Diana West

US Representative Poe on Dutch Parliamentarian Wilders

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:59:00 GMT

On the floor of the House yesterday, Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican, had this to say about Geert Wilders:

Mr. Speaker, freedom of speech continues to be shouted down by the politically correct police. In the Netherlands, it is against the law to say something that offends someone else’s religion. That is why Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders is on trial for hurting people’s feelings.He made a movie about terrorists and radical Islamic clerics encouraging violence in the name hate. Now he is on trial for insulting Islam.

He is charged with discrimination and incitement to hatred. Because Dutch law is intolerant of intolerance.The Dutch courts say even truthful insult speech is a crime. Sounds like the law has become the enemy of free speech and a protector of the radicals.

Geert Wilders boldly brings to the world’s attention the dangers of religious radicals who believe in hateful violence, and he gets in trouble for it. He ought to be commended rather than condemned and charged with a crime.

Freedom of speech is a universal human right, granted by God, especially if that speech is political, religious or truthful. A free people won’t tolerate intolerance for freedom for very long.

And that's just the way it is.

Fox's Beck, Krauthammer & Kristol: Wrong on Wilders (Much to Talal's Delight)

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:49:00 GMT

Murdoch and Talal, together, in Abu Dhabi this week: It's a long way from Rudy Giuliani's Big Dis in Manhattan

This week's syndicated column:

When Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol each from their respective Fox News perches branded Dutch political phenom Geert Wilders as beyond the political pale, it was shocking and outrageously so, and for several reasons.

One. I’ve grown used to Fox News and all other media ignoring not just the Wilders story but also the cultural story of the century, altogether – namely, the Islamization of Europe, something Wilders, a great admirer of Ronald Reagan and a committed supporter Israel, is dedicated to halt and reverse. The survival instinct of the Dutch, who, earlier this month gave unprecedented electoral victories to Wilders and his party, is a strong indicator that this civilizational transformation is not irreversible. But covering the Islamization of Europe, as readers of this column know, usually makes for bad news. And worse, at least according to the powers-that-be, even half-way competent reporting on the subject puts Islam in a bad light because it reveals exactly what happens to Western-style liberty when Muslims enter a non-Muslim host country in sufficient numbers to enact and extend sharia (Islamic law) over a heretofore Judeo-Christian-humanist society.

Better safe (politically correct) than sorry (subject to potential boycott or worse), our media prefer, frittering away precious powers afforded by the First Amendment. This motto seems to go double at Fox ever since Rupert Murdoch, for reasons unknown, sold what is now a seven percent stake of Fox’s parent company News Corp. to a scion of the sharia-dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. For the Fox commentators, supposedly punditry’s bulwark of Western values, to bring it up just to slap it down -- and without factual care (to say the least) -- was disappointing but also irresponsible.

Two. Readers may recall that I’ve questioned Talal’s ownership stake before (previous column here, post here). This week, much too synergistically, after Murdoch’s and Talal’s all-stars warned Fox viewers about the Wilders threat, in effect, to Islam in Europe, Murdoch was in Abu Dhabi, along with Talal and 400 other media executives, announcing that key components of the News Corp. empire were moving into the Islamic world, into the United Arab Emirates.

Remember the UAE, notorious for enslaving Bangledeshi boys as camel jockeys, for its support of Hamas? It was the UAE whose ministers and princes were hunting with Osama bin Laden, preventing the Clinton White House from taking a cruise missile shot at the jihad kingpin. It was the UAE that was one of three countries (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) to recognize the Taliban. And it was the UAE’s Dubai Ports World that was thwarted in a pre-tea-party populist uproar about these connections and more (eleven of the 9/11 hijackers, including two UAE citizens, were deployed to the US from Dubai). The UAE is “not free” now, says Freedom House, and never has been. You get the picture. It is now complete with a macabre vision of a News Corp.’s Middle Eastern headquarters potentially rising into the skyline, the better to oversee, perhaps, Murdoch’s new 9.1 percent stake in Prince Talal’s Arab media company Rotana.

What impact does the Islamization of News Corp. have on “fair and balanced” news Stateside? I don’t know. But when one of the big bosses is a Saudi prince, it doesn’t exactly encourage reporters to doodle spoofs of the Danish Motoons on their notepads, let alone engage in “offensive,” PC-busting debate in the news room or on the air.

Three. Regardless of cause or effect, the fact remains that in classifying Wilders as a fascist (Beck), denouncing his views as “extreme, radical and wrong” (Krauthammer), and slandering him as a “demagogue” (Kristol), Fox’s opinion-leaders expressed themselves in terms that surely thrilled not just Murdoch’s Islamic prince-cronies, but also the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). This is the organization driving the advance of sharia in the world, as, for example, at the United Nations, where it leads an endless campaign to outlaw all criticism of Islam – such as Wilders’ -- under the PC-sensitive rubric of banning “defamation of religion.”

Now, one thing you don’t want to do in this life is thrill the OIC, particularly on its smooth drive to extend sharia that is only now, according to OIC plan, unexpectedly blocked by Geert Wilders. But how it hurts to see Fox pushing in the wrong direction.

Andrew Bostom: "Qaddafi, Wilders and the Jihad against Switzerland"

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:29:00 GMT

When Qaddafi's Libya is "satisfied" something is wrong.

Andrew Bostom has published an essential and timely essay at Pajama Media throwing the light of the ages, historically and Islamically speaking, on Qaddafi's declaration of jihad on Switzerland for its act of self-determination to ban construction of the tool and symbol of political Islam, the minaret. And yes, as the title of this post promises, he also sets the recent electoral successes of Geert Wilders into the context of European pushback against such outbursts of Islamic aggression and continuing demographic colonization.

Bostom's piece is mandatory reading, and particularly in order to appreciate the low-down depths to which the United States has sunk with its "apology" yesterday to Libya for State Department spokesman Philip Cowley's unfocused non-response to a question last month about Libya's declaration of jihad on Switzerland.

The AFP reports:

"Libya accepts US `apology' for Kadhafi joke"

TRIPOLI — Libya said on Wednesday it accepted the apology of a US official who had joked about Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's call for jihad against Switzerland and that normal ties would resume.

The foreign ministry said it was "satisfied" with the remarks made by US State Department spokesman Philip Cowley on Tuesday, adding that "it accepts the apology and the deep regret," of the State Department.

Slurp, slurp, slurp.

"As a result ... (Libya is willing) to resume mutual visits by officials from the two countries ... and to promote bilateral relations in all areas, in a manner of mutual respect," the ministry said in a statement.

Thanks be for that.

Earlier, a Libyan newspaper had called Cowley's apology and Washington's decision to send a top envoy to Libya in a bid to limit the diplomatic fallout from the incident a "victory" for Tripoli.

"Libya has won a victory in the battle begun by the US State Department's spokesman," daily Al-Fajr Al-Jadid said.

Crowley told reporters on Tuesday he regretted that his comments had become an obstacle to the improvement in US-Libyan relations, although actually stopping short of a full apology.

Diplomacy 101: Give a regret and they'll take an apology.

"These comments do not reflect US policy and were not intended to offend. I apologise if they were taken that way."

Sounds like an apology to me.

Libya formally objected to Crowley's remarks on February 26, a day after Kadhafi called for a holy war and economic boycott in response to Switzerland's ban on the construction of minarets.

What did he say?

Crowley had said at the time: "I saw that (jihad) report and it just brought me back to the day of September, one of the more memorable sessions of the UN General Assembly that I can recall.

"Lots of words and lots of papers flying all over the place and not necessarily a lot of sense," the US official added.

He didn't say anything! (Here, have a dog.)

Kadhafi took the comments as a personal insult. Libya first summoned the US charge d'affaires in Tripoli and Libya's National Oil Corp called in US oil firms to express "indignation" over the remark.

NOW, we're getting down to bizness. If only these "US oil firms" were drilling here at home in the good old USA they wouldn't have to be called in to talk to the likes of jihadis like Qadaffi .... Hmmmm.

NOC president Shokri Ghanem said the US firms in Libya, which include ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, had been advised of "the negative repercussions which such remarks could have on economic relations between the two countries."

US-Libyan ties have been improving since 2003, when Kadhafi renounced the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and agreed to compensate families of the victims of the 1988 plane bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The lifting of US sanctions in 2004 paved the way for US oil companies to return to Libya after being absent since 1986.

Joy. It also paved the way for the Lockerbie bomber to go home and live the life of Al-Reilly ...

Dhimmitude is plain disgusting.

Update: Ruth King has some choice words on the subject over at Ruthfully Yours.

Oh No, Not Again: Welcome to Our World

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:45:00 GMT

This sketch almost got a man killed. Sorry, Sharia-inspired assassins almost killed a man over this sketch.

Story -- not the picture, of course, because the MSM are chicken-dhimmis -- by the AP

STOCKHOLM — The point of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was to show that artistic freedom allows mockery of all religions, including the most sacred symbols of Islam, the Swedish artist who created it said Wednesday.

Update: The essential backgrounder on the whole story at Gates of Vienna.

Lars Vilks — the target of an alleged murder plot involving an American woman who dubbed herself "Jihad Jane" — told The Associated Press he has no regrets about the drawing, which is considered deeply offensive by many Muslims.

Oh, please. There's a lot of things that deeply offenda lot of people, from smutty talk on the street to Rupert Murdoch moving key components of his empire to UAE Enough is enough -- isn't it?

"I'm actually not interested in offending the prophet. The point is actually to show that you can," Vilks said in an interview in Stockholm. "There is nothing so holy you can't offend it."

Certainly, that's one valid argument. There is a more particular argument to make, which is that we do not observe either Islamic prohibitions on imagery, or Islamic prohibitions on criticizing Islam or its prophet.

Vilks made his rough sketch showing Muhammad's head on a dog's body more than a year after 12 Danish newspaper cartoons of the prophet sparked furious protests in Muslim countries in 2006.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

Whatever.

Vilks submitted the drawing to an exhibit at a Swedish cultural heritage center, which turned it down, citing security concerns.

Fear of Cartoon Rage, Swedish-style.

The issue went largely unnoticed until a Swedish newspaper printed the drawing with an editorial defending the freedom of expression.

Good for them. Haven't seen that in these here United States newspapers, despite the robust protections offered by our First Amendment.

The publication led to protests from Muslim countries, and briefly revived a heated debate in the West and the Muslim world about religious sensitivities and the limits of free speech.

It also led to numerous death threats against Vilks, who was temporarily moved to a secret location after al-Qaida in Iraq put a $100,000 bounty on his head in September 2007.

The 63-year-old artist told AP he has now built his own defense system, including a "homemade" safe room and a barbed-wire sculpture that could electrocute potential intruders. He also has an ax "to chop down" anyone trying to climb through the windows of his home, in southern Sweden.

Ah, give me the medieval life.

"If something happens, I know exactly what to do," Vilks said.

He said he believes the suspects in the latest alleged plot to kill him — seven people arrested in Ireland and a Pennsylvania woman held in the U.S. — were not professionals but "rather low-tech."

He said he had learned from American media reports that Colleen R. LaRose, who called herself JihadJane in a YouTube video, had visited the area where he lives, but he didn't know whether that was correct. "I'm glad she didn't kill me," Vilks said, with a half-smile.

Nalin Pekgul, a moderate Muslim and high-ranking member of Sweden's opposition Social Democratic Party, told Swedish Radio the threats against Vilks were unacceptable but added his drawing had profoundly hurt Muslims.

"A dog is unclean. To describe Muhammad as a dog is like saying you are unclean" to Muslims, said Pekgul, a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey.

Don't tell us about unclean when kafirs (non-Muslims) along with dogs, pigs, wine, and assorted bodily yuck have a standing condition of being "najis" or unclean according to the likes of Iranian Shiite Ayatollah Sistani.

An eccentric man with disheveled gray hair and thick-lensed glasses, Vilks referred to himself as "the artist" and described his life as a movie plot.

"It's a good story. It's about the bad guys and a good guy, and they try to kill him," he said.

Swedish winters are very long.

LaRose had discussions of her alleged plans with at least one of the suspects apprehended in Ireland, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to discuss details of the investigation.

Irish authorities said Wednesday those arrested there were two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects. They were not identified by name.

Swedish police have kept a close eye on threats against Vilks, but he doesn't have round-the-clock protection.

Vilks has said he was threatened shortly after an ax-wielding man on Jan. 1 broke into the home of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew one of the 12 Muhammad caricatures that prompted the 2006 uproar. Westergaard locked himself in a safe room, while police shot and wounded the attacker.

At least three Swedish newspapers reprinted Vilks' drawing Wednesday, citing its news value and the defense of free speech.

That's the only way to keep free speech free.

Out-foxing Fox

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:56:00 GMT

Perhaps in response to major viewer push-back, Fox News ("fair and halal") pulled its video clips of the two evening slams on Geert Wilders that appeared last night, first by Glenn Beck and then by Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. That's right: Fox pulled the videos from all Internet sight.

Well, not quite. Thanks to the invaluable Gates of Vienna, we can still watch the Beck outburst:

Oil Chic: Owning Western Media

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:36:00 GMT

Prince Talal has pals and they all have pockets filled with Westerners.

From the AP:

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — With an economy based on pumping oil and landmarks that include one of the Mideast's grandest mosques, buttoned-down Abu Dhabi has little obvious in common with freewheeling media magnets like Hollywood or midtown Manhattan.

This week, the Arab emirate is hoping the world takes another look. The city-state, best known of late for bailing out its flashier neighbor Dubai, is bringing together some of the industry's biggest names for a summit that will temporarily shift much of the world's media and entertainment elite to a luxury hotel on the Persian Gulf. Headliners at the event starting Tuesday include News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and Google Inc. chief Eric Schmidt.

Murdoch yesterday announced, by the way, that in addition to buying into Prince Talal's Rotana media company, News Corp. has "further extended our presence [in Dar al-Islam] by announcing a strategic partnership between Fox International Channels and Abu Dhabi’s twofour54."

He's pretty much moving in. As Murdoch explained:

"First, we will move some of our satellite channels from Hong Kong to here. Second, we will establish a production office here for one of our documentary filmmaking companies. And third, we will headquarter the Middle Eastern operations for our global online advertising network business in Abu Dhabi as well."

Back to the AP:

The idea is to entice "the best and the brightest media minds," said Edward Borgerding, a former Walt Disney Co. executive who is now CEO of the state-owned Abu Dhabi Media Co., the event's host. But the gathering is also a coming-out party for Abu Dhabi, which has seen its own star rise as nearby Dubai's fades, serving as a reflection of the emirate's growing weight in the media industry.

As in most of the Arab world, the government here has long controlled much of the domestic media, running television networks, newspapers and radio stations, including one devoted to readings from the Quran. Censors routinely black out nudity and politically sensitive topics, and block access to hundreds of Web sites. A media law passed last year stifles the press and increases self-censorship, rights groups say.

Oh, is that what "rights groups say"? Thanks for mentioning. But there's more. A quick browse through a Freedom House report reveals there's also the fact that in the UAE there are no elections, never have been. Political parties do not exist, nor are independent human rights groups allowed to operate. Criticism of Islam is a "punishable offense, while women's rights are tenuous due to the sway of Islamic law. Little surprise, then, that female genital mutiliation is still "discreetly practiced" ... and on and on.

In other words -- the perfect place for Western media $ucklings to $eek $oothing $uccor.

Increasingly, though, the United Arab Emirates capital has been using its immense petroleum wealth to extend its media reach overseas, even as it shows little sign of easing restrictions on journalists or Internet users at home.

It has set up a company to bankroll Hollywood films, built an office park to house foreign news agencies, and spent billions to invest in microchips that power the electronic gadgets that increasingly serve as platforms for media consumption.

It is also partnering with established Western brands, including National Geographic and Comedy Central, to develop Arabic-language programming, and is splashing out on big-name concerts for eager audiences at home. Recent shows featured Rihanna, Aerosmith and Beyonce.

Always entertaining to see-no-sharia!

The investments are part of a broader push by Abu Dhabi's hereditary leaders to diversify the economy away from oil and provide a broader range of jobs for locals.

They serve another purpose too — to establish Abu Dhabi, the UAE's capital and the largest of the country's seven semiautonomous city-states, as a tolerant, cultured and internationally relevant Arab society.

The al-Potemkin city-state, courtesy its Western collaborators.

"We work to promote a more progressive point of view of this region," said Mike Fairburn, director of marketing and planning at Flash Entertainment, a government-created concert and events promoter. "A big part of popular entertainment is about challenging certain perceptions."

Abu Dhabi is not alone in its quest to become a regional media player.

Neighboring Dubai built its reputation on being a carefree business haven. Despite its well-publicized economic slump, the port city continues to host regional offices for hundreds of media companies, ranging from small ad agencies to international broadcasters such as CNBC and Showtime. And Doha, the capital of nearby Qatar, is home to the best-known group of Arabic satellite TV channels, al-Jazeera.

Abu Dhabi officials, however, insist they are creating something unique. A big part of that effort revolves around a project called TwoFour54, named after the city's geographical coordinates.

The project's sand-whipped office park in a rapidly developing corner of the city has already lured a number of international news agencies, including CNN, which also maintains an office in Dubai. The broadcaster is using its Abu Dhabi site to produce a daily news show for its international channel.

TwoFour54 also includes a media training academy primarily offering short skills-based courses, as well as production facilities and a venture capital arm to invest in promising Arabic media startups.

"We see ourselves ... as providing an environment that is supportive and conducive and stimulating for creative people to want to be here," said Wayne Borg, chief operating officer of TwoFour54.

You know, art for art's sake.

Other state-backed projects are aiming further afield.

Earlier this year, Abu Dhabi's Flash Entertainment bought a 10 percent stake in the parent of Ultimate Fighting Championship, the Las Vegas-based mixed martial arts producer that makes most of its money through pay-per-view sales and video game licenses.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi Media set up a film production and financing arm called Imagenation that aims to pump more than $1 billion into feature films over five years.

The company produced last year's family adventure film "Shorts" by director Robert Rodriguez, and has since announced co-production deals for a number of other movies, including the upcoming political thriller "Fair Game" starring Sean Penn.

The venture is symbiotic. Hollywood gets money it needs after funding sources like investment banks and hedge funds tightened purse strings amid the global meltdown. Abu Dhabi gets international cachet.

Isn't that the one about Faust??

"If you can just get the brand out there with the name Abu Dhabi in it, it promotes Abu Dhabi as a decent, legitimate business partner," said Christopher Davidson, a professor at the University of Durham who has written extensively about the UAE.

He said one goal might be to persuade a studio to set part of a major film in the city, though he added that freedom of expression remains a concern.

"The reality is it's still a traditional political system, and there are limits," he said.

It is difficult to gauge how much of its oil wealth Abu Dhabi is willing to lavish on the media business, which must compete with the government's plans to grow other sectors, such as technology, manufacturing, energy and tourism. Few details about the government's finances are made public, and none of the executives who agreed to speak with The Associated Press would discuss their companies' financial resources.

Davidson estimates the state will spend at least $2 billion to $3 billion over five years just on physical infrastructure and seed money for the media sector. But there is always more should things really take off.

"This is small change for Abu Dhabi," he said. "They can throw such massive resources at this."

News Corp.'s Wall Street Journal (kind of amazingly) put it this way:

"Why are the world's biggest media companies coming to one of the most closed media markets?" said Jim Krane, author of 'City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism' and a former journalist based in the U.A.E. with the Associated Press. "It's because that's where the money is."

The Journal also reported:

On the eve of the summit's opening day, News Corp.'s Fox International Channels said it was moving the Middle East operations of its global online ad network to Abu Dhabi and setting up an office here for its documentary-production arm.

The partnership comes after News Corp. last month said it would spend $70 million for a 9.1% stake in Arabic media giant Rotana Group, with an option to double that stake. Rotana is owned by Saudi billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal, a large, longtime investor in News Corp.

"Abu Dhabi sits at the nexus--of East and West, of developing and developed, of our media present and our future," Mr. Murdoch said in videotaped remarks to promote the media summit last November.

Ironically, the renewed sense of interest in Middle East media comes as international media companies face rising criticism in the U.A.E. over its coverage of Dubai's debt crisis.

The Sunday Times, published in the U.K., was ordered off shelves in the U.A.E. on Nov. 29 after the paper carried a double-page graphic illustrating Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, sinking in a sea of debt. Its sister publication, The Times, was censored in the U.A.E. on Dec. 5 for a story that described Sheik Mohammed as a "benign dictator" and criticized his management of the economy.

Question: Has the Sunday Times or The Times -- both News Corp./Prince Talal properties not incidentally -- run anything similar to this cartoon and story since? I don't know the answer -- but I can guess.

Fox News: Best Investment Saudi Prince Talal Ever Made

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:45:00 GMT

It was pile-on time at Fox News tonight as Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, a gal whose name I missed [update -- A.B. Stoddard] and Bill Kristol all branded Geert Wilders beyond the pale tonight.

Beck classified Geert as a fascist.

Krauthammer said Geert didn't know the difference between Islam and Islamism -- never mind that according to Krauthammer's idea of Islamic scholarship, neither did Mohammed.

[Stoddard] said she agreed with Imam Krauthammer and added that if people like this (Geert) are elected to lead Holland it will suffer the consequences.

Kristol called Geert a demagogue.

In other words, a stomach-turning display -- or should I say halal?

Fact is, this anti-Geert pundit solidarity will only delight Newscorp stakeholder Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. That's because it is Wilders in the Netherlands who stands as the unexpectedly strong spearhead of resistance to the Islamization of Europe and the wider West. As a scion of the most powerful sharia dictatorship in the world, Prince Talal doesn't like that. How fortunate for him that Fox News doesn't like it, either.

On Geert on Russia TV

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:48:00 GMT

Never heard of Russia TV before I went on Friday but hey, at least they're interested in talking about the Wilders phenom -- as opposed to some fair and balanced most trusted names in news I could mention. (Don't miss host's wrap-up equating Islamic imperialism & Western imperialism -- the new moral equivalence?)

Geert Wilders at the House of Lords

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:40:00 GMT

AP photo: Geert Wilders arriving for a press conference in London today

Below is the text of Geert Wilders' address today in the House of Lords, where, at the invitation of Baronness Cox and Lord Pearson, both members of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), he showed his film Fitna.

Thank you. It is great to be back in London. And it is great that this time, I got to see more of this wonderful city than just the detention centre at Heathrow Airport.

Today I stand before you, in this extraordinary place. Indeed, this is a sacred place. This is, as Malcolm always says, the mother of all Parliaments, I am deeply humbled to have the opportunity to speak before you.

Thank you Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for your invitation and showing my film ‘Fitna’. Thank you my friends for inviting me.

I first have great news. Last Wednesday city council elections were held in the Netherlands. And for the first time my party, the Freedom Party, took part in these local elections. We participated in two cities. In Almere, one of the largest Dutch cities. And in The Hague, the third largest city; home of the government, the parliament and the queen. And, we did great! In one fell swoop my party became the largest party in Almere and the second largest party in The Hague. Great news for the Freedom Party and even better news for the people of these two beautiful cities.

And I have more good news. Two weeks ago the Dutch government collapsed. In June we will have parliamentary elections. And the future for the Freedom Party looks great. According to some polls we will become the largest party in the Netherlands. I want to be modest, but who knows, I might even be Prime Minister in a few months time!

Ladies and gentlemen, not far from here stands a statue of the greatest Prime Minister your country ever had. And I would like to quote him here today: “Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. No stronger retrograde force exists in the World. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step (…) the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.” These words are from none other than Winston Churchill wrote this in his book ‘The River War’ from 1899.

Churchill was right.

Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t have a problem and my party does not have a problem with Muslims as such. There are many moderate Muslims. The majority of Muslims are law-abiding citizens and want to live a peaceful life as you and I do. I know that. That is why I always make a clear distinction between the people, the Muslims, and the ideology, between Islam and Muslims. There are many moderate Muslims, but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.

Islam strives for world domination. The Quran commands Muslims to exercise jihad. The Quran commands Muslims to establish shariah law. The Quran commands Muslims to impose Islam on the entire world.

As former Turkish Prime Minister Erbakan said: “The whole of Europe will become Islamic. We will conquer Rome”. End of quote.

Libyan dictator Gaddafi said: “There are tens of millions of Muslims in the European continent today and their number is on the increase. This is the clear indication that the European continent will be converted into Islam. Europe will one day soon be a Muslim continent”. End of quote. Indeed, for once in his life, Gaddafi was telling the truth. Because, remember: mass immigration and demographics is destiny!

Islam is merely not a religion, it is mainly a totalitarian ideology. Islam wants to dominate all aspects of life, from the cradle to the grave. Shariah law is a law that controls every detail of life in a Islamic society. From civic- and family law to criminal law. It determines how one should eat, dress and even use the toilet. Oppression of women is good, drinking alcohol is bad.

I believe that Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life. Islam is a threat to Western values. The equality of men and women, the equality of homosexuals and heterosexuals, the separation of church and state, freedom of speech, they are all under pressure because of islamization. Ladies and gentlemen: Islam and freedom, Islam and democracy are not compatible. It are opposite values.

