhanced devastation. That is the weapon that made the Musayyib strke so horrific.

    Now let’s turn to blast’s aftermath on Iraqi politics.

    After Iraq attacks, calls for militias grow

    A devastating blast south of Baghdad, the latest in a series of suicide attacks aimed at undermining Iraq’s US-mentored political process, has raised the temperature between Sunni and Shiite political factions and revived dormant questions about the effectiveness of government security forces.

    […]

    Shiite parliamentarian Khudayr al-Khuzai called on the government Sunday to “bring back popular militias” to protect vulnerable Shiite communities. “The plans of the interior and defense ministries to impose security in Iraq have failed to stop the terrorists,” he told the National Assembly.

    […]

    Following Mr. Khuzai’s outraged speech in parliament, other members of the Shiite-led majority bloc said they also wanted militias to help stop such attacks. “We need militias to provide protection,” said Saad Jawad Kandil, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a key party in the Shiite-led alliance that dominates parliament.

    SCIRI controls the roughly 7,000-strong Badr militia force, which frequently has been accused by Sunni leaders of torturing and killing innocent Sunni civilians, including clerics. Before the government’s formation, the multiparty Shiite alliance called loudly for a purge of police and Army units, in order to root out Baathist officers allegedly still loyal to the fallen regime of Saddam Hussein. But Sunnis and Kurds fear that a move by SCIRI to fill that hole with Badr militia. This would effectively ensure control of the security apparatus by SCIRI, which has ties to Iran.

    Despite claims of abuse against Sunnis, the Badr militia has reportedly been helpful previously in securing urban neighborhoods. During the Jan. 30 elec- tions, Shiite militiamen, through informal agreements with the Iraqi provisional government, helped Iraqi and coalition security forces set up barricades to defend polling stations. Meanwhile, militias controlled by Kurdish parties, which collaborated with US forces during the 2003 invasion, continue to play a key security role in northern Iraq.

    There are obviously short-term plusses and long-term minuses surrounding the existence of local militias already in place. The call for the creation of more such militant organizations is irresponsible and damaging to actual progress being made. Early U.S. plans acknowledged the dangers of such bands.

    Under US-drafted provisional legislation, nongovernmental militias are meant to be either disbanded or integrated into the government security apparatus as part of Iraq’s transition to democracy and rule of law. But with no side willing to give up its firepower, the militia issue appears to have been sidestepped during current talks aimed at producing a permanent constitution.

    Should Mr. Khuzai get his way in the call for an increase in local militias, he would be hearkening for a brief increase in security that would hearken to an actual rule on the ground by warlords and almost certainly lead to civil war. I understand the emotion of the moment, but it is irresponsible of a parliamentarian to make steps that would actually guaranty far greater bloodshed by his countrymen.

    The U.S. should, without stepping on the actual sovereignty of the new Iraqi government, put pressure to prevent such a reactionary move and its predictable consequences.

  • Terror ‘Round the World

    Not in too much of a mood for blogging tonight, so how about link dumpalooza on the war against Islamist terror?

    Let’s start with what, in my view, is the most disgusting story of the day.

    Suicide bomber kills 18 Iraqi kids

    Tiny plastic sandals, some tattered and stained with blood, lay in a pile near a child’s crushed bicycle. Mothers wailed and beat themselves after a suicide bomber killed 18 children and teenagers getting candy and toys from American soldiers.

    One of the soldiers was among the up to 27 people killed in Wednesday’s blast in an impoverished Shiite Muslim neighborhood. At least 70 other people, including three U.S. soldiers, were wounded. A newborn was among those hurt.

    […]

    “There were some American troops blocking the highway when a U.S. Humvee came near a gathering of children,” said Karim Shukir, 42. The troops began handing out candy and smiley-face key chains.

    “Suddenly, a speeding car bomb…struck both the Humvee and the children,” Shukir said.

    Americans give chocolate. Islamists give death. Tell me this is not a war that needs to be fought.

