Target Centermass

Category: Middle East

  • Coalition Launches Biggest Attack Since Iraq Invasion

    I’m not sold yet on the validity of that headline. Still, it it noticably the largest air assault since the end of major operations in the Iraqi theater.

    Combined American and Iraqi forces yesterday launched the largest air assault the country has seen since the US-led invasion, targeting insurgent strongholds near Baghdad.

    The US military said the offensive, dubbed Operation Swarmer, was aimed at clearing “a suspected insurgent operating area” north-east of Samarra and was expected to continue for several days.

    “More than 1,500 Iraqi and Coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation,” the military statement said.

    Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, was the site of the massive bombing of a Shiite shrine on 22 February which touched off sectarian bloodshed that has killed more than 500 and injured hundreds more.

    It is a key city in Salahuddin province, a major part of the so-called Sunni triangle where insurgents have been active since shortly after the US-led invasion three years ago. Saddam Hussein was captured in the province, not far from his home town, Tikrit.

    Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s interim foreign minister, said the attack was necessary to prevent insurgents from forming a new stronghold such as they had established in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

    “After Fallujah and some of the operations carried out successfully in the Euphrates and on the Syrian border, many of the insurgents moved to areas nearer to Baghdad,” Mr Zebari said. “They have to be pulled out by the roots.”

    Residents north of Samarra said there was a heavy US and Iraqi troop presence in the area and that large explosions could be heard in the distance.

    They said the operation appeared to be concentrated near four villages – Jillam, Mamlaha, Banat Hassan and Bukaddou – near the highway leading north from Samarra to the city of Adwar.

    Waqas al-Juwanya, a spokesman for the provincial government’s joint co-ordination centre in nearby Dowr, said: “Unknown gunmen exist in this area, killing and kidnapping policemen, soldiers and civilians.”

    The military said a number of weapons caches had been captured, containing shells, explosives, bomb-making materials and military uniforms.

    As expected, early reporting on this was sketchy. Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee gives CNN credit for getting the terminology of air assault correct, something that we both find somewhat surprising. Some early reporting (I’m too lazy too track down over dial-up) had talked of an air raid or an air attack or an air strike — all of which Mr. Owens points out graphically implies a completely different operation (as a side note, I got a little involved in the comments about the history of combat gliders).

    Heck, maybe that’s why Air Assault has it’s own badge in the U.S. Army.

    Air Assault Badge

    Hooah for their success today.

  • Brits to Withdraw 800 Troops from Iraq

    Our British allies have announced a pending reduction in forces on the ground in the Sandbox.

    The number of British troops serving in Iraq is to be cut by 800 to just over 7,000, it was announced yesterday.

    John Reid, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons that the reduction would begin when the next brigade moves to Iraq in May. He insisted that the cut was not triggered by the increase in violence.

    “It is an operational decision not a political one,” he said.

    With more than 235,000 trained members of the Iraqi security forces and 5,000 recruits joining each month, the country now had enough resources to conduct independent operations, he said.

    The announcement came as many observers believe Iraq is descending into even greater chaos with the prospect of civil war.

    Well, this certainly doesn’t sound like the course of action one would choose were one to believe the doom-and-gloom media’s prognostications of a pending civil war. One would anticipate a variety of reactions to such a situation, among them an increase in forces, a constancy of troop levels or a large-scale withdrawal, depending upon expectations and dangers. Rather, a small reduction points towards a phased handover of responsibilities, as has been predicted by the coalition leaders and appears to be the case here.

    But despite the recent sectarian violence after the dome of the Shia shrine in Samarra was destroyed, the Ministry of Defence’s analysis was that civil war was “neither imminent nor inevitable”.

    Mr Reid hinted that some of Iraq’s 18 provinces could be entirely free of foreign troops after the Joint Committee to Transfer Security Responsibility meets this month.

    He said that the occupying forces were not about to “cut and run”, insisting that their commitment was “steadfast until the job is done”.

    No, historical instances of cutting and running, be it from Viet Nam, Beirut or Somalia, are what put us in the boat we’re in today — our enemies are expecting it, playing every twist for its media value in an attempt to undermine our resolve. Indeed, it is their only hope, as they cannot withstand us militarily, nor can they deny that the Iraqi people are slowly embracing democracy and the Iraqi security forces are slowly but surely growing in competency and numbers. Time is not on the side of our enemies in Iraq, unless the defeatists among us get their way.

