On the Ground in Iraq

On the Ground in Iraq
FrontPageMagazine.com November 15, 2005

[The following letter is written by a retired U.S. military officer]

Hello to all my fellow gunners, military buffs, veterans and interested guys. A couple of weekends ago I got to spend time with my son Jordan, who was on his first leave since returning from Iraq. He is well (a little thin), and already bored. He will be returning to Iraq for a second tour in early 06 and has already re-enlisted early for 4 more years. He loves the Marine Corps and is actually looking forward to returning to Iraq.
Jordan spent 7 months at Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi. Aka: Fort Apache. He saw and did a lot and the following is what he told me about weapons, equipment, tactics and other miscellaneous info which may be of interest to you. Nothing is by any means classified. No politics here, just a Marine with a birds eye views opinions:
1) The M-16 rifle: Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there. The sand is everywhere. Jordan says you feel filthy 2 minutes after coming out of the shower. The M-4 carbine version is more popular because its lighter and shorter, but it has jamming problems also. They like the ability to mount the various optical gunsights and weapons lights on the picattiny rails, but the weapon itself is not great in a desert environment. They all hate the 5.56mm (.223) round. Poor penetration on the cinderblock structure common over there and even torso hits can't be reliably counted on to put the enemy down. Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead insurgents shows a high level of opiate use.
2) The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon): .223 cal. Drum fed light machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of shit. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial disassembly. (that's fun in the middle of a firefight).
3) The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun, performs well in desert environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight.
4) Mossberg 12ga. Military shotgun: Works well, used frequently for clearing houses to good effect.
5) The M240 Machine Gun: 7.62 Nato (.308) cal. belt fed machine gun, developed to replace the old M-60 (what a beautiful weapon that was!!). Thumbs up. Accurate, reliable, and the 7.62 round puts em down. Originally developed as a vehicle mounted weapon, more and more are being dismounted and taken into the field by infantry. The 7.62 round chews up the structure over there.
6) The M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun: Thumbs way, way up. Ma deuce is still worth her considerable weight in gold. The ultimate fight stopper, puts their dicks in the dirt every time. The most coveted weapon in-theater.
7) The .45 pistol: Thumbs up. Still the best pistol round out there. Everybody authorized to carry a sidearm is trying to get their hands on one. With few exceptions, can reliably be expected to put em down with a torso hit. The special ops guys (who are doing most of the pistol work) use the HK military model and supposedly love it. The old government model .45s are being re-issued en masse.
8) The M-14: Thumbs up. They are being re-issued in bulk, mostly in a modified version to special ops guys. Modifications include lightweight Kevlar stocks and low power red dot or ACOG sights. Very reliable in the sandy environment, and they love the 7.62 round.
9) The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular range and accuracy and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to take out vehicle suicide bombers ( we actually stop a lot of them) and barricaded enemy. Definitely here to stay.
10) The M24 sniper rifle: Thumbs up. Mostly in .308 but some in 300 win mag. Heavily modified Remington 700s. Great performance. Snipers have been used heavily to great effect. Rumor has it that a marine sniper on his third tour in Anbar province has actually exceeded Carlos Hathcocks record for confirmed kills with OVER 100.
11) The new body armor: Thumbs up. Relatively light at approx. 6 lbs. and can reliably be expected to soak up small shrapnel and even will stop an AK-47 round. The bad news: Hot as shit to wear, almost unbearable in the summer heat (which averages over 120 degrees). Also, the enemy now goes for head shots whenever possible. All the bullshit about the old body armor making our guys vulnerable to the IEDs was a non-starter. The IED explosions are enormous and body armor doesn't make any difference at all in most cases.
12) Night Vision and Infrared Equipment: Thumbs way up. Spectacular performance. Our guys see in the dark and own the night, period. Very little enemy action after evening prayers. More and more enemy being whacked at night during movement by our hunter-killer teams. We've all seen the videos.
13) Lights: Thumbs up. Most of the weapon mounted and personal lights are Surefires, and the troops love em. Invaluable for night urban operations.

Jordan carried a $34 Surefire G2 on a neck lanyard and loved it.
I can't help but notice that most of the good fighting weapons and ordnance are 50 or more years old! With all our technology, its the WWII and Vietnam era weapons that everybody wants! The infantry fighting is frequent, up close and brutal. No quarter is given or shown.
Bad guy weapons:
1) Mostly AK47s . The entire country is an arsenal. Works better in the desert than the M16 and the .308 Russian round kills reliably. PKM belt fed light machine guns are also common and effective. Luckily, the enemy mostly shoots like shit. Undisciplined spray and pray type fire. However, they are seeing more and more precision weapons, especially sniper rifles. (Iran, again) Fun fact: Captured enemy have apparently marveled at the marksmanship of our guys and how hard they fight. They are apparently told in Jihad school that the Americans rely solely on technology, and can be easily beaten in close quarters combat for their lack of toughness. Let's just say they know better now.
2) The RPG: Probably the infantry weapon most feared by our guys. Simple, reliable and as common as dogshit. The enemy responded to our up-armored humvees by aiming at the windshields, often at point blank range. Still killing a lot of our guys.
3) The IED: The biggest killer of all. Can be anything from old Soviet anti-armor mines to jury rigged artillery shells. A lot found in Jordan's area were in abandoned cars. The enemy would take 2 or 3 155mm artillery shells and wire them together. Most were detonated by cell phone, and the explosions are enormous. You're not safe in any vehicle, even an M1 tank. Driving is by far the most dangerous thing our guys do over there. Lately, they are much more sophisticated shape charges (Iranian) specifically designed to penetrate armor. Fact: Most of the ready made IEDs are supplied by Iran, who is also providing terrorists (Hezbollah types) to train the insurgents in their use and tactics. That's why the attacks have been so deadly lately. Their concealment methods are ingenious, the latest being shape charges in Styrofoam containers spray painted to look like the cinderblocks that litter all Iraqi roads. We find about 40% before they detonate, and the bomb disposal guys are unsung heroes of this war.
4) Mortars and rockets: Very prevalent. The soviet era 122mm rockets (with an 18km range) are becoming more prevalent. One of Jordan's NCOs lost a leg to one. These weapons cause a lot of damage inside the wire. Jordan's base was hit almost daily his entire time there by mortar and rocket fire, often at night to disrupt sleep patterns and cause fatigue (It did). More of a psychological weapon than anything else. The enemy mortar teams would jump out of vehicles, fire a few rounds, and then haul ass in a matter of seconds.
5) Bad guy technology: Simple yet effective. Most communication is by cell and satellite phones, and also by email on laptops. They use handheld GPS units for navigation and Google earth for overhead views of our positions. Their weapons are good, if not fancy, and prevalent. Their explosives and bomb technology is TOP OF THE LINE. Night vision is rare. They are very careless with their equipment and the captured GPS units and laptops are treasure troves of Intel when captured.
Who are the bad guys?:
Most of the carnage is caused by the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group. They operate mostly in Anbar province (Fallujah and Ramadi). These are mostly foreigners, non-Iraqi Sunni Arab Jihadists from all over the Muslim world (and Europe). Most enter Iraq through Syria (with, of course, the knowledge and complicity of the Syrian govt.) , and then travel down the line which is the trail of towns along the Euphrates River that we've been hitting hard for the last few months. Some are virtually untrained young Jihadists that often end up as suicide bombers or in sacrifice squads. Most, however, are hard core terrorists from all the usual suspects (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas etc.) These are the guys running around murdering civilians en masse and cutting heads off. The Chechens (many of whom are Caucasian), are supposedly the most ruthless and the best fighters. (they have been fighting the Russians for years). In the Baghdad area and south, most of the insurgents are Iranian inspired (and led) Iraqi Shiites. The Iranian Shiia have been very adept at infiltrating the Iraqi local govt., the police forces and the Army. The have had a massive spy and agitator network there since the Iran-Iraq war in the early 80s. Most of the Saddam loyalists were killed, captured or gave up long ago.
Bad Guy Tactics:
When they are engaged on an infantry level they get their asses kicked every time. Brave, but stupid. Suicidal Banzai-type charges were very common earlier in the war and still occur. They will literally sacrifice 8-10 man teams in suicide squads by sending them screaming and firing AKs and RPGs directly at our bases just to probe the defenses. They get mowed down like grass every time. ( see the M2 and M240 above). Jordan's base was hit like this often. When engaged, they have a tendency to flee to the same building, probably for what they think will be a glorious last stand. Instead, we call in air and that's the end of that more often than not. These hole-ups are referred to as Alpha Whiskey Romeos (Allahs Waiting Room). We have the laser guided ground-air thing down to a science. The fast movers, mostly Marine F-18s, are taking an ever increasing toll on the enemy. When caught out in the open, the helicopter gunships and AC-130 Spectre gunships cut them to ribbons with cannon and rocket fire, especially at night. Interestingly, artillery is hardly used at all. Fun fact: The enemy death toll is supposedly between 45-50 thousand. That is why were seeing less and less infantry attacks and more IED, suicide bomber shit. The new strategy is simple: attrition.
The insurgent tactic most frustrating is their use of civilian non-combatants as cover. They know we do all we can to avoid civilian casualties and therefore schools, hospitals and (especially) Mosques are locations where they meet, stage for attacks, cache weapons and ammo and flee to when engaged. They have absolutely no regard whatsoever for civilian casualties. They will terrorize locals and murder without hesitation anyone believed to be sympathetic to the Americans or the new Iraqi govt. Kidnapping of family members (especially children) is common to influence people they are trying to influence but can't reach, such as local govt. officials, clerics, tribal leaders, etc.).
The first thing our guys are told is don't get captured. They know that if captured they will be tortured and beheaded on the internet. Zarqawi openly offers bounties for anyone who brings him a live American serviceman. This motivates the criminal element who otherwise don't give a shit about the war. A lot of the beheading victims were actually kidnapped by common criminals and sold to Zarqawi. As such, for our guys, every fight is to the death. Surrender is not an option.
The Iraqis are a mixed bag. Some fight well, others aren't worth a shit. Most do okay with American support. Finding leaders is hard, but they are getting better. It is widely viewed that Zarqawis use of suicide bombers, en masse, against the civilian population was a serious tactical mistake. Many Iraqis were galvanized and the caliber of recruits in the Army and the police forces went up, along with their motivation. It also led to an exponential increase in good intel because the Iraqis are sick of the insurgent attacks against civilians. The Kurds are solidly pro-American and fearless fighters.
According to Jordan, morale among our guys is very high. They not only believe they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted. They are inflicting casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see shit like "Are we losing in Iraq?" on TV and the print media. For the most part, they are satisfied with their equipment, food and leadership. Bottom line though, and they all say this, there are not enough guys there to drive the final stake through the heart of the insurgency, primarily because there aren't enough troops in-theater to shut down the borders with Iran and Syria. The Iranians and the Syrians just can't stand the thought of Iraq being an American ally (with, of course, permanent US bases there).
Anyway guys, thats it, hope you found it interesting, I sure did