No wonder that Winston Churchill called Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ “the new Quran of faith and war, turgid, verbose, shapeless, bur pregnant with its message”. As you know, Churchill made this comparison, between the Koran and Mein Kampf, in his book ‘The Second World War’, a master piece, for which, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Churchill’s comparison of the Quran and ‘Mein Kampf’ is absolutely spot on. The core of the Quran is the call to jihad. Jihad means a lot of things and is Arabic for battle. Kampf is German for battle. Jihad and kampf mean exactly the same.

Islam means submission, there cannot be any mistake about its goal. That’s a given. The question is whether we in Europe and you in Britain, with your glorious past, will submit or stand firm for your heritage.

We see Islam taking off in the West at an incredible pace. Europe is Islamizing rapidly. A lot of European cities have enormous Islamic concentrations. Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin are just a few examples. In some parts of these cities, Islamic regulations are already being enforced. Women’s rights are being destroyed. Burqa’s, headscarves, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honour-killings. Women have to go to separate swimming-classes, don’t get a handshake. In many European cities there is already apartheid. Jews, in an increasing number, are leaving Europe.

As you undoubtedly all know, better then I do, also in your country the mass immigration and islamization has rapidly increased. This has put an enormous pressure on your British society. Look what is happening in for example Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford and here in London. British politicians who have forgotten about Winston Churchill have now taken the path of least resistance. They have given up. They have given in.

Last year, my party has requested the Dutch government to make a cost-benefit analysis of the mass immigration. But the government refused to give us an answer. Why? Because it is afraid of the truth. The signs are not good. A Dutch weekly magazine - Elsevier - calculated costs to exceed 200 billion Euros. Last year alone, they came with an amount of 13 billion Euros. More calculations have been made in Europe: According to the Danish national bank, every Danish immigrant from an Islamic country is costing the Danish state more than 300 thousand Euros. You see the same in Norway and France. The conclusion that can be drawn from this: Europe is getting more impoverished by the day. More impoverished thanks to mass immigration. More impoverished thanks to demographics. And the leftists are thrilled.

I don't know whether it is true, but in several British newspapers I read that Labour opened the door to mass immigration in a deliberate policy to change the social structures of the UK. Andrew Neather, a former government advisor and speech writer for Tony Blair and Jack Straw, said the aim of Labour’s immigration strategy was, and I quote, to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”. If this is true, this is symptomatic of the Left.

Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: The left is facilitating islamization. Leftists, liberals, are cheering for every new shariah bank being created, for every new shariah mortgage, for every new islamic school, for every new shariah court. Leftists consider Islam as being equal to our own culture. Shariah law or democracy? Islam or freedom? It doesn’t really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire leftist elite is guilty of practising cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties.

Why I ask myself, why have the Leftists and liberals stopped to fight for them? Once the Leftists stood on the barricades for women’s rights. But where are they today? Where are they in 2010? They are looking the other way. Because they are addicted to cultural relativism and dependent on the Muslim vote. They are dependent on mass-immigration.

Thank heavens Jacqui Smith isn’t in office anymore. It was a victory for free speech that a UK judge brushed aside her decision to refuse me entry to your country last year. I hope that the judges in my home country are at least as wise and will acquit me of all charges, later this year in the Netherlands.

Unfortunately, so far they have not done so well. For they do not want to hear the truth about Islam, nor are they interested to hear the opinion of top class legal experts in the field of freedom of expression. Last month in a preliminary session the Court refused fifteen of the eighteen expert-witnesses I had requested to be summoned.

Only three expert witnesses are allowed to be heard. Fortunately, my dear friend and heroic American psychiatrist dr. Wafa Sultan is one of them. But their testimony will be heard behind closed doors. Apparently the truth about Islam must not be told in public, the truth about Islam must remain secret.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m being prosecuted for my political beliefs. We know political prosecution to exist in countries in the Middle East, like Iran and Saudi-Arabia, but never in Europe, never in the Netherlands.

I’m being prosecuted for comparing the Quran to ‘Mein Kampf’. Ridiculous. I wonder if Britain will ever put the beliefs of Winston Churchill on trial… Ladies and gentlemen, the political trial that is held against me has to stop.

But it is not all about me, not about Geert Wilders. Free speech is under attack. Let me give you a few other examples. As you perhaps know, one of my heroes, the Italian author Oriana Fallaci had to live in fear of extradition to Switzerland because of her anti-Islam book 'The Rage and the Pride'. The Dutch cartoonist Nekschot was arrested in his home in Amsterdam by 10 police men because of his anti-Islam drawings. Here in Britain, the American author Rachel Ehrenfeld was sued by a Saudi businessman for defamation. In the Netherlands Ayaan Hirsi Ali and in Australia two Christian pastors were sued. I could go on and on. Ladies and gentlemen, all throughout the West freedom loving people are facing this ongoing ‘legal jihad’. This is Islamic ‘lawfare’. And, ladies and gentlemen, not long ago the Danish cartoonist Westergaard was almost assassinated for his cartoons.

Ladies and gentlemen, we should defend the right to freedom of speech. With all our strength. With all our might. Free speech is the most important of our many liberties. Free speech is the cornerstone of our modern societies. Freedom of speech is the breath of our democracy, without freedom of speech our way of life our freedom will be gone.

I believe it is our obligation to preserve the inheritance of the brave young soldiers that stormed the beaches of Normandy. That liberated Europe from tyranny. These heroes cannot have died for nothing. It is our obligation to defend freedom of speech. As George Orwell said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe in another policy, it is time for change. We must make haste. We can’t wait any longer. Time is running out. If I may quote one of my favourite American presidents: Ronald Reagan once said: “We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow”. That is why I propose the following measures, I only mention a few, in order to preserve our freedom:

First, we will have to defend freedom of speech. It is the most important of our liberties. In Europe and certainly in the Netherlands, we need something like the American First Amendment.

Second, we will have to end and get rid of cultural relativism. To the cultural relativists, the shariah socialists, I proudly say: Our Western culture is far superior to the Islamic culture. Don't be affraid to say it. You are not a racist when you say that our own culture is better.

Third, we will have to stop mass immigration from Islamic countries. Because more Islam means less freedom.

Fourth, we will have to expel criminal immigrants and, following denaturalisation, we will have to expel criminals with a dual nationality. And there are many of them in my country.

Fifth, we will have to forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough Islam in Europe. Especially since Christians in Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia are mistreated, there should be a mosque building-stop in the West.

And last but not least, we will have to get rid of all those so-called leaders. I said it before: Fewer Chamberlains, more Churchills. Let's elect real leaders.

Ladies and gentlemen. To the previous generation, that of my parents, the word ‘London’ is synonymous with hope and freedom. When my country was occupied by the national-socialists the BBC offered a daily glimpse of hope in my country, in the darkness of Nazi tyranny. Millions of my fellow country men listened to it, underground. The words ‘This is London’ were a symbol for a better world coming soon.

What will be broadcasted forty years from now? Will it still be “This is London”? Or will it be “This is Londonistan”? Will it bring us hope? Or will it signal the values of Mecca and Medina? Will Britain offer submission or perseverance? Freedom or slavery? The choice is yours. And in the Netherlands the choice is ours.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will never apologize for being free. We will and should never give in. And, indeed, as one of your former leaders said: We will never surrender.

Freedom must prevail, and freedom will prevail.

Thank you very much.

How the West Will Be Won

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:34:00 GMT

Author's photo: Antwerp, Belgium 2008

This week's syndicated column further unwraps the hijab and finds totalitarian ideology underneath:

When the Netherlands' Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders recently addressed voters in Almere, a Dutch city of 200,000 where his party handily won elections this week, he told them what to expect as his once-tiny, anti-Islamization party started flexing its new political muscle. Aside from lower taxes and other political staples, his plans for this city not far from Amsterdam include a ban on Muslim headscarves.

Wilders' ban would apply to "headscarves in municipal bodies and all other institutions (that) receive even one penny of subsidy from the municipality." He continued: "And for all clarity: This (ban) is not meant for crosses or yarmulkes because those are symbols of religions that belong to our own culture and are not -- as is the case with headscarves -- a sign of an oppressive totalitarian ideology."

Here, Wilders is distinguishing between the religions of Christianity and Judaism, and the religio-political ideology of Islam, noting not only the near-indigenous nature of the former, but also the encroaching totalitarianism of the latter. This is the crucial cultural argument to make if a cultural Reconquista of Europe from Islamization is to be successful.

Certainly, we have seen glimmers. Last year, Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang party of Belgium led a winning campaign to ban the hijab - what he calls "the propaganda weapon of choice for the establishment of Islamic society in Europe" -- in the Flemish schools of his country, making the same vital judgment call that Wilders did.

"(He) who defends the headscarf out of reasons of tolerance and pluralism has little or no understanding of Islam," Dewinter said. "The hidden agenda behind the veil leads to segregation," a veritable apartheid-regime, he explained, with which Islam seeks to control and dominate the West. Equating the Muslim head scarf with the Christian cross or the Jewish yamulke is "therefore incorrect," Dewinter continued, identifying the headscarf as "the flag of a political ideology" in which it is not the individual religious experience that is central, but rather "the realization of a theocratic society based on sharia, or Islamic law."

Maybe that's a lot for Americans to take in, but they haven't lived through the Islamization Decades that their European cousins have. As Europe's neighborhoods, banlieues and cities have repeatedly seen, headscarf-friendly zones yield to other Muslim demands, from single-sex recreation and medicine, to a refusal to tolerate certain Western texts or foods, to the institution of Islamic banking, to the acceptance of jihadist treason in the mosques, to the entrenchment of Islamic marriage (forced and polygamous), to the ultimate recognition of Islamic courtrooms run according to sharia.

But take the French approach. After determining that the Muslim headscarf inserted religion into state-run secular schools, the French government in 2003 banned the headscarf in the public schools along with the Star of David, the yamulke, "large" crucifixes and the turban of the Sikhs. This decision made it appear as though the hijab hadn't been singled out as a symbol of a specifically Muslim way of life that seeks to extend sharia. Thus, in the name of tolerance, all religious symbols were deemed provocative. In the name of inclusion, all were banned. This is precisely how the traditional (pre-Islamic) society dismantles itself, symbol by symbol, law by law.

And this is precisely why acknowledging and affirming the differences -- "discriminating" -- between Western religions and Islamic religio-political ideology is so important. Alas, it is also unthinkable for the average post-modern, multicultural Westerner. Rather than reject the symbols of imperial Islam, he capitulates, further stripping his civilization of its own identity, further enabling the Islamization process.

Now, the French government seeks to ban the full veil, or burka, in public buildings, a measure, as a recent Harris Poll tells us, that garners support from a whopping 70 percent of French respondents. Large majorities also support a ban in Italy (65 percent), Spain (63 percent), and the United Kingdom (57 percent). (A burka ban draws 33 percent support in the United States.)

Notably, that support plummets when other religious symbols are included in the burka ban. French support drops to 22 percent. Italian (10 percent), Spanish (9 percent) and British (4 percent) support follows. (American support drops to about 1 percent.)

Defiance of the multicultural orthodoxy is more popular in Europe than anyone imagined.

Too Much Fun to Miss: Geert's Victory Speech

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:39:00 GMT

From the amazing team of GoV, Vlad Tepes and VH, the Wilders victory speech (in Dutch with English subtitles) last night in Almere, the Netherlands.

Wilders Wins Big in Dutch Elections: Updated

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:50:00 GMT

How do you say "Reconquista" in Dutch? Anyway, so it begins in Almere, the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders's PVV party looks like the Big Winner in yesterday's munipal elections, also coming in second in The Hague. Best news in a long time.

An only somewhat jaundiced report from the Guardian:

Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right anti-immigrant maverick, scored big gains in yesterday's local elections in the Netherlands, according to projections last night, indicating he may dominate the political scene in the run-up to the general election in three months.

OK. Let's break it down.

Is Wilders "far-right"? That conjures up visions of state-controlled fascism. What is state-controlled-fascist about a politician such as Wilders who wants to lower taxes, which necessarily reduces the goverrnment power? And what, to take a couple of other Wilders programs, is "far right" about fighting crime and keeping the retirement age at 65? Indeed, what is "far-right" or fascist about Wilders' anti-Islamization program to halt and reverse the creeping totalitarianism of sharia (Islamic law), a religio-fascist program based on mosque-control of public and private life?

Is Wilders "Anti-immigrant"? If immigrants commit crimes, call for jihad or sharia (Islamic law), yes. He also wants to halt Islamic immigration as the only effective means to halt the Islamization process.

A "maverick"? That word had a rough ride in the last US presidential election but yes, Wilders counts as a "maverick" -- along with other such European "mavericks" as Filip Dewinter of Belgium and Oskar Freysinger of Switzerland.

Yesterday's poll, 10 days after the centrist coalition government collapsed, was seen as a gauge of the national mood ahead of the national elections on 9 June.

Wilders last night claimed a big victory, predicting: "We are going to conquer the entire country ... We are going to be the biggest party in the country."

When I first interviewed Geert Wilders in June 2008, he was a party of one.

With almost 400 local authorities being contested, the focus was on only two areas – The Hague and Almere, in the centre of the country – because of the campaign by the anti-Muslim populist to establish his Freedom party in local government for the first time.

According to early results this morning, he won in Almere and came second to the Dutch Labour party in The Hague, the only two places the Freedom Party was running because of a lack of resources and candidates.

Wilders, who likens the Qur'an to Hitler's Mein Kampf --

Gee, so do I -- and so did Winston Churchill

-- and wants Muslim immigrants deported

As mentioned above, yes, if they commit crimes, call for jihad or sharia (Islamic law). He also wants Muslim immigration stopped to prevent the jihad-sharia demographic from increasing

-- is bidding fair to win the general election in June, with the latest opinion polls predicting he might take 27 of the 150 seats in the Netherlands' highly fragmented political scene.

The maverick rightwinger is expected at the House of Lords tomorrow on an invitation from the UK Independence Party for a screening of his incendiary anti-Islamic film, Fitna, after the Home Office barred him from entering Britain last year, a ban that was rescinded.

Fitna is only as "incendiary" as the Koranic war texts and the jihadist speeches and acts that it presents au naturel -- i.e., sans commentary (if you haven't watched it yet, see it here).

Yesterday the civic halls in The Hague and Almere were under heavy security.

In both places and elsewhere scores of men and women turned up to vote wearing headscarves, in protest against Wilders' demand for a tax on Muslim headgear and for the wearing of headscarves to be banned in all public buildings.

While local elections in the Netherlands are usually a subdued affair focused on issues such as cycle paths and rubbish collection, yesterday's poll was dominated by immigration and Afghanistan.

The coalition government of Christian and social democrats fell 10 days ago because the Labour party, the junior partner, refused to extend the presence of 2,000 Dutch troops in Afghanistan who are to be withdrawn from August.

It was the first Nato government to fall because of the war and the collapse looks likely to end the career of Jan Peter Balkenende, the Christian Democrat prime minister who has been in office for eight years.

Boo-la-la-hoo.

The Afghan pullout is popular and Labour has risen in the polls as a result. Turnout in The Hague and Almere was several points up on four years ago, suggesting that the Freedom Party would do well.

In Almere, a new town with a population of nearly 200,000 and hardly any immigrants, it was tipped to win.

In The Hague the contest was more even. In European elections last year the Freedom party came second, trouncing Labour in its heartland cities of the western and northern coasts.

Polls predict Wilders could triple his vote at the general election.

Update: More -- and more illuminating -- analysis of "the Wilders momentum" from Paul Belien at the Brussels Journal here.

Another update: Complete (and I mean complete) Dutch election coverage -- including Wilders' victory speech -- at Gates of Vienna.

After All, Brigitte Bardot Wore "Headscarves" ...

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:25:00 GMT

"Playful" students and teachers in The Hague protest Geert Wilders' proposal to de-Islamize the Dutch public square with a ban on the hijab, the Islamic uniform, in institutions funded by taxpayer money. Via Gates of Vienna.

"They want to make it clear that a headscarf is not something exclusive to Muslims: “Brigitte Bardot in the sixties also often wore headscarves...."

Are they kidding?

UKIP's Farage Fined for "Damp Rag" Crack at EU Prez De Rompuy

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:08:00 GMT

Remember our British friend Nigel Farage's bracing if also entertaining pushback against the anti-democracy European Union machine posted here?

That'll be 3,000 Euros, says the EU -- which converts to $4,078 bucks.

From the United Kingdom Independence Party website (via Paul Belien):

UKIP MEP Leader Nigel Farage has been hit with a €3000 fine for accusing the President of the European Council Herman van Rumpuy of having "the charisma of a damp rag".
Mr Farage was informed this afternoon by Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament the he had decided to fine him €3000 for his comments relating to Mr van Rompuy and Belgium.

The fine represents 10 days pay, and is the maximum allowable under the rules of the European Parliament. Mr Buzek imposed it after Mr Farage declined earlier today to apologise for his comments.

Mr Farage said: "Free speech is an expensive business in the European Parliament."

He announced that he intended to appeal against his sentence.

Short of that, UKIP members should send send all the damp rags they can find to M. de Rompuy, and toot sweet.

Hijab Clarity, Western Salvation

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:19:00 GMT

Photo: Geert Wilders campaigning in Almere, the Netherlands

Tomorrow, in municipal elections in Almere, the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' PVV party -- Partij voor de Vrejheid, or Party for Freedom -- is poised to emerge the big winner as polls show PVV winning as much as 30 percent of the vote.

A few days ago, Geert Wilders spoke in Almere, an excellent speech full of insights into the Dutch political scene in the wake of its government having fallen. Toward the end of the speech, Wilders describes how his burgeoning political power to reverse the Islamization process may manifest itself.

I still have other good news for you. I heard from our party leaders in Almere and the Hague [the other city where the PVV joins the municipal elections], Raymond de Roon and Sietse Fritsma, what the main effort will be for the [coalition] negotiations in Almere and the Hague after March 3 [the municipal elections]: That will be a ban on headscarves in municipal bodies and all other institutions, foundations, or associations, if they receive even one penny of subsidy from the municipality. Thus an immediate ban on headscarves, get rid of that woman-humiliating Islamic symbol. And for all clarity: this is not however meant for crosses or yarmulkes, because those are symbols of religions that belong to our own culture and are not — as is the case with headscarves — a sign of an oppressive totalitarian ideology.

Wilders here is making the all-important distinction between Islam and other religions -- namely, Christianity and Judaism. It is a distinction that almost all others in public life are afraid to make, which is precisely why our civilization is in danger.

Baron Bodissey alerted me to this passage in the Almere speech because it so happens the Baron is reading my book The Death of the Grown-Up, which discusses this very subject -- banning the hijab -- but as it was implemented in France's public schools in such a way as to injure the West and its traditions.

From pp. 139-140:

In 2003, when the French government determined that Muslim girls, draped in the hijab, or head-wrapping veil, were inserting religion into the state-run and avowedly secular French classroom, it passed a law. The new law barred Muslim dress in the public schools. This ban on the hijab—a form of dress, like Muslims, that is relatively new to France--came at a very high, Judeo-Christian price. Also banned by law were the Star of David and the yamulke (Jewish skullcap), “large” crucifixes, along with the turban of the Sikhs. In other words, all these religious symbols, which, in modern times, had coexisted as harmoniously in France as their religions had, were suddenly stripped and hidden away from the public square. Why? The reason was to save Islam’s face: to make it appear as though the hijab hadn’t been singled out as an offending symbol, despite the fact that it was. And why was it so singled out? The answer has something to do with the fact that the hijab—unlike the Star of David, the yarmulke, the cross and the Sikh’s turban—symbolizes a Muslim way of life that makes sharia (Islamic law) the law of the land, any land. Allowing the headscarf, goes the argument, creates a climate hospitable to other special, extra-Western demands, from the insistence of Muslim men that their wives be treated by female doctors, to a refusal to tolerate certain Western set texts in the classroom, to the institution of such Islamic practices as no-interest loans, forced marriage, and polygamy, to the toleration of jihadist treason in the mosque, to, the Islamic hope goes, universal submission to sharia. No other religious symbol on earth packs this totalitarian punch. But France--and this has happened elsewhere, including Germany, where school hijab bans have also stripped nuns of their habits—has decided to pretend otherwise. Thus, for the government to bar a symbol of religious oppression, all other symbols of religion were judged oppressive also. In the name of tolerance, they were deemed equally provocative; in the name of inclusion, they were all banned.

In such a way is traditional (pre-Islamic) society dismantled, symbol by symbol, law by law. Are all religious symbols, and thus all religions, equally prone to incite trouble, if not terrorism? And are all religious symbols, and thus all religions equally imperialistic, and thus incompatible with an ecumenically based secular democracy? Of course not. But for France to admit Islam’s violent past, present and, to date, unreformed future, is to advance a case for discrimination—in this example, to justify a ban on the hijab of resurgent Islam, while justifying the acceptance of the cross of quiescent Christianity, the Star of David of beleaguered Judaism, and the turban of non-belligerent Sikhism. Such a judgment is a multicultural impossibility. Rather than resist the bigotry of the hijab, France (and by extension, the West), without even the courtesy of a show trial, will always plead guilty, admitting to the catch-all culpability of itself and its symbols—and hence, its beliefs.

----

Wilders' clarity on the hijab ban reveals why he is so important as a politician leading the reversal of the Islamization of the West. He defies the multicultural lock on truth as he rejects the cultural relatavist's denial of identity. For everyone's sakes, let's hope this is a winning combo at the polls tomorrow in Almere.

Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely: How to Stop Defeating Ourselves

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:53:00 GMT

MG Paul Vallely has some excellent questions for our civilian and miitary leadership today. He also has some excellent answers -- all of which involve abandoning once and for the self-destructive, self-defeating, not to mention masochistic, strategies of "counter-insurgency" (COIN) doctrine and nation-building.

As Gen. Vallely points out: "The COIN principle is not based on winning; it is based on political whims and is not a true tenet of warfare. Warfare is, and always should be, about WINNING."

Winning this specific war against forces impelled by Islamic ideology calls for unconventional measures, Gen. Vallely writes, not the conventional actions followed by lengthy occupations such as we have seen and are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such an unconventional war doctrine, as he writes below, "heavily leverages the core capability to break enemy states, target and destroy the enemy’s capability to bring harm to America" -- what Gen. Vallely has long advocated as the "unheralded" Global Lily Pad strategy.

Get this through the Pentagon's head and maybe we'll get somewhere.

From Gen. Vallely's Stand Up America blog:

Why do the United States and its military/political leaders and strategists still languish in failed strategies from World War II to the present?

Fact: Jihadists with small arms and IEDS in faraway places cannot harm the United States so there is no reason to order massive armies that require large and extensive bases and massive logistical support to fight them on their home turf. But that is the essence of failed “counterinsurgency” (COIN) strategies that have bewitched US military political leaders.

Yes, we have made great and innovative technological advances in weapons systems in the air, sea, and ground, in communications, in advanced intelligence systems and command and control systems.

Yes, we have operational war planners at all levels of command, senior policy and politicos in the White House and Department of Defense, a National Security Team and a multitude of military commands positioned around the globe to guide and lead us in national security. But where are the common sense and rational senior General and Admiral Strategists that we have trained and schooled to be innovative, aggressive and win our nation’s wars quickly and decisively? I rarely hear any of them talking about the valued Principles of War that successful combat leaders in the past have used to achieve success and victory. They cannot even talk in terms of victory, winning and bringing the troops home. Or maybe, they do not want to for politically correct reasons at home.

Unfortunately, American leaders are increasingly trying to transform this force into one optimized for counterinsurgency missions (when, in fact, we are not, in my opinion, fighting insurgencies but rather, Islamic Jihadis and a fomenting global Caliphate) and conventional war followed on by long-term military occupations. Track back if you will to Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq, and Afghanistan.

It is true that not all political goals are achievable through the use of military power. However, “victory” in war appears lost in the world of political correctness and appeasement. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – often seen as proving the necessity for COIN-capable forces as well as a commitment to nation-building -- demonstrate in reality that the vast majority of goals can be accomplished through quick, decisive joint military operations. Not all political goals are achievable this way, but most are, and those that cannot be achieved through conventional operations likely cannot be achieved by the application of even the most sophisticated counterinsurgency doctrine either.

We cannot seem to be able to discern between the differences in conventional and non-conventional warfare. The war against mainstream Islamic Jihadist forces and a sick ideology has been, and will continue to be, one requiring unconventional solutions. This is a point that the White House and the Pentagon fear to call this war against a pronounced ideology. It is not a war on terror as we first analyzed; it is a war against people subscribing to Jihad and a derived ideology from the Koran that has evil global intentions as much as the Nazis and Third Reich.

Why can we not understand that our military is for national security, defending our country and defeating our enemies before they bring havoc and harm to our citizens? Why can we not understand how important our resources are in terms of our trained Armed Forces and assets of our country and not to drain them across the globe in futile nation building operations but to leverage the military to counter threats to our country? And, as well, to realize and understand in a profound way that you cannot Nation Build in an area of conflict until the enemy is defeated.

The COIN principle is not based on winning; it is based on political whims and is not a true tenet of warfare. Warfare is, and always should be, about WINNING. Once the war is won, then, like Japan after WWII, real and substantive changes can be enforced. We were able to change Germany and Japan from tyrannical forms of government into thriving democracies with real constitutions and a real change in thinking of the indigenous peoples.