    Australia to redeploy troops to Afghanistan

    Australian Prime Minister on Wednesday announced that Australia will send 150 troops to Afghanistan at the request of the United States, Afghanistan and others to combat the regrouping of Taliban and al-Qaeda networks.

    The troops, comprising SAS (Special Air Services) soldiers, commandos and logistic support, will be deployed in September, when parliamentary elections will be held in the war-ravaged country.

    The fresh troops will stay there for 12 months working with the US troops.

    […]

    Australia sent 1,500 strong troops to Afghanistan in 2001 but withdrew all the troops in 2002. There is only one Australian engineer being engaged in mine clearance in the Asian country at present.

    Welcome back, blokes. As an aside, I’ve always held the Aussie spirit in very high regard.

    Labor alarmed by PM’s talk of terror attack

    Labor’s foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd is alarmed by Prime Minister John Howard’s comments that the possibility of suicide bombing attacks in Australia like those seen last week in London cannot be ruled out.

    Mr Howard says he does not believe the Government’s decision to redeploy soldiers to Afghanistan will make Australia more of a target but says he cannot count out the possibility of an attack here.

    “We shouldn’t complacently imagine that there aren’t potentially suicide bombers in this country,” Mr Howard said.

    Mr Rudd says if Mr Howard has intelligence about potential threats he should make it public.

    “If you have have no intelligence that there are suicide bombers in Australia, then make that plain to the Australian people as well,” he said.

    Mr. Rudd, I have some relevant intelligence for you: there are people out there that would love to kill you. And me. And any infidel they can touch with their knives or shred with their bombs.

    British Police Search for Mastermind of Blasts

    Britain said today that it was hunting the mastermind of the terror attacks here last week, and the British Home Secretary offered the first official indication that officials believe the four attackers were suicide bombers who “blew themselves up” in the blasts.

    The police said late today that officers had raided a home in Buckinghamshire, around 40 miles northwest of London and close to Luton, where police seized a car laden with explosives one day earlier. Police officials declined to give further details or to say whether the raid, conducted under anti-terrorism laws, was against the home of a fifth suspect.

    The four coordinated mass-transit bombings last Thursday confronted Britons with the very scenario they feared most – an attack by British-born terrorists drawn from the ranks of disaffected Muslims and seeming to copy the grim tactics of assailants in Israel or Iraq that most Britons see only on their television screens.

    Make no mistake — suicide bombers will find there way to many more western countries. The London attacks underscore the dire situation many European nations must soon face, that of large pockets of isolated, unassimilated Moslem immigrants that are fertile breeding grounds for radicalism and violence.

    Pakistan ‘thwarted’ UK pre-poll plot

    Pakistan helped Britain avert a terrorist attack ahead of the general election in May by alerting officials to a potential plot, the Pakistani interior minister said on Wednesday.

    Aftab Khan Sherpao said that information shared by Pakistan with Britain led to arrests in various countries, including Pakistan, and that the plot was “aborted”.

    “Before the general elections in the UK we had received reports that [a terrorist attack] may arise before the elections, and that was aborted because of the information provided by the government of Pakistan,” Mr Sherpao told reporters in Islamabad.

    This story, along with the recent bombings, show the flawed concept of treating this war exclusively as a criminal matter, even with large cooperation from the international community. Law enforcement and intelligence has to be perfect or blood flows. That is the reason why such a strategy must be coupled with something more. Currently, that something more is trying to provide an alternative to the radical culture by building a viable, democratic Iraq. If that fails, the alternative strategy may eventually have to be far bloodier.

    Italy convicts 2 on terror charges

    An Italian judge on Wednesday convicted two North Africans of belonging to an extremist cell alleged to have planned attacks in Italy, including one against Milan’s subway.

    Judge Silvia Milesi sentenced the defendants — Moroccan Mohamed Rafik and Tunisian Kamel Hamraoui — to up to four years and eight months in prison, a defense lawyer said.