Where Are the Pentagon Papers?

The administration refuses to defend itself.
by Stephen F. Hayes


"Working outside formal Pentagon lines of inquiry, I soon learned more. Many of the documents from Doha had been entered into a database known as HARMONY. HARMONY is a thick stew of reports and findings from a variety of intelligence agencies and military units, and alongside the Iraqi documents were reports from contributing U.S. agencies. Eventually, I got a list of document titles that seemed particularly interesting:

1. Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) Correspondence to Iraq Embassy in the Philippines and Iraq MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
2. Possible al Qaeda Terror Members in Iraq
3. IIS report on Taliban-Iraq Connections Claims
4. Money Transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan
5. IIS Agent in Bulgaria
6. Iraqi Intel report on Kurdish Activities: Mention of Kurdish Report on al Qaeda--reference to al Qaeda presence in Salman Pak
7. IIS report about the relationship between IIS and the Kurdish Group Jalal Talibani [sic]
8. Iraqi Mukhabarat Structure
9. Locations of Weapons/Ammunition Storage (with map)
10. Iraqi Effort to Cooperate with Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals
11. Order from Saddam to present $25,000 to Palestinian Suicide Bombers Families
12. IIS reports from Embassy in Paris: Plan to Influence French Stance on U.N. Security Council
13. IIS Importing and Hiding High Tech Computers in Violation of UN
14. IIS request to move persons, documents to private residences
15. Formulas and information about Iraq's Chemical Weapons Agents
16. Denial and Deception of WMD and Killing of POWs
17. 1987 orders by Hussein to use chemical weapons in the Ealisan Basin
18. Ricin research and improvement
19. Personnel file of Saad Mohammad Abd Hammadi al Deliemi
20. Memo from the Arab Liaison Committee: With a list of personnel in need of official documents
21. Fedayeen Saddam Responds to IIS regarding rumors of citizens aiding Afghanistan
22. Document from Uday Hussein regarding Taliban activity
23. Improvised Explosive Devices Plan
24. IIS reports on How French Campaigns are Financed
25. French and German relationships with Iraq
26. IIS reports about Russian Companies--News articles and potential IIS agents
27. IIS plan for 2000 of Europe's Influence of Iraq Strategy
28. IIS plans to infiltrate countries and collect information to help remove sanctions
29. Correspondence from IIS and the stations in Europe
30. Contract for satellite pictures between Russia, France and Iraq: Pictures of Neighboring Countries (Dec. 2002)
31. Chemical Gear for Fedayeen Saddam
32. Memo from the IIS to Hide Information from a U.N. Inspection team (1997)
33. Chemical Agent Purchase Orders (Dec. 2001)
34. Iraq Ministry of Defense Calls for Investigation into why documents related to WMD were found by UN inspection team
35. Correspondence between various Iraq organizations giving instructions to hide chemicals and equipment
36. Correspondence from IIS to MIC regarding information gathered by foreign intelligence satellites on WMD (Dec. 2002)
37. Correspondence from IIS to Iraqi Embassy in Malaysia
38. Cleaning chemical suits and how to hide chemicals
39. IIS plan of what to do during UNSCOM inspections (1996)
40. Secret Meeting with Taliban Group Member and Iraqi Government (Nov. 2000)

There are thousands of similar documents. Most of them are unclassified. That's important: Most of them are unclassified.

WMDs in Iraq

[excerpts from an interview]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20154

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Tierney, a former military intelligence officer and Arabic speaker who worked at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and as a counter-infiltration operator in Baghdad in 2004. He was also an inspector (1996-1998) for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) for overseeing the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles in Iraq. He worked on the most intrusive inspections during this period and either participated in or planned inspections that led to four of the seventeen resolutions against Iraq.

  ... A car tried to blow through an UNSCOM vehicle checkpoint at the gate.  The car had a stack of documents about two feet high in the back seat.  In the middle of the stack, I found a document with a Revolutionary Command Council letterhead that discussed Atomic projects with four number designations that were previously unknown.  The Iraqis were extremely concerned. I turned the document over to the chief inspector, who then fell for the Iraqis’ “reasonable request” to lay it out on a table for later discussion.  The Iraqis later flooded the room, and the document disappeared.  Score one for the Iraqis.