A fundamental challenge in devising a strategy for the use of future American military power is that the world has literally never seen anything like our capability. The U.S. today has military capabilities at least equal to the rest of the world combined. There is virtually no spot on the globe that could not be targeted by American forces, and at most a small handful of countries that could thwart a determined U.S. effort at regime change – and some of those only by virtue of their possession of nuclear weapons. This is the driving point; why are we so worried about what others think? Did these so-called allies not have to be bailed out numerous times for their failed thinking? Why do we want to kowtow to the same intellectual vacuity that caused the greatest conflicts on earth?

As a consequence, the U.S. must adopt a national military strategy that heavily leverages the core capability to break enemy states, target and destroy the enemy’s capability to bring harm to America. Such a strategy could defeat and disrupt most potential threats the U.S. faces. I will discuss in detail, in later follow-up articles, where the strategy of joint strike operations and the unheralded “Global Lily Pad” strategy prove to be the best method for success.

While America’s adversaries today may prefer to engage the U.S. using proxies and develop radical Islamist organizations and jihadists, there is no rationale in declaring to the people of the United States that we are in a long war and accept that as a reason to not achieve a quick and decisive victory. It appears we fight more in agreement with the so called United Nations, allies, and the likes of China and Russia than to stand up for own sovereignty. It is time to relegate these so-called allies to the sidelines. Let them wail and whimper as we achieve the success that is necessary; wiping out and neutralizing radical Islamism and nation states that support it.

Because our capability is so novel, American strategists lack a clear framework to guide the utilization of this force. They have sought to match capabilities to conceptions of the use of force from a different era, one in which the Cold War made regime change unpalatable due to the risk of escalation and that tended to make localized setbacks appear as loses in a perceived zero-sum competition with the Soviets. Like Reagan, it is time to call their bluff. They know we hold the big cards, so why are we so timid? This only fosters eastern thought that placation is a sign of weakness. A weakness they will turn into an asset and a political card to play to the uneducated masses they control.

Phrasing it another way, insurgents with small arms and homemade explosives (IEDS) in faraway places cannot harm the U.S. and there is no reason to fight them directly. Based on superb intelligence, we can launch required strike operations from any number of secure global sites and bases. True, these radical Islamic forces pose a major terror threat abroad and at home but we can defeat those efforts as well. The American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan – where insurgents have been able to build and deploy more than 80,000 IEDs while under occupation – calls into question the ability of occupying forces to root out terror networks without hitting the sources and sanctuaries that supply them like Iran.

Many describe our efforts as helping to recruit more fighters and more ideologues. This is no way to stop all the threat to our homeland. The only true way to stop that threat is to give them what they respect; pure force of arms and will. Otherwise, they sit in their sanctuaries and count up the moral victories they have achieved, and embolden future efforts. However, significant threats to the U.S., ranging from the military capacity of regional powers to weapons of mass destruction development programs to significant terrorist infrastructures, can be targeted and destroyed by conventional and unconventional military capabilities.

Again, we must stop thinking like westerners, and understand the way our enemy thinks. A lily pad is much more preferable because it gives them no moral high ground to propagandize, but at the same time instills sheer terror in their hearts as they guess at what is coming next. Force of will and resolve is required by our leaders that our enemies indeed respect and understand. Only when we understand that one objective of Global Jihad is imposition – by force or by stealth – of Shari’a (Islamic law) and the other is the re-establishment of the Caliphate/Imamate), can we even begin to formulate the enemy threat doctrine and strategic concept to DEFEAT THE ENEMY and WIN the GWOJ (Global War on Jihad).

MG Paul E. Vallely, US Army Retired, is the Chairman of Stand Up America and co-author of “Endgame “ and “Operation Sucker Punch”

Here Lies Yale

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:25:00 GMT

From Marx to Lenin to Gramsci to Marcuse ... the subversion of academia is complete: Cultural relativism is taught (an old story), and promiscuity is not just non-judgmentally tolerated (as per cultural relativism), it is now actively encouraged by the Yale Dean's Office. And do, the dean says, tell us all about it.

From the Yale Daily News (via Michael Rubin at The Corner):

The Yale Dean's Office's is planning a web venture: hosting student essays "by current undergraduates, allowing them to reflect anonymously on their sexual experiences at Yale and their impressions of the sexual culture here."

It goes one from here. And don't miss the comments.

New motto suggestion from what you might almost call an Old Blue:

Lux and Voyeurism.

Westergaard: "I Fear This Is a Setback for the Freedom of Speech"

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:51:00 GMT

Chalk one up for their side. Again.

From the AP: "Danish daily issues apology over prophet drawing"

That would be this, in case you didn't know:

A Danish newspaper on Friday apologized for offending Muslims by reprinting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban, rekindling heated debate about the limits of freedom of speech.

Danish daily Politiken said its apology was part of a settlement with a Saudi lawyer representing eight Muslim groups in the Middle East and Australia.

The Breitbart story further points out that the eight groups come from Australia, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority "representing 94,923 descendants of the Muslim prophet" -- a veritable class action suit. (Australia? Prospective member #58 of the OIC umma?) Back to the AP:

[The apology] drew strong criticism among Danish media, which previously had stood united in rejecting calls to apologize for 12 Muhammad cartoons that sparked fierce protests in the Muslim world four years ago.

Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen expressed surprise at Politiken's move, saying he was worried that Danish media no longer were "standing shoulder to shoulder" on the issue....

And what did Politiken say? Here's the newspaper's English-language version of its lead editorial. It's called "One small step to dhimmitude" -- no, I'm just kidding. Although it is indeed a giant leap to dhimmitude.

Headline: "One small step in abating the Mohammed crisis"

Over a cartoon in Western eyes, over sharia in Muslim eyes. The net result, of course, is submission to the Muslim point of view.

Subhead: The settlement announced today is a small step in that direction. Hopefully others will follow

Meaning the remaining Danish papers that published the cartoon in solidarity with cartoonist Westergaard in 2008 when the first assassination plot against him was uncovered.

One of the most striking features of the Mohammed crisis that has plagued the Danish and international communities since 2005, is a lack of dialogue.

The parties have repeatedly reacted – and over-reacted – without studying what others felt, or the background to their behavior.

Love that. One party prints a political cartoon, the other party murders, burns, pillages. Both parties "over-reacted."

Our predominant view throughout the lengthy debate has been that much could have been avoided if the government of the time had chosen to handle the crisis differently and added an element of dialogue and diplomacy.

Wrong. PM Rasmussen was perfectly correct in telling all OIC nabobs that Denmark proudly had no state control of its media.

It is in this light, that today’s small contribution to dialogue in this unfortunate case should be seen.

We have not found it too difficult to accept that our re-print of Kurt Westergaard’s caricature of the Prophet Mohammed has seemed offensive to many Muslims.

That's just not your problem, Politiken -- unless, of course, you want to sponsor anger management course for those 94,923 prophet-descendant-defendants in this case.

It has never been our intention to offend anyone.

Another suggestion for Politiken: Have newsboys walk on eggs when distributing papers to Muslim customers.

The cartoon is legal under Danish law. And we have only printed the cartoon in connection with our news coverage.

But that does not change the fact that our re-print in February 2008 was perceived as part of a renewed affront and provocation that once again caused tempers to fly in large parts of the world.

Tired of the case

Aha. Islamo-fatigue. Winning tactic.

Thanks to this acknowledgement and regret, we have reached agreement with a large group of Muslims from eight different countries.

The accord is an agreement designed to look forward, focus on de-escalating tensions and with hopes for further reconciliation between Denmark and the Muslim world.

I think he meant further submission to the Muslim world.

At the same time it has naturally been vital that Politiken in no way, as a result of an accord, has placed any form of restriction on its editorial freedoms.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

What we choose to publish, including which cartoons we choose to print, will continue to be our sovereign and free decision.

Is he kidding?

Most Danes are profoundly tired of the issue.

Of course they are. And that's a winning jihadi tactic.

That became clear in a recent poll in which 84 percent of the population said they agreed with a decision by the media not to re-print Kurt Westergaard’s caricature in connection with the most recent terrorism cases.

Just make it go away.

But unfortunately, the case has a symbolic value that means that it will not die out on its own.

If all parties are to gradually begin to look ahead and leave the conflict to the fanatics who refuse to relinquish it, it is vital that Danes and Muslims begin to put a full stop to the issue. Together, and based on dialogue that respects those differences that exist.

Today’s accord is a small step in that direction. Hopefully, others will tread the same path.

Down, down, down ...

Fortunately, this editorial today provoked a healthy outrage among the Danes, from the Prime Minister to the other papers, so no need not to keep our powder dry -- and our larders full of Danish cheese and beer.

But don't forget to buy Swiss.

Why Sarah Palin Is Supporting John McCain

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:20:00 GMT

Sheriff Joe Arapaio is for Hayworth; Sarah Palin is for McCain. Why? Answer below

What drew me to the Arizona GOP Senate primary story, the subject of this week's column (below and here), was not just the face-off between liberal John McCain and conservative J.D. Hayworth. It was also the weird warning bells that went off with some big-name conservatives, particularly conservative poster-girl Sarah Palin, endorsing John McCain. Not only is the philosophical breach seemingly unpassable, it's hard to forget what a rat he was to her as both he and his staff savaged her in the wake of the prez campaign.

Meanwhile, Romney, Dick Armey, Fred Thompson and Sen. Kyl, I believe, have linked arms with McCain as well.

Why? I think it all has to do with illegal immigration, with mainstream Republicans having decided to throw in their lot with, as our British friend Nigel Farage might say, the assassins of the nation-state, and forget about it. I.e., support amnesty or variations thereon. J.D. Hayworth, an outspoken opponent of amnesty and stalwart on border security and immigration law enforcement, presents a problem to the capitulating image these fat cats want to present to win, they think, the "Hispanic vote." That's why they are piling on. (That, and whatever political favors John is calling in.)

Not only is Sarah Palin AWOL on the immigration issue, having kept a very low profile about it, it also turns out -- and I totally missed this during the 2008 prez campaign -- Palin is also pro-amnesty! (2008 Univision interview here via Diggers Realm.

And you thought Obama was a stealth candidate...

This week's column:

"Go With Hayworth"

My brother and I have a running conversation about whether it is a good thing that John McCain didn't become president. We both voted for him, but I decided early on, as much as I oppose every Marx-tinged thing President Obama stands for, I was glad Obama had won and McCain had lost. At least, I was glad McCain had lost.

That's because only out of ashes may the phoenix be reborn. The liberal-lite frustrations of a McCain administration would have smoldered on the Right but lit few fires, dampening the possibility of real post-Bush regeneration. From Bush's "compassionate conservatism" (read: liberalism) to McCain's compassionate bipartisanship (read: more liberalism), the nation would have continued to drift in the wrong direction. The "good" thing about the economy-crashing, military-breaking, ideologically mind-blowing Obama administration is that it puts us on a collision course that just might force Americans to bail and start over in a better way. Metaphorically speaking.

But also, McCain didn't deserve to be president, at least not under the false flag of "conservative." McCain is no conservative, a fact that stands out as he faces a serious Senate primary challenge from J.D. Hayworth, a genuinely conservative former U.S. Representative.

After all, John McCain co-wrote the bill providing, in effect, U.S. citizenship to some 20 million illegal aliens (that's why they called it McCain-Kennedy). He co-wrote the bill restricting political speech (McCain-Feingold). J.D. Hayworth opposed both. As for global-warming legislation -- sorry, "climate change" -- McCain used to lead the floor fight for cap-and-trade (initially known as McCain-Lieberman), but now even the New York Times has noticed McCain has gone mum on the issue and "is likely to keep his distance even more over the next six months due to a primary challenge from a conservative former congressman that threatens to end his Senate career after four terms." And yup, Hayworth opposes cap-and-trade. McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts; Hayworth, as he puts it, helped write them. McCain rules out enhanced interrogations and wants to close Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo). Hayworth supports enhanced interrogations, and wants to keep Gitmo open. The list goes on, but there's no need to draw a picture.

Except, maybe, for the benefit of -- how to put this? -- challenged conservative leaders. These include former Sen. Fred Thompson, and former Govs. Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, who, contradicting everything they ever got us to think they stood for sort of, have endorsed McCain. This may burnish "the maverick" with their conservative bona fides. But it also makes those bona fides look more than a little cheap.

Or maybe they just aren't who we think they are. But does it matter? Perception does seem to be everything. In November, Hayworth was polling neck-in-neck with McCain. After Sarah Superstar held out her coattails to McCain -- who, let's not forget, personally, and through his staff, publicly savaged her -- a January poll showed McCain leading Hayworth by 22 points.

So why is McCain running scared? Because he is running scared. At least that's one conclusion to draw from an initial Web ad released by the McCain campaign that stoops to smear Hayworth as a conspiracy nut unfit to serve in the U.S. Senate for having the audacity -- I call it common sense and a little grit -- to point out as a radio host that "questions will remain" until our commander in chief releases the paperwork associated with his birth currently under state seal in Hawaii.

Questions will remain, and do remain, and despite Hayworth spokesman Jason Rose's craven dodge: "Questions were raised on the air. They have been answered." No, they haven't been answered. And that's true largely because of John McCain.

Remember when presidential candidate McCain's own natural-born creds came under question because he was born in the Canal Zone? Naturally, he released his paperwork. He should have then called on his opponent, Barack Obama, to do the same -- naturally. Such leadership would have dispelled all corrosive doubts raised and perpetuated not by "conspiracy nuts" but by the unprecedented lockdown on simple Obama identification -- birth certificate, education transcripts and more -- by the Obama machine, fueled and oiled by a compliant media.

But he didn't -- another reason McCain shouldn't have become president. Now, if conservatives could just retire him from the U.S. Senate.

Q: Who Elected You, Mr. EU President? A: Nobody

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:18:00 GMT

Relapse

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:54:00 GMT

I almost forgot what it felt like to experience McCain Derangement Syndrome. Then I saw this web ad attack on McCain's Senate primary challenger J.D. Hayworth (who only shows common sense and a modicum of grit in pointing out that "questions will remain" until Obama releases his birth certificate paperwork). Then I wrote this week's (upcoming) column. Then I felt better.

Jackboots and Junk Science

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:19:00 GMT

I'm driving along, I turn on the radio , a gravelly voice with an unplaceable Northeastern accent comes on ...

"...and during that period with Nazism and fascism growing -- a real danger to the United States and Democratic countries all over the world -- there were people in this Congress, in the British parliament saying, 'don't worry! Hitler is not real! It'll disappear! We don't have to be prepared to take it on....'"

My gosh, who is that talking so forthrightly about the failure of the West to face up to the existential threat of Islam -- on AM drive-time radio?

Darn that dream. The speaker was Bernie Sanders, Vermont's "independent" senator, and he was talking not about Islamic apologists who deny the perils of Islamization and the spread of liberty-strangling sharia (Islamic law), but about those of us who have by now figured out that global warming -- sorry, climate-change -- is a lot of bunk based on a noxious brew of cooked scientific data and warmed-over Karl Marx.

Since the break-the-bank climate-change legislation known as Cap and Trade looks less and less likely to pass in Congress, the Obama administration is gearing up to seize control of greenhouse gas emissions through the EPA, something Sen. James Inhofe is leading the Senate charge against. This is what has inspired Sanders to his desparate and deplorable rhetoric: Fact-based climate-change skepticism as fact-denying Nazi appeasement. Is he kidding?

Sanders' invocation of Hitlerian appeasement tells us that it's not greenhouse gases that are in need of regulation in Washington but rather mass hysterics, which emit an awful lot of, yes, hot air.

Military Matters (a Lot)

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:09:00 GMT

Two pieces by esteemed contributors to this blog have come out elsewhere this week, both on topics largely ignored by the media, the punditry and the military and civilian leadership, and both on topics related to the appalling failures of the same to ensure that the nation's military forces receive justice and a fair shake as they struggle with hostiles abroad and a hostile miiltary justice system at home.

"John Murtha Forgot Semper Fi" by Tom Stone appears here in the Washington Examiner.

"Imprisoned for Saving American Lives" by John L. Work appears here at Frontpagemag.com.

Must reads.

Alexander Haig, RIP

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:38:00 GMT

Astonishing how quietly retired General and former Secretary of State Alexander Haig passed away this past weekend, slipping the mortal coil practically incognito -- at least for a significant historical figure whose decades of service to this nation spanned war and tumultous peace.

Sure, there were front-page obituaries in the big papers, and yes, they all pounced one more time on his post Reagan-assassination-attempt "I'm in charge" routine -- a bogus splice of life, the way the media played it, that always cut the part where he said he would of course be informing the vice president if anything came up while he was in transit back to Washington ....

Tom DeFrank discusses Haig's key contributions in the darkest days of Watergate here.

Arnaud de Brochgrave recounts Haig's impressive military career (and strange-sounding later-life devotion to communist China) here.

Israel National News points out what a good friend to Israel Haig was here.

In 1988, I spent some time travelling with "the general" on an extremely short-lived presidential campaign, and I liked him. Of course, the crowds were so thin you could see straight through to the writing on the wall that led him to drop out of the race even before the New Hampshire primary, which says something about how a life lived at the pinnacles of power can be invisible down on the hustings. And, apparently, if the life is long enough, at the pinnacles of power and surrounding environs and echo chambers.

Alexander Haig, RIP.

Avallone: "Flirting with Afghanistan" 4

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:43:00 GMT

Here is the fourth part of "Flirting with Afghanistan," text, photos and captions by Paul Avallone. (See here for Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.) In this final installment, Avallone examines the exploitation, segregation and enslavement of girls and women in Afghan Islamic society -- a society the US-led coalition is prepared to die for, defend and perpetuate.

Stare into this girl's eyes, stare long, and she'll capture you, and you won't be able to look away. Then realize that I took this photograph in early 2003, when I and my Special Forces team mates played in our "Chocolate Alley" Jalalabad neighborhood of our safehouse base with the scores and scores of kids who trusted us and were unafraid of us, confident of our intent for good rather than bad, to the point that even the girls were photographical. Look again at this girl, then realize that, seven years later, she has been long married as well as long under a burqa. Under a burqa. Not just the pure beauty, but--look at her--whatever is going on in that mind.

And the American soldiers do leave, and that night or the next or the one after, their base will be rocketed or mortared, which is no big surprise. With fancy high-tech gear they can accurately pinpoint the POO (or Point of Origin) of the rockets/mortars, and guess what, believe it or not, the POO will be right there smack dab in that village where "we have not seen Taliban here in two years." If the Americans send their own mortars, artillery or jet-released 500-pounders down on that POO, within hours the Taliban newswires will declare three innocent women and a half-dozen innocent children killed in the infidel bombing—with videotape proof—and by morning, President Bush and his commanding generals in Afghanistan will be getting red-phone calls from President Karzai crying, "Why are you killing our innocent people?!" Tic toc, tic toc, Jeopardy is back, bing! "The answer is: What is, We're sorry, and we won't do it again."

But the Americans will do it again. It is a guerrilla war they are fighting, in a foreign land, as guests of Mr. Karzai and his IRoA, under the constraints of fighting under civilized rules of warfare a guerrilla insurgent force for whom there are no rules. One way rules. You've got to love it…if you're the guerrillas. Most likely illiterate but not dumb, they know that the Americans can pinpoint the village POO site, and they, the guerrillas, the Taliban, use that to their advantage. Whether A or B, it's a No Lose. A: The Americans don't fire back for fear of causing civilian casualties, leaving the Taliban free to use the place as a launch site or more; and B: The Americans do fire back, killing civilians in the process and thus giving the Taliban a nice little international PR coup. This, now, remember, all from guys, every time I've seen them either captured or dead, who are wearing those 7th century seven day shit suits. It says something for modern warfare, I guess.

In truth, no matter how deliciously clever, that shit suit name didn't really stick with the soldiers, whether it was because it was simply too long to say or simply too inappropriate to use among the politically correct Army officer class. Besides, that "shit" part is a little misleading because Afghans don't do their business, whether No. 2 or No. 1, very often. They're not like Americans, guzzling liquids by the 32-ounce Big Gulps and eating three or four times a day like every meal and snack's the last day before Lent, we're maxing out our sewage treatment plants. Afghans rarely drink much water. It's chai, and, since the caffeine in chai is a diuretic, one would think that that would make them have to urinate often, but overall they don't drink enough water for their bodies to get rid of much of it. I cannot count the number of Army rural medical missions I've witnessed when every last Afghan man came in complaining of daily headaches. Dehydration is always the diagnosis, especially in this hot, dry climate. Drink water. Not chai, water. If you could pour it down their deaf ears it might help. Chai good, water naaah. The shepherds crossing the deserts with their herds, I never see them carrying water. The ANA soldiers going out on patrols, mounted or on foot, they don't carry water unless they grab up the bottled stuff from their American partners' supplies. As for food, the Afghan diet is meager—flat bread, rice, beans, some vegetables, and a little meat perhaps once a week. As nature goes, the less one eats the less one shits, and the Afghans eat little and shit less. And, as an American medic at one of those rural missions once pointed out, "The worms are getting half of what they eat." Intestinal worms, small, medium and tape.

"Shit" suit wasn't really fair and it wasn't even missed as it faded off, as the name that stuck among the GIs for the male baggy garb is "man jammies." As in pajamas. For men. It really is the perfect description. Man jammies. Kind of cute too, and nothing pejorative about it, as "jammies" reminds one of the sweeter time of childhood. There is also nothing pejorative about another term the soldiers freely use, calling most things native "hajj" or "haji," as in, "Yeah, it was hajj food they had," "The workers on the fob are all haji," or "I bought the pirated Indiana Jones DVD at the haji bazaar." It's not an insult, it's not disrespectful, it's an immediate, simple descriptive communication. Sure, technically, the hajj is the journey to Mecca that all Muslims are expected to make in life, and haji is what one is called who has made the trip, used as a respectful address, "mister." My best guess would be that 95% of all Afghans have never made the hajj and never will, but 99.999% of all Afghans are Muslims, so the term, seemingly ill suited, isn't.

Using "man jammies" and "haji," the dumb ol' non-college attending GI "stuck in Iraq" in Afghanistan knows these people better than Condi Rice, her ambassadors and for certain the two presidential candidates. Even the college educated GIs here know better. Such as one, a young lieutenant, an extremely brilliant graduate from an elite liberal arts college, who told me a couple of days after, when he was no longer under the spell of the rush of the battle and had had time to reflect upon it, that during the terrifying ambush his platoon was in (to which I arrived minutes later) in which one of his men was killed, while the RPGs and AK rounds were raining down striking their Humvees, his thought was, he remembered so clearly, "This is not worth dying for." This, Afghanistan, the Afghans. As nine out of ten GIs would say, in their succinct immediate strike at reality with a phrase as common as "duh"—"No shit, Sherlock."

That lieutenant, he's still here. He's still leading his men. Going out on those patrols. Expecting more deadly RPGs. And, like just about every other GI whom I know here now, with the exception of some platitude-vomiting senior officers, he won't tell you he's here for Afghanistan or the Afghans; he's here because it's his volunteer job, his volunteer duty, and he's here for the guy next to him. And, unlike Condi, the diplomats, the politicians and all our pompous media editors, he should not have to, or be forced to, ask himself just who the hell the man in the attic is; he already knows. Which might very well explain why he's not here for him.

If there is one immediate visual image to draw from the Afghan culture it might be that of Afghan men in their man jammies sitting around on their haunches drinking chai from clear glass coffee cups. Anywhere and everywhere. It's done in the extended-family compound, to be sure, in the furnitureless living room/dining room where the men take their meals and hang out drinking their chai. It's done even more outside the compound, in bazaar shops, outside the shops, along the streets, in the fields, the entry gates of their military forts. It is never just one shopkeeper or one shepherd or one farmer or one soldier having his chai alone, maybe reading a newspaper; there are always three or a half-dozen men around, doing nothing, with him. Along the streets, cities or villages, there are always just men, young men and boys hanging out doing nothing, with someone behind them somewhere in a dark doorway heating up a kettle of chai. Men, young men and boys, and little boys too. Babies. Everywhere. More and more of them with each year.

A swelling population, even taking into account the one in four, or one in five (depending on which NGO's stats you want to believe), who die before they make it to five. Twenty to twenty-five percent don't make it to five. That is a stunning fact of life and death that would not be tolerated in the West. In particular, considering that most of the deaths are those of infants in their first few months from easily curable intestinal diseases such as dysentery….and all those small, medium and tape worms. Is it any wonder that Afghan culture so easily embraces inshallah and its acceptance of fate, God's will, as the overriding determiner of one's destiny?

Still, regardless of the child death rate, it is men, young men, boys and little boys all over Afghanistan. In their man jammies. And the women, young women, girls and the little girls? The Afghan-born author of The Kite Runner knew enough not to include them, females, avoiding that sticky, thorny, downright electrocuting subject completely. The topic of females in Afghanistan is like Social Security is to American politicians—it's the third rail. The topic, that is the third rail, while the females themselves, they're the other two rails—powerless without an electrical charge, hammered out, laid and permanently spiked down, and continuously run over on.