    A third suspect, Tunisian Najib Rouass, was sentenced to one year and two months in prison on the lesser charge of inciting violence, while a fourth, Tunisian Romdhane Ben Othmane Khir, was acquitted, said lawyer Ilaria Crema.

    All defendants denied the charges, and those convicted are expected to appeal the ruling. Prosecutor Roberto Di Martino described the verdict as a “balanced ruling.”

    I do sincerely hope that the aim of the ruling was for justice rather than balance.

    Italy police detain 174 people in anti-terror sweep

    Police raided scores of homes and detained 174 people across Italy on Wednesday in a sweeping anti-terrorism crackdown on suspected Islamic militants.

    “The operation has been prepared for some time and confirms Italy has never lowered its guard in the face of terrorist risks,” Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu told journalists.

    The crackdown, involving 201 search warrants from Milan to Naples, follows last week’s deadly attacks in London and comes a day after Pisanu warned that terrorism was “knocking on Italy’s door” and urged parliament to strengthen security laws to prevent an attack.

    “I’m not saying that we have seized terrorists. It’s a preventative operation in high-risk environments,” Pisanu said before the announcement of detentions.

    Okay, so you won’t say you seized terrorists. Would you at least describe the round-up as a “balanced raid” of potentially murderous radical Islamist bastards?

    Now, let’s bring it home to America where the “T” word apparently finally has some bite.

    Muslim Leader Gets Life for Inciting Jihad

    A man convicted for what he said — words that prosecutors said incited his followers to train for violent jihad against the United States — had a few more things to say yesterday in a federal courtroom in Alexandria before he was sentenced to life in prison.

    Ali Al-Timimi, a prominent Muslim spiritual leader, delivered an impassioned statement in which he asserted his innocence, read the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and said his religious beliefs do not recognize “secular law.” He then compared himself to the Greek philosopher Socrates, who was sentenced to death for corrupting the young and dishonoring the gods of Athens.

    “I will not admit guilt nor seek the court’s mercy,” Timimi told a courtroom crowded with his supporters and prosecutors. “Socrates was mercifully given a cup of hemlock. I was handed a life sentence.”

    […]

    The Timimi case culminated an investigation in which 11 Muslim men, all but one from the Washington area, were charged with participating in paramilitary training — including playing paintball — to prepare for “holy war” abroad. Timimi was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the earlier case, in which nine men were convicted in 2003 and 2004.

    […]

    The heart of the government’s evidence against Timimi was a meeting he attended in Fairfax on Sept. 16, 2001, five days after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Timimi told his followers that “the time had come for them to go abroad and join the mujaheddin engaged in violent jihad in Afghanistan,” according to court papers.

    Treason.

    Hey, if the guy wants hemlock, give him some freakin’ hemlock already.

    That’s tonight’s global terror link-o-rama. It’s a small (terror-filled) world after all.

  • Hopes and Problems of Iraq Drawdown

    Last night I mentioned a leaked British memo regarding planned troop reductions. I put forth that, even if the memo was valid, its subject material should be considered tentatively optimistic. Well, that has proven accurate.

    A leaked British Defence Ministry memorandum has confirmed that London and Washington hope to reduce troop strengths in Iraq next year – but also reveals some of the problems.

    The memo does not indicate that basic policy has changed or will change. This is that the troops will be there “as long as is needed”.

    But the plan is that not so many will be needed.

    The authenticity of the memo has been confirmed by the British Defence Secretary John Reid, who signed it.

    He has called it an [sic] “scenarios” document, but it was prepared for the cabinet committee on defence and foreign policy and it demonstrates how seriously the British government is considering how to reduce its commitment.

    These are the hopes:

    • British troops could be reduced from 8,500 now to 3,000 by the middle of next year.
    • US troops could be cut from 176,000 to 60,000.

    These are the problems:

    Everything depends on handing over security to Iraqi control. This in turn depends on the build-up, training and ability of Iraqi security forces.