...we learned at another site that the unit responsible for guarding the biological weapons was stationed near the airport.  We immediately dashed over there before the Iraqis could react, and forced them to lock us out.  One of our vehicles took an elevated position where they could look inside the installation and see the Iraqis loading specialized containers on to trucks that matched the source description for the biological weapons containers. 

Another smoking gun was the inspection of Jabal Makhul Presidential Site.  In June/July 1997 we inspected the 4th Special Republican Guards Battalion in Bayji, north of Tikrit.  This unit had been photographed taking equipment for the Electro-magnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS) method of uranium enrichment away from inspectors.  The Iraqis were extremely nervous as this site, and hid any information on personnel who may have been involved with moving the equipment.  This was also the site where the Iraqi official on the UNSCOM helicopter tried to grab the control and almost made the aircraft crash. 

…..There was no question that Iraq had triggering mechanisms for a nuke, the question was whether they had enriched enough uranium.  Given Iraq’s intensive efforts to build a nuke prior to the Gulf War, their efforts to hide uranium enrichment material from inspectors, the fact that Israel had a nuke but no Arab state could claim the same, my first-hand knowledge of the limits of UNSCOM and IAEA capabilities, and Iraqi efforts to buy yellowcake uranium abroad (Joe Wilson tea parties notwithstanding), I believe the TWELVE years between 1991 and 2003 was more than enough time to produce sufficient weapons grade uranium to produce a nuclear weapon.  Maybe I have more respect for the Iraqis’ capabilities than some.

...While I was engaged in these operations in Baghdad in 2004, one of the local translators freely stated in his security interview that he worked for the purchasing department of the nuclear weapons program prior to and during the First Gulf War.  He said that Saddam purchased such large quantities of precision machining equipment that he could give up some to inspections, or lose some to bombing, and still have enough for his weapons program. 

 
...There was the missile inspection on Ma’moun Establishment.  I was teamed with two computer forensic specialists.  A local technician stood by while we opened a computer and found a flight simulation for a missile taking off from the Iraqi desert in the same area used during the First Gulf War and flying west towards Israel.  The warhead was only for 50 kilograms.  By the time we understood was this was, the poor technician was coming apart.  I will never forget meeting his eyes, and both of us realizing he was a dead man walking.  The Iraqis tried to say that the computer had just been transferred from another facility, and that the flight simulation had not been erased from before the war. The document’s placement in the file manager, and the technician’s reaction belied this story. UNSCOM’s original assessment was that this was for a biological warhead, but I have since seen reporting that make me think it was for a nuclear weapon.

 
….While working counter-infiltration in Baghdad, I noticed a pattern among infiltrators that their cover stories would start around Summer or Fall of 2002.  From this and other observations, I believe Saddam planned for a U.S. invasion after President Bush’s speech at West Point in 2002.   One of the steps taken was to prepare the younger generation of the security services with English so they could infiltrate our ranks, another was either to destroy or move WMDs to other countries, principally Syria.  Starting in the Summer of 2002, the Iraqis had months to purge their files and create cover stories, such as the letter from Hossam Amin, head of the Iraqi outfit that monitored the weapons inspectors, stating after Hussein Kamal’s defection that the weapons were all destroyed in 1991. 

 I was on the inspections that follow-up on Hussein Kamal’s defection, and Hossam said at the time that Hussein Kamal had a secret cabal that kept the weapons without the knowledge of the Iraqi government.  It was pure pleasure disemboweling this cover story.  Yet the consensus at DIA is that Iraq got rid of its weapons in 1991.  This is truly scary.  If true, when and where did Saddam have a change of heart? This is the same man who crowed after 9/11, then went silent after news broke that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence operative in Prague. Did Saddam spend a month with Mother Theresa, or go to a mountain top in the Himalaya’s? Those that say there were no weapons have to prove that Saddam had a change of heart.  I await their evidence with interest.

 
 

       

Chirac cites 'malaise' in riot outbreak

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20051115-123453-1774r.htm

[Chirac continues to respond to this as a American University President would- the stench of weakness - I predict- will only serve to continue the riots.  He honestly believes that it will win him any respect.  I was wrong to laugh at all the French jokes over the years, they ACTUALLY ARE like that.] 

Chirac cites 'malaise' in riot outbreak 
[Where have I heard that word- "malaise" before?....hmmmm….Churchill?........Reagan?........Kennedy?.....I am sure it come to me]

PARIS -- President Jacques Chirac said yesterday that more than two weeks of violence in the poor suburbs of France is the sign of a "profound malaise" and ordered measures to reach out to the angry rioters.

Mr. Chirac, speaking with French and European Union flags behind him, said discrimination should be eliminated.
[eliminate discrimination?  Is he bucking for an Ivy League post?]

    But he appeared to rule out U.S.-style affirmative-action programs amid a debate over whether France's strict adherence to the principle of equality has caused it to fail in acknowledging and addressing racial tensions. "There is no question of entering into the logic of quotas," the French leader said.

    He said he has decided to set up a corps of volunteers to offer training for 50,000 young persons by 2007. He said the French press, which is nearly all white and of European extraction, must "better reflect the reality of France today."

    He told companies and unions that they must encourage diversity and support employment for the young from tough neighborhoods, saying it was important to fight "this poison for society which is discrimination."

   

French Stage Sit-In to Protest Violence

French Stage Sit-In to Protest Violence

So how are the French citizens responding to the threat? Well……..

"..angry residents of riot- torn suburbs staged a sit-in Friday near the Eiffel Tower"

"..Some of the 200 demonstrators- a small turnout in protest-friendly France, waved white flags. " [hmmm….are those standard issued?]

"There is a need to respond strongly and rapidly to the undeniable problems faced by many residents of underprivileged neighborhoods around our cities," Chirac said. "Whatever our origins, we are all the children of the Republic, and we can all expect the same rights." [Why does Chirac's quote remind you of every Democratic Congress-person you have ever heard?]

[This whole thing in France reminds me of how it would be treated on an American Univserity campus- you have the hand wringing President, the limp-wristed liberals calling for "peace" and "understanding", you have the police on trial for giving one of the rioters a few lumps. Chirac would be right at home in Iowa City]

The unrest has weakened in intensity across the rest of France -- and fewer cars burned _ 463, down from 482 the previous night,

[When the only way you can descirbe something as "weakend" is when burned cars drop from 482 to 463, you know there is a problem. Not to be outdone, Paris is setting the pace]

In suburban Paris, however, the number of car burnings increased to 111, from 84 the night before.

[but don't worry- the French are not going to put up with it (by "it" I mean giving a few lumps to one of these idiots)

Police on Thursday suspended eight officers, two of them who allegedly beat a man who was detained, causing "superficial lesions" on the forehead and the right foot, the Interior Ministry said. Three of the officers were released Friday; the five others were expected to appear before a judge before being placed under investigation _ a step short of formal charges, said prosecutors on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

So to recap:

Trending Upward:

Parisan Burned Cars
Yellow Streaks on spines
Prosecutions of public defense officials

Trending Downward:

Non-Parisan Burned Cars
French Self-Importance
Supply of White Flags

Five questions non-Muslims would like answered

Five questions non-Muslims would like answered

By Dennis Prager
November 13, 2005

THE RIOTING IN France by primarily Muslim youths and the hotel bombings in Jordan are the latest events to prompt sincere questions that law-abiding Muslims need to answer for Islam's sake, as well as for the sake of worried non-Muslims.

Here are five of them:

(1) Why are you so quiet?

Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week's protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.