"I'll take 'Man Jammies' for four hundred dollars," says the brave contestant in Double Jeopardy. "A billowing, all encompassing outfit," reads Alex, "that covers an Afghan woman from head to heel." Ding! ring in all three contestants at once, shouting uncontrollably, "What is a burqa!"

Oh yes, everyone in America knows about the burqa, who couldn't? It's that cool looking, haunting, blue, sheet-like, sail-like cloak that makes Afghan women look like ghosts or mummies gliding down the street. So cool, in fact, that GIs don't have a name or nickname for it. No "woman jammies." It's just "burqa." Though one guy once threw out the brilliantly inspired "cloak a dope." But on the whole the burqa is hardly mentioned by GIs. Never, really. Just perhaps occasionally, in an indirect reference, as in the great little joke that I know has never been on Leno or Letterman or is known anywhere outside GI circles here and goes something like this:

Seasoned GI: "Hey, guess what, we saw some T and A on patrol out in the villages today."

New Guy GI: "Yeah, really? Afghani women, you saw tits and ass?"

Seasoned GI: "Toes and ankles."

Har-dee-har-har, it actually is funny, in spite of the fact that it shouldn't be. It gets a chuckle or two, in spite of the fact that, for all that it implies, it should get our wrath. Whether it's the burqa or, as is more common in the rural areas, simply multiple layers of long, billowing skirts and blouses, topped with a headscarf open only where there's a slit behind which eyes are invisible in the shadows, a woman does not exist in the Afghan environment outside the tiny confines of her family compound other than as a moving shape, an always-in-motion form under a burqa or those thick clothes. She is always moving, she is not stopped, she is not interfered with, she is not recognized or acknowledged. She does not exist. There are a few exceptions—the rare school teacher, the nurse, the Tolo TV news announcer, the female Afghan Idol contestant—and I am willing to grant a more openness among the Uzbeks and Hazaras, but in this Pashtun-dominated culture women are to be neither seen nor heard.

And it gets worse. Here's an adage I made up: Afghan women are nothing more than the bearers. They bear the children, they bear the water from the wells or streams, they bear the firewood, they bear the crops from the fields and they bear the burden of raising their children. Hidden, away, non-existent. During my Green Beret days in the country, a teammate of mine said it even better, stating so simply a profound truth that, were this in a war of truths, his thrust would be the fatal blow struck to the heart—"I'd rather be a dog in America than a woman in Afghanistan."

Further, in America dogs are allowed to walk beside or in front of a man, not made to walk behind, unnoticed, unacknowledged. In America dogs are recognized in public. In America dogs are allowed to bark, to anyone and everyone, at home or in public. In America it is a crime to beat a dog.

Our leaders are neither stupid nor misinformed, so they have to know of this regressive, unjust, pre-medieval cultural repression of women here in Afghanistan. They must know and they do, but they pretend not to or pretend it has no significance, and would even chuckle at that T and A joke above. They will not recognize it as an issue because we the American people, upon learning how deeply ingrained and serious this apartheid repression is—yes, I said apartheid—would say, Hold on, wait a second, you're telling me we're spending our blood and money on a country that treats its females, its entire gender of females, worse than dogs and has no intention of doing otherwise and you now want us to spend more indefinitely, is that what you're telling me?

No, until now, except for an aside remark among soldiers long ago, no one's been telling anyone about "worse than dogs." Instead, the issue is clouded and shrouded, as we Americans are given worthless statistics touting "this many millions of girls are now going to school in Afghanistan." Whoopee, they are? Until what age—nine, ten? For how many hours a day—one, two? In totally segregated classrooms. No question mark, let me be perfectly clear: totally segregated, boys and girls even at first grade level are not mixed. Can we begin to comprehend this? Even girls, little girls, they haven't even reached puberty yet (when they do, to steal from the soup Nazi, "No school for you!"), and thus are not even the sexually attractive flirts that might justify keeping them separate from boys. Aw yes, separate…and not equal. Worse, America and NATO with their provisional reconstruction teams are building many schools with either separate buildings for boys and girls or on two levels—one for each. Segregated. Well howdy-do, bless our little hearts, America- and NATO-sanctioned segregation. "Lordy, Maude, who'd o' believed it!" One would think that that would get the National Organization for Women, the Senate, the Cosmo and Redbook editorial staffs, the LPGA, Oprah, Susan Sarandan and every equal-rights minded woman and man in America just hopping mad, steam coming out of their ears. Naw, not a word said. Except more sweet, distracting statistics, such as, "Oh, there are women members of Parliament, you must know that." Yeah, mandated by law, a certain number of seats set aside for women. It's not democracy; a woman receives one vote—her own, most likely—and she wins. Does she have any power in Parliament? Alex? Contestant? "Answer:" says Alex, "Where is, A man can beat or kill his wife or wives and not be criminally charged."

"Oh, it's their culture," is the educated, diplomatic excuse thrown down harshly when the subject can't be avoided. "And we can't change their culture," is spat so condescendingly. And another refrain, "It's Islam, and we're not here to change Islam." And the kicker, "It's not for us to judge one culture from another." It isn't, it's not for us to judge?! This from the same moralistic diplomatic mindset that demanded through international economic sanctions that another independent country, South Africa, put an end to its culture of apartheid? "It's in their religion, and they are The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, if you didn't know." Yeah, and South Africa shoulda just changed its name to The Apartheidic Republic of South Africa, would that have done the trick?. "You're being ridiculous, you can't compare the two!" This from the same high-minded intellectuals who pontificate on the immorality of America's Jeffersonian culture of slavery? This from those who are so quick to self-loathing and condemnation for their own ancestors' westward-ho culture that believed it fun to slaughter the mighty herds of buffalo and it manifest destiny to wipe out the Native Americans? Even more simple and basic: This from those who are so dead-man-walking outraged by the sinister baseness of a culture, ours, that deems fit to kill those who have been convicted of murder? Can't compare cultures? Not for us to judge a culture? We're judging all the time. Would these same non-judgmentalists deem morally equal to our own Western cultures those African tribal cultures which practice female genital mutilation? Of course they would not, and they'd condemn me for making the moral equivalence between that and a simple burqa. A simple burqa?! Holy cow, we in America don't even require our dogs to wear burqas! "The Afghan female chooses to wear the burqa. It's their culture, and the women choose it." Yeah, and those tribal hottie African babes choose that mutilation as well. Gee, it's the culture. And, okay, you want me to buy it, I will—if we can't judge and condemn cultures and all cultures are created equal, then all sub-cultures must be too. Can't condemn a culture, can't force a culture to change, you sure can't then start condemning a certain sub-culture you don't agree with, which would mean we'll just have to keep the FBI from kicking in the doors of the high-walled compound of some 53-year-old reverend of some whacked-out, Looney Tune religious sect down in Texas or Utah who has forty-two wives, down to as young as eleven or twelve. It's their culture. Our laws be damned, change the laws, for culture is paramount and all cultures are equal!

In Afghanistan, did I mention, a man can have as many wives as he can afford to buy and keep, and he can get them as young as…as young as…name your age. Pick up one at a bargain price at six, wait a couple of years, then take her under your covers. And with America pouring billions of dollars a year into the Afghan economy, with so many of those construction contracts going to the locals, who are quickly getting rich, one can be confident that it is our American dollars that are buying more than a few bedsful of those pre-pubescent, cute-little-let's-not-judge-the-culture brides. Gee, I wonder if they actually get to throw the bouquet to….let's see….their six-year-old sisters?

Seething mad? You're not? Come over here and watch the blue forms going by. The burqas. Blurred burqas, they're not people, they're not women. Just burqas. Wake up, Oprah! Wake up, Susan! Wake up and start your shouting, 'cuz, by the way, that there's your billions of dollars here buyin' them there flow'ry bouquets they're tossin'.

Did I tell you about the one about the farmer's daughter? It's a hoot. A laugh riot. I was with some GIs, on patrol in the middle of nowhere, along Taliban movement routes. We set up near a small village, and a young farmer came out, with his two-year-old daughter in his arms, asking for help. The girl's hand and wrist were badly burned; the story was mumbled and unclear, but it was, as is so often the case, most likely from a fall into the cooking fire. No matter who's watching or not watching the child, accidents happen. The medic checked her out and determined that without extensive immediate care the little girl was probably going to die, if only from infection. The captain requested from higher and was granted a medevac flight, which is no small thing, considering it means scrambling two helicopters—one medevac, the second as security wingman. With the helicopters arriving, the father was told that he would have to accompany his daughter, as it is U.S. policy that all female medevac patients be accompanied by a male family member. A primary reason is to prevent misrepresentations of molestation and rape that will be so readily rumored and accepted as fact of the Americans' actions back at the bases. The father refused to go. Whether it was because of his fear of flying in a helicopter, his trepidation about going to an American base or he just had lots of farming to do, he refused. Even told that his daughter could not go and be treated without accompaniment, he refused, it did not matter. He would take her back to his compound. She could die. The American captain became incensed. A young man himself, with a wife and three young daughters at home in the States twelve thousand miles away, the captain argued to the farmer that he would do anything, anything, anything—even giving up his own life—if it meant saving the life of one of his daughters. The captain's passionate words fell on deaf ears—the father was not getting on that helicopter. Quick words from the terp, and a bent-over old man stepped forward. He was the father's uncle, and he would accompany the little girl. He did, and the helicopter took off with them. And the farmer, the old man's nephew….he walked back to his compound.

And the GIs and I, we laughed about that all evening and into the night. Laughed until tears ran from our eyes. Laughed and laughed and….and to believe that, you'd have to automatically want to believe the worst about American soldiers. No one laughed. No one, not once. And everyone understood that had that little girl been that farmer's son, that father would have been running to the helicopter with him. Running and hopping aboard.

It's not just the Afghan women who exist simply as the bearers, it's the girls and little girls too, except that they hold the promise of a nice little dowry upon their arranged marriage. Cash cows. Well, but they're not fat like cows, especially the ones under ten. And it's only a one-time payout. By puberty, females are required to cover their faces in public, burqa or head scarves, one or the other. Girls younger than that aren't, but they do wear the headscarves and in any contact with an adult male, in particular a Westerner, they will automatically, by learned habit from seeing mothers and aunts and older sisters and cousins do it forever, pull the scarf over their mouth or lift a hand or hands to cover their mouth. Learned, automatic subservience. Witnessed only on those occasions when a male stranger is allowed somehow to get close, for photographs perhaps.

Remember Afghan TV, with the men and boys, even today still in the villages, lined up squatted or sitting, doing nothing, just watching the visiting American soldiers? Men and boys, not women and girls. If there are some girls among the watchers, they are generally no older than four, and they're at their father or brother's side. Wouldn't one think that the village women and girls would be just as curious as are the men and boys about these strange visitors on live TV right in front of them? Of course they are, it's human nature. And one can see them peeking out from the cracks of barely opened steel doors, or some of the girls will come outside, remaining close to their compounds, backs against the mud walls. They will inch forward, slyly, shyly. They want to see more, they want to hear. Closer still they'll creep, slowly, moving along the edges of our vision.

And I'll be out of the Humvees, and if it's a new bunch of guys I'm with, I'll say to the ones outside with me or to the gunner up in the turret, "Hey, I ever tell you I'm also a magician?" Quizzical looks from the guys, huh, what's he mean? "Yeah," I'll say, "a magician." And I'll step toward the small cluster of girls, and even from the distance one can see their eyes widen, and I'll pull up my cameras away from my chest, and I'll take a few rapid strides as if I'm going to run to them, and they scatter like frightened baby ducks, out of sight around corners or back behind the steel doors. I'll turn back to the guys and, "I can make girls disappear," I'll tell them, and it's always good for a little laugh.

It's alright to do that with little girls, but not with women. Women passing, even in the distance, bearing their water or firewood, doing their work while the men and boys sit and watch Afghan TV—am I to raise my cameras in their direction, the men and boys will jump up alarmed, and the closest ANA soldier among our patrol will immediately put his hand in front of my lens and shove my camera away. They are going to protect their women, they are, by God, they are! Sociologists, anthropologists, proctologists, all kinds of –ologists a lot more educated than me will tell you it's the honor, the sanctity, the holiness of the women these "more natural, back-to-the-earth" cultures are protecting. Hogwash. Un-ologist me'll be just as absurd and say it's nothing but tiny-weenie insecurity syndrome. I'll as pompously postulate that the men cover up, hide, restrict, repress their women because they're scared someone will lure them away from them with the pleasures of real sexual satisfaction because, God knows, in a culture in which the female is powerless and can be freely used and abused as a simple receptacle for a man's selfish, quick orgasmic lust, I'm sure as hell not hearing any of Sally's screams "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" shaking the walls of the gals' bedrooms. Let's put that theorem in the college textbooks, why don't we? Then again, what could I hear, what do I know; I've never been close to one of those bedrooms. For every Afghan friend, terp, politician or soldier's homes or compounds I've been a guest in, I can count the number of wives, daughters, sisters or female cousins whom I've met on….one hand. Counting three as an "enlightened" member of Parliament and her two young daughters, and the fourth was a two-month old infant. The last was a terp's mother who, after we had eaten so many meals that she had cooked at their house, an American buddy of mine insisted—no, cajoled and begged—our terp friend that we be able to meet his mother to finally thank her. The terp disappeared back into the dark bowels of the compound then came back with his mother. She was sweet and gracious for the minute we spent with her, thanking her….and she mostly held the headscarf half hiding her mouth.

Old habits die hard. Subservience is difficult to grow out of. Power is tough to give up, nearly impossible voluntarily.

America is here in Afghanistan trying to rebuild a country from nothing, and the American people back home do see the burqas and know what they mean, partially, and we know they are wrong, but we are told that We cannot challenge or change a culture, but we will, slowly, over time, as the people become educated, and then they will become more like us and the burqas will go, but it might take a generation. Two generations is more like it, or three, or never, but even one generation from now is about the time that our own Social Security goes bankrupt, but that's the third rail of politics, and we're right back where we started, which means Shut up and forget about it.

Apartheid.

Not black. But female.

But apartheid still.

There, forgotten about? Want to argue that it's not apartheid? Fantastic, we should welcome that, at least there will be no shutting up, the issue will be out. Want to argue that it will just take education over the course of a generation's time to fade that apartheid culture out? Go ahead, the floor is yours, make your case, at least an analysis and a judgment will be finally heard.

"You don't get it," a smart soldier told me just the other day while discussing this very topic. "All they want," he said, meaning the Afghan men, "they don't want their daughters to be Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan." Not that he meant that the Afghans know who Britney and Lindsay are or know their names; it is what they represent that he was referring to, and he's right. The reach of the 21st century media is worldwide, even into the remote Afghan villages, if only through scraps of told stories and rumors, and what the Afghan man fears is his culture being corrupted by the culture that produces the Britneys and Lindsays. He fears the open, freedom-of-choice culture that accepts the Britneys and Lindsays as a small price to pay for that freedom of choice and achievement and the wealth that comes with it, such as the moon shots, the MRIs, the cis-platinums, the HVACs, the Golden Gate Bridges, the Silicon Valleys, the Chevy hybrids, the Facebooks, the iPhones, the Oprahs, the Susan Sarandans, the Mia Hamms, the Sandra Day O'Conners, the Condi Rices, the Hillarys, the Rosie the Riveters. Oh, he wants the iPhones, the MRIs, the HVACs, the hybrids, the wells, the roads and anything tangible we give him, as long as it is not mandated that he work for it, but he does not want—he fears as much as he does the Britneys and Lindsays—the Oprahs, the Rices, the Hillarys, the Rosie the Riveters.

If we are to accept temporarily today the Afghan culture and its abhorrent repression of women and inform our friends the Afghans that with all these gifts we give them—starting with our sons' blood—their culture will eventually change for the better to be open and free like our own, the Afghans will smile without comment and hold out their hands and take more blood and all the wells, roads, schools, bags of wheat, hospitals, small battle victories, hydroelectric dams, Coca-Cola factories and those damn pens that we give them without strings attached, and they won't do a thing. Not a thing, they won't change a thing. The culture won't change. If we attach strings, the Afghans will just stay smiling, with their hands still held out, and they'll nod "yes yes yes, strings, no problem," and they'll continue taking all we give and continue just doing what they damn well please, which, first off, with their fierce independence will be to ignore the strings completely. If we mandate, absolutely lay down the law and demand, that they act upon the strings, in particular, that one which stipulates that we as Americans cannot and will not allow the burqa and the apartheid that goes with it, the Afghans will smile politely still, hold their tongues, keep taking what we're still patronizingly stupid enough to be giving, and they will in private start to watch more seriously and pass around more widely the videos and DVDs the Taliban will distribute that show Britney and Lindsay and Girls Gone Wild and Desperate Housewives, and they'll listen more intently now to the Talib stories of American soldiers with their Oakley X-ray sunglasses that can see through their women's clothes and of the American soldiers who come into the villages, "A village just like yours," to rape their wives and deflower their virgin daughters, and the Afghans will do what they have proved so successful at doing in the past, and it won't matter how long it will take them and won't matter how many die in the process, but they will chase out the Americans and their NATO partners. Hardheaded independent tribal seventh century men and young men and teenage boys, wearing thin cotton man jammies and only a wool wrap even in the frozen winters, piss-poor undisciplined soldiers with mediocre aim and worse tactics, with nothing but a jihadist spirit and all the time in the world, drinking chai all day with their buddies, always with their buddies yet always farting in absolute solitude, they will have the Americans following right on the heels of our NATO cohorts, choosing to leave all our blood and treasure behind, throwing up our arms and saying, "What the f---, this place and these people ain't worth the trouble."

It's not Afghan TV, but it's a television set on nonetheless, tuned to either American Forces Network or a satellite channel, here in the dining facility at this comfortable U.S. forward operating base, and it's playing Jeopardy. It's back from a commercial now, and real or imaginary, "Final Jeopardy category is," says Alex, "Crazy Uncles in the Attic. Answer: Seventh century repressive apartheid country where America is spending three billion dollars and about ten soldiers' lives a month with no honestly declared purpose, no clearly reasoned strategy, no moral conditions of sacrifice, and no end defined or even remotely imagined. Contestants, you have thirty seconds to write your answer in the form of a question." Da da da da, da da da, da da da da dit di dididit…

Mr. Prime Minister?

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:53:00 GMT

The Dutch government has fallen for the fifth time since 2002.

”This is a beautiful day,” Mr Wilders said. ”The worst cabinet in Dutch history no longer exists and people can let their voices be heard by voting in a few months’ time.”

Don't Forget Why Pvt. William Long Died

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:37:00 GMT

Our leaders, military and civilian, all wanted to ignore the June 2009 jihad attack on Pvt. William Long outside an Army Navy recruiting center in Little Rock.

They still do.

Watch this video interview with Pvt. Long's father Daris Long and see if you can, too.

This week's column:

Remember last June when President Obama traveled to Saudi Arabia because, as he put it, "It was very important to come to the place where Islam began and seek his majesty's counsel"?

I argued at the time, gagging, that rather than visiting "the place where Islam began," the president of the United States should have gone to the place where Islam had just ended the life of a U.S. soldier. I refer to the U.S. Army-Navy recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark., where on June 1, Muslim convert Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad fatally shot Pvt. William Long, 23, and wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18. The two soldiers had been standing outside having a smoke.

As usual, the president didn't take my advice, or even my further suggestion that he turn the attack into an opportunity to declare in a major address that the 21st-century era of jihad was over. Instead, he journeyed to lands where jihad is a sacred institution, and in Cairo made another speech entirely, boosting and even preaching on behalf of Islam. His only comment was to call the attack, belatedly, "a senseless act of violence."

Senseless? This was an act of jihad, and both soldiers, along with the fallen and wounded at Fort Hood, should receive the Purple Hearts they deserve. Muhammad himself has made his jihadist intentions against the U.S. military clear, beginning first with his statement to police, and later in collect phone calls to the Associated Press from Pulaski County jail. On June 9, the AP quoted Muhammad calling the attack "a act, for the sake of God, for the sake of Allah, the Lord of all the world, and also a retaliation on U.S. military." He wasn't guilty of murder, he said, "because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason." Such a definition jibes with Islamic law, which, for example, permits the killing of "non-Muslims at war with Muslims." Muhammad also told the AP he wanted revenge against the U.S. military for its perceived offenses against Muslims and the Koran.

We haven't heard much about the case since Pulaski County prosecutor Larry Jegley asked for a gag order on the gabby jihadi -- a step a prosecutor will take, former prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy tells me, to prevent the jury pool from being "poisoned" and to ward off potential defense claims that a fair trial was not possible.

But lead prosecutor Jegley has now entered bizarro territory, telling the New York Times this week that his team, as the paper put it, "considers (the attack) a straightforward murder case and that they intend to try it without delving into Mr. Muhammad's religious conversion, political beliefs or possible ties to terrorists. `When you strip away what he says, self-serving or not, it's just an awful killing,' said Larry Jegley ...`It's like a lot of other killings we have.' "

It is? Do "a lot" of middle-class murder defendants in Pulaski County convert to Islam in 2004 and worship at an Ohio mosque frequented by convicted terrorists in 2005 and 2006? Do "a lot" of them travel to Yemen in 2007 where, ABC News reported, "it is believed that Muhammad attended the Damaj Institute, an Islamic institute attended by a number of radicalized U.S. converts (including) John Walker Lindh? Do "a lot" get themselves arrested for overstaying their visa in Yemen, and possessing a fake Somali passport? Do "a lot" finally get deported back to the States in 2008? (Bio highlights courtesy the NEFA Foundation.) Do "a lot" fire on U.S. soldiers at a military recruiting center?

I'm not the only one confounded by the prosecutor's inexplicable and highly disturbing decision to follow a see-no-Islam strategy. Muhammad himself recently wrote to the judge claiming he was encountering legal obstacles to changing his plea to guilty. Avowing affiliation with al-Qaida as a member of "Abu Basir's Army," Muhammad further emphasized the fact that the incident was a "a Jihadi Attack ... justified according to Islamic Laws and the Islamic Religion. Jihad -- To fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims."

This was an act of war against the United States and should be treated as such. Especially for the sake of the fallen, this is no time for the prosecutor to run off the battlefield.

Capt. Roger Hill Tonight on CNN's "AC 360"

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:55:00 GMT

Left to right: Capt Roger Hill, Officer in Charge of the Honor Guard at Ronald Reagan's funeral, and in Afghanistan.

Remember Capt. Roger Hill? Almost exactly one year ago to the day, I wrote:

After four years at West Point, nine years of honorable service, including two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and a Bronze Star for valor, Captain Roger Hill now faces a "less than honorable discharge" in a massive miscarriage of military "justice."

The story?

As three retired senior officers--Army Col. Andy O'Meara, Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerny and Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely--explained his case in an op-ed posted at the time, Capt. Hill was commanding a lonely outpost in 2008 in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, "an area the size of Connecticut with many Taliban lurking amid its half a million people."

And also, as it turned out, inside Capt. Hill's outpost. Some of the Afghan interpreters were passing information to Taliban forces leading to ambushes that had left as many as 30 Americans wounded and two killed. Capt. Hill detained about a dozen suspects and called for them to be evacuated to headquarters for interrogation. His request was denied.

Since detainees can only be held for 96 hours without charges, Capt. Hill and his men interrogated the detainees. The retired officers write:

Worred about the safety of his men, Capt. Hill reportedly made verbal threats, allowed his first sergeant to sit on the prisoners' chests demanding answers and is even said to have fired his pistol near the blindfolded heads of prisoners to trick them into thinking one of their comrades had been killed. The prisoners were not physically hurt ...

But Capt. Hill's military career was over. Incredibly, our Pentagon, our White House (Bush and Obama) seem to believe our country is better served by officers who are content to allow their men to remain subject to ambush and death due to Taliban infiltration. Remember what they did the LTC Allen West (now running for Congress).

Long story short, Capt. Hill ended up leaving the military with a General ("under honorable conditions") Discharge -- which was not only a rank injustice but, injury to insult, also a block on the VA medical coverage he needed for the assorted injuries he had sustained over years of combat.

Sickening.

But, happily, the story resumes. You can pick up with Capt. Hill's story at his new website MoreThanBrothers.com, where he writes that he is appealing his discharge. Today, he told me that his VA medical coverage issue has finally been resolved satisfactorily (but only as of last month!).

Tonight, the Afghanistan experiences of his and his company (Dog Company 1-506th Infantry) will be airing on CNN's AC 360 tonight at 10pm. He continues:

Here is the background and the details on what I can tell you:

This past fall, I was approached by CNN about doing a piece on my experiences in Afghanistan. ... We expect a fairly in depth look at the circumstances surrounding my case, totaling around 30-35 minutes of total story line, interview, commentary, etc. and all focusing on the need for more effective ROE and detention policies to better match up to the asymmetric enemies we face today, especially in NATO-led Afghanistan.

Don't miss it. If CNN gives Capt. Hill even a barely fair shake, it will make it clear to Americans that the US military is greatly the worse without him.