    A handover should happen in two British-controlled provinces, Muthanna and Maysan, in October and the two others, Dhi Qar and Basra, in April 2006.

    In the far more dangerous US sector, where most of the fighting is taking place, there are also plans to place security in Iraqi hands in most of the provinces next year.

    However – and it is a big however, especially in the US sector – the memo indicates strong disagreements within military staffs about the wisdom of this planning.

    The Pentagon and the US Central Command are said to favour large cuts, while local American commanders are more doubtful. These on-the-ground officers feel it is too soon to think about such reductions.

    The piece goes on to look at the political pressures, obvious though they may be, that drove the sunshine-on-my-shoulders best-case-scenario memo, as well as the inherent risks to such a sizable early withdrawal.

    As for me, I’m in favor of either a complete withdrawal or an increase in forces, or somewhere in between, depending on the actual situation on the ground at the time. I’m certainly against any scheduled withdrawal written in stone, though I would hope that our governments and militaries are planning for all reasonable contingencies.

  • War on Terror Update, 10 JUL 05

    Well, this is the “grain of salt” edition.

    Taliban claims to have beheaded missing US commando

    TALIBAN guerrillas claimed yesterday that they had killed a missing American commando they claimed to have captured in Afghanistan, but the US military said it had no information to support the claim.

    Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the US commando was killed at 11am (0630 GMT) on Saturday and his body dumped on a mountain in the eastern province of Kunar, where a four-man Navy SEAL team went missing during a clash with militants June 28.

    I blogged previously that this alleged Taliban source has historically proven unreliable. Chad Evans at In the Bullpen now points us to a story showing the body of the SEAL has been recovered. As Chad points out, there is no apparent evidence of captivity in the details given to date.

    Either way, it does appear the fate of the SEAL is settled. My best wishes to his loved ones.

    SEALs ‘too close to Osama’

    THE first sign of trouble was a radio message requesting immediate extraction. A four-man team of US Navy SEALs commandos had run into heavy enemy fire on a remote, thickly forested trail in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
    Trouble turned to disaster when a US special forces helicopter carrying 16 men was shot down as it landed at the scene, killing all on board.

    Almost two weeks later, a mission that led to the worst US combat losses in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001 has turned into an extraordinary manhunt. It has also opened an intriguing new front in the coalition’s battle against terrorism.

    The story of Operation Red Wing, a US-led search for Taliban and al Qaeda guerillas in the mountain wilderness of Kunar province, contains remarkable human drama and an unresolved military mystery.

    For five days, amid the hostile peaks and ravines along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, a lone US commando eluded the guerillas who had killed at least two of his colleagues and destroyed the Chinook helicopter.

    When the unnamed commando finally collapsed from exhaustion he was found by a friendly Afghan villager who summoned US forces.

    […]

    According to former special forces officers and other military sources, the four-man strike team may have come too close to one of the US-led coalition’s highest-priority targets – perhaps Mullah Muhammad Omar, the former Taliban leader, or even Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda.

    Other military sources suggested the target was a regional Taliban commander suspected of links with al Qaeda.

    However intriguing the tale, and it is an interesting read, I’ll let it suffice to say that the fantastic headline is based on sheer speculation.

    Arab view: ‘Enough, enough’

    Arabs and Muslims in Britain and across the world expressed outrage at the terrorist attacks in London, with the dominant viewpoint summed up by one person who wrote on a Web site, “Enough … enough.”

    The loud condemnation of the attacks that targeted civilians reverberated on the street, over the Internet, in newsrooms, and in Arab and Muslim seats of power.

    I read this and I recall the celebrations on the Palestinians streets as news of 9/11 spread. Some postings on internet feedback sites be damned — I might begin to believe that the world of Islam has seen enough of this butchery and barbarism when I see large-scale demonstrations against the radical Islamist terrorists. As it is, I’m not in too great a fear of having to face that dilemma anytime soon.