There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country's moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?

(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?

If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.

(3) Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?

According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world's 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world's "not free" states. And of the 10 "worst of the worst," seven are Islamic states. Why is this?

(4) Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?

Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim murderers. Last year, Muslims — in the name of Islam — murdered hundreds of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them. Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in "honor killings." And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called for the extermination of Israel.

(5) Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?

No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world because they were Buddhist. Sudan's Islamic regime has murdered great numbers of Christians.

Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a "Christian terrorist." As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world.

As a member of the media for nearly 25 years, I have a long record of reaching out to Muslims. Muslim leaders have invited me to speak at major mosques. In addition, I have studied Arabic and Islam, have visited most Arab and many other Muslim countries and conducted interfaith dialogues with Muslims in the United Arab Emirates as well as in the U.S. Politically, I have supported creation of a Palestinian state and supported (mistakenly, I now believe) the Oslo accords.

Hundreds of millions of non-Muslims want honest answers to these questions, even if the only answer you offer is, "Yes, we have real problems in Islam." Such an acknowledgment is infinitely better — for you and for the world — than dismissing us as anti-Muslim.

We await your response.

Saudi jailed for discussing the Bible

Saudi jailed for discussing the Bible

[One of the best things we have done after 9/11 was to pull all our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Placating them and bowing to their wishes never bought the U.S. anything but dead Military personnel (See Khobar Towers) and a betrayal of our principles. The kingdom's days are numbered, it's all a matter of when and how it will happen.]

Key Passages:

• A court sentenced a teacher to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes for "mocking religion" after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday.
• ....The commission took the country to task for "offensive and discriminatory language" disparaging Jews, Christians and non-Wahhabi Muslims found in government-sponsored school textbooks, in Friday sermons preached in prominent mosques, and in state-controlled Saudi newspapers.
• For example, in 2003, Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah reacted to the killing of six Westerners by terrorists in Yemen by saying he thought Zionism was behind them.
• In Saudi Arabia, the public practice of any religion other than Islam is illegal; only Muslims can be Saudi citizens; one of the Saudi king's titles is "custodian of the two holy mosques"; proselytizing for any religion other than Sunni Islam is barred; and Mecca, Islam's holy city, is forbidden to all non-Muslims.
• For years, Saudi Arabia also imposed restrictions, or persuaded the U.S. government to impose restrictions, on American troops defending the country during and after then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's 1990-91 occupation of Kuwait.
• For example, U.S. postal and customs officials have barred mailing materials "contrary to the Islamic faith," including Bibles. The U.S. military also has required female service members to wear a long, black robe called an abaya when traveling off base in Saudi Arabia. Both regulations were rescinded or clarified after public outcry based on reporting in the U.S. media.

Zarqawi’s Big Mistake

Zarqawi’s Big Mistake

[At some point I would expect that Zarqawi's murdering of fellow Muslims in Iraq and Jordan he push it so far where the population will not provide protection or shelter. Hopefully that tipping point has come.]

Key Passages:

• You know that a terrorist attack has backfired when the bad guys start blaming it on us. Rumors are spreading on the insurgent websites and chatrooms that last week's hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, were part of a CIA plot, a Mossad intrigue, or a take-your-pick conspiracy. Since al Qaeda has already admitted the attack was theirs, this line will have a hard time playing, but it shows that at some level the terrorist sympathizers know that this was a bad move.
• Attacks like this are not only criminal, they are foolhardy. They rarely benefit the terrorists, and often harm their cause. Recent history makes the case. The 9/11 attacks unified and motivated our country to unleash incalculable harm on al Qaeda. The 2002 Bali bombing had the principle strategic effect of making the Australians their implacable foes. The 2005 London bombings rallied British public opinion against the continuing threat. The 3/11 bombings in Madrid may have helped influence the Spanish elections to bring in a government with a less cooperative Iraq policy, but in other areas of the War on Terrorism Spanish policies have if anything gotten tougher. In Jordan
• In Jordan, a researcher found that since the bombing, nine of ten people he surveyed who had previously held a favorable view of al Qaeda had changed their minds. This is no way to run a revolution.
  It will be interesting in coming days to see if Zarqawi keeps trying to explain the Jordan bombings, and how al Qaeda's limitless appetite for violence will affect public opinion in the Muslim world. People who think this attack is evidence of al Qaeda's strength or momentum have it backwards. This is a sign of weakness, of rashness, of desperation. It has hurt their legitimacy and damage their movement. As the old saying goes: In politics if you are explaining, you are losing, and Zarqawi has a lot more explaining to do.
• In the May 2003 Casablanca bombings (which Zarqawi was allegedly involved in as well), one of the cell leaders chose at the last minute not to detonate his bomb and collect a trip to paradise. Instead, he was arrested and helped bring down what was left of the organization in Morocco.
• Members of Hamas, frustrated at their organization's drift away from violence, are already starting to defect to the more motivated al Qaeda. This is a development well worth watching

Remain calm, all is well....

The map of the the sporadic "unrest" in France. The only question is will the "Youth" top the Wehrmacht in forcing a surrender of France.

"..if I can rid it of some of this evil by taking down as many of these bastards as possible then I think that God will forgive me."

Generations of Valor-Fathers and sons at war.
By Anne Morse

"By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!" exulted President George H. W. Bush after America's swift and smashing victory over Iraq during the Gulf War of 1991. It was a reference to how deeply the debacle that was Vietnam — then some 16 years in the past — had scarred the American psyche.

Vietnam had, by all accounts, also scarred the veterans who served in it. Everyone "knew" that Vietnam veterans were drug-addicted, alcohol-addled losers who killed babies when they weren't burning down villages with Zippo lighters. Back home, they begged for change on the streets when they weren't beating up their wives and kids.

That's what journalists and politicians told us, anyway. What apparently escaped their notice, when they were celebrating the routing of Saddam and the liberation of Kuwait, was that many of the soldiers who brilliantly executed these victories were . . . Vietnam veterans.

Tens of thousands of veterans stayed in the military once the Vietnam War ended, moved up the ranks and, by the time Desert Storm came along, they were serving as senior officers. Among them were Norman Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell, Barry McCaffrey, and Tommy Franks — men who had learned well the lessons of Vietnam: 1. Get the American people behind you; 2. Smash the enemy before he has a chance to finish breakfast.

Which is what our soldiers did, with very few Coalition casualties. Nice work for a bunch of losers, huh?

When I recently stumbled across the fact that Vietnam veterans had fought and won the Gulf War, I wondered if they were also fighting the war on Islamofascism. For answers (albeit completely unscientific), I sent questions to the editors of blog sites popular with soldiers on active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their families (including Blackfive). The editors were kind enough to post my questions. Within hours, e-mails began pouring in from around the world, from teenagers to retirees, from corporals to colonels. It quickly became apparent that Vietnam veterans are not fighting this war: Their sons are.

The Pentagon doesn't ask new recruits if their fathers served in Vietnam, so there is no official tally. But my informal poll reveals that — despite the contempt expressed by so many Americans towards their fathers' service and sacrifice, many of the sons of Vietnam veterans have eagerly stepped up to fight the war on terror. The fathers and sons who contacted me permitted me to quote from their e-mails, which reveal their views of both wars, how they were treated when they came home, and what they thought about media portrayals of each war. Most of all, the letters reveal the deep admiration Vietnam fathers have for their soldier sons — and the degree to which Vietnam veterans inspired their offspring to serve.