Finally, Someone's "Skeptical"

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:42:00 GMT

Photo: A U.S. soldier returns fire as others run for cover during a firefight with insurgents in the Badula Qulp area, West of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

-----

At the end of an AP "analysis" today by Anne Gearan and Anne Flagerty comes this comment from C. Christine Fair in response to happy talk from national security advisor James Jones about how Marjah "will demonstrate, I think successfully, that the new elements of the strategy will work." Jones, the AP writers note, "listed economic reform and good local governance in the same breath with the security bought with military might."

"That's where I get really skeptical," said Georgetown University professor C. Christine Fair, a former U.N. official in Afghanistan.

"I don't know where they found 2,000 Afghan police [mentioned earlier in the peice] who are competent" to lead security for such a large and strategic place, Fair said, and she doubts the U.S. assertion that most Taliban foot soldiers are motivated by money or expediency instead of ideology.

"Where is the data coming from to support that optimism?" she asked.

Thin air?

Of course, Prof. Fair is not unique in her skepticism -- see, for example, John Bernard's excellent commentary at his blog "Let Them Fight or Bring Them Home" -- but her statement is eye-catching both for her perch in academia and its appearance in the MSM.

Here's more from the AP:

With combat under way in strategic Helmand province - the first major offensive since Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan - U.S. Marines are meeting stubborn resistance and slower going than some expected in the early days of the offensive around the rich farming district of Marjah.

Beyond the immediate battle, it's not clear whether meaningful numbers of Taliban fighters can be scared off by U.S. firepower or bought off in a future amnesty outreach.

"Scared off" -- literally. "For us, just pushing them out of town is enough," said Capt. Ryan Sparks, who leads Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. "Our goal is to take care of the people, not kill the Taliban."

Ambitious plans to install a responsible local government once the fighting stops raise questions about how long the Americans intend to stay. On its face, the campaign to make Marjah independent and strong enough to resist the Taliban commits the United States and other countries to a lengthy stay in a bad neighborhood.

Obama has promised to begin bringing U.S. forces home in July of next year. He has set no deadline for ending the war outright, but military analysts assume U.S. forces will have to remain in volatile southern Afghanistan far beyond that initial drawdown....

Experts say that the next couple of months should reveal whether the operation worked.

"The center of gravity is the Afghan people," said Richard "Ozzie" Nelson, a former White House counterterrorism expert now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Please. Spare us the therapeutic talk.

"The Afghan government has to maintain security and operate on its own," Nelson said. "But the Afghan people have to accept the government" and reject the Taliban.

Says what man's army?

In a bid to try to win over the local population, U.S. officials waited to launch Saturday's operation until they had explicit permission from the Afghan government and were able to storm the town with significant numbers of Afghan forces.

But were they numbers of significant Afghan forces -- or just bystanders?

About 15,000 NATO and Afghan troops are taking part in the big offensive around Marjah.

Military officials say they are learning from past mistakes. The offensive is designed with an "Afghan face," meaning more and better trained Afghan soldiers and a reserve of some 2,000 trained Afghan police slated to take the lead in policing the town after shooting subsides.

Economic development will quickly follow, with military and civilian workers striving to "show a better way of life" to the town's inhabitants, White House press secretary Robert GIbbs said Tuesday.

What if they don't think Western-ish is "better"?

Gibbs said the operation "demonstrates the security forces of Afghanistan in the lead, working with others as partners to make progress against the Taliban."

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, says he is ready to unwrap an Afghan "government in a box" to take over in Marjah after the Taliban are expelled as a fighting force. Police, courts and local services are at the top of the to-do list.

What about drill teams and organic food cooperatives?

It's all part of the counterinsurgency theory Obama has adopted that says if people feel safe and fairly treated, they will reject the insurgents who oppress them while also providing services the ostensibly legitimate government cannot.

It's have-a-hug time at the Pentagon again.

Implicit in the Marjah strategy is the assumption that the Taliban cannot be defeated in a military sense, only marginalized and hollowed out.

No, not "in a military sense" -- in a hands-tying ROEs, hearts and minds, "counterinsurgency" and nation-building sense.

It also depends on a steady flow on international aid and development expertise that has been promised but over which the Obama administration does not hold full control. ...

Uh-oh. The UN is opting out. The story winds up with Prof. Fair. One more time:

"That's where I get really skeptical," said Georgetown University professor C. Christine Fair, a former U.N. official in Afghanistan.

"I don't know where they found 2,000 Afghan police [mentioned earlier in the peice] who are competent" to lead security for such a large and strategic place, Fair said, and she doubts the U.S. assertion that most Taliban foot soldiers are motivated by money or expediency instead of ideology.

"Where is the data coming from to support that optimism?" she asked.

I don't know that it's data that missing so much as common sense.

Hayworth vs. McCain: No Contest

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:01:00 GMT

Oh, to see former US Rep. J.D. Hayworth (GOP) trounce current Sen. John McCain ("Maverick") in Arizona's Republican Senate primary on August 24. Hayworth announced his candidacy this week.

McCain is everything wrong with the Republican Party, and despite the deep despair the Obama administration inspires, I still think (I think) a McCain presidency would have been somehow worse in the long run (if there is a long run ...).

A McCain administration would have been merely lousy. But it would have left the republic adrift in some similar and significant ways -- the disastrously prosecuted war, the drumbeat for illegal alien amnesty (one of Hayworth's major claims to fame is his staunch determination to protect US borders). More important, a McCain White House would also have failed to ignite tea-party activism just as it would have tied institutional GOP hands for the duration. In other words, hitting Obama-bottom with an existential crash just might -- might -- save us by triggering a rejuvenating political Big Bang, something that would have seemed impossible in an oxygen-deprived McCain admininstration.

As for veep candidate and star-powerful Sarah Palin? Her raw political instincts were always better for this country than any of the final three (McCain, Obama, Biden) -- which, granted, isn't saying much -- but with her self-respect-cancelling and politically contradictory endorsement of John McCain in the Arizona Senate race, I confess to hoping that both of these "mavericks" are finally put out to pasture.

COIN in Action (3): "Courageous Restraint"

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:00:00 GMT

I don't know why the British newspapers seem to offer better war coverage, but they often do. Here, vivid and extremely disturbing reporting (compare to Wall Street Journal here) from Ben Anderson of the Times of London on what our ROE-handcuffed troops are going through to take that prize package Marjah (above).

We clung to the steep sides of the canal trying to find some safe ground halfway up the bank. A rocketpropelled grenade came in just over our heads and exploded against the wall behind us. The Marines either side of me were hit with shrapnel. One, Doc Morrison, took a chunk of metal in his leg that severed an artery. The helicopter called to evacuate him came under machinegun and rocket fire.

Captain Ryan Sparks, Bravo’s commander and a veteran of some of the US military’s bloodiest days in Iraq, later said that the 12 hours of fighting on that first day in Marjah were “at least as intense as anything I experienced in Haditha and Fallujah”.

The plan had sounded ominous to begin with. Bravo company landed 800m (2,650ft) from Marjah’s most populated district, known as the “Pork Chop” by the Marines. It is an area in which the Taleban has had months to prepare home-made mines and defences so extensive that Brigadier-General Larry Nicholson, the Marines’ top commander, described it as “the most significant IED [improvised explosive device] threat faced by any Nato force in history”.

The Marines had no choice but to walk into well-planned attacks on a terrifying day of combat.

No choice? Maybe in COIN lala land, but I'll some crack military strategist could come up with something a little better than that.

Bravo Company, 1st Battalion 6th Marines, knew what was happening before the first shots were fired — one man on a scooter appeared to be dropping fighters off at a compound but they were powerless to do anything.

The new rules of engagement, dubbed “Courageous Restraint” and designed to prevent civilian casualties, meant that when the Sun came up over Marjah all they could do was wait. From either end of the road they were on, which leads towards Marjah’s northern bazaar, and from the fields, they were being watched.

Eventually the Marines had to break cover and came under heavy fire. They ran to a canal but were open targets on top of it and exposed if they slid towards the water.

Bravo had landed two hours earlier at 3am. Rain had turned the ground to cloying mud and most of the 150 Marines stumbled in it when they left the helicopters. Many carried so much equipment that they could not get up without help.

Now pinned down in the canal our position seemed potentially catastrophic. There was no consideration of retreat however and a fightback began. Three soldiers around me claimed to have killed four enemy fighters and eventually the Marines battled their way to the relative shelter of a nearby compound. The family were ordered to leave and seek shelter in another building nearby.

The Marines punched holes in the mudwalls and exchanged fire with attackers who seemed to have surrounded us. Eventually three fighters were identified in a compound about 200m away and a Harrier jet was called in to attack. It did so, twice,

Thank goodness for that. Gens. Nicholson and McChrystal must have been out ot lunch.

and the Marines resumed their progress towards their original objective — a petrol station at the edge of the bazaar.

Within minutes though they were taking fire from the same three men in the building struck by the Harrier. Everyone dived to the ground and bullets fizzed inches above our heads for 20 minutes. It was a pattern that would be repeated throughout the day, with each incremental advance met with fire from the Taleban. “Those guys were much better than the guys we faced here last year,” said Corporal Hillis. “Training can’t explain that, they had to be foreign fighters.”

We occupied a former police headquarters that night and in the morning the Afghan National Army (ANA), which has 17 soldiers with the company’s 3rd platoon, held a flag-raising ceremony. Said Asrar, their captain, said he hoped that the fighters of Marjah would join the ANA in its fight against terrorists and the Taleban but, if they chose not, “then we will fight against them and we will kick their ass”.

Within seconds of the flag going up enemy fighters fired several rounds.

Bravo started clearing adjoining compounds and again met resistance. At one point enemy fighters were in the neighbouring complex and Marines hurled grenades over the walls.

The last compound cleared that day was home to an Afghan family who agreed to rent a few rooms to the Marines for the night.

A family elder said that life under the Taleban had been preferable to rule from Kabul. “It was not like under the Government. There was no crime, no thieves and robberies,” he said. “I am not for either side, I just want to live in peace.”

For now peace seems at least several weeks away. Civil affairs teams were supposed to be at work within two days but one Marine, who had been told that the whole operation would take a month, was convinced it would take at least two.

Several times air support was called in but either denied final attack permission because the Marines could not be sure that no civilians were in the buildings, or was delayed for so long that they became pointless. Clearance had to come from the very top.

Later on that second day a Taleban sniper began to wreak havoc on our position, injuring two Marines on guard duty on the roof. Three suspected suicide bombers tried to storm a small outpost that was set up by the Marines. At least two were killed with grenades.

After 48 hours of relying on whatever they could carry fresh supplies arrived on the third day and the initiative began to swing. The Marines managed to ambush 20 fighters leaving a building, killing 18, but the enemy threat remained constant.

On that third night another Taleban sniper hit a Marine who was on the roof — his bullet struck his helmet between his eyes. Incredibly the Marine escaped without a scratch.

The big test now will be clearing the “Pork Chop”, where the threat will shift from war fighting to IEDs.

Meanwhile, Back in the Hague ...

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:54:00 GMT

Radio News Netherland reports:

A conference centre in The Hague has cancelled the launch of a book criticising Islam. The book launch was scheduled for Thursday at The World Forum, but was cancelled because the director of the venue does not believe he can guarantee the safety of his guests.

The book in question is Islamofobie? (Islamophobia?), written by Islam critic and PVV supporter Frans Groenendijk. The PVV, or Freedom Party is an anti-Islamic opposition party led by Geert Wilders.

Must be Geert's fault somehow.

COIN in Action, Cont'd.

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:25:00 GMT

Photo: Afghanistan Marine BG Lawrence "Eat Lots of Goat" Nicholson

The Battle of Marjah continues, only it's not a "battle" as understood in the traditional sense of the word. Marjah is a deadly foray into "armed social work" for US troops who probably thought they had signed up to fight for their country.

Wrong country.

“What are we here for?” Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the top Marine commander in Afghanistan, would shout to his troops.

“The people!” was the troops’ refrain.

And yes, that would be "the people" of Afghanistan.

Avallone: "Flirting with Afghanistan" 3

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:00:00 GMT

Here is the third installment of "Flirting with Afghanistan," text, photos and captions by Paul Avallone. Catch up on Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

GIs inspect a school, built the previous year through US aid and contracts, and subsequently destroyed by the Taliban. 2008.

A villager says his piece in a meeting with American soldiers. 2008.

"Afghan TV": With GIs in or passing through villages, the men just hang out to watch, photographed here from a Humvee.

GIs on patrol 2008.

Thirty-six hours without sleep patrolling, exhausted GIs find comfort on their steel mattresses.Wardak province, 2008.

So, we fight in Afghanistan as a battle on the frontline in the War on Terror, or, on an even grander scale, in the Global War on Terror, or GWOT for short, and in refusing to define our enemy we then commit a cardinal error in a nation's execution of war. One would think that a nation would have learned after having committed the same error in a previous war less than fifty years earlier. Yes, in the Vietnam War. By 1967 everyone knew that the war there was no longer between the home-grown Viet Cong guerrillas and the South Vietnamese government and its American sponsors. The enemy was the North Vietnamese. Invaders. Regardless the rightness or wrongness of their cause, it was an invasion, and the Americans were fighting it. As an invasion. Fighting them. In South Vietnam. I have not read Sun Tzu but have heard of and accept completely his theory that in warfare one must strike at the heart of his enemy. A body dies without a working heart. A strike at the heart is a killing blow. A strike at the heart is not a bomb-drop here a bomb-drop there, a truce, a bomb-drop, putting off-limits the Russian freighters in the Haiphong Harbor unloading SAM missiles, more bombs here, more there, a truce. Whether or not back then America was willing to recognize and define the true enemy, regardless of the geo-political fears and cautions dictating our behavior, we did not strike at the heart of the enemy, and we lost. We did not invade the North, we did not bomb their dikes, we did not nuke 'em to the Stone Age. Insane, immoral, isn't all war? I don't know if it's one of Sun Tzu's principles in the art of war, but it's common sense: One does not go to a fight, whether it's in the playground, the sandlot, the alley, the bar—wherever—unless one is willing to bring his all and is prepared to lose his all. Lose everything. Have his hair pulled, groin kicked, teeth knocked out, eyes gouged out, and ribcage crushed to powder by a guy or guys who are just bigger and tougher and meaner than oneself. Or give it right back to him or them. If you're not prepared for both, don't go. If you do head that way, you had better have weighed every conceivable pro and con and have concluded that a total loss, your disfigurement, injury or death, is worth it. And you had better know just exactly who the hell your enemy is. And had better to have judged the fight as warranting your striking at his heart, as he, by God, will be doing the same to you. Striking at the heart.

The Vietnam War was a failed strategy for America, but just fifteen years later, recognizing and defining the real enemy and striking at its heart, America pulled off a brilliant victory in El Salvador. With, of all things, congressional peacenik restrictions on warfare that limited the number of American troops in the country to a pinhead sized fifty-five. Fifty-five. Two numbers. 55—it's not a misprint. What started as an internal guerrilla civil war within El Salvador, the American leaders and commanders soon enough recognized as a proxy war fought with men and materiel from Nicaragua, most coming through Honduras. When closing the porous borders proved impossible, America formed the Nicaraguan refugees living in Honduras into an army, the Contras, and sent them into their homeland Nicaragua. An invasion. Striking at the heart of the enemy. And it worked. Nearly overthrown by the Contras, the communist Nicaraguan government negotiated a peace, and suddenly, the civil war in El Salvador was over. No bombing of dikes, no nuking to the Stone Age, but, at the same time, accurately measuring the value of victory or defeat, and precisely defining the enemy then striking at his heart.

So, why are we in Afghanistan? Who is our enemy? How much do we value his defeat? How much are we willing to sacrifice for his defeat? How will we know when he is defeated? Where is his heart, and how do we strike at it to kill him?

I'm just a regular Joe voter, who won't even be voting this year because there is no way to get me an absentee ballot way over here and get it back in time to be a counted vote, and I'm sure not privy to National Security Council White House briefing notes, nor CIA analyses, nor Pentagon and CentCom conference calls, nor closed-door congressional Foreign Affairs Committee hearings, nor ISAF memos to the commanding American general here and his right back at them, nor Obama or McCain's advisors' whispers of the real reasons behind the candidates' foreign policy positions, but I haven't heard one word out loud from any of these leaders that truthfully, rationally, raises or attempts to answer those questions.

Now, were these same leaders, both left and right and in the media, to admit that Look, we blew it with the WMDs in Iraq, but we're there now and we're stuck because, in a nutshell, the place has got oil and lots of it, the gas-guzzling, air-conditioned, energy demanding American public, with $5/gallon gasoline and $8/gallon milk, might not be comfortable with the morality of "War for Oil," but they'd buy it. And then demand of their leaders accountability for their twenty-year energy policies of ignoring a growing China and India while restricting our own homegrown product production, and they would demand instant drilling-based resource enhancement and government-sponsored Manhattan Project-type initiatives into alternative energy sources to sooner-rather-than-later make imported oil irrelevant.

Big-picture for Iraq—Iraq now, not Afghanistan—talk all you want about "democracy" and "containing Iran" and "bases in the Middle East" and blah blah blah—it's oil. For Afghanistan… Where's the oil?

Oh, didn't anyone mention it? There is no oil in Afghanistan. Sure, there was lots of excited blabber here a few years ago about the possibility of bringing Kazakhstan oil in a pipeline through Afghanistan down to the Indian Ocean. That sounds like a pretty good reason for a strong U.S. military presence in a stable Afghanistan, but I haven't been hearing any of that talk recently. Maybe because everyone realized that the pipeline is impractical because of the cost of securing it alone. This place would have to be one very stable country to not have the thing blown up here and there on a daily basis. And, even with a heavily-armed Afghan National Army (ANA) guarding the length, with the country's cultural acceptance and encouragement of corruption—baksheesh—each little guard post and each individual guard would be selling spigot rights, and the line would be tapped into the entire length, so that the drips that came out going into the ocean tanker at the port end would be so miniscule that they could be dabbed away with one of those little penile piss-dribble wipe stones.

Since there's no oil to be fighting for, and since, with the increased Taliban insurgency this year, the word is finally now being widely broadcast that the insurgents are coming across from their Pakistan-based training camps, another argument is coming out between the lines, and it too fails to define the enemy, judge the value of the fight, lay out an end-state, or rationalize an aim for the heart.

This undercover argument says that America owes it to Afghanistan to rebuild it because America, after helping the Afghans defeat the Russians, left the Afghans—"neglected" them—to make something of their country all by their little ol' warring, helpless selves. It was our neglect, it is argued, that allowed Afghanistan to fall into chaos, which led to the Taliban taking over, which led to al-Qaeda being welcomed in, which led to 9-11, etcetera. The argument is based in part on guilt-trip, part on practicality. The poor country needs our help to avoid chaos; chaos will allow al-Qaeda a stronghold again. And in rebuilding, to rebuild we must at the same time secure the country—"hold it," if you will—against an internal/external insurgent enemy.

Isn't it a bit presumptuous of us to believe that the Afghans would think that they needed us or would ask for our help? Say what I will about the Afghan culture, and a lot of it is not good, but I will give it this much: The people are extremely proud and self-reliant, and they neither like to be told what to do nor told what they need and surely don't like to be told what they need to do. Don't misunderstand, the Afghans are shameless in asking for and taking whatever one has—a stick of gum, a cookie, a pen, a well, a road, a school, a hospital, a factory, a hydroelectric dam, a box of cookies, two pens, three pens, an MRE, a Humvee, a thousand Humvees, four pens, a case of MREs, a pallet of bottled water, a jingle truckload of bottled water, a fleet of brand-new Ford Ranger pickup trucks for their ANP, fifty thousand BDU uniforms for their ANA, a hundred thousand Kalashnikov rifles—but they are too proudly independent to allow there to be any strings attached to their taking. Any, period, end of discussion. You want to give it to them, give it—ask for nothing in return. Because you're not going to get it. It works both ways; when an Afghan gives he has no strings attached and expects nothing in return. Giving, sharing, hospitality is a part of his culture, and it is a shame for an Afghan not to offer, and as shameful to add strings to the offer.

Americans gave to the Afghans Stinger missiles and the training in their employment to defeat the Russians, but that's where the American influence would end, regardless if America had followed the Stingers with dollars, well diggers, State Department advisors and brigades of the 82nd Airborne. Don't accept that? Thirty-five thousand deployed U.S. soldiers presently in-country later, along with more than 150 billion dollars burned over time, as well as road-pavers, well-diggers and who-knows-how-many State Department advisors, and in 2008 we've got an increasingly aggressive and successful Taliban insurgency against a weak, corrupt federal government that is still standing only because it's backed by those 35,000 GIs and another 20,000 from NATO. What the hell do you think we could have done in the early 1990's to have kept chaos from reigning? How many American troops would we have had to have deployed over here then?

It is the Afghans and their culture that is solely to blame for their decline into chaos after the Russians picked up and took their marbles home. The Afghans are a warrior culture, no denying it, and a people who can be rallied to unify to fight an invader and, once the invader is thrown out, they explode into their own tribes to fight each other. That that American aid (the Stingers, etc.), in a clever move in Cold War Risk, was key to the mujahedeen victory over the Russians, does not mean that America was any more responsible for the aftermath than France, helping us throw out the British in our revolution, would have been responsible to ensure that afterwards Massachusetts didn't attack Rhode Island and George Washington didn't lob cannon balls John Adams' way.

It may be a harsh, harsh, harsh reality to admit, but Massoud, Dostum, Hekmatyar, Abdul Haq and the rest of the warlords were not and are not any George Washingtons or John Adams'.

It may be harsher still to declare, in these times of Western non-judgmentalism, that the Afghan culture is on a moral par—or, even, on a practical life-sustaining par—with that of America and the West.

With no viable argument for American economic self-interests in Afghanistan, (such as oil), none to sustain any longer the terrorist training camps rationale, (their camps are in Pakistan), and none given rationalizing for a strategic geo-political stronghold in the area, (Iraq will have to do, as it does have the oil), as both presidential candidates Obama and McCain are one-upping each other in increasing, almost to doubling, the American military in the country, I expect that the sloganeering justifications to be coming our way now will be emotionally based, heart-string arguments playing on an American guilt for past neglect and the overall generosity and kindness of a modern, rich American nation to a 7th century, impoverished, shambled one.

There are more poor or impoverished countries and peoples in the world than wealthy ones, and Americans instinctively know that giving to each and every one as we're presently giving to Afghanistan—thirty-five thousand troops and about thirty-five billion dollars a year—would bring our own country into shambles and ruinous poverty. A hundred countries could properly demand what the Afghans are getting from us. Choices must be made then. The crazed uncle in the attic, remember?

Until now, we've assumed that guy up there to be an uncle, but he may not be. He may be a vagrant who climbed the trellis, broke the window and just staked himself a comfortable spot out of the rain and cold. He's getting louder, we know that. We're sending up food now six times a day, and double portions each time, and the tray's always coming down empty. Our house cat's been missing since last week, and we haven't seen Rex the Black Lab since Tuesday, and something is starting to smell like dead meat from up there. What is he doing up there, really? Who, really, is this man? Blood relative or street vagrant? We don't really know, but one thing we sure do know is, for all we've done and are doing for him, we've yet to hear a thanks.

Then again, remember, what one gives to Afghans one gives with no strings attached, even that bare-hair-thin string called a thank-you. Afghans make marvelous, generous hosts but extremely demanding and taking, ungracious guests. And, in an insane irony, turning the uncle-in-the-attic metaphor upside-down, diplomatically we the Americans and NATO are the "invited guests" here and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (IRoA) is the host, yet we're doing all the giving and they all the taking. Hot damn, if there were a hint of thankfulness in the Afghan culture (to anyone but Allah), instead of those five-times-a-day prayers just to Allah, the Afghans would reserve one, just one, to say Thank you, Osama bin Laden and your al-Qaeda for 9-11, for you brought us all these goodies for free!

It may all lead to nowhere and nothing except blood and dollars dropped down that dry well, but we did throw out the then-feared and despised Taliban, who had effectively brought law-and-order at the muzzle of a gun and ignored any bureaucratic aspects of governing—such as roads, schools, water, electricity—and who (hold the phone here, another irony coming up) nowadays are looking better and better to the Pashtun Afghans, as at least the Talibs are Pashtun, brothers, unlike the fifty-thousand foreign "infidels" who have "invaded" their land. And as those who threw out the Taliban and have given billions of dollars worth of all the bureaucratic governing things the Taliban ignored presently plan to increase their "infidel" numbers in the country, (Warning: We are parked squarely in Irony Central now), they, these "infidels," the Americans and NATO partners, will be mistrusted, despised and hated even more. And you think you're going to get a thank-you? Remember, the uncle's crazy, or he's a vagrant, not even a blood relative. Or, is he? Again, who the hell is he?