  • Iraqis to Take Control of Abu Ghraib

    At long last, the possible shrugging off of a media nightmare by the American military.

    Abu Ghraib, the prison that served as a house of torture under Saddam Hussein and was latterly the scene of the US military’s worst prisoner abuse scandal, is to be handed over to the Iraqi government.

    The decision yesterday came as the Iraqi authorities announced they had hanged 13 insurgents, marking the first time militants have been executed in the country since Saddam Hussein was ousted.

    The US military said yesterday that its new facility near Baghdad airport to house security prisoners now held at Abu Ghraib prison should be ready within three months.

    Lt Col Kier-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for US military detainee operations, said completion of the new prison at Camp Cropper, where Saddam and his co-defendants have been held since their capture, would set the transfer in motion.

    “We will transfer operations from Abu Ghraib to the new Camp Cropper once construction is completed there. No precise dates have been set, but the plan is to accomplish this [completion of construction] within the next two to three months,” Lt Col Curry said.

    “Once we transfer operations from Abu Ghraib, the facility will be turned over to the Iraqi government.”

    The prison, which currently holds over 4,500 detainees, came to symbolise US mishandling of some prisoners captured in Iraq, both during the US-led invasion three years ago and in the fight to subdue the largely Sunni Muslim insurgency since then.

    Although I recognize that the prison is now sadly infamous for American military abuses, I have two key questions here. First, does anyone really believe that the Iraqi government and military is sufficiently mature yet to prevent worse abuses? Second, why are Saddam’s abuses, far worse than any chronicled against the American military, never carried in these stories as a frame of reference like the American abusese?

    Widely publicised photographs of prisoner abuse by US military guards and interrogators led to intense global criticism of the US war in Iraq and fuelled the insurgency.

    Photos showed one of the guards, Private Lynndie England, abusing naked Iraqi prisoners, including an image where she held a leash tied around an undressed male detainee’s neck. England was sentenced to three years in prison.

    She was among nine US soldiers who were charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Her ex-boyfriend, Specialist Charles Graner, with whom she had a child, was sentenced in January 2005 to ten years in prison.

    Yes, we abused. Yes, we prosecuted. I thank the author of this story for making the latter clear, though I feel a little more of the prison’s brutal history would have added some perspective. Hell, there would have been no shortage of ways to put the American Abu Ghraib abuse into perspective historically, but that never has been attempted in the handling of this tale.

    The hand-over of authority at Abu Ghraib will take place in phases, Lt Col Curry said, beginning with basic training for prison guards, followed by Iraqis working side by side with US forces at detention facilities. Iraqi guards will then start running detainee operations themselves with a transition team overseeing them before they assume complete control.

    Okay, here’s my predictions on how this story will be handled by the New York Times, the same Paper of Record that carried front-page coverage of American Abu Ghraib for some thirty-some-odd consecutive days: no front page coverage and any article will be accompanied by a tired old American-abuse photo. If I’m wrong about this, it will be on the absence of a photo — it would, after all, attract attention to a story best left buried.

  • Ports Deal Crumbles, Dubai Firm to Sell U.S. Assets

    Well, so much for the United Arab Emirates ports story.

    With President Bush unable to contain a Republican congressional rebellion, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates vowed Thursday to turn over its just-acquired operations at six major U.S. port terminals to an American entity.

    The surprise move came after congressional leaders told Bush on Thursday morning that there was no way to stop lawmakers from blocking Dubai Ports World’s takeover of terminal operations at the ports.

    Republican and Democratic lawmakers reacted cautiously to the company’s apparent surrender, saying they needed to learn more about the details before abandoning their attempts to block DP World.

    DP World obtained the terminals as part of its acquisition of Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., a British firm. That transaction, which the Bush administration approved in January, aroused a public furor that drove Congress into open conflict with the White House.

    The announcement was an extraordinary retreat that signaled a shift in the power relationship between the White House and Congress. Bush has been unused to losing. But this time, the Republican-led House of Representatives, which has been a rubber stamp for the president for the past five years, was the first to revolt.