Charles Howard, 38, joined the National Guard when he was a 17-year-old high-school student in 1983, and has served as a regular Army infantry officer for 16 years. He arrived in Iraq in September of 2004, and fought in Fallujah, Mosul, and Baghdad. Howard's father was a Naval aviator who remained in the Navy for a time after his Vietnam tour. Despite the way the soldiers of his father's generation were treated, Howard had no qualms about a military career, but he did have misgivings about how he would be treated when he came home from Iraq. "I watched the protests on C-SPAN before I left, and read about the others later," he wrote. When Howard did return home, to Dallas Airport, "There were lines of volunteers clapping and cheering us as we came in for mid-tour leave. Ordinary citizens, all ages, all races, many with no apparent connection to the military, thanking us for our service, handing us goody bags, and offering cell phones for us to use to call home. I have a sneaking suspicion that Dad's generation had a part of ensuring that we would get a better reception than they did."

Regarding his father's Vietnam service, Howard wrote: "I'm proud he was a part of it. The strategic reason for Vietnam was (to steal from Reagan) a noble cause. Our troops were there to bring freedom and prevent the usual excesses of Communism, which we saw, after America abandoned our Vietnamese allies, in the killing fields of Cambodia, and the re-education camps of Vietnam."

John Lucas volunteered for military service in 1962, later attended West Point, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1969. In Vietnam, Lucas commanded a platoon of airmobile infantry, a quick reaction force for special situations such as downed helicopters, fresh sightings of enemy forces, and the like. More than three decades later, Lucas remains "very proud" of his service. When he returned home from Vietnam, he writes, he was "Insulted, many times. Often times it was subtle-looks, tone of voice, etc. Other times it was more overt. But it was widespread and not confined to a few radicals. The theme of many "anti-war" rallies was "Ho, ho, Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is going to win." They wanted our enemies to win."

Lucas is extremely proud of his son David, an artillery officer who until last June served with the 10th Mountain Division in Baghdad. "I did not encourage him to enlist; it was his own idea. In fact, when he announced it, I gave him all the reasons why he should NOT join the military in order to make sure that he wasn't just romanticizing it and would be aware of the negatives as well as the positives."

Twenty-seven-year-old John M. Atkinson served in Iraq as a Combat Engineer Team Leader and vehicle commander. His duties revolved around Improvised Explosive Device sweeps and patrols, along with raids on suspected terrorist hideouts. His father, who served in Vietnam, "absolutely" inspired him to join the Army, he says.

Atkinson directly links the way the Iraq war is reported with the Vietnam era. "For many of today's journalists, the Vietnam/Nixon era is a highlight of their profession's history," he wrote. "Right or wrong, they credit themselves with ending an immoral war and bringing down a corrupt president. The reality of this perception is entirely beside the point. That is the framework they are viewing Iraq through. They spin stories to make as many explicit or implicit connections to Vietnam as possible. Obviously, to a real student of history, the Vietnam and Iraq wars have very little if anything in common. But the journalists are there to Tell A Story based on the script they have in their heads, not the truth on the ground.

Mike Rudzinski, is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the son of a Vietnam vet, and the father of Chris Rudzinski, who served in the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq. His son's time in the sand "was much more perilous than mine," Rudzinski wrote. When asked why so many sons of Vietnam veterans saw their sons volunteer for service in Iraq, Rudzinski replied:

I believe Chris joined because he loved his country and he loved his family and he wanted to do something for both. I'd like to think that my dad and I were an inspiration to Chris: after all, my dad was the inspiration for me to join . . . My dad supervised the maintenance and repair of Army helicopter radios and avionics in the 101st Airborne division (Air Assault). While my Dad was in Vietnam, he used to regularly visit an orphanage in Da Nang with one of the Catholic chaplains," from which his parents adopted a five-year old girl. "Dad told me it was his promise to God that he would take at least one child out of that miserable existence if he made it through his tour . . .

I was 11 years old when my dad left for Vietnam. He told me he was going to war in the hope that his children, my brothers and I, would never have to do this when we got older. I remember that moment and his words: I used them to tell my young sons (Chris' brothers) why I had to go to Kuwait for OIF. Chris said something similar to me. He said that he wanted to do his part like me and my dad, so his siblings and any kids he might have, might never have to serve in the future.

Is the war in Iraq worth the cost in American lives and treasure? Every single one of my correspondents, fathers and sons alike, say, "Absolutely YES."

"What would Zarqawi and crew be doing if we were not here? I do not think they would be farming, or searching for a cure for cancer," one soldier noted.

David Lucas (the son of John Lucas), who narrowly escaped death in Iraq more than once when improvised explosive devices were tossed into his truck, put it best: "I truly see this as a battle between the forces of good and evil," he wrote. "How can anyone not? Good brings hope to a whole people that have never known anything [but the kind of] evil that cuts the heads off innocent civilians on TV. I know that I can't change the world but if I can rid it of some of this evil by taking down as many of these bastards as possible then I think that God will forgive me."

"I held his hand and cried - cried for a boy whose name I didn't know.."

[Should be required reading for all the traitors in America hoping we lose in Iraq]

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/huerta200511110822.asp

I Never Knew His Name
The true face of Muslim martyrdom.

By Chaplain Carlos C. Huerta

Mosul, Iraq — It is October 11 as I write this, the day before Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement is supposed to be a day of fast, reflection, and prayer for the Jews: a time when I reflect on my own actions and intentions from the previous year. But the images I carry into my fast are sad ones, of someone else’s child, a Muslim child. There is blood spattered on my uniform despite the fact that I haven’t been hit or wounded. And yet it is B-positive blood, my own blood, mixed with the blood of a nine-year old Iraqi boy who was observing his fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Today there was a terrorist attack at a place most people have never heard of. Unless you’re a soldier stationed here, the name Tal Afar would probably be insignificant to you. But Tal Afar means a lot to me.

Today some terrorists decided to kill some Iraqi citizens — good Muslims — in order to discourage them from voting on Saturday on the new constitution. These terrorists called themselves Muslims and claimed that what they did was for Allah. But their connection to Islam is about as true and strong as Timothy McVeigh’s connection to Christianity. What they did is so contrary to the holy teachings of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) that to say their name in the same breath as Islam is considered sacrilege.

I was at the Combat Support Hospital — known as CASH — when the call came: Terrorists had hit, no American casualties, but 22 Iraqis wounded, five of whom were children under the age of twelve. I stood on the tarmac watching as the MEDEVAC choppers came in one at a time to deliver the wounded. Many of the wounded had no legs, or deep chest, head, and abdominal wounds. I noticed the children, two in particular who had severe head trauma. I followed them into the ER and then watched our physicians struggle in the OR to stabilize them. After the physicians did what they could, the children were taken to the ICU. I helped carry their stretchers into the ICU and stood by to see if I could help. I had a serious conversation with G-d and pleaded with him to take care of these kids — kids who should be playing soccer, or doing their homework for school the next day, or helping their parents get ready for supper. Both of these children had skulls so badly shattered that their heads needed to be bandaged to keep their brains in. I watched as the nurses and medics gave them pint after pint of blood and as their head bandages turned from white to red. I held the youngest one’s hands, reassuring him to the extent I could.

As they were giving the youngest his third pint of blood, I heard the nurse say that they were running low on O Positive, the universal donor, and that due to the tremendous internal bleeding, this child would need more. I asked what blood type he was, and it turned out both children were B Positive, my own blood type. I went to the head nurse and asked if I could donate blood for the youngest child and they quickly hooked me up and took a pint. After giving it, I went back to see him; he already my blood hooked up to him and surging in his veins.