Don't ask, don't tell as applied to Afghanistan suits our leaders just fine, and the military folks on the ground here are expected to unquestioningly fight a war and (re)build a country "putting an Afghan face on it." In a tiny spark of wisdom in recognizing that the Afghans do look at us as infidel invaders, our leaders, in a desperate attempt to downplay and whitewash our presence here, demand that all our gifts of schools, clinics, roads, hydro-electric dams, pens, bags of wheat, battlefield victories, government institutions and standards and practices have an "Afghan face." That is, have Afghan government up front, whether federal or local officials, the ANA, ANP, whatever, as if it is the Afghans who are bringing and giving the wells, schools, clinics, roads, pens, bags of wheat, victories, institutions, etcetera. The Afghan people may be ignorant and uneducated, but they are not stupid, and they certainly know their own culture and fellow Afghans, and regardless of the face the U.S. tries to put on the giving, the Afghans know that the gifts don't come from their fellow Afghans. Afghans give as hosts only, it is shameful not to, but they are tribal in their sense of obliged shared responsibility, not provincial and definitely not federal. They know their own people. They know that their politicians in their provincial capitals or in Kabul, if they had a road, a school, a bag of wheat, or a hydroelectric dam to give away, they'd keep it for themselves or for their own tribe rather than let some other tribe get it. Remember those competing warlords after jointly throwing out the Russians and overthrowing the communist government turning on each other, If I can't have it neither can you? Without being negatively judgmental, allowing Afghans to be whichever way they want to be—This land is your land, this land is my land—should we not at least, if we're giving away those bags of wheat, hydroelectric dams and our son's lives and limbs, know who we're giving them to?

That the Afghans have made so little of their land for more than two thousand years is due equal parts to fate and choice. There is an Afghan saying that goes something like this: When God made the earth, He had all kinds of rocks left over, and He dumped them all in Afghanistan. I would add, And then he created the Pakistanis, so that the Afghans could have a permanent enemy and someone to hate and to blame for all their problems, and I wouldn't be able to find an Afghan even who would disagree with that. More, the Afghan would go on and expound for thirty minutes why the Pakistanis are the root of all their problems and, what God didn't do with the rocks, the Pakistanis are doing just because they're Pakistanis.

The Afghans do deserve credit for surviving on and making something, however little, out of such a worthless land. They have taken those rocks and the dirt of a dry earth and without mortar or cement have built their houses and villages, and they have taken those rocks and terraced the inclined foothills and with them have laid down and lined irrigation ditches to bring the water from the snow-covered mountains down into dry soil to grow their patches of wheat, vegetables, fruits and nuts, hashish and, of course, opium poppies. More importantly, centuries ago they realized that the real value of their land was in its geography, as a transverse point, a way station, between East and West, and they made themselves the gatekeepers, the toll takers, living contently on the tariffs extracted, mostly by bandits, for little or no work done and even less product produced or provided. When conquerors invaded, from Alexander, to the Persians, to the Mongols, to the British to the Russians, the Afghans collapsed docilely, holding out their hands and taking what was offered, then asking for more and taking it happily, then, when a return (those strings) was asked or demanded of them, they unified into a strong force of absolute passive aggressive disobedient non-compliance, or directly aggressive warrior armies, with the positive end result the same: the invaders, considering the effort way not worth the bottom line of what they'd get from the land or people, leaving. Leaving the Afghans with nothing more than they'd had before the invasion and, apparently, winsomely content with that. Anyone got the pot of chai boiled up yet?

Ignoring for now the Islamic religious and cultural conversion post-Mohammed, the harshness, the miserableness, the near absolute worthlessness of most of their land itself is a pretty valid excuse for the Afghans having given the world nothing really of tangible value. No moon shots, no wheel, no vaccines, no Boulder Dams, no 32-gigabyte jump drives, no Citizen Kanes, no William Faulkners, no Grouch Marx' even. Again, ignoring for now the Islamic religious and cultural conversion, the common American soldiers' speculation upon first reacting to the Afghan landscape and people in a sense of wondered disbelief, "Man, it's like going back to Biblical times," is less a condemnation or insult upon the people than a quiet statement of reality.

Yes, indeed, and then came the Americans.

The all-powerful Americans it was back in 2002-03. As soldiers, whether in the cities, villages or settlements, we would arrive, and the men and boys would stop what they were doing and just stare at us, mouths often agape, eyes intense and curious—it was awe. They would even crowd close, not to touch, they would not do that, but just to draw near, pulled in by the power. All-powerful. And that's what it was, what they were in awe of. We were taller than them, bigger than them—healthy, strong, well fed, well bred Americans—and our clothes and weapons and equipment were different and modern. And deadly. So deadly that, even if the people had not seen our brothers before us in combat action, they'd heard the stories about them, and to them we were the same soldiers, it did not matter, of a power that was so mighty that it had just defeated in a matter of weeks the Taliban enemy that their own brothers of the Northern Alliance could not defeat in years of fighting and still now, today, 2008, seven years later, would not have been able to defeat. They would still be stalemated, the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, at a draw. Heralded worldwide as great warriors, the Afghan fighter has an undeserved reputation, unless it's his bravery we're talking about. He's got bravery in spades, as I've witnessed dozens of times, as he'll run toward the fight, run toward the bullets. Our own militia soldiers, back in '02-'03 when I was a warrior too here, would insist on putting themselves in front of us to take the bullets to protect us. It's a part of their culture, a good part, where a man's courage is a part of his honor. As for the other qualities of soldiering—discipline, accountability, responsibility, technical knowledge, tactics and consistency—the Afghan is piss-poor at best. For one, he just doesn't care. It's the inshallah (if God wills it) part of the culture. Leaving everything to fate. For another, he just doesn't like to take orders. It's the stubborn, hard-headed independent part of the culture. That hard-headed independence is the great irony of the culture that is tribal, paternal, warlord. A man is subservient to the family, tribe and warlord, yet little more than a showing of respect for the family, tribal elders and warlord is asked of him, except that he not bring shame upon the family or tribe. Shame—remember the flatulence?—is big in the culture, it's huge, and it might be the best explanation for the Afghan warriors' reckless bravery and piss-poor soldiering. There is family and tribal shame in running away from the bullets; there is none in not caring about or being lousy or mediocre at one's job. Inshallah. Ironic also is that soldiering is the perfect job for an Afghan. There is almost no skill required—just know how to load and shoot a Kalashnikov, no aiming necessary—with even less work. Soldiering is like a family or tribe, with meals and lodging provided, and it's men being with men all the time. All the time, which is what Afghanistan is all about. Men doing nothing, hanging around with men. Basically, daily soldiering. Even a couple of Afghan soldiers on gate guard duty, there will be with them two or three more not on duty but just hanging out and maybe another four or five civilians too—all sitting, squatting, whatever, just shooting the breeze. Oh, yes, and drinking chai. Hour after hour after hour. In no hurry to do anything else. Which makes the Taliban/Northern Alliance stalemate years of the 1990's seem reasonable and natural. I was not there among them, but I can imagine a group from one stumbling upon a group of their enemy sitting around drinking chai, and the enemy inviting the first to join them, and they all do, rinsing the chai cups and boiling up a couple more pots, chit-chatting the afternoon away. They separate in the evening, and the next day, one group casually shoots a couple of RPGs at the other from one ridgeline, and the other returns fire with a couple of RPGs, and they separately call it a day and report to their commands it a battle well fought.

Then along comes the U.S. in a wham, bamm, 30-second match knocking out the Taliban, it's normal that the people would be awed by such a power. A power that had rained down 500-pound bombs from heard but unseen jets, and we too a year later, when needed, all powerful, would beckon those jets above. And call them down to fly low, at treetop level at ear-splitting decibels, shaking the ground like an earthquake, for their split-second flight overhead, terrifying. All powerful.

It's no wonder the people would stop and crowd and stare. In awe. That stopping and staring and crowding—for ten minutes, for an hour, it was the same—we called it "Afghan TV." We were on Afghan TV. We were the only channel, we were on all the channels. We were the show. No cameras, no television sets needed; it was live. Must See Live TV. We would leave the villages, and we would know that the Afghans would go back to their homes and, like us around the water cooler a few years earlier rehashing the previous night's Seinfeld episode, they'd be replaying the show they'd just seen, The Americans Coming to Town.

By 2006, the awe was gone. As well as the crowding. In the cities the people would just glance up and by at the American soldiers, then go back to what they were doing. In the villages they'd still stop and stare, it was still Afghan TV. But the mystique of power was gone, though the Americans' equipment, weapons and vehicles were yet again bigger and even more deadly. Without that mystique the Americans were accessible, approachable, and the kids would come close, to ask, with hands out, for candy, or "Pen," or "Book," in English. No question mark in the asking. Just, "Pen." "Book."

In the villages this year, 2008, it's still Afghan TV, and in the friendly ones, the kids will crowd the soldiers, chattering "Pen," "Pen," "Pen," quick like clucking hens—again, statements, demands, not questions. In the unfriendly villages in Taliban sanctuaries, where the nature of warfare demands so many American patrols go, it is still Afghan TV, but the boys don't come close, and will even be behind the men, who are all squatting, silent, with stares that are closed, angry, threatening. And one knows that these Afghans would change the channel if they could, because this show they don't want to watch. Most times they are not even Taliban, they're just villagers, but the Taliban are around, near, somewhere, or are coming back, and the men fear the Talib reprisal should it be learned that they spoke with the American soldiers, never mind actually helped them. In a nutshell, the villagers fear the Taliban, they do not fear the Americans. They would change the channel, they don't want this live show; they just want the Americans not to have come, and their hard stares relate that. There is no good that can come to them from the Americans' visit. When questioned by the soldiers, they mumble indecipherable answers and shoo away the relevance of being questioned with fibs, and then, noting the politeness of the Americans, confident that they will not be harmed by them no matter what, they grow ever bolder and laugh it all off with the outright lie, translated, "Taliban? No, no, we have not seen Taliban here for two years. Two years. More." And, please, their eyes are saying behind the false chuckles and spoken words, leave, leave us alone.

Battle of Marjah: COIN in Action

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:38:00 GMT

Via ISAF: Valentine's Day at the Battle of Marjah.

The news from Marjah is increasingly surreal as "counterinsurgency" theory goes into battle -- "counterinsurgency" being a fancy word for hearts-and-minds nation-building.

Example: A rocket hits the wrong compound, killing 10 "civilians." Since COIN means always having to say you're sorry, the commanding general not only "apologizes" in the middle of the battle, he suspends the further use of the rocket in the middle of the battle. This is in line with the guiding fantasy of COIN warfare -- that it is possible to "win" the confidence, trust, "hearts and minds," whatever of the "people," as though war were a popularity contest, and after eight-plus-years the Muslims of Afghanistan still can't make up their minds who, between us and the Taliban, should win their coveted Miss Congeniality prize.

Of course, this rocket ban is just one more sicko rule of engagement to add to the passel of sicko rules of engagement Gen. Stanley McChrystal has imposed on his own troops to, as he has said, to protect the Afghan people from everything that can hurt them.

Other such ROEs include:

No night searches. Villagers must be warned prior to searches. Afghan National Army or Afghan Police must accompany U.S. units on searches. Searches must account, according to International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters, "for the unique cultural sensitivities toward local women." ("Islamic repressiveness" is more accurate, but that's another story.) U.S. soldiers may not fire on the enemy unless the enemy is preparing to fire first. U.S. forces may not engage the enemy if civilians are present. U.S. forces may fire at an enemy caught in the act of placing an IED, but not walking away from an IED area. And on it goes. As McChrystal says in a video briefing shown to Marines, "It's not how many you kill, it's how many you convince."

Now that the COIN battle in joined at Marjah, Fox News today reports:

Marines said their ability to fight back has been tightly constrained by strict new rules of engagement that make their job more difficult and dangerous. Under the rules, troops cannot fire at people unless they commit a hostile act or show hostile intent.

"I understand the reason behind it, but it's so hard to fight a war like this," said Lance Corp. Travis Anderson, 20, from Altoona, Iowa. "They're using our rules of engagement against us," he said, stating that his platoon had repeatedly seen men dropping their guns into ditches before walking away to melt among civilians.

But, in fact, is this a "war"? That is, it is a war, all right, to our brave forces under fire, but is it really a war to their superiors? Or, is this in fact the old "Great Society" redux, now advanced as what the Pentagon has conceived of as "armed social work"? That's literally how one often-interviewed officer, LTC Christian Cabaniss, likes to describe this war -- approvingly -- recently adding: "Shooting is getting in the way of winning."

And so Operation Moshtarak, the battle of Marjah, continues, with not just shooting seen as getting in the way of winning by military brass, but now also rocket support.

"Moshtarak," by the way, means "together" in Dari -- pretty cute, no? -- probably since ISAF/ Afghan Army togetherness is also part of hearts and minds strategy. Of course, according to McChrystal, the Afghan Army isn't just "together" with ISAF forces. Afghan Army is, he says, actually leading the operation. (See McChrystal's video statement here.) Hate to say it, it sounds as if the general sound has lost his own heart and also his mind.

CNN reports today:

About 15,000 Afghan and NATO forces are taking part in Operation Moshtarak.

U.S. troops are leading the mission. "The majority of the fighting, the majority of the headway being made, is by the U.S. forces," Abawi reported.

She added that she had seen many Afghan soldiers "and to be quite honest with you, they're not ready to fight."

But maybe that's perfect for armed social work.

LTC Allen West for Congress

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 17:32:00 GMT

LTC Allen West (ret.) is a man who isn't afraid of enemy fire or speaking the truth, and voters in Florida's District 22, from Jupiter to Ft. Lauderdale, are lucky pups to be able to vote him into Congress this November. When they do -- and they better not blow it -- the rest of the United States will finally have his leadership where we need it ... in Washington, DC.

Via Andrew Bostom.

Questions for Pentagon: Why Was There a COP Keating, and Why Was It a "Kill Pit"?

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:13:00 GMT

Asia Times map via Long War Journal report on post-Keating Taliban rule in Kamdesh.

This week's column is about an age-old story, how Big Fish sacrifice small fry to stay Big Fish. The story the column was triggered by came out last Friday, when the Washington Post reported on military investigations into battles at Wanat, Ganjgal and Kamdesh, all in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks, reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded, said senior military officials.

Fyi, "top brass" = Big Fish in this story.

Having covered -- no, railed about -- the rules of engagement inflicted on commanders by top brass in thrall to the PC doctrine of "counterinsurgency" " for some time now (in part here, here, here), I smelled one of those rats you hear about. It certainly sounded as if the Big Fish were throwing over the small fry for carrying out their own indefensible orders that, tragicallly but predictably, had resulted in indefensible US combat fatalities. The full reports leading to these reprimands have not been released. But the rank and role of those reprimanded, according to the Post story, suggest that investigators did not look very high up the military food chain to ascertain where both doctrinal and executive responsibility lay.

Which, of course, is the way the powerful stay powerful and, in this case, protect the failings of "counterinsurgency" doctrine from urgently needed debate.

The column focuses on the battle of Kamdesh, which really was the battle of COP Keating. Video footage of Keating prompted Marine Sgt. Maj. Jim Sauer (ret.) to call Keating a "kill pit." If you take a look, you'll see why.

The column:

Sorry, but this Washington Post headline -- "U.S. commanders in Afghanistan face tougher discipline for battlefield failures" -- misses the point.

The story concerns "failures" all right, but the three recently investigated incidents in question are not "battlefield" failures. No, these failures, whose names are Wanat, Ganjgal and Kamdesh, have their provenance in the climate-controlled conference rooms of the White House and the Pentagon. These are failures of U.S. military policy, and it is the top leadership of the current and last administrations, those who have formulated, approved and executed the policy, who are responsible for them -- not the mid-level officers, the squadron leader or battalion commander, who, according to the Post story on the unreleased investigations, will be taking the official fall.

I refer, of course, to the policy of "counterinsurgency" warfare, particularly as promoted by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the supreme infidel commander now waging a popularity contest against the Koranically correct Taliban for the affections of the Islamic peoples of Afghanistan. The prize, booby at best, is supposed to enable the United States, at Treasury-breaking and military-wrecking cost, to tame wild Afghanistan into a non-dysfunctional, jihad-free society. Our main weapons: "population-protection," cash and massive public works projects. (Sending troops so equipped into valleys of death like Wanat, Gankgal and Kamdesh is pure "counterinsurgency" negligence, I mean, doctrine.) The Taliban's main weapons: the Koran, jihad and Sharia. After eight-plus years, the Islamic peoples of Afghanistan still can't decide between us. Still, we keep trying, pursuing the unicorn of hearts and minds across Afghanistan even as the reality of Islamic law spreads unchecked across the West.

One place we tried too long is the Nuristan province village of Kamdesh. There, in August 2006, a foothold later known as Combat Outpost Keating was established on indefensibly low ground ringed by mountains as a Provincial Reconstruction Team. Whose criminally stupid idea was it to put an outpost there and leave it there? I doubt investigators asked.

The mission was "nation-building at a local level," as Salon's Matthew Cole reported in 2007. Under continual attack, however, the troops had switched from dispensing goodies to "simply securing the base" -- and for three, pointless years until Oct. 3, 2009. On that day, the battle of Kamdesh left eight Americans dead over a piece of real estate that -- and this is key -- the United States had already planned to abandon. Whose negligence delayed the evacuation? I don't think investigators asked that, either.

Fact is, Keating and some other outposts were scheduled to close in July 2009 -- not, alas, in recognition of the futility of "counterinsurgency," but of fighting it undermanned in remote areas. As Maj. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti explained McChrystal's outpost-closing order to the Washington Post, "This is all about freeing up some forces so I can get them out more among the people."

But not so fast. Seems that also in July, the Post notes, Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked "senior U.S. officials" to send U.S. troops to secure Barge Matal, a remote Nuristan village, before the Aug. 20 elections. What should have taken a week stretched into months, with "ripple effects throughout eastern Afghanistan, forcing frustrated U.S. military officials to postpone plans made months earlier to abandon other remote bases."

NBC's Richard Engels reports: "Four American soldiers were killed from July through September while securing Barge Matal. But this was only the beginning. Five more American troops were killed on Sept. 8 in nearby Ganjgal, in part because resources they required (air and drone support) were diverted to help the soldiers in Barge Matal. If air assets are sent to one area, they must be pulled from another. The knock-on effect of Barge Matal" -- where, Engels writes in a bitter coda, ballot boxes were stuffed, literally, with 10 times more ballots than the number of citizens in the town -- "appears to have also indirectly contributed to the deaths of the eight American soldiers at COP Keating."

Barge Matal aside, almost seven weeks passed between the election and the attack on Keating. Why wasn't Keating at least closed in the interim? Where does McChrystal's buck stop?

Then again, maybe nothing short of disaster was ever going to shut down Keating. Roughly 10 days before the Oct. 3 attack, the Washington Post reports, Col. Randy George, who oversees U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, told commanders at Keating and Lowell, another remote outpost, to prepare their bases ... for the coming winter.

I wonder if investigators asked why.

Kamdesh Was an Intelligence Failure, All Right

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:14:00 GMT

Touching down at COP Keating, March 2009

----

The battle of Kamdesh on October 3, 2009 is the focus of this week's upcoming column -- specifically, the Pentagon's reported decision to punish mid-level commanders for intelligence failures that preceded the brutal battle that left eight Americans dead. According to an investigation, commanders ignored local intelligence indicating that a large attack against COP Keating was likely andfailed to take appropriate defensive measures.

That may be. But why was a small US outpost in Kamdesh in the first place? And, if there, why was it based for three years in an indefensible position? The real blame for the battle of Kamdesh lies with the military brass behind this fatally pointless and needlessly dangerous mission. Before deciding whether you agree, watch the below video of the base and battle site, COP Keating, taken last summer by Britain's News 4 photographer Stuart Webb (via Burnpit, which has more Keating video.)

If anyone should be punished for " intelligence failures" it is the person(s) responsible for choosing the site for COP Keating, keeping it open and failing to close it. Throw in the chief brain surgeons who came up with Keating's mission -- "nation-building on a local level" -- and it should become apparent that the military brain trusts of both the Bush and Obama administrations, including Gens. Petraeus and McChrystal, are responsible for the whole sorry and symbolic debacle.

Pakistani-Parliamentary Pincer

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:59:00 GMT

Just another day in Pakistan, where jihadi symps last week expressed their opinion of the US conviction of "Lady Al Qaeda," Aafia Siddiqui, who was found guilty in a Manhattan court of trying to kill US personnel in Afghanistan.

Now for something completely new and different:

Headline: "British parliamentarians for public inquiry into Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's conviction"

Lead: Describing the conviction of Pakistani neuroscientist Dr.Aafia Siddiqui as “miscarriage of justice”, British Parliamentarians have called for withdrawal of case against her and repatriation to Pakistan.

British parliamentarians?

Muslim members of British Parliament is more to the point. The story from the Associated Press of Pakistan continues:

At a function organised at the House of Lords on Tuesday evening to raise support for the incarcerated Dr. Siddiqui, Lord Nazir Ahmed together with other speakers said her trial in New York was full of flaws and not based on facts.

Good ol' Lord Ahmed.

They sought the intervention of the US leadership and demanded a fair trial based on real facts and not assumptions. Lord Ahmed said he would be writing a letter to the US President Barack Obama carrying signatures of other British MPs calling for Dr.Siddiqui’s repatriation to Pakistan and withdrawal of case.

The Labour Peer further said he would also raise this question in the Parliament to ascertain how the British Government could help in this regard.

According to Lord Nazir, the conviction of Dr.Siddiqui has been received with great dismay in Pakistan which would further fuel anti-American feeling in the south Asian country.

“If US wants to create a good impression of itself in Pakistan, it should release Dr.Siddiqui and send her back to Pakistan,” he asserted.

He said no credible independent evidence was presented at the New York court and in the words of defence lawyers the decision of the jury was based on fear rather than facts.

Lord Altaf Sheikh, MP Muhammad Sarwar, Muhammad Saghir, a representative of Caged Prisoners which represent the inmates of Guantanamo Bay, Rabia Zia of UK Chapter of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, journalist Yvonne Ridley, who witnessed the trial and Barrister Abid Hussain also spoke on the occasion.

The thrust of their speeches was to mobilise public opinion against Dr.Siddiqui’s conviction and call on Pakistani authorities to demand her repatriation as well making efforts to find the whereabouts of her two missing children.

Sarwar said Pakistani authorities must hold inquiry at their end to know the circumstances of her disappearance from Karachi in 2003 and her appearance in Kabul five years later.

Ridley said it was now up to the people of Pakistan to organise regular rallies in support of Dr.Siddiqui and send strong message of their resentment to the USA on this trial.

Barrister Abid Hussain urged the British Pakistanis to lobby their respective MPs and sign on-line petition in support of the neuroscientist for exerting maximum pressure on the US Government.

Dar al-Yale, Continued

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:59:00 GMT

Remember Omer Bajwa, Yale's "Muslim Victory" Chaplain?

The one who was reported to have told an Islamabad audience "Muslims will win the final victory in the West if they conform to their beliefs and disseminate the message of Islam with wisdom and politeness"?

The one who slandered Kurt Westergaard by publicly stating at Yale in front of the cartoonist that he, the Muslim Victory Chaplain, had read in the New York Times that Kurt's son had converted to Islam -- when there was no such story in the New York Times, while Kurt's son has not converted to Islam?

The one who, practicing taqiyya, told an audience at Cornell that he could "defiinitively" tell them that jihad does not mean holy war, further lying that the word means nothing more than spritual or other personal struggle, including studying for exams?

(Yes, there is "greater jihad," the so-call spiritual struggle, but there is also, and far more important where infidels are concerned, jihad as defined by the Al Azhar approved guide to sharia, Reliance of the Traveller, p. 599: "Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.")

Omer's back -- this time as the organizer of the "first evah" Ivy Muslim weekend (via Jawa Report) co-sponsored by the Yale chapter of the Muslim Student Association (MSA). What is MSA? According to Discover the Networks, MSA is a Muslim Brotherhood-founded group "named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum as one of the Brotherhood's like-minded `organizations of our friends' who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation. These `friends' were described by the Brotherhood as groups that could help teach Muslims "that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands ... so that ... God's religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions." (More here.)

The all-Ivy MSA confab took place last weekend at Yale -- and gee, it must have been swell, at least if you're a Muslim Brother. After all, the keynote speaker was Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS Center).

And who's Mohammed Magid and what is the ADAMS Center?

Magid is imam of the ADAMS center. He is also Vice President of ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), another entity linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-financing trial in US history, the Holy Land Foundation trial. In 2005, Freedom House identified Magid's ADAMS center as one of many mosques distributing anti-Christian and antisemitic screeds. As Steven Emerson has reported in testimony before Congress, Magid has publicly downplayed mass murder in Darfur, and "is listed as an advisor to the Sterling Charitable Gift Fund, which was raided as part of the SAAR network ... According to a government affadavit, the Sterling Charitable Gift Fund was used as a conduit for for money laundering and support for terrorist organizations." In 2008, the ADAMS center hosted a fundraiser for convicted cop-killer Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rapp Brown, where jihadist imam Luqman Abdullah, recently killed in a fatal confrontation with FBI agents, addressed the gathering.

Naturally, now he's keynoting All-Ivy MSA conferences for Yale's "Muslim Victory" Chaplain ... ah, bright college years ... for Allah, for Umma, and for Yale.

Love in a Cold "Eurozone"

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:40:00 GMT

Protocol calls: Who in the EU gets to receive President Obowma?