    US, UK plan to reduce troops in Iraq

    A leaked document says the British and U.S. governments are planning to reduce their troop levels in Iraq by more than half by mid-2006.

    British Defense Ministry has confirmed the authenticity of the document, which is reported to have been written by Defense Minister John Reid.

    London’s Mail on Sunday newspaper reported that the memo said Britain would reduce its troop numbers to 3,000 from 8,500 by the middle of next year.

    The British memo said Washington hoped to hand over control of security to Iraqi forces in 14 out of 18 provinces by early next year, allowing it to slash US-led troop levels to 66,000 from 176,000.

    While those reduction numbers seem reasonable given the growth and progress of the native Iraqi forces, it’s quite safe to say that the sharp decline in troop levels, even assuming the validity of the leak, is extremely tentative.

  • U.S. Releases Detained Filmmaker

    After a thorough investigation, the U.S. has decided to release one of five American citizens recently detained in Iraq.

    An aspiring Iranian-American filmmaker who has been detained by the U.S. military for nearly two months without being charged was released Sunday, officials said.

    Cyrus Kar, 44, of Los Angeles, was taken into custody May 17 near Balad when potential bomb parts were found in a taxi in which he was riding. His family had filed a lawsuit accusing the federal government of violating his civil rights and holding him after the FBI cleared him of suspicion.

    “Kar was detained as an imperative security threat to Iraq,” the military said Sunday in a statement. “After his initial questioning, the military notified the FBI, who initiated an investigation to determine if Kar had engaged in terrorist activities.”

    The U.S. military then convened a review board hearing on July 4 to determine whether Kar was an “enemy combatant.”

    “Based on the FBI investigation, the testimony of Kar and the witness he called, and other witness statements, the board determined Kar was not an enemy combatant and recommended his release, which was approved,” the statement said.

    I agreed earlier that there were legitimate questions about the detention of Kar. One should note that I did not question whether the man should have been detained, as I felt it the wise move in a war zone to err on the side of caution.

    The U.S. military defended its detention of Kar.

    “This case highlights the effectiveness of our detainee review process,” spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston was quoted as saying in the statement. “We followed well-established procedures and Mr. Kar has now been properly released.”

    Concur. Now let’s get to prosecuting the four other detainees for their seemingly obvious cases of treason.

  • Kidnapped Egyptian Diplomat Killed in Iraq

    The terrorists in Iraq continued their violent hatred of defenseless fellow Moslems, this time killing the top Egyptian diplomat in the country.

    Gunmen have killed the head of Egypt’s diplomatic mission in Baghdad, Cairo said on Thursday. The Al Qaeda group said it executed him because he represented a “tyrannical” government allied to Jews and Christians.

    The envoy, ambassador Ihab al-Sherif, was abducted near his home in Baghdad last Saturday about one month after taking up his post as one of the highest ranking Arab diplomats in Iraq.

    A former diplomat in Tel Aviv, Sherif appears to have fallen foul of a conflict between insurgents and the U.S.-backed rulers in Baghdad over Arab recognition of the government.

    The Iraqi government had said Egypt planned to upgrade its representation in Baghdad to full ambassador level. Egypt said that although Sherif has the civil service rank of ambassador, his title remained head of the diplomatic mission in Iraq.

    The Al Qaeda group in Iraq announced his death on Thursday in an Internet statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

    “We al Qaeda in Iraq announce that the judgment of God has been implemented against the ambassador of the infidels, the ambassador of Egypt. Oh enemy of God, Ihab el-Sherif, this is your punishment in this life,” the statement said.

    The group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, posted a video showing the hostage speaking but not the actual killing.

    The Egyptian presidency confirmed that Sherif was dead, saying in a statement that the envoy had “lost his life at the hands of terrorism which trades in Islam.”

    “The Egyptian Foreign Ministry … has received with deep pain and sadness the news of the martyrdom of Ambassador Dr. Ihab al-Sherif,” added a Foreign Ministry statement.