I held his tiny hand and watched as the monitors told the story: His heart was in trouble owing to the brain trauma. I watched as he fought for his life, fighting to breathe. But I knew he was dying and there was nothing I could do. This innocent Muslim child, who had been observing Ramadan the way a child does, was now dying despite the fact that my blood was moving though his veins, despite the fact that I pleaded with G-d to do what I thought was right, to keep him alive. But G-d had other plans.

I didn’t want this boy to die hearing the strange sounds of a hospital and a foreign language. I wanted him to be comforted by the last sounds he heard, by words that were close to his heart, words that spoke of home and faith. I started to recite the Holy Koran to him.

My close friend, a fellow clergyman, Imam Burgos, the imam for the United States Military Academy, had helped me learn Surahs of the Holy Koran, and I chanted these out to the boy in Arabic. As I chanted, I heard the monitor go flat-line. I held his little hand, as my blood moved through his tiny pure heart that could no longer bear the evil of this world.

I held his hand and cried — cried for a boy whose name I didn’t know, for an innocent Muslim child who gave his life for his G-d, Allah, for his country. He was the true face of Muslim martyrdom. With tears streaming down my face, I looked down and noticed blood on my uniform. His blood, my blood, our blood had dripped from his open head wound onto my uniform.

An hour or so later I walked away into the waiting area as they prepared his body for transport. There I met Chaplain Mark Greschel, a Catholic priest. He looked at me and knew that I was in trouble. He sat with me, somehow knowing that the pain we felt was best not mixed with words. He quietly put his arms around me, and we both sat there in silence. I thought to myself, isn’t this the kind of world we are fighting for — a world where an Imam teaches a Rabbi words from the Holy Koran to comfort a young Muslim boy, and that rabbi himself is comforted by a Christian, a Catholic priest.

On this day before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Fast Day, the Day of Atonement, I ask myself: What is Ramadan all about? Is it about killing, or is it about seeking out G-d through fasting and prayer? For those of us who choose not to carry hatred and prejudice in our hearts, the answer is simple. For the holy Islamic community, Ramadan is a time of introspection, of hope, of belief that if we all work together, we can truly build a better world for all our children, even those whose names we don’t know. There is so much that we can learn about faith and G-d through other religions; there is so much that our Muslim brothers and sisters can teach us about our Creator, about personal sacrifice and selfless service. But if we consider their faith only with mistrust, hatred, and indifference, then this nine-year-old angel with his faith in G-d means nothing. Then we have diminished our own faith in G-d. If we objectify the Muslim people as well as those who don’t share our exact views on the nature of G-d, if we see them as less than our brothers and sisters, then we as a human race are lost.

There are many Americans who ask why we’re here. Why are we sacrificing so many American lives and placing so many in harm’s way? What is the purpose of it all? Well, I don’t really know the big picture. But from my small sector of the battlefield, the reason I am here is to give “the least of these,” my children over here, a shot at “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — just like my other children living in America.

I didn’t give birth to him, but on this fast day in Ramadan, on this day before Yom Kippur, I lost a son, someone who had my blood coursing through his body. And for him, I choose not to hate, I choose to follow the path that the great Sheik Ibn Arabi followed when he said, “Love is my Faith and my religion and wherever its caravans take me, that is where I shall follow, for love is my religion and faith.” Let us join hands with our Muslim brothers and sisters and let this be the message of Ramadan that we carry in our hearts and take with us. G-d has a new Muslim angel in Paradise. I hope to tell you his name one day when I meet him again.

— Chaplain Carlos C. Huerta is Jewish Community chaplain in Mosul, Iraq.

Moving On
Rhetoric at war with reality.

Recently George Bush met hostile crowds and a critical press during a 34-nation Summit of the Americas. Leftists and elite commentators criticized his recent proposals to liberalize American markets from Canada to Chile even though such an enlightened policy would be deeply resented by many American unions and small businesses here at home, but of inestimable value to South American exporters with their much cheaper costs of production.

Perhaps this automatic anti-Americanism that clouds Latin American self-interest is a result of the present hysteria over Iraq or the foul fumes from American corporations of the 1950s.

Maybe countries like Argentina, in the manner of post-Soviet Russia, allowed corruption and cronyism to subvert overdue market-driven reforms and now need a convenient scapegoat for their own self-induced miseries.

Or is the furor due to the influence of Hugo Chavez's billions of petrodollars? He has promiscuously spread money throughout Latin America and tends to prop up socialist policies that otherwise would probably fail.

Still, one wonders what would have been the reaction of the various anti-American protesters had the president agreed with much of their clamoring to be free of influence of the United States. Maybe George Bush could have offered something more palatable such as the following:

Unfortunately at a time of trade imbalances, budget deficits, and security concerns, the United States regrets that it must consider first the interests of its own small businesses and workers. So sadly it must maintain or increase its protection of the domestic American market, restrict the remittances of illegal aliens back to Latin America, and close our borders to the entry of all illegal aliens from the south.

Recently the Spanish High Court Judge Santiago Pedraz issued international arrest warrants for three American soldiers, charging them with murder in the accidental death of a Spanish cameraman at the Baghdad's Palestine Hotel on April 8, 2003. The idea of Pedraz and many of his associates is that Spain is now the world's custodian of universal justice and can indict those it feels commit crimes against humanity — or at least sort of.

In the world of the utopian European, Pinochet is logically indicted for killing thousands, but strangely not Castro for tens of thousands. American soldiers in the heat of battle are deemed criminals for accidents in the way that former Eastern European and Soviet intelligence officers truly responsible for thousands killed not to mention top al Qaeda officials. If the French police or military gets a little too heavy-handed against Muslim rioters, none will be indicted by Judge Pedraz.

More curiously, Judge Pedraz seems oblivious that there are thousands of American personnel not far away from his courtroom stationed on Spanish soil. So rather than charging Americans for supposed wartime crimes in distant Iraq, cannot the Spanish, to ensure a more sensitive military landscape, instead simply ask us to leave their country entirely — and allow the defense of Spain to become strictly a Spanish matter? Most Americans and Spanish alike would welcome the idea — perhaps the former far more than the latter.

It is now common knowledge that Iran is hell bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. It has three or four probable aims in doing so. Blackmail worked in the case of North Korea, giving an otherwise failed state cash, food, "peaceful" nuclear expertise, and, most importantly, global attention. Iran might win the same from the EU.

Or it could gain the type of deterrence that Pakistan has obtained with both the United States and India, allowing it even greater exemption to fund and host terrorists.

Or, as its so-called president suggested, it might wish to wipe out Israel — either on the frightening premise it could survive such an Armageddon and Israel would not, or on the lunatic assumption that it was willing to go to a collective paradise, martyring itself to end once and for all the Zionist plague.

Or, perhaps Iran wishes to supply stealthy nuclear devices to groups like Hezbollah that could terrorize the West while allowing Iran deniability of culpability and thus avoidance of massive retaliation.

In any case, it is clearly not in the interest of the United Nations nor the European Union nor the Arab League that Iran goes nuclear. It is even more evident that no one apparently can stop it — despite all the remonstrations of the three EU nations talking to Iran, a Peace Prize to Mr. El-Baradei, and grandstanding slurs against a supposedly trigger-happy United States from Germany and France.

In response, perhaps the United States should declare something like the following:

Iran's nuclear ambitions are both an internal and regional matter that properly fall under the auspices of the U.N., EU, and Arab League. Our own strategies — missile defense and massive nuclear response to any attack — are designed to protect the United States and its allies; but we certainly would not wish to prejudice alternative avenues of national or global approaches undertaken by others, and most definitely do not wish to interfere in the internal affairs of Iran.