While EU officials mud wrestle each other for the fun of receiving Obama and, more important, his bow in a US-EU summit to be, the words "Greek" and "economy" come together and threaten to pull the EU apart. Paul Belien explains in "The EU's Horrible Honeymoon" at the Brussels Journal:

Last week, Barack Obama snubbed the Europeans by refusing to attend next May’s European Union summit in Madrid. The Europeans are very upset. But that is not the worst of their problems, and neither is the looming bankruptcy of Greece. Analysts fear that Spain might sink the euro, the EU’s common currency, and with the euro also the dreams of greater political integration.

At this point Europe is not even halfway its 100-day political “honeymoon” since the Treaty of Lisbon, which transformed the EU into a state in its own right, came into force. So far the honeymoon has been a nightmare. Since the beginning of the year, the EU’s currency, the euro, is on the brink of collapse; Greece has been placed under EU financial supervision to prevent it from going bankrupt. Now U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that he will not attend next May’s EU summit in Madrid. It was to have been Obama’s first visit to post-Lisbon Europe – the consecration of the new political order.

Washington informed Brussels last week that Obama is not coming because it is not clear who is his European counterpart. Since the Lisbon Treaty came into force on January 1^st, Europe has its own President, Herman Van Rompuy. This former Belgian politician chairs the European Council, the assembly of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states. However, there is also José Manuel Barroso, a former Portuguese politician, who is the president of the European Commission, which is the EU’s executive body. And there is José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, who is hosting the Madrid meeting and as such co-chairs the summit meeting of the EU heads of government with Mr. Van Rompuy.

Messrs. Van Rompuy, Barroso and Zapatero all want to be the first to shake Mr. Obama’s hand and receive the deep bow which the American President is in the habit of making to foreign leaders. Because of the embarrassing intra-European squabble about who should have the honor, Obama has declined the invitation until the Europeans have figured out which of them is the most important.

Obama’s decision has come as an unexpected blow to the European leadership. It has upset them so much that they are considering postponing the summit to the autumn. Meanwhile, they have begun quarreling about who is to blame for the present debacle. The Europeans generally agree that the vainglorious Zapatero is mostly to blame, but others are damaged more. “The Spanish have made a mess of the summit but Van Rompuy and the post-Lisbon EU institutions will carry the can in the long term. The squabbling has damaged the EU in the eyes of the most powerful nation in the world,” a senior EU official said.

Although Obama’s snub hurts Europe’s pride, the euro’s monetary problems are far more serious. They not only affect Europe’s finances and economy, but may also tear down the political EU framework. When the European Commission placed Athens under EU supervision last week, Greece was almost bankrupt. Brussels has forced the Greek government to present a plan to drastically reduce its budget deficit from 13% to 3% by the end of 2012. The plan will cost the Greeks blood, sweat and tears. It includes a freeze on civil service wages and the postponement of retirement. Brussels has invoked new EU powers under Article 121 of the Lisbon Treaty, which allow it to reshape the structure of Greece’s pensions, healthcare, labor market and private commerce.

“The envisaged correction of the deficit is feasible but subject to risks,” says EU Commission President Barroso – an understatement. The Commission fears a backlash from the Greek unions, who might organize strikes and bring down the Greek government. Trade unions in other countries are nervous, too. They warn that it is unacceptable that the European Commission intervenes in setting national wages.

The EU’s Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia declared that the Greek targets will be enforced strongly and that, if necessary, even more draconian measures will be taken. “Every time we see or perceive slippages, we will ask for additional measures to correct these slippages. Never before have we established so detailed and tough a system of surveillance,” Almunia said. He has demanded quarterly updates on progress towards reduction targets, as well as a first report on 16 March. “This is the first time,” he said, “we have established such an intense and quasi-permanent system of monitoring.”

Much is at stake. In the coming weeks, the strength of the euro will depend on whether the markets believe that the government in Athens is strong enough to implement the reforms or trust that the other eurozone countries will bail out the Greeks. This year the eurozone governments have already borrowed a record €110bn from the markets, thereby forcing up the cost of borrowing for countries with the weakest public finances, such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy....

Read the rest here at the Brussels Journal.

Something Rotten in ... Sweden

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:10:00 GMT

Ilmar Reepalu is the Mayor of Malmo, Sweden, but he could well serve as the Mouthpiece of Eurabia, having crystallized its essence in a recent interview about rocketing Antisemitism in his city. Malmo (pop. 250,000), a confortable train ride across the Oresund strait from Copenhagen, is Sweden's third-largest city, a Leftist-jihadist territory where like-minded Leftist "antifa" Swedes and Muslim immigrants, the 21st-century's alliance of Brown Shirts and Black Shirts, effectively arm "civilized" Socialist rule with the under-flowing threat and as-necessary implementation of violence.

You may recall the March 2009 Davis Cup match between Sweden and Israel that was played in Malmo sans spectators after the City Council voted five to four to hold the match in an empty stadium. As the Jerusalem Post noted at the time, this made "winners" of the "Stop the Match" campaign "which prevailed on the council's Socialist-Left majority to quarantine Israelis and Jews behind an apartheid police cordon to protest israel's action in the recent Gaza war."

Six thousand Palestinian partisans marched on the stadium in a protest that, naturally, turned violent, resulting in 100 arrests.

Malmo, whose population is more than 25 percent Muslim immigrant, is also infamous for recurring violence in Rosengard, a mainly Muslim housing project I have had the opportunity at least to view. I drove by on a rainy and very quiet afternoon with friends from the anti-Islamization party Sweden Democrats, but on riot nights, fire department and ambulances can't go in without police escort. (Here is an excellent report on Malmo by CBN.)

Now, some of Malmo's tiny Jewish population, estimated at no more than 700 people, are leaving this Islamized city, where the 79 crimes against Jews reported to police in 2009 were double the number reported in 2008.

What about it, Mr. Mayor? In Reepalu's January interview, as Tundra Tabloids puts it (and translates), the mayor "blames the collective Jew, Israel, for recent attacks against Jews in Malmö, `due to the conflict in Gaza last year [spilling] over to Malmo.' "

TT continues: "But Reepalu goes further to elucidate his true views on Israel, which basically follows the thinking in the Islamic world, that Jews are not allowed a national movement of their own...."

From the interview:

Skanskan.se: "Have you considered to say in public that Malmo does not accept anti-Semitism. Or is that controversial?

Reepalu: We don't accept Zionism or Antisemitism. They are [both] extremists that want to set themselves over other other groups and believe [other] groups are worth less.

This is indeed the Islamic world view, which, as Bat Ye'or has long and patiently explained to mainly deaf ears, has been adopted by powerful sectors of the European elite who made common cause with Yasir Arafat to delegitimize the very existence of Israel. In a recent speech in Israel (video here, text here), Bat Ye'or discussed the resurgence of Antisemitism in Europe and again placed it in the key framework of "Eurabia":

This new Judeophobia is not aimed at individual Jews, [not] at the populations that since the Shoah have become marginal and insignificant on demographic and political levels.

It is [rather] expressed through an implacable and disdainful hate for the state of Israel, for what [Israel] represents and stands for, and [it is also expressed] by the glorification of Palestinianism, which is an ideology for the elimination of Jews as in former days of Nazis. ... In other words, one does not express institutional racism, one celebrates Palestinianism and its jihadist ideology. ...

Or, as Mayor Reepalu puts it on the flip side, one denounces both Antisemitism and Zionism, as though Jews living in a Jewish state is similarly a manifestation of irrational hatred and therefore deserving of eradication. Of course and as usual, such thinly veiled and ultimately genocidal attitudes are not just a problem for Jews. Bat Ye'or explains:

[Europe's] anti-Israel strategy initiated in the 1970's will not change. It will continue. It is too late to change. It will continue to its conclusion: the destruction of Europe.

For there, finally, is the paradox and the pitfall: this new Judeophobia is, in fact, inseparable from Europe's long-term policy of fusion with the Arab world, which includes the mass immigration from Muslim countries, with demographic, sociological, political and religious changes that come with it.

In other words, make a deal with the devil, end up in hell.

Such changes are not the result of chance, but [rather] a planned and intended strategy, whose unfolding can be followed in the texts of the numerous Euro/Arab conferences.

I have called this transformation of Europe: Eurabia.

Eurabia is not Europe. It is its enemy. It does not represent the majority of Europeans nor all its politicians.

It is the Ilmar Reepalus that represent Eurabia, Europe's enemy -- and our own.

Avallone: "Flirting with Afghanistan" 2

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:16:00 GMT

Here is Part 2 of "Flirting with Afghanistan," text, photos and captions by Paul Avallone.

(Part 1 is here.)

By 2008, the Taliban had finely honed their roadside bomb-making, -employing and -initiating skills to the point where, as here, a bomb totally demolished the uparmored humvee, immediately killing the four GIs and one Afghan interpreter. September 2008.

Oh, for a return to those halcyon days of the first couple of years of the war, when there was no thought at all about the possibility of losing or the Taliban ever managing a comeback. Then again, we were just a lone Green Beret team in a big province, and with our hundred-plus militia of Afghan fighters culled from the best of the local warlords' armies (for a price to the warlords, of course, from an unlimited CIA stash of cold cash), we had complete control. As operators on the ground, our concern was not our Washington, D.C., leaders' big-geopolitical strategic picture that should have been taking into account the possibility of a very wounded Taliban recovering then resurging then swarming back in one day. Did they take that into account? It sure doesn't look like it.

Back in 2003, the sum total in the country, all American military personnel—Army infantry, Green Berets, Air Force, Delta, Seals—numbered less than ten thousand. Had someone said that within a few years the Taliban would outnumber our 2003 forces by more than two to one at twenty-five thousand, we would have laughed it off, not imagining it even remotely possible. Then again, all we had to go by was the little picture of Nangarhar.

It was mid-2006 when the honky-dory here turned dicey. Contrary to popular media opinion then, the Bush Administration had not really neglected Afghanistan, unless you consider neglect to be a doubling of the under-ten-thousand-strong 2003 force to twenty thousand by 2006. At the same time, the NATO mission, called the International Security Assistance Force (or, ISAF, pronounced "I-saf"), had doubled its 2004 numbers to twenty thousand. It was then in 2006 the Bush Administration's intent to turn the entire conventional part of the war over to NATO/ISAF, with a U.S. pullout to begin in the autumn.

The start of 2006 had the U.S. turning control to ISAF of Regional Commands North and West, the two non-Pashtun, relatively untroubled areas. In the spring it turned control of the more hostile, Pashtun RC South to ISAF, with the Dutch taking responsibility of Uruzgan province, the Canadians taking Kandahar province and the British taking neighboring Helmand. To understand the prevailing attitude about Afghanistan at the time, it should be noted that it was just prior to the British deployment that then Defense Minister John Reid told the press, "We are in the south to help the Afghan people construct their own democracy. I would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing a shot, because our job is to protect the reconstruction." Man, if a guy ever had to eat his words…

By summer, shots had been fired and were being fired. So much so that the Canadian Parliament came one vote shy of pulling out of its ISAF commitment. As for the British press, they were having a field day. As for John Reid, he'd last less than a year longer, and his "without firing a shot" comment still brings out the mockery in the British press.

As for the Taliban and their surprising summer offensive, in hindsight it was probably their single biggest strategic blunder. They should have waited a year and allowed the Brits and Canadians and ISAF to get comfortable and complacent throughout the summer, because in September the U.S. was to turn RC East over to ISAF, thereby giving the entire mission command to NATO and beginning its own withdrawal, with plans to leave only air assets and special forces, about 8,000 troops. Had the Taliban waited, by spring 2007 they could have launched a massive offensive against what would have been then an entirely-NATO commanded mission, and that fragile, sickly coalition would have either collapsed under the political strain of so many casualties and deaths or begged the U.S. to come back in and help. And Bush could have put blame for the failure squarely on NATO and either demanded that NATO pony up the forces to take care of it on its own or shamed NATO into an eternal gratitude by deploying massive American forces to pull ISAF's ass out of the wringer.

As it was, technically the U.S. did turn command of RC East over to ISAF in the fall of 2006, but it was a tacit, in-name-only changeover. American troops did not leave; their numbers only increased. The two-star American generals who have commanded RC East since then may have technically fallen under the ISAF commanding general, but if that general has not been an American, you can take it to the bank that for the American two-star, with his own career staked on his decisions and performance, RC East is his to command, no one else's.

Today, the summer of 2008, the U.S. has over 35,000 troops in the country, and NATO about twenty thousand. Now-retired John Reid took a lot of hits, and still does, for his assessment back in 2006, but he was not completely wrong for the time. Then the war was a holding action, with an American and ISAF strategy to provide a layer of security, financial assistance and infrastructure building to a brand new Afghan government until the Afghan security forces were built up and could take over. A holding action, no longer an all-out war, and without the consideration of the volume of the Taliban rebuilding in Pakistan nor a realistic consideration of how inadequate the Afghan security forces would be once trained up and deployed into action. Nothing was going to happen overnight, everyone knew that, and there was time, plenty of time, as there wasn't really much of an insurgency then, or so it seemed, and again, perhaps most importantly, no one seemed to take special concern about what was happening right across the border in Pakistan.

By now we know that there will be no return to those halcyon early years, and there are some who might steal a thought from the American Civil War scholar Shelby Foote, who said that in years past every Southern schoolboy would daydream that Pickett had disobeyed General Lee at Gettysburg and had never made that fatal charge, which sealed the Confederates' fate. Today it might be a daydream, but had the Taliban only held off their offensive for a year, America would have been more or less gone and the blame for this ever-worsening fiasco would be at NATO's feet. Yeah, free of Afghanistan, no wacky uncle in the attic…boy, is that a dream.

No rational American would argue with the initial justification for the sacrifice in life and treasure—in blood and dollars—in Afghanistan as the Taliban government then harboring al-Qaeda was given the opportunity to hand over our self-described enemies and refused. The American invasion that followed was light, quick and nearly painless, with the routed Taliban and al-Qaeda not killed or captured managing to flee to the safety of Pakistan. Which, a couple of centuries ago might have been the end of the story. In that earlier, less enlightened time, a superpower such as America would have then declared the land a colony and subjugated the people. Or, as in this instance in Afghanistan, wise commanders and civil servants on the ground would have appraised the situation and then informed the leaders back home that there was nothing of the land worth colonizing and even less of the people worth the effort to attempt to subjugate.

One should wish for those less enlightened times, for this 21st century moral standard of vanquishing now requires that the victor humble himself to the vanquished, while molding the population into a freedom-loving, equality-based, uncorrupted democratic republic Garden of Eden, with a strong standing army, double-laned paved highways, countless schools and medical clinics, 24-hour electricity and, heck, why not just throw in a Coca-Cola factory or two. In Afghanistan it was all part of that holding action. Just give it time. "Golly gee willikers, Maude, it worked in Germany and Japan." There's a TV playing here, with the tic toc, tic toc, bing, go the Jeopardy timer and bell, and, "The answer is," corrects Alex Trebek, "What Is, Rebuilding."

Rebuilding. Re. R-E. As were the cases with both Germany and Japan post-World War Two. They both had been literate 20th century economies before the war, with physical and educational foundations and structures upon which to re. There is no re in Afghanistan. There was no 20th century economy, nor were there any physical and educational foundations upon which to build a modern state before even the Russian invasion of 1979 began the 25 years of war, never mind before 9-11. Sure, the Western victors here in their enlightened paternalism have established provisional reconstruction teams (PRTs), but it's all construction, from scratch, without the re. Be honest and call them PCTs. High-degreed State Department careerists might scream in rebuttal, "You're wrong, dead wrong! Kabul in the 1960's was the Paris of Central Asia!" First, that's an insult to Paris; second, Kabul's slight renaissance then was due largely to the Cold War competition between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., who were both throwing money and projects around in an attempt to win influence in a mostly influenceless land. Then, what the Cold Warriors built, left intact by the departing Russians in the late 1980's, was destroyed by the competing mujahedeen warlords—guys like the Tajik Massoud and Uzbek Dostum—who preferred no one having anything if it could not be themselves having everything.

So, again, where is the R-E in Afghanistan? I look at the letters, I look at the alphabet, I look in the dictionary for a misspelling, then I remember a fellow soldier during that "shit suit" era once remarking, "You know, if it wasn't for the internal combustion engine, these people would be back in the seventh century." Worse, they did not invent the engine, they did not improve the engine, and they don't even manufacture the things. I am neither an anthropologist nor historian, but for the life of me I cannot figure out one thing, not one tangible thing, that the Afghan people have created, discovered, invented or brought to the world. Which in itself is not crime. A person, a society, a country, should be free to achieve or not achieve, progress or not progress, have electricity or not have electricity. They should be free to relax away a morning, an afternoon and an entire evening just hanging out with the guys drinking chai. No negative judgment assessed against them. No forced achievement thrust upon them. "This land is your land, This land is my land," is good enough for Americans, why can't we allow it to be good enough for, hmmmm, let's see…tic toc, tic toc, bing! "The answer is: Who are Afghans."

Yes, it is their land, this Afghanistan, and that the Afghans would choose to make so very little of a land that holds less than minimal mineral wealth, just slightly more arable agricultural potential, and thin, almost nude forests only at the higher altitudes should be their choice, not ours. Not NATO's. What is it our business to re, or without the re simply c? Which begs the question, Why are we any longer in Afghanistan? We threw out the Taliban, we set up a federal government and have given it the building blocks to form its own security forces, so why are we still here? Just because the Taliban once allowed the terrorist al-Qaeda its hospitality, the Taliban themselves were not terrorists, and I would argue, they still aren't. Afghanistan was their country, and they want it back, which in my book, agree or disagree with their platform or philosophy, is a pretty damn legitimate reason for an insurgency. But, if the Taliban are allowed back they will establish "Terrorist training camps, and we can't allow the terrorists to have them in Afghanistan" is the slogan pitched as if it were written in stone. And that is a half-truth that, used as the single overriding justification for our expenditure of blood and dollars here, is a vile deception, because the ones hocking the enterprise on such blatantly illogical reasoning have to know the falsehood in their argument and must go to sleep every night smirking, gloating that they have been allowed to get away with their disingenuous spin unchallenged for so long.

The terrorist training camps are no longer in Afghanistan. They are in Pakistan.

There is no disputing those two sentences; everybody knows they are true. Whatever backdoor strategic political maneuvering and diplomatic shell games being played between Washington, D.C., and Islamabad to deal with the truth—headline: The Terrorist Training Camps are in Pakistan—are obviously not working, because the camps are still there and the Taliban, al-Qaeda, etc., keep recruiting, growing and waltzing from those camps right across the border into Afghanistan, waging an ever increasingly successful insurgency.

Strategically, politically and diplomatically it's a mess. The U.S. fears invading our "ally" Pakistan, which could well lead to an Islamic jihadist overthrow of that iffy government, and then what would we have—a nuke bomb-armed jihadist state? At the same time, Pakistan enjoys the idea of having an unstable neighbor that the Taliban create crossing over and fighting in Afghanistan. The Afghans, there is no debating this, hate the Pakistanis and dream of a day when they have retaken for themselves their Pashtun lands made a century ago part of Pakistan when the British arbitrarily drew the border. Now, if you're Pakistani, and you've got a neighbor right next door who hates you and wants to snatch away half your country, wouldn't you want to keep that neighbor unstable and weak? Did I mention?—it's a mess.

If it is terrorists we're after and their training camps we want to eliminate, since we can do neither, and are doing neither, in Pakistan itself, might not it be more practical to pull out of Afghanistan completely—lock, stock and barrel, with the caveat that, Hey, Afghanis, it's your place to do with as you like, but if we see terrorist training camps from our super-duper spy satellites, we're going to cruise-missile and B-2 bomber them to smithereens—and let the terrorists stream in and set up shop, and kabloom kablowie, there they go, lots of dead terrorists! Something we can't do right now in Pakistan.

As it stands today, with a combined NATO/U.S. force of over 50,000 here in Afghanistan, the terrorists are free and secure to establish and build up training camps—heck, why not whole jihadist armies?—in Pakistan. And everybody knows it. So, is it ignorance or vile deception that has our American leaders continue to justify our own 35,000-plus in Afghanistan as a frontline against the re-establishment (there now, re is put to an accurate use) of terrorist training camps here? I'm a nobody from nowheresville, with no college diploma, no State Department experience—I was enlisted, not even an officer, in the Army, for Pete's sake—and I've never read de Tocqueville, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Aristotle or Will & Ariel Durant, and I would stake my above-average IQ (as measured by military entry tests, not real IQ ones) on the fact that those leaders are a lot smarter than me (or, than I am), so, if even I can see the truth, it cannot be ignorance that has our leaders firm in their justification, and thus it must be vile deception.

What would make that deception all the worse would be that the leaders' training camp justification/slogan is just a way of avoiding a referendum by the American public on the real reasons for our continued presence here, which, as I've heard argued, is a Risk board game-like strategy of having a foothold, bases, a hegemony in Central Asia. That of a great power extending itself, requiring strongpoints from which to logistically and tactically maintain its sphere of influence. Perhaps, simply, having the United States Army, Air Force and Marines on Iran's eastern front. If that big-picture strategy is, and our leaders are not arguing it to be, the real reason for our blood and treasure being squandered here, it is a disrespect that our leaders are showing us that we are not smart or wise enough to understand or accept it as valid reason, or it is an acknowledgement that, post the Gulf of Tonkin, post the dominoes of Vietnam, post the WMDs of Iraq, we are smart enough to understand it completely to be tragically flawed reasoning, and they don’t trust us not to reject it. And reject them.

Leaders, politicians, don't easily accept rejection, so we are beginning to hear another justification for being here—that Afghanistan is a battle "on a frontline of the War on Terror." Ehhhhhhh goes the buzzer, and "Wrong answer," says Alex. Terror is a concept, and wars are not fought against concepts. What, how? Does one throw into battle the concept of happy-go-lucky against terror? In World War Two it wasn't Nazism that was fought, it was the Nazis. You can't beat Nazism in a physical war without going after and wiping out the Nazis. Terror is no different, but if one argues that America must remain in Afghanistan because it is "a frontline on the War on Terrorists," that then raises the question that no one really wants to answer: Who are the terrorists? Tic toc, tic toc, bing! Silence, dead air. Why, wouldn't you know it, Jeopardy's gone to a commercial break.

While Alex is out, how about this, here's a cheery thought: A terrorist is grandma Mabel Dot McCoy from Sparta, Wisconsin, on her way to Denver to visit the kids and grandkids for Thanksgiving….being strip-searched at the airport security checkpoint.

Less cheery is to admit that all the terrorists that seem to have their crosshairs on the Western democracies and cultures just happen to be Muslims. Hmmmmmm, you don't say? You do, and you'd have to conclude the barely mentionable—We're fighting Muslim terrorists? Yikes, back up! We can't bring religion into it—separation of church and state, all religions are created equal—we start defining the terrorists for their own declared Islamic jihadist holy war on us—they are terrorists, real people, declaring and fighting that war, not mere concepts, terror or terrorism—why, that's racism, or religionism, or some kind of –ism of the unfairly judgmental sort. And in modern Western culture to be judgmental is judged to be the worst, the most sinful, the most immoral culturally Neanderthal of personal characteristics.

Dutch Fun: "Spoofing" Assassination

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:01:00 GMT

Behold the smug mug of Willem Stegeman, who has made a Dutch state-subsidized film "spoofing" an assassination attempt on Geert Wilders.

"Spoofing."

Of course, the grotesquerie of Stegeman and his "spoof" are not the main story in a backward -- no, twisted -- report from Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) that leads with the response ("furious") of Party for Freedom (PVV) members over "Radio FunX's" assassination-attempt entertainment. Almost as breath-taking is the nasty photo of Wilders with which RNW, supposedly a news organization, illustrates the story.

Currently embroiled in open-ended Kafka-esque legal jeopardy, Wilders has lived under permanent threat of death since that November day in 2004 when Theo van Gogh was assassinated in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street, his head nearly cut off and an Islamic manifesto pinned with a knife into his chest threatening Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali with a similar fate.

What better subject for state-subsidized parody?

From the story, which includes a trailer of the stomach-turning video:

Radio FunX director Willem Stegeman said that the full satirical video will be released next week. "It is an unmistakeable parody. I cannot give away the plot, but I can reveal that it will be a total anti-climax. We are exploring how far we can go, and some may find it in bad taste. But the same can be said of statements by some people in the political spectrum.

Get it, get it? "Spoofing" Wilders' death is "bad taste" just as "some people" (Wilders) discussing the Islamic institutions of jihad and dhimmitude in this crucial period of Western Islamization is in "bad taste." Watch out, mijnheer Stegeman. Your IQ is showing.

We are putting an ironic slant on the whole thing, striking a blow against all the ponderousness surrounding Mr Wilders."

I think by "ponderousness" he means the two-ton bullet-proof vest Geert must wear anytime he appears in public, and the security detail his life now depends on.

Mr Stegeman emphasised that the film makers are not after demonising the nationalist right-wing anti-Islam MP. "But the film's author is definitely drawing a connection with Pim Fortuyn," the popular outcast politician who was assassinated in 2002 following a plea for stricter immigration rules.

Not demonizing Wilders, oh no -- but "definitely" connecting Wilders to the demonized Fortuyn?

Words fail.