    Republicans were furious when the president promised last month to veto any legislation that blocked the deal. Congress ignored Bush’s threat, and a 62-2 vote to block the deal by the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday left no doubt that Congress would override a veto if the president dared to cast one.

    After Thursday’s meeting of congressional leaders with Bush at the White House, DP World’s chief operating officer, H. Edward Bilkey, surprised lawmakers when he issued a statement promising that the company would divest itself of its U.S. terminals.

    “Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve this relationship, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and rule of Dubai, has decided to transfer fully the U.S. operations of P&O Ports North America Inc. to a United States entity,” Bilkey’s statement said.

    Nevertheless, Senate Democrats pressed ahead with attempts to block DP World’s takeover, and House leaders weighed whether to proceed as well.

    Critics of the original deal weren’t backing away from congressional action.

    “I’m skeptical,” said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. “I’d prefer (legislation) go through because it gives us a safeguard.”

    Likewise, Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said he didn’t intend to remove the ports provision from an emergency spending bill for hurricane relief and the war in Iraq.

    Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., added: “Congressional plans are to move forward with the appropriations language next week which kills the transaction. Just to make sure.”

    DP World would have taken over terminals in Miami, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Baltimore and New Orleans as well as some stevedoring operations at 15 others.

    […]

    The question that loomed late Thursday was who would buy the U.S. interests, and whether the firm would sell the assets in pieces.

    Eller & Co., whose Miami subsidiary Continental Stevedoring & Terminals sued to block the sale, said it might attempt to buy the terminals. “We are certainly encouraged by what the statement said,” Eller attorney Michael Kreitzer said. “We think we are one of the companies (that could buy it). We have been in the business for 70 years. We could do it.”

    Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., an early opponent of the DP World deal and an influential one as the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Thursday’s announcement was encouraging. “I don’t think Dubai ports would have done this … if they didn’t think there was someone out there,” he said. “Hopefully they have more than one (bidder), otherwise they’re going to have to do a fire sale.”

    Michael Hopkins, the vice president of Crowley Liner Services at Port Everglades in Florida, said he expected DP World to sell its interests to several firms rather than one large operator.

    […]

    “To be honest, I have no idea,” said Steve Erb, who manages P&O ports operations in Miami. “I can just say that the five largest terminal operators in the world aren’t American.”

    I had not blogged on this brouhaha yet, though I had certainly intended to do so (damn you, oncall pager). I’ll admit that I initially balked when I heard the news that an Arab company was being handed the security responsibilities for six American ports. And that right there is why this deal is dead — horridly bombastic, sensationalistic and inaccurate journalism. The deal did not involve control of security. The fact that these six terminals are already managed by a foreign company was not reported. Still, weeks later, a large portion of the stories continued such inaccuracies and omissions. Remember when former Vice President Al Gore yelled that the Bush administration played upon our fears? Well, that is most assuredly what the media did with this story, at the sad expense of the truth. Politicians from both sides chose to capitalize upon these fears. Hey, after all, it’s an election year, and the media have already made clear how they will play this tale.

    Instead, the victim in this tale is an Arab ally, just the sort of friend we should be fostering. Protein Wisdom‘s Jeff Goldstein at expands greatly upon my concerns in this matter.

    Is this a national security question? My sense is that while it has been hyped as such—and that the majority of congress persons and the American public caved to their fears—it never really was. And from a free market perspective—which, along with the promotion of liberal democracy, is part of the memetic message we are trying to sell abroad—this is a set back.

    To win this war, we must insist that our way of life is worth defending. Congress has damaged our relationship with the Gulf states (and in the UAE, we have a very good working relationship), determined our economic policy, and show us to be unwilling to practice what we preach.

    I only hope that the UAE understands the vicissitudes of our political system in advance of elections and is willing to accept that the timing for the deal—moreso than any idea of xenophobia—is ultimately responsible for outcome. Which is strange, feeling like I have to rely on the pragmatism of the UAE in order not to take a giant ideological step backward in the war on terror.