    An Egyptian diplomatic source said Egypt had confirmation of the killing “through multiple contacts” but had not received decisive evidence from the Iraqi government and did not know where Sherif’s body might be.

    The killing surprised the Egyptian government, which earlier on Thursday was saying that it remained in contact with all Iraqi groups and hoped to secure his release.

    Despite the surprise, Egypt immediately took bold measures.

    Egypt will close its mission in Baghdad and withdraw its staff after al-Qaida’s wing in Iraq said it had killed an abducted top Egyptian envoy, an Iraqi official said Thursday.

    Run away!

  • Boxer Criticizes Iraq War in SF Speech

    Ah, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Lalaland), once again stands forth in her self-annointed role as useful idiot. My apologies if this is long, but Barbie makes it easy at every turn.

    Sen. Barbara Boxer offered a major foreign policy speech on the war in Iraq before hundreds of her constituents in San Francisco today.

    The situation in Iraq is spiraling out of control, she said, and the pool of people willing to fight in the insurgency against American troop presence there seems bottomless.

    She described herself as “distressed, angry and frustrated” over the continuing unrest in Iraq and the mounting death toll with no apparent end in sight.

    “Iraq was a war of choice, not a war of necessity,” she said.

    “We have no idea, none, how long the administration plans to be in Iraq,” she said.

    We do actually have a vague idea — we will leave when we have succeeded. That is a solid plan. As to a specific exit date, I would think that the only people more disappointed than Boxer that one hasn’t been set are the terrorists opposing us. Umm … senator, in all your studies of history, can you name a single successful war in which a withdrawal date was set before actual victory had been achieved? Or do you consider an unstable but progressing Iraq a victory to walk away from, rather than just a step to a possible success?

    “When we see this next generation coming along … we owe them everything that we have in us to leave them a better world,” Boxer said.

    She cited the latest American soldier death count of 1,749, 13,336 wounded and at least 8,000 dead Iraqis as proof positive that a clear mission and foreign policy shift are in order.

    “Our troops deserve more than they are getting, they deserve more than the status quo,” she said.

    This is, unsurprisingly, a rather weak statement. The argument is fairly bankrupt when the only evidence against the current strategy consists of an emotional plea and casualty figures, casualty figures that are dwarfed by practically all those in the history of warfare.

    President George Bush’s administration “took its eye off the ball” when it shifted its focus from finding Osama bin Laden to waging a pre-emptive war against Iraq, she said.

    Pray tell, just how has the troop level in Afghanistan changed after that “eye off the ball” thing happened? Seriously, I guess I lied when I said the 2004 election was finally over — Boxer is still reading verbatim from John Kerry campaign speeches.

    As Bush’s reasons for the war have changed, the mission has become ever more ambiguous, she said.

    Reasons haven’t changed. Mission hasn’t changed. Boxer’s sniping attacks haven’t changed. Well, I guess we can celebrate consistency.

    “That mission is a guarantee of a never-ending cycle of violence,” she said, as America’s military presence there seems to be a magnet for recruits for the insurgency.

    Just as in 1993 and 2001, the World Trade Center towers were a magnet for terror. Still, senator, I’d rather we at least try shooting the Islamist bastards to pieces over there than picking up the pieces over here.

    The insurgency now numbers anywhere from 12,000 to 50,000 fighters, she said.

    “The insurgents are winning the propaganda wars now,” she said.

    If the terrorists are winning the propaganda wars now, it’s no great surprise — they’ve got Sens. Boxer, Ted Kennedy and Dick Durbin manning the front lines with poisonous swill being lapped up by al-Jazeera.

    “Terrorism is a result of this war,” Boxer said, amid applause at the Commonwealth Club of California-sponsored speech at the Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel.

    Aye, lassie, and terrorism is also the cause of this war. Don’t ye forget. Ever.

    The mission, she said, should be security for Iraqis by Iraqis.

    “It takes a long time to get a perfect democracy — ours certainly did,” Boxer said, citing the Supreme Court’s involvement in the 2000 presidential election as evidence that even America’s democracy has yet to reach perfection.