----

Related update from NIS:

Bloody Wilders Dummy Accepted as Art

THE HAGUE, 05/02/10 - The student who is being prosecuted for putting up a dummy of MP Geert Wilders has received a favourable assessment ...

Should Fox News Register as a Saudi Agent?

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:19:00 GMT

A couple of week's ago, I blogged about Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's charm-blitz through NY, juxtaposing Fox News' Neil Cavuto's sweetheart interview with "the prince" and Charlie Rose's far more revealing conversation -- essentially, it's (everything's) all Israel's fault, and "my" 1.5 billion Muslims are all like the underpants' bomber's father.

I kept thinking about Alwaleed -- his stake in News Corp., his stakes in Georgetown and Harvard -- and realized that as a leading scion of the so-called House of Saud (q: how many countries are named for their rulers?), a totalitarian theocracy whose foundational documents -- the Koran, the Sunnah, the Hadiths -- place it in direct ideological conflict with the US Constitution, he operates not just as a billionaire businessman, but also, inevitably, by virtue of who he is, as an agent of Saudi influence.

News Corp. wants to do business with him? Fine. But shouldn't News Corp.'s Fox News thus be required to register with the State Department as a foreign agent of Saudi Arabia? That's the question posed by this week's syndicated column:

Should Fox News register with the State Department as a foreign agent -- an agent of Saudi Arabia?

First off, is that a farfetched question? Not when a leading member of the ruling family of the sharia-totalitarian "kingdom" of Saudi Arabia, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has made himself the second-largest shareholder of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., Fox News' parent company.

Just as Steven Emerson believes that American universities using Saudi mega-millions (many from Alwaleed) to set up Islamic studies departments should register as Saudi agents, I believe an American news channel part-owned and part-influenced by the Saudi prince should, too.

Alwaleed's long march through U.S. institutions is a mainly post-9/11 progression greased by his purchase of about a 5.5 percent stake in News Corp. in 2005, and his purchases, I mean, gifts, of $20 million apiece to Georgetown and Harvard Universities, also in 2005.

There have been other eye-catching displays of Alwaleed's largesse -- $500,000 in 2002 to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Hamas- and Muslim-Brotherhood-linked entity, and a whopping $27 million, also in 2002, to the families of Palestinian "martyrs," aka suicide bombers. These, along with Alwaleed's self-described "very close relationship" with Murdoch son and apparent heir-apparent James, a left-wing global-warmist with virulently anti-Israel views, should only deepen Americans' concerns about Fox's ties to "the prince." Recently, Murdoch and Alwaleed have discussed expanding their business relationship through the Murdoch purchase of a substantial stake in Rotana, Alwaleed's huge Arab media company.

Before entering his Murdoch association, Alwaleed gave a remarkably candid interview in 2002 about what Arab News described as his belief that "Arabs should focus more on penetrating U.S. public opinion as a means to influencing decision-making" rather than boycotting U.S. products, an idea of the moment.

The Arab News reported: "Arab countries can influence U.S. decision-making 'if they unite through economic interests, not political,' (Alwaleed) stressed. 'We have to be logical and understand that the U.S. administration is subject to U.S. public opinion. We (Arabs) are not so active in this sphere (public opinion). And to bring the decision-maker on your side, you not only have to be active inside the U.S. Congress or the administration but also inside U.S. society.'"

And active inside U.S. society living rooms -- even better. Alwaleed would seem to have hit on a Fox strategy some time after Rudy Giuliani refused to accept, on behalf of a 9/11-shattered New York City, his $10 million check-cum-lecture that essentially justified the al-Qaida attacks as having been a response to U.S. foreign policy.

This was "such an egregious, outrageous, unfair offense that I would have nothing to do with his money either," Sean Hannity said at the time on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," his remarks (and those of other Fox personalities) recently re-examined by the left-wing group Media Matters. "This is a bad guy," Hannity said. "Rudy was right to decline the money." Bill Sammon called Alwaleed's check "blood money," adding, "we're better off without it."

How terribly ironic that this same "bad guy" is now a News Corp. blood-money bags, a boss who must be handled with care as, for example, Fox host Neil Cavuto did in a deferential interview with Alwaleed last month.

How does this influence Fox News coverage? It's impossible to say. Alwaleed has bragged that it only took a phone call to ensure that Fox coverage of Muslim rioting in France not be described as "Muslim" rioting in France, a boast News Corp. has never denied. This week, security analyst Joseph Trento, in light of recent negotiations between Alwaleed and Murdoch, mused online whether his own recent interview on "Fox & Friends" didn't appear in Fox's online video cache because he had told host Steve Ducey that "Saudi Arabian money was still financing al-Qaida." The doubt itself is damaging.

Meanwhile, spokesmen for terrorism-linked and Alwaleed-endowed CAIR still appear on Fox shows, for example, while Dave Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, likely Fox guests as conservative authors of the sleeper-hit book "Muslim Mafia" (an expose of CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood), get zero airtime. The more important question becomes: How does Alwaleed's stake in News Corp. affect what Fox News doesn't cover?

If they don't report, we can't decide. This, for a sharia prince, could be worth millions.

How Do You Say "Kangaroo Court" in Dutch?

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:13:00 GMT

Behold (courtesy Tundra Tabloids) the very image of Dutch "justice." After today's "judicial" proceedings in Amsterdam, Holland itself is forever besmirched, its "judges" having made it clear that no semblance of fairness will enter into their proceeeding against Geert Wilders. As noted below, the "judges" slashed the roster of witnesses the Wilders defense team planned to call to the stand from eighteen to three.

John L. Work writes at Newsreal:

Even if you have never been involved in a criminal prosecution wherein your very freedom is at risk, I want you to now imagine that you and your attorney have prepared a defense that includes a list of witnesses that will provide a mountain of exculpatory evidence. Then, imagine that the Court summarily and arbitrarily decides that it will not listen to nearly ninety percent of your case.

“This court is apparently not interested in the truth." Wilders told De Telegraaph (translations from Gates of Vienna). "I cannot conclude anything but that the court does not award me a fair trial.”

“I have no respect for this,” Wilders added. He pointed out that in a typical criminal case there are often dozens of witnesses heard.

But this is not a typical trial. This is a rigged game, a fixed fight, a show trial that is premised not on Dutch law but on Islamic law. Indeed, the trial of Geert Wilders is a test case for sharia in the Netherlands, the grafting onto a free Western country the repressive cage of Islamic rule.

Discussing Muslim progress against "Islamophobia" at the 35th meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Kampala, Uganda in 2008, Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu
made the following statement:

In confronting the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film “Fitna”, we sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed. As we speak, the official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.

One reading doesn't convey the chilling import of these words.

As Stephen Coughlin has pointed out to me, "we," in the definition at the OIC website, are, of course, "the collective voice of the Islamic world" -- the "ummah" as represented by the heads of state and foreign ministers of the 57 Islamic nations of the OIC. In other words, as Coughlin puts it, "real state actors" using "real state power" to further real state objectives.

The objective of the ummah? Always and eternally, the greater and wider and deeper imposition of Islamic law. The ummah indeed sent its message to the West regarding "red lines that should not be crossed" -- namely, the Danish cartoons and Wilders' film "Fitna." Official protests, statements, riots, boycotts, murders, death threats, assassination attempts -- a clear Islamic message, all right. And:

As we speak, the official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues.

Yes, and to the craven point where "the official West and its public opinion" are paralyzed and silenced by these same "sensitivities."

They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.

When the OIC speaks about "freedom of expression," it means freedom of expression as governed by the laws of Islam -- sharia. When the OIC says we in the West have "started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility," it means we in the West have started to regard expression from the perspective of sharia -- from the perspective of the totalitarian Islamic system.

Trying Geert Wilders, a once-valiant Holland is leading the way, forsaking the freedoms of the West for the objectives of the ummah.

Wilders Trial Update

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:48:00 GMT

Photoshopped image by Baron Bodissey

---

This just in:

The second day of the Geert Wilders trial in Amsterdam ended after a short session in which the court ruled that it was competent to try the case (a real cliffhanger-not). The court-ruled "competent" court then pared down the list of 18 witnesses whom Wilders had wished to call in his defense to only three people: the Dutch Arabists Jansen and Admiraal, plus Syrian-born, all-American-heroine Wafa Sultan, author of the must-read A God Who Hates.

For extensive and unique translations of Dutch- (and other-) langauge coverage of this barely reported on but urgently significant court case, see Gates of Vienna. Geert Wilders has launched an English-language website to track trial events at Wilders on Trial.

If anyone is puzzled as to why there is so little MSM coverage of this trial that is in the shameful and historic tradition of the trial of Galileo, the reason is unspoken, possibly unconscious media cowardice and embarassment: cowardice driven by the chilling effect of the experience of Kurt Westergaard and other critics of Islam under permanent death threat; and embarassment driven by intense discomfort with frank discussion of the gross incompatibility of basic Islamic beliefs with Western society.

In other words, this code of silence is the code of dhimmitude.

Air Force Magazine: "Holding Fire Over Afghanistan"

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:42:00 GMT

There is something surreal about today's featured story, an Air Force Magazine rah-rah treatement of Gen. McChrystal's ball-and-chain rules of engagement and the crackpot-zen vogue for what is known as "counterinsurgency" warfare. It is called "Holding Fire Over Afghanistan" -- which already sounds like a spoof -- and it begins with a subhead:

"Airmen adapt to the McChrystal directive."

Now, before going any further, here is a link to the McChrystal directive, the portions of which that were released to the public. (I shudder to think what the unreleased portions say.) Every American should read it and, as blood pressure levels suggest, call his representatives in Washington and demand that the good general be recalled for questioning about the role of his ROE in the battlefield deaths, for example, at Dahaneh on August 14, 2009, at Ganjgal on September 8, 2009, and on the general state of ROE-paraylsis in Helmand Province, as demonstrated in this recent report, blogged here under the headline: "US Marine: The Rules of Engagement Are Preventing Me From Doing My Job."

Back to Air Force Magazine:

SAF fighters, their lethal munitions hanging underwing, streaked down a mile of concrete and lifted off, engines glowing against the distant Hindu Kush mountains. They were en route to a battle zone where a group of US troops was pinned down under heavy enemy fire, in need of help.

These were F-16s and F-15Es, and this was Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. There, in perhaps the most complex war US forces ever have fought, one comes face to face with a sharp change in counterinsurgency airpower.

How sharp? Stand in the old Soviet-built tower at Bagram with Brig. Gen. Steven L. Kwast, commander of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing --

Oh no, not BG Kwast again ...

-- and hear him assert, “If we are near civilians and engaged with the enemy, and we can disengage, we should disengage. ... Counterinsurgency is not about killing the enemy. It’s about protecting the people.”

But not our people.

Winning the war, he went on, comes down to a simple matter of trust. “The moment the Afghan people trust us, we will win overnight,” said Kwast.

The same, exact thing he said six months ago!

How, he is asked, do you build trust through airpower?

“By making sure you are only using airpower responsibly, that you are only using airpower when there is no other way to protect civilians,” Kwast said.

No other way to protect civilians: That's the ultimate test question for the approved use of air power in this war, as pronounced by this Air Force commander in Afghanistan. Dare anyone ask, What about protecting American soldiers as they prosecute a war? Back to Kwast:

“We have to protect the people, so that every time they hear an airplane they know, ‘It’s there to protect me.’ ”

Hey Brigadier-- I hear there's an opening for script writer on "Mr Roger's Neighborhood..."

Dumb jokes aside, this is a deadly message the Air Force general is sending to the enemy, our men and their families and loved ones. American soldiers are expendable in this see-no-Islam Grand Plan to make "the people" of Afghanistan like us. It's not just that a popularity contest is a cracked concept of achieving victory. Fact is, if they don't ALREADY like us more than the Taliban, they aint gonna change their minds now, which doesn't have anything to do with them taking our stuff and asking for more.

After playing a dazzlingly successful role in ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001, airpower in Afghanistan has become—fairly or unfairly—associated with the problem that has had a bigger effect than anything else in undercutting that trust: civilian casualties. Civilians have been killed in operations by insurgents and coalition forces alike, of course. However, air strikes have gotten most of the bad press. US military authorities last summer issued a tactical directive tightening the rules on the use of air attacks.

The effect [of the McChrystal directive] on fighter crew members has been dramatic. It is, in fact, a fundamental shift in strategy for a fighter guy, said Col. James J. Beissner, an F-15E pilot and vice commander of the 455th.

Beissner went on, “It used to be, the ground commander requested a bomb, and a bomb he got.” Now, the ground commander requests a bomb, and the joint terminal attack controller, the aircrew, and the ground commander all talk about it, said Beissner. “ ‘Do we really need to go kinetic, or is there a better approach?’ ”

Responsibility now falls on fighter pilots and other aircrew members to work with ground forces to find, if possible, a solution other than releasing ordnance on a target.

“It’s very effective and it’s changed the way we fight—for the better,” said Beissner.

Um, how long have we been in Afghanistan?

Examples of the changed atmosphere abound.

I can hardly bear to look:

Capt. Roberto Flammia was flying his F-16 over eastern Afghanistan one night when he spied several men wearing backpacks and running along a mountain streambed toward a US position. Flammia discussed the targets with a nearby JTAC, who asked him to strafe the men with his 20 mm cannon.

“I said, No, there’s no reason to,” Flammia recalled. “We’re not gonna blow up guys who just look suspicious.”

On another nighttime mission, Beissner was cued by a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle to three men racing away from a US position. The ground commander requested a bomb, but Beissner judged the targets to be too close to civilian houses.

“The real question was, who were these guys?” said Beissner. “Do we really know?”

Heavy. Sounds as if it's time to ... drink lots of tea, eat lots of goat, really get to know these people.

Hurried conversations between aircrew, ground commander, and the JTAC didn’t bring a clear answer to those questions, so no ordnance was dropped.

“We decided it’s just not worth alienating the population,” Beissner said.

The problem of casualties and perception has been around quite a while now.

In July 2002, scores of Afghans were killed or injured when ordnance fired from an AC-130 struck a wedding party in Oruzgan province southwest of Kabul. The US command said the aircraft was responding to ground fire; the Afghan government claimed the shots were from wedding guests who, as is the custom, were firing guns into the air in celebration. The aircrew was cleared of wrongdoing, but 48 Afghans died.

From that time on, nearly every air strike has brought loud claims from the Taliban that the US is killing innocents.

Never mind that the Taliban itself has been responsible for most civilian deaths, as documented in a series of studies by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

During the first half of 2009, for example, UNAMA reported 1,013 civilian Afghan casualties, 24 percent higher than the same period in 2008. The Taliban and related insurgents caused 59 percent of the casualties, while pro-government forces (US, coalition, and Afghan security forces) were responsible for 30.5 percent.

The imbalance is unmistakable: During the six-month period, UNAMA recorded 40 air strikes, which killed 200 civilians, while 400 civilians were killed by Taliban improvised explosive devices or suicide bomb attacks.

As casualties mounted in early 2009, however, it was errant coalition air strikes that aroused international condemnation—and a stiff reaction in Washington. “I believe that the civilian casualties are doing us an enormous harm in Afghanistan, and we have got to do better,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said.

This is ALL a game, and the US is being played. What has emerged is a pattern by which the US is whipped and pilloried and ensnared into a perpetually defensive crouch from which it offers billions of dollars in tribute, thousands of young men in sacrifice, and endless public works projects and the like to the far-flung corners of the Islamic world ... only no one seems to realize it. Or else, sickening thought, they want to play along.

It was no surprise when Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who replaced Gen. David D. McKiernan as the top commander in Afghanistan last year, moved quickly to sharply limit the use of air strikes.

“This is different from conventional combat,” McChrystal wrote in a July 2 directive. “We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories—but suffering strategic defeats—by causing civilian casualties ... and thus alienating the people. ... [The] loss of popular support will be decisive to either side in this struggle.”

"THUS" alienating the people? The people are already alienated, General, because the people are alien. Or, rather, we, as putative infidels, are alien. Why is this so hard?

Air strikes would be authorized only under “very limited and prescribed conditions,” McChrystal wrote.

Ever since, US airmen, soldiers, sailors, and marines have been adjusting to the new strictures.

Adjusting.

The stakes grow exponentially when American troops are taking a pummeling from the enemy and need help immediately. With additional troops pouring into Afghanistan and the Taliban and other insurgent groups broadening the fight, reports of “troops in contact” (TIC) incidents are growing—peaking at 670 for the month of August 2009, up from 485 the previous August.

The stress on aircrews and ground forces goes up exponentially as well. When a guy on the ground says he needs a bomb now, “to say, ‘Well, hold on a second,’ that’s frustrating,” said Beissner.

There is no question that TIC situations generate the greatest number of errant bombings. In a major report in fall 2008, the organization Human Rights Watch said:

“In our investigation, we found that civilian casualties rarely occur during planned air strikes on suspected Taliban targets. ... High civilian loss of life during air strikes has almost always occurred during the fluid, rapid-response strikes, often carried out in support of ground troops after they came under insurgent attack. Such unplanned strikes included situations where US special forces units—normally small numbers of lightly armed personnel—came under insurgent attack; in US-NATO attacks in pursuit of insurgent forces that had retreated to populated villages; and in air attacks where US ‘anticipatory self-defense’ rules of engagement applied.”

Changing tactics, techniques, and procedures has not been easy for crews trained to put maximum firepower on target.

Lt. Col. Timothy Gosnell, an F-16 pilot, is the commander of the 421st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron from Hill AFB, Utah, which arrived in Afghanistan last July. Gosnell recounted a typical event: A young man comes up on the radio net. “You hear firing in the background, and he says, ‘Good evening, Viper One,’ and a few minutes later, you can hear the fear in his voice. He’s really scared.”

For the pilot, said Gosnell, it becomes a matter of being able to interpret everything on the targeting pod and asking, “Can I really do something here?” Gosnell said, “We are put in the position of being, really, the voice of reason. That falls on us.”

US ground troops have embraced a number of procedures designed to minimize civilian casualties. To deal with the threat of a speeding car headed for a checkpoint, soldiers use a series of steps, each one an escalation of hostility. Soldiers might, in succession, make hand signals, flash lights, fire a rifle shot into the air, shoot out the car’s tires, and shoot the driver.
Similarly, airmen use such “escalation of force” tactics to try to resolve a situation on the ground without using direct and lethal force. This builds on an inherent American advantage—most insurgents do not want to engage in direct combat with US forces, preferring to strike and quickly withdraw. And insurgents have come to respect American airpower.

When called for help where troops are in contact with the enemy, for example, an F-15E or F-16 pilot will descend to 5,000 feet and rip across the combat zone “just to let them know we’re here,” said one pilot. Often, that is enough to convince insurgents to break off contact and disappear. If not, a pilot may dive to 500 feet in a simulated attack—usually enough to drive off insurgents.

Such “shows of force” make up about 10 percent of the roughly 70 close air support sorties that airmen fly every day in the Afghan battlespace.

Often, the enemy fighters will attempt to regroup. If they have moved well away from civilians and friendly forces, pilots will attack with real munitions.

“The intent is to reduce collateral damage—not to minimize effects on the enemy,” said Col. Keith McBride, deputy director of the combined air and space operations center (CAOC) in Southwest Asia.

It might seem that, after repeated nonlethal shows of force, Afghan insurgents would conclude that there is nothing to fear other than ear-splitting noise when American aircraft appear overhead. Not so, said McBride.

“It’s like the theory of deterrence,” he said. “If there is no real threat, then there is no real deterrence. And we are still bombing.”

And you will keep on bombing till Kingdom come.

Surging China

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:55:00 GMT

More evidence of massive "surge" backfire -- if, in fact, US strategic interests were the guiding concern. What was that rousing slogan: Making the world safe for sharia ... Iran ... AND China?

From the AP:

Iraq says China has agreed to write off 80 percent of its Saddam Hussein-era debt.

A statement posted on the Iraqi Finance Ministry Web site on Tuesday put Iraq's debt to China at $8.5 billion.

The statement says the promise followed a meeting between China's ambassador to Iraq and Iraq's Finance Minister Bayan Jabr.

Gee, do you think they talked about us?

It says the write-off "will enhance economic cooperation between the two friendly countries."

How friendly.

The deal could further push Chinese business interests in Iraq. The China National Petroleum Corp. has secured two lucrative oil deals that reflects China's drive to seek new energy sources for its growing economy.

Onto Afghanistan.

US Marine: "The Rules of Engagement Prevent Me From Doing My Job"

rbuscher@haleymiranda.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:57:00 GMT

Someday, civilian and military leaders responsible for these rules of engagement, this policy of sacrificing American troops to make the barbarians of Afghanistan "like us" should come before at the very least a Congressional hearing, but at this point an out-for-blood people's tribunal seems more appropriate. What they are doing to our military, our treasury, our power and our prestige is an unconscionable national betrayal.

The following news story describes the toll these rules, this policy is taking on our bravest young men -- amoebas in a petri dish to the mad, see-no-Islam social engineers masquerading as American statesmen and generals.

From the Telegraph:

On a base near Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, Marines are grieving the deaths of a sergeant and corporal killed by the remote-controlled bombs that have become the scourge of the long-running conflict.

Commanders try to keep the men's rage in check, aware that winning over an Afghan public wary of the foreign military presence and furious about civilian casualties is as important as battlefield success.

"It causes a lot of frustration. My men want revenge - that is only natural," says First Lieutenant Aaron MacLean, 2nd Platoon commander of the 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment Charlie company.

This is what happens when you send in the Marines but your policy is Pure Peace Corps.

"But I keep telling them that the rules are the rules for a reason. If we simply go crazy and start shooting at everything, in the long run we will lose this war because we will lose the support of the population."

Earth to 1st Looey: You don't have the support of the population, and you aren't going to "win" it. You will serve it, "protect" it, coddle it, bribe it and sacrifice the blood of your men to appease this population -- a no-win, perpetual work in progress that more closely resembles dhimmi servitude than military action.

He too is frustrated, accusing the Taliban of manipulating the rules of engagement by using women and children as shields and shooting from hidden positions before dropping their weapons and standing out in the open.

"They know we can't shoot them if they don't carry guns or without positive identification. They are fighting us at another level now," MacLean said.

MacLean recently led his unit on a routine foot patrol near Marjah, which is expected to be the scene of a major offensive this month.

What the Marines encountered was a likely precursor of the battle to come.

They were met by fierce gunfire from Taliban gunmen who pinned them down for three hours at the expense of two of their men.

One corporal stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED). Military intelligence officials say that it is possible that 90 per cent of foreign soldiers' lives are currently being lost in this way.

The corporal's legs were blown off and he was thrown metres into the air.

The whole of Afghanistan (and you can throw in Iraq) aren't worth those two legs. Certainly not this ...

A second IED killed a sergeant who rushed to the corporal's aid as bullets flew everywhere, MacLean said.

Three others were wounded in the clash, making it one of the bloodiest days for US Marines since President Barack Obama's announcement in December of a fresh troop surge in the war to eradicate the Taliban.

The death toll of foreign soldiers fighting in Afghanistan under US and Nato command reached 44 in January - the most in a month since the war began more than eight years ago.In January 2009 the figure was 25.

The number of Americans who died last month in the conflict now in its ninth year was almost double the number for January last year, at 29 compared with 15, according to the icasualties.org website, which keeps a running tally.

The US and Nato currently deploy 113,000 troops in Afghanistan, with another 40,000 due this year as part of a renewed strategy that emphasises development and the "reconciliation" of Taliban fighters.

Most of the incoming troops will be deployed in Helmand, which along with neighbouring Kandahar province has been the hub of the insurgency since the Taliban regime was removed from power in late 2001.

MacLean's unit contains some of the first Marinesto be sent into Helmand since the surge was announced.

On the day of the ambush, Marines hunkered down in tents inside the camp as information about the encounter came in.

Some had tears in their eyes as the names of casualties were made known. Others held tightly to their weapons and yelled at their enemy on the horizon.

"We were attacked treacherously. We came under fire from everywhere, but the rules of engagement prevent me from doing my job," said Lance Corporal Mark Duzick, who was in the unit that was ambushed.

The rules of engagement prevent him from doing his job -- under attack in the midst of an ambush that lasted several hours in which two men were grievously wounded and killed. The people behind this order, this whole heinous policy should be summoned to testify in Congress today.

Outside a tent housing the Marines' unit responsible for firing mortars stands an improvised cross bearing the inscription: "Here lies the 81st, death by stand down."

Last year was the worst yet for foreign troops fighting in Afghanistan, with 520 soldiers dead, up from 295 in 2008. More troops will mean more casualties, military experts say.

For the Afghans too 2009 was the deadliest, with the UN putting civilian deaths at 2,412 for the year, compared to 2,118 in 2008.

While most are caused by the Taliban, the insurgents exploit civilian casualties to spread distrust among the public for foreign and Afghan troops.

Bogus, bogus, bogus. To quote the unlamented GWB: You're either with us, or you're against us. Period.

As the nature of the fight has changed, with the Taliban increasingly using suicide attacks and IEDs, there had been no traditional winter hiatus and General Zahir Azimi, a defence ministry spokesman, said that spring is likely to be ferocious.

"We will have the most intense clashes come the spring, and will shed the most blood this year," he said.