    Similarly, we are going to be forced to rely on the pragmatism of the rank and file Muslim who, we must secretly hope, recognizes that we have security concerns that must be dealt with domestically—and so they are able to resist the spin our enemies are likely to put on this: that the US, as Al Gore already told them, is openly hostile to Muslims.

    […].

    A positive outcome from all this might be that we take a closer look at securing points of entry (and resistance to the deal by Democrats could potentially redound on them when it comes to the Mexican border, if certain Republicans play their rhetorical cards right)—but I hope we manage to do so in a way that is consistent with the free market system we profess to promote.

    Indeed, I hope every senator and representative that has played a part in attacking this business move by an ally will have the integrity to follow through with the rhetoric used to date — move immediately to stop foreign management of all points of entry. Otherwise, just come right out and say that you have essentially used racial profiling to shut down a business deal.

    These same six terminals were previously controlled by a British-owned company; are you saying that our terrorist enemies could penetrate a U.A.E. company but could never have been an issue with the U.K.? Really, I have little complaints about profiling, but there are places where I think it should be utilized first before this instance. I fully expect everyone in Congress who helped kill this deal that doesn’t immediately move against any foreign port management to explain why they will racially profile an ally-owned company but will not racially profile airline passengers that match those who have previously and repeatedly killed our fellow citizens.

  • “The Head of the Snake”

    Tonight’s must-read: Michael J. Totten takes a look at a true torture chamber from the reign of Saddam Hussein and the genocide museum it has become today.

    Hat tips to several of the fine sites on my blog roll but, what the heck, let’s officially send one to In the Bullpen.

  • An Apology and a Link Dump

    Sorry, y’all, about the sparse posting of late — darn that real-world job thing. I’ve spent last night, early morning and a good chunk of tonight logged into work and, frankly, I’m a little sick of my computer right now. That said, as a substitute for actual material, here’s a handful of links about this, that and the other.

    Bringing Power to the People

    One of the most persistent myths about Iraq is that our efforts to improve the electrical system failed. That’s just plain wrong. The country’s in far better shape than it was under Saddam.

    But freedom always has a cost: In this case, the demand for power soared after Saddam fell — and crashed the grid. It’s been a long, hard fight to get it back up.

    Iraq never had an adequate power grid. Under the Ba’athist regime, Baghdad might have enjoyed power 18 or 20 hours a day, but other cities got three or four. One of the first things we did was to distribute power more equitably. Baghdad gets less, so its residents complain — but if you’re in almost any other Iraqi city, you’re far better off today than you were three years ago.

    In the wake of the war, we faced two immediate problems:

    * First: The grid was even more decrepit than the worst pessimists had suspected. Saddam never funded electrification adequately; spare-parts money from the Oil-For-Food program went to build palaces and monuments instead.

    * Second: As soon as the borders opened, appliances flowed in, from refrigerators to air-conditioners to satellite dishes (the dishes are everywhere). Money came out from under a few million beds and the country went on a massive shopping spree that hasn’t ended. As soon as the Saddam-era system was exposed to “normal” demands, it crashed.

    Nonetheless, power generation last July averaged 5,300 megawatts; the top pre-war peak was 4,300. Just now, output’s down to 3,900 to 4,200 megawatts— because the system’s being serviced and upgraded to meet this summer’s demands.

    Power matters. As one ranking official (who preferred not to be named) put it, “Power is the Iraqis’ No. 1 concern” and “the center of gravity” for our efforts. Power outages affect far more lives than terrorism does.

    The insurgents and terrorists realize this. The progress to date has come despite frequent attacks on transmission lines and on the pipelines that fuel the power plants (another action that turns Iraqis against our mutual enemies).

    […]

    The challenge isn’t just power generation, either. Everything was decrepit, from sub-stations to the power lines themselves. We faced a daunting task. And our fellow Americans in Iraq have done a far better job than they’ve received credit for doing.

    We aren’t just fixing it all while the Iraqis watch, either. We couldn’t. The cost would be prohibitive, and rebuilding the entire power system was never our intention. Our goal was to jump-start the system, then teach Iraqis how to do it — and more and more projects are now carried out by Iraqi firms and ministries, with U.S. officials offering only supervision and advice.