All these examples — and far more could be adduced — reveal a radical disconnect between rhetoric and reality. South Americans want unfettered access into America's markets, assume thousands will illegally cross into the United States, and welcome in return billions in cash remittances. Similarly, Spain assumes perpetual NATO protection. In reality that means that the U.S. nuclear deterrent and its vast conventional forces will keep the Mediterranean and Western Europe free from outside threats at little cost to Spain, with a relatively low American profile, and in consultation with Spanish officials. The bad cop United States is not unwelcome to anyone dealing with Iran, because all accept that the scary scenario — America is the only power with the capability and will to stop Iran's nuclear roguery — is not as bad as the worse alternative of the theocracy becoming a major nuclear power.

Why then all the dissimilation? The most obvious answer is pride, envy, jealousy, and all the other primordial emotions that the weak and the vulnerable harbor against the strong and autonomous.

Second, for all our pride, we are not like the once-powerful — and scary — Soviet Union, so Latin Americans and Europeans know that there is rarely any price to be paid for attacking the United States. Slandering us is a win-win situation — cowardly and expedient to be sure, but hardly like indicting bin Laden or embargoing Iranian oil. No Argentinean is furious over Chinese unfair trade; no Spaniard protests Russian oilmen for spoiling the arctic. And worse still, we know why.

Third, so far anti-Americanism is tactically smart. The heated rhetoric of the extremists makes others seem moderate. So Latin American leaders can grudgingly "take political risks" to "permit" America to accept their cheap products into the United States. The leftwing Spanish government can pose as responsible in opposing its own court's theatrics. The Europeans and U.N. can apologize to Iran that it is forced into such unpleasant dialogue by the alternative specter of American preemption and unilateralism.

Fourth, the world since the Cold War has become a much wealthier and safer place with the demise of nuclear and intercontinental Communism, and the onset of globalization. Latin Americans are furious not that they are starving in 1950s fashion, but that their glimpse of parity with the affluent United States is slipping away. Spaniards are safe and secure, but in typical human fashion of ever rising expectations, even more apprehensive that things are not as heaven on earth. And Europeans and internationalists are frustrated with Iran. It has oil and money and has been left alone, so why would it wish to ruin a good thing and call the bluff of their new enlightened order?

Are there any dangers to this game of rhetoric masking reality? Plenty. It is now old, tiring, and predictable. The American people are on to the fraud, and probably don't much care for another free trade agreement with ingrates who slander what benefits them. They are tired of NATO and want it to nobly die on the vine and allow utopians to get a taste of the real world they so disdain. And wisely or not, they are not too fond of the Middle East and pretty much want those whom Iran immediately threatens to deal with it on their own and count us out. Our critics forget that American foreign policy is ultimately simply a representation of collective will. Nations are simply people, and thus subject to emotional urges that often trump reason.

So by castigating the U.S., critics forget that their long-term welfare is not the same as the short-term interests of America. Open markets, military alliances between liberal democracies, and sober joint actions now to prevent worse threats later on are to everyone's advantage. But for right now, the United States might benefit by not welcoming any additional free and unfair trade with South America, or spending billions on European defense, or taking on any more burdens in the Middle East.

In contrast, an India, Japan, and Australia are proud and confident nations. They don't indict our citizens and often appreciate an American global role, whether outsourcing jobs or patrolling regional waters. Unlike the U.N., the EU, and South America, they spare us the sanctimonious lectures and look forward rather than nurse wounds of the past.

The world is changing as we speak. The great untold story of our age is that others need to get a life and the United States needs to move on.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=20157

Bay City "Revolutionary Communists" Defeat Military Recruiters
By Andrew Walden
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 11, 2005

With Nancy Pelosi’s home-district San Francisco Democratic Party leading the “Yes on I” charge, San Francisco voters, by a 60-40 margin, Tuesday approved Proposition I, the so-called “College Not Combat” initiative. Prop I does not ban military recruiters, a move that would have put campuses at risk of losing their federal funding. San Francisco leftists will continue to subsidize themselves with taxpayer dollars. Prop I instead asks city and school officials in San Francisco to create scholarships and training programs designed to out do benefits offered by the military. However, the sense of the resolution – backed by self-proclaimed "revolutionary Communists," Islamofascists, and even Cindy Sheehan herself – is that military recruiters are pariahs with no business preying on defenseless young people.

The San Francisco vote spreads the type of politics found on many college campuses to an entire city. While the proposition does not formally challenge recruiters’ right to free speech on campus, leaders of College Not Combat are open about their goals. Quoted in the November 9 San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco School Board member Dan Kelly said the voice of the voter on Proposition I will “strengthen the board’s resolve” to make sure recruiters “don’t have free access.” NewsMax quotes Bob Matthews, a College Not Combat activist for the proposition saying, “We now have the moral weight of the city behind us, and it's definitely a valuable asset to have in our corner."

The San Francisco vote is timed to precede the December 6 U.S. Supreme Court hearing on a case, which will determine the constitutionality of tying federal funding to school policy on military recruitment. According to a news release from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, “In 1994, in response to law schools’ growing opposition to military recruiters on campus, Congress passed the Solomon Amendment, which cuts off federal funding to higher education institutions that discriminate against military recruiters. Schools that violate the Solomon Amendment risk losing funding from the Departments of Defense, Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, and related agencies. The amendment does not extend to administrative grants or student financial aid.

 

“The Solomon Amendment was struck down earlier this year in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals as violating the First Amendment rights of higher education institutions. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on December 6.”

 

San Francisco schools are not hostile to all recruiters – only U.S. military recruiters. San Francisco State University has for decades been home to a large chapter of the General Union of Palestinian Students, a PLO member organization organized under the PLO’s “Department of Mass Organizations.” Many GUPS members are “recruited” to lead the PLO. These include PLO negotiator Saeb Arakat, a SFSU graduate. Convicted terrorist lawyer Lynne Stewart, was welcomed to speak at San Francisco State University and “recruit” students and faculty to join her cause – aiding Sheik Abdel Rahman to communicate orders and fatwas to his murderous followers in Egypt’s Islamic Group terrorist organization. Stewart, free while awaiting sentencing, spoke at SFSU along with Cindy Sheehan in April. According to an account of the event published on FrontPage Magazine, “Sheehan said then that military recruiters should not be allowed on college campuses, maintaining they trick naïve 18-year-olds with offers of money and scholarships.” At the same event, campus leftists distributed flyers inviting students to debate, “Should we support the Iraqi Resistance?” Dahr Jamail, a supporter of the terrorists in Iraq, and a close associate of Sheehan, spoke at SFSU on April 12. None of the activists complaining about allegedly deceitful tactics by U.S. military recruiters complains that the terrorists deceive children and mentally handicapped persons into carrying remote-controlled “suicide” bombs, nor do they decry the terrorist recruiters’ deceit that 72 virgins will be waiting for the “martyr” who violates Islamic prohibitions of suicide.

 

On March 9, about 100 anti-American war protesters and members of the International Socialist Organization crowded into a career fair and faced off with five College Republicans military recruiters off SFSU campus. Palestinian protesters are engaged in an ongoing campaign against Jewish students and against College Republicans. SFSU is home to the Islamofascist backbone of Nancy Pelosi’s “liberal” San Francisco.

 

The so-called “College Not Combat” proposition grew directly from the March 9 attack on SFSU military recruiters. As SF Indymedia explains, “On February 26th, a new group called ‘College not Combat’ formed in San Francisco, drawing in 100 people to its first meeting...On Wednesday, March 9th, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Navy are coming to San Francisco State University in the hopes of recruiting students to become cannon fodder for the U.S. occupation effort. Student activists with the Campus Anti-War Network (CAN) have a different plan: they have organized a protest to block the recruiters and kick them off their campus.”