    “Give us a mission that can succeed,” she said. “Give us a mission that makes sense.”

    As those are the goals of the current strategy you despise, give us a feasible alternative. Or shut up with the al-Jazeera-headline-making, terrorist-encouraging, GI-endangering political hack job.

    Boxer described her speech as the culmination of her thoughts and comments she’s made on the war in Iraq, since the war began in March 2003.

    I agree with Boxer here, as the speech is a culmination of her thoughts and comments — no ideas, no alternatives, plenty of attacks on our efforts, plenty of quotes for our enemies to use. Yup, that’s Boxer in a nutshell.

    Like I said, so easy at every turn. Damn it feels good to be a blogger.

  • Americans Held as Iraq Insurgent Suspects

    Well, it certainly looks like four, maybe five cases of treason.

    The U.S. military in Iraq has detained five Americans for suspected insurgent activity, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. The five have not been charged or had access to a lawyer, and face an uncertain legal future.

    Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to identify any of them, citing the military’s policy of not providing the names of detainees. They are in custody at one of the three U.S.-run prisons in Iraq.

    One was identified by his family and U.S. law enforcement officials as Cyrus Kar, an Iranian-American filmmaker and U.S. Navy veteran.

    Saying Kar is being held unjustly, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the government on Wednesday in an effort to secure his release.

    Three of those being detained are Iraqi-Americans, Whitman said. The fifth is a Jordanian-American the Pentagon previously had acknowledged holding.

    One of the Iraqi-Americans allegedly had knowledge of planning for an attack and a second possibly was involved in a kidnapping, Whitman said. The third was “engaged in suspicious activity,” Whitman said, declining to be more specific. They were captured, one each, in April, May and June.

    Whitman said the Iranian-American was arrested with several dozen washing machine timers in his car; such items can be used as components in bombs. Military officials said he was arrested with a cameraman and a taxi driver.

    Whitman said there did not appear to be any connections among the five.

    If there are charges, it is not immediately clear whether U.S. courts or Iraq’s judicial system would handle the cases.

    Please note the following:

    The International Committee of the Red Cross has visited each of the detainees, Whitman said.

    There does seem to be questions about the detention of Kar and, as expected, these questions have the ACLU frothing at the mouth.

    In Los Angeles, Kar’s relatives said he was born in Iran and came to the U.S. as a child.

    They said Kar, 44, was in Iraq to film scenes for a documentary on Persia’s founder when Kar was arrested by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Baghdad on May 17, a date confirmed by military officials.

    “He just had the misfortune to get into the wrong cab,” said Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLU’s legal director. “Our position is that if the government has any evidence against him, bring him home and charge in a court and then proceed accordingly.”

    His family said that an FBI agent in Los Angeles told them Kar had been cleared of any charges and that the washing machine timers allegedly belonged to the taxi driver, who was transporting them to a friend.

    “I’m here to beg President Bush … to release an innocent boy,” Kar’s aunt, Parvin Modarress, said at a news conference announcing the suit challenging Kar’s detention. “He went to Iraq to do his dream work, to make a documentary.”

    The FBI searched Kar’s Los Angeles home in May, said a U.S. law enforcement official who spoke said on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

    The ACLU’s suit, filed in Washington, contends that Kar’s detention violates his constitutional rights, federal law, international law and U.S. military regulations.

    “He’s just sat there in limbo. Whatever the government’s authority, it certainly doesn’t allow them to do that,” Shapiro said. He pointed to rulings that allow prisoners held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detention.

    Whitman said the five Americans were being held in accordance with laws governing armed conflict.

    Kar’s case should and will be sorted out, but I prefer erring temporarily on the side of caution in a war zone.

    As to the others, let’s warm up that gavel and spin those wheels of justice.

    Others blogging on the story are the Jawa Report, In the Bullpen, Small Town Veteran, Wizbang!, and Outside the Beltway.