    Iraqis won’t be fully content for years, of course. They desperately want to be part of the modern world — and that’s going to take a long time. Meanwhile, they’re finding workarounds. Many Baghdad neighborhoods have chipped in to buy communal generators to provide reliable power to their homes. Not the perfect system, but it buys time for development.

    Significant problems remain, no question about it. Iraq was a ruined country. But things are going far better than you’ve been told.

    The emphasis above was added, and Ralph Peters calling out poor coverage by our media is nothing new. I’ll always happily link to columns by or involving him, as I’ve previously done here, here and here. I’ll also happily plug my introduction to Peters, which was his somewhat-prescient novel, The War in 2020. I first cracked that entertaining adventure in the gunner’s seat of an M1 while waiting on a gunnery range at Ft. Hood, travelling in the way-back machine to May of ’93.

    Abbas claims al-Qaida is operating in Gaza

    The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that he believes al-Qaida has infiltrated the occupied territories and could further destabilise the region.

    “We have indications about a presence of al-Qaida in Gaza and the West Bank. This is intelligence information. We have not yet reached the point of arrests,” Mr Abbas told Al Hayat, the London-based Arabic newspaper.

    Later he added that Palestinian security forces had been given the task of heading off any extremist plots. “Our forces are trying with all available means to prevent them from arriving to carry out terrorist attacks in this region,” he said.

    Israel’s acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said he was not surprised by the remarks.

    Nor should anyone be surprised; stability in the world of Islam is not to the benefit of murderous extremists. For that matter, stability and progress among the Palestinians is not exactly a goal for the surrounding Arab states — a victimized Palestinian people allows allows the despotic states to misdirect the unrest of their people towards the supposed great and little satans of America and Israel.

    Deadly blast ahead of Bush visit

    A suspected suicide car bomb outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi has killed an American diplomat and at least three other people, but President George W. Bush said terrorists would not stop his visit to Pakistan.

    Bush was in neighboring India when the explosion happened on Thursday, and he immediately vowed to stick with his plan to fly to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, on Friday evening.

    “Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan,” he said, adding the bombing showed the war on terrorism must continue.

    Bush is not expected to visit the southern city of Karachi during his short visit.

    National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley admitted Bush’s overnight visit to Pakistan was “not a risk-free undertaking.”

    The article goes on to mention the actual victim, but the following story does the man a far better justice.

    Foy spent life serving his country

    David Foy was 51, had served 23 years as a senior chief in the Navy, but wanted to continue serving his country. So he signed up for the State Department and spent the last three years in two very remote parts of the world, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan.

    Just five months ago he took over as facilities manager at the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, supervising the building’s maintenance staff.

    Yesterday Foy was killed, along with three other people, when a suicide bomber stopped by consulate security staff drove his car into Foy’s vehicle, throwing it onto the grounds of a nearby Marriott Hotel.

    “He talked many times about the challenges he had there, between the different languages and their way of repairing things versus our way,” said Foy’s brother-in-law David Cushing at the family home in North Carolina.

    Foy had four grown daughters, the youngest 20 and in college in the United States. Neither the girls nor Foy’s wife, Donna, lived with him overseas. The State Department has ordered that families of diplomats posted in Pakistan stay outside the country for security reasons.

    […]

    The family, Cushing said, “would like him to be portrayed as someone who spent his life serving the country.”

    And that is how he should be portrayed and remembered. My gratitude goes out to David Foy, as do my best wishes for his family.

  • Senior Zarqawi Aide Captured

    Too many times has the story been trumpeted that the noose is tightening around the neck of bloody terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and I’ll admit I’ve played my part in the brass soundings. Still, one day one of these stories just may be the linchpen to the bastard’s demise. Maybe this is the one, though I’m not holding my breath.

    Iraqi Interior Ministry forces captured a senior aide to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi state television said.

    Iraqiya named the man as Abu Farouq and said he was captured with five others in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of the capital.

    It said Abu Farouq al-Suri, previously unknown to the media, was captured by the Wolf Brigade, one of several counter-insurgency units operating within the Shiite-run Interior Ministry but accused by Sunnis of targeting civilians in their community.

    The word Suri is Arabic for Syrian, indicating that the captured man may have come from Iraq’s western neighbour.

    US military spokespeople were unaware of the capture.

    Previous postings, all too familiar and hopeful, are as follows:

    And I ain’t even going to pretend I blogged each rendition of this tale. Still, every single one brings hope for the end of the menace that is Zarqawi.

  • Dems May Unite on Plan to Pull Troops

    Apparently, the Democrat party is gelling around the idea that strategic redeployment is a double-plus good strategy for Iraq. To translate from their window-dressing newspeak, the accurate phrasing they’re looking for is, in a word, retreat.

    After months of trying unsuccessfully to develop a common message on the war in Iraq, Democratic Party leaders are beginning to coalesce around a broad plan to begin a quick withdrawal of US troops and install them elsewhere in the region, where they could respond to emergencies in Iraq and help fight terrorism in other countries.

    The concept, dubbed ”strategic redeployment,” is outlined in a slim, nine-page report coauthored by a former Reagan administration assistant Defense secretary, Lawrence J. Korb, in the fall. It sets a goal of a phased troop withdrawal that would take nearly all US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007, although many Democrats disagree on whether troop draw-downs should be tied to a timeline.

    Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman, has endorsed Korb’s paper and begun mentioning it in meetings with local Democratic groups. In addition, the study’s concepts have been touted by the senator assigned to bring Democrats together on Iraq — Jack Reed of Rhode Island — and the report has been circulated among all senators by Senator Dianne Feinstein, an influential moderate Democrat from California.

    The party remains divided on some points, including how much detail to include in a party-produced document, fearful of giving too much fodder for attacks by Republicans.

    The concern for campaign accusations of defeatism and retreat are well placed, as those are the actual features of the plan.

    ”We’re not going to cut and run — that’s just Republican propaganda,” Dean said in a speech Feb. 10 in Boston. ”But we are going to redeploy our troops so they don’t have targets on their backs, and they’re not breaking down doors and putting themselves in the line of fire all the time. . . . It’s a sensible plan. It’s a thoughtful plan. I think Democrats can coalesce around it.”

    Reed, an Army veteran and former paratrooper who has been charged with developing a party strategy on the war, said the plan is attractive to many Democrats because it rejects what he calls the ”false dichotomy” suggested by President Bush: that the only options in Iraq are ”stay the course” or ”cut and run.”

    ”It’s important to note that it’s not withdrawal — it’s redeployment,” Reed said. ”We need to pursue a strategy that is going to accomplish the reasonable objectives, and allow us to have strategic flexibility. Not only is it a message, but it’s a method to improve the security there and around the globe.”

    Withdrawal is redeployment. Black is white. Up is down. Running away from hardship is strengthening security. Granted, there are times the latter may be true; however, this is not one of those times, as radical Islamists will immediately declare it a victory so great that the Somalia tail-tucking will pale in comparison.

    Under Korb’s outline, all reservists and National Guard members would come home this year. Most of the other troops would be redeployed to other key areas — Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and the Horn of Africa — with large, quick-strike forces placed in Kuwait, where they could respond to crises in neighboring Iraq.

    Yes, let’s immediately declare that our military’s reserve components, long held as a key portion for our national security plans, are now to be kept safely under glass — only break in the event of a hurricane.

    Korb said in an interview that setting dates for troop withdrawal would send a message to the Iraqi people that the United States does not intend to set up permanent military bases in Iraq. Starting the redeployment quickly will ensure that the Army does not wear out before the insurgents do, he said.

    Trust me, the message would also be sent to our Islamist enemies — bleed us and we will flee, and we’ll set a date that you merely have to hold out to that you can enter into your Defeat-America project plan.

    But some strategists say the goal of a near-total withdrawal within two years is overly optimistic. US troops that are a plane ride away won’t be an effective deterrent, and Iraqi security forces appear unlikely to be able to handle the violence on their own in the near future, said Michael O’Hanlon, a centrist defense specialist who is a lecturer at Princeton University.

    ”You’re demanding that the political system produces a miracle,” O’Hanlon said. ”Any plan that envisions complete American withdrawal in such a period of time is still a prescription for strategic defeat.”

    Quite freakin’ right.

    In November, Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, shook much of Washington with his call for an immediate withdrawal of troops, and his estimate that all troops could be out of Iraq within six months. The generally hawkish Vietnam veteran also called for quick strike forces to remain close to Iraq — similar to the Korb plan — but that was largely overlooked in the barrage from Republicans.

    White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Murtha plan amounted to ”surrender to the terrorists.”

    Yes, the Democrats seem to be on the verge of rallying around an only-slightly modified version of the Murtha plan for retreat, a plan that lacks substance in the areas of actually maintaining an abililty to respond quickly enough to in-region actions and a threshold at which such re-engagement would be justified. In short, the plan offers the Iraqi government the same hollow promise we gave the South Vietnamese in 1973: we’ll be there if needed. The only problem is the Islamist terrorrists, the Iraqi people and the whole world know that we failed on that earlier promise.

    Hat tip to Charlie Munn of the Officers’ Club, who points out some key contradictions in the so-called strategy in the following:

    Next, what other key areas do we need 130,000+/- troops deployed to? (I would answer “Iran”) Afghanistan is being effectively handled by SF and light units, putting power in the hands of the locals and backing them up with a small US footprint. Does this new strategy suggest that we’ve been bungling OEF, and we need to put mech and armor units on the ground? Same with the Horn of Africa- if our footprint is the problem in Iraq, why is it the solution in other places?

    Further, the logic for this “strategic re-deployment” seems to be that US forces are causing terrorist attacks simply by being there (echoes of Osama). Following that logic, anywhere we deploy we will be attacked, so we might as well not do any military operations anywhere, ever. Also, if the threat is currently in Iraq, and we “strategically re-deploy” to where the threat is not, it is rather easy to label this strategy as a “cut and run.”

    Yes, it does seem to be a strategy of being where we ain’t targets. Well, it doesn’t take much to figure the counter-strategy for the radical Islamist bastards — hit the American military wherever they are and watch them flee all they can flee.

    Damn, but I do hope the American public sees this for the defeatist retreat that it is.

  • A Tale of Two Duh! Headlines

    Please be so kind as to file them both under the “well, I should freakin’ hope so” category.

    Poll: Americans fear Iran will develop, use nukes

    Americans are deeply worried about the possibility that Iran will develop nuclear weapons and use them against the USA, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds, but they also fear that the Bush administration will be “too quick” to order military action against Iran.

    […]

    There is little doubt among Americans about Iran’s intentions. Eight of 10 predict Iran would provide a nuclear weapon to terrorists who would use it against the USA or Israel, and almost as many say the Iranian government itself would use nuclear weapons against Israel. Six of 10 say the Iranian government would deploy nuclear weapons against the USA.

    I’ll admit, I’m editing quite selectively, but the story really did try to hide the meat of the poll behind the numbers based upon a so-far successful undermining of the Bush administration and piss-poor reporting of our successes in Iraq.

    US and Israel ‘trying to destabilise Hamas’

    Hamas has accused the US and Israel of refusing to accept the result of a democratic election, after a report that the two countries are discussing means to destabilise and bring down a Hamas-led Palestinian administration.

    The New York Times, citing diplomatic sources in Jerusalem, said Washington and Israel intend to block funding for the Palestinian Authority in an attempt to ensure that Hamas cabinet ministers fail and new elections are called.

    After Hamas’s election victory, the US and EU warned the Islamist group that unless it renounced violence and recognised Israel’s right to exist they would cut funding for the Palestinian Authority.

    Let’s see … a terrorist organization is rightfully elected the run the Palestinian state-or-whatever. The two governments that have previously shouldered a lion’s share of the funding for the state-or-state-of-anarchy balk. Is this undermining or just a shade of common-sense diplomacy? I’m voting for the latter, and I would really like to see a little hardball played here — the Palestinians made a choice and Hamas must find a way to function as a true government or fail upon their promises. After all, they have a rather sizable role to play in the violent anarchy over which they now supposedly govern. That Hamas would decry a withholding of funding from those they’ve deemed enemies is a truly special brand of weak victimization for a state-or-state-of-bloodletting that has already banked for years upon its claims of victimhood.

  • At the Movies with the United Nations

    The good:

    Govts should pay for cartoon protest: UN

    Iran, Syria and other governments that failed to protect foreign embassies from mobs protesting over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed should pay for the damage, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

    The cartoons’ publication in a Danish newspaper have triggered widespread protests across the Muslim world including violent attacks on Western diplomatic offices in a number of countries.

    “The government has a responsibility to prevent these things from happening. They should have stopped it, not just in Syria or Iran but all around,” Annan said.

    “Not having stopped it, I hope they will pick up the bill for the destruction that has been caused to all the foreign countries,” he told CNN.

    “They should be prepared to pay for the damage done to Danish, Norwegian and the other embassies concerned.”

    The bad:

    UN report calls for closure of Guantánamo

    A UN inquiry into conditions at Guantánamo Bay has called on Washington to shut down the prison, and says treatment of detainees in some cases amounts to torture, UN officials said yesterday.

    The report also disputes the Bush administration’s legal arguments for the prison, which was sited at the navy base in Cuba with the purpose of remaining outside the purview of the US courts, and says there has been insufficient legal process to decide whether detainees continued to pose a threat to the US.

    The report, prepared by five envoys from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and due for release tomorrow, is bound to deepen international criticism of the detention centre. Drafts of the report were leaked to the Los Angeles Times and the Telegraph newspapers, but UN envoys refused to comment yesterday.

    During an 18-month investigation, the envoys interviewed freed prisoners, lawyers and doctors to collect information on the detainees, who have been held for the last four years without access to US judicial oversight. The envoys did not have access to the 500 prisoners who are still being held at the detention centre.

    “We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government,” Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture and one of the envoys, told the LA Times. “There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture.”

    The report lists techniques in use at Guantánamo that are banned under the UN’s convention against torture, including prolonged periods of isolation, exposure to extremes of heat and cold, and humiliation, including forced shaving. [Note: humilition equals torture. Go figure.]

    The UN report also focuses on a relatively new area of concern in Guantánamo – the resort to violent force-feeding to end a hunger strike by inmates. [Note: certainly a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Imagine the outcry had they been allowed to starve. I say fine — let ’em starve.]

    And the ugly:

    Bush agrees to work with U.N. on international force for Darfur

    In a move that ultimately could lead to the deployment of U.S. troops to Africa, President Bush on Monday agreed to work with the United Nations on the creation of a new international force to stop ethnic killings in Sudan’s Darfur region.

    Although Bush made no commitments on a possible role for U.S. troops, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he favors American participation in the peacekeeping mission. Bush and Annan sidestepped that issue during a White House meeting that focused on the mechanics of creating a peacekeeping force.

    “When the planning is done and we come up with detailed requirements, then each government will have to indicate what they will offer and what they will do,” Annan told CNN after the meeting. “I hope that the U.S. and other governments with capacity will pull together and work with us in putting the forces on the ground.”

    Annan said that international troops offer the best hope for ending the violence that’s claimed as many as 200,000 lives and left nearly 2 million people homeless. Peacekeeping troops from neighboring African countries have been unable to stop marauding militias that operate with support from the Sudanese government.

    The campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing, orchestrated by Sudanese Arabs, targets Darfur’s African population. Humanitarian groups say the violence rivals the slaughter in Rwanda in the 1990s.

    Bush and other administration officials have shown little enthusiasm for putting U.S. troops in the middle of the ethnic strife, but they haven’t ruled it out. Bush, who has called the killings in Darfur genocide, didn’t even mention plans for an international force in brief remarks to reporters after his meeting with Annan.

    He said only that they had “a good discussion” about the problem.

    A State Department spokesman said that any discussion of sending U.S. troops to Africa is premature until the United Nations comes up with a more complete plan for an international force. The Pentagon is ready to send experts to U.N. headquarters in New York to help plan the peacekeeping mission and ensure that it has a large African component.

    “It’s really premature to speculate about what the needs would be in terms of logistics, in terms of airlift, in terms of actual troops. And it’s certainly in that regard premature to speculate on what the U.S. contribution might be,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

    One note about the ugly factor here: it is certainly an understatement to say the Sudanese situation is already quite ugly. Any U.S. military involvement only increases the potential for “Americanizing” the bloody mess.