In spite of their name, recent events at SFSU show that the activists aren’t against all combat; they are only against the U.S. military engaging in combat against their terrorist allies. They want to continue using an American taxpayer-funded school to train PLO leaders while blocking the U.S. military from even setting foot on campus. Now their campaign has spread beyond SFSU to the entire city.

 
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November 11, 2005, 8:27 a.m.
Why Did Athens Lose?
The misery of war.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Victor Davis Hanson's latest book, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War has recently been released by Random House. This week National Review Online has been excerpting Chapter 10 of the book. Below is the final installment; the first can be read here and the second here; the third here; the fourth here. Check back tomorrow for the final installment and click on Amazon to purchase A War Like No Other here.

Given the absence of resolute action or inspired Spartan leadership in the twenty years before the Ionian War, one asks that question rather than "How did Sparta pull it off ?"Thucydides himself emphasizes how rare capable men like Brasidas, Gylippus, and Lysander were at Sparta, and how Athens, despite the advantages that democratic government brings to war, made mistake after mistake.

In his narrative there emerge four reasons why Sparta triumphed; none of them can be attributable to the oligarchy's strategic insight or imaginative tactics. The plague was nature's bane. Sicily was Athens' own strategic mistake and was compounded by tactical blunders. The creation of a fort at Decelea and the use of Persian capital to build a fleet are attributed by Thucydides and Xenophon to the advice and machinations of Alcibiades, an Athenian. So naturally observers look to what Athens did wrong rather than to what Sparta did right to explain how such a dynamic imperial city was not merely beaten but nearly ruined.

Yet Athens no more lost its war with Sparta than Nazi Germany did its offensive wars with France or Poland. By 425, in the seventh year of the conflict, almost all of Athens' limited objectives had been achieved in line with Pericles' original goal of a temporary stalemate — or perhaps more charitably seen as not losing in a war of exhaustion. Athens' empire was still intact. It exercised continual naval supremacy over all potential enemies and, indeed, would finish the first decade of the war with its fleet still at its prewar level of 300 ships. True, the problems with Sparta were not solved, only postponed; but the city at least had shown that its own destruction might be beyond the capabilities of Sparta's original alliance.

Athens, after all, had proved to Sparta that hoplite invasions of Attica, despite the horri?c plague, would not bring the city to its knees. With the capture and detainment of the Spartiate prisoners from Sphacteria, who were to be executed the moment a Peloponnesian army again crossed the borders of Attica, the general outline of the Peace of Nicias, which would transpire four years later, was already established. Pericles' vision, though tattered and torn, seemed fulfilled. Contemporaries in 421 thought Sparta was checked and demoralized after Pylos and the failure to make headway in Attica. Whether a shaky peace and a return to the status before the war was worth the cost of a decade of fighting and the plague is another matter altogether.

In contrast, the reasons for Athens' later and utter defeat after the failed peace were probably twofold. First, even before the Sicilian expedition Athens had not simply fought Sparta but for a decade of the Archidamian War was holding off Sparta, its entire Peloponnesian alliance, and Corinth and Thebes. These two latter states proved their vehemence by not even becoming signatories of the shaky peace achieved in 421 In the trireme fighting in the Corinthian Gulf, at Solygia, and at Delium both allies had frequently fought Athens mostly on their own, without help from Sparta.

The powers formally allied with Sparta for most of the conflict were not weak. Peloponnesian states like Elis, Tegea, and at times even a reconstituted Mantinea and Argos provided hoplites for a Spartan-led enterprise or later occupation at Decelea. The Boeotian army was as formidable as the Spartan. Its bitter hostility ensured a two-front war, a permanent condition after the failed Athenian effort at Delium. Corinth controlled much of the lateral sea traf?c in and out of the Gulf, and all routes to and from the Peloponnese by land. The continual Athenian failure to take over the Megarid only ensured the Peloponnesians perpetual access to Attica anytime they thought they could devise some better strategy than the earlier failed annual invasions, such as the final occupation of Decelea.

In the first few years of the war Athens conducted massive operations abroad, but quickly learned that the permanent deployment of some 100 to 200 ships was exhausting its treasury without bringing decisive results. But with the capture of Pylos and Sphacteria in 425 it achieved a stunning psychological victory, made all the more so once the Spartans were shamed by the surrender of their crack hoplites and were willing to withdraw from Attica for good.

Once more, by 421 the Athenians had not won; but they had proved that even after suffering horrendous losses to the plague they could find innovative new methods of not losing the war. Yet the city-state's most creative thinkers, from Alcibiades to Demosthenes, gauged stalemate a disappointment rather than a windfall. Thus they began to devise further probing operations in the Peloponnese that might weaken Sparta without taking on her formidable hoplites. The result was a doubly disastrous policy, a renewed war with the Peloponnesians and misplaced faith in expanding the theater of con?ict in lieu of confronting and defeating the Spartan army outright as a way of freeing the helots and dismantling Spartan apartheid.

Second, despite taking on all at once the three largest of the city-states, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes; losing well over a quarter of its population to the plague; and not destroying the hoplite or naval resources of any of its three adversaries, in 415 Athens invaded Syracuse. Immediately it found itself at war with a larger city than its own and almost as democratic. Not only had Athens diverted its precious resources to a far distant campaign at a time when Spartans were soon to be thirteen miles from its walls, but in attacking democratic Syracuse it also weakened its propaganda that its war was in large part ideological, taken up on behalf of democratic peoples and their resistance to foreign-imposed oligarchies.

Sicily drew blood, and the hemorrhaging attracted a whole host of new enemies. Perhaps worst of all, after Sicily Athens was in a war against itself, as the revolution of 411 and the failed oligarchic putsch proved. By 412 Persia was soon to be a de facto belligerent. Without Persia's vast capital for crews and triremes, Sparta could never have prosecuted the Ionian War, which eventually forced Athens to capitulate. In that narrow strategic regard, Athens really was like the Germany of World War II, which fought the old European allies of France and England, took on the vast industrial might of the United States, and tried to invade Soviet Russia. Hitler might have defeated or obtained a draw with any of the three powers individually or in succession, but never two, much less three, in combination.

It was the belief of Thucydides that if democracies brought multifaceted advantages to war, their raucous assemblies, constant second-guessing, grandstanding, and hypercriticism severely hampered military operations. Only a towering figure such as Pericles could rein in the raw emotions unleashed in open forums and, as first citizen, by sheer power of his moral authority run the country by near ?at and still take full advantage of democratic dynamism. Whether that pessimism of the historian was warranted or fair to democracy, it was certainly clear that Sparta had more patience with an occasionally lax Brasidas, Agis, or Lysander than Athens ever did with its own generals.

True, Sparta could execute generals like Thorax and shun the returning prisoners from Pylos, but in comparison to Athens it gave latitude to commanders in a way unknown at Athens. If Thucydides was exiled for failing to save Amphipolis from Brasidas, later in the same theater Brasidas most surely was not recalled to Sparta after failing to reach Torone in time and thus losing the entire city to Cleon. That the Athenian assembly exiled, executed, or fined almost every notable general it ordered on campaign did not make commanders more accountable as much as timid and prone to second-guessing. Thus, after any setback, whether in the Delium campaign or at Arginusae, they would most likely not come back to Athens, in fear of a trial. So the city did not often learn from its mistakes but almost always scared generals into being too cautious or reckless, their decisions based on anticipating what the voters back home might approve on any particular day.

A Possession for All Time?
Whether Thucydides entertained preexisting views about the nature of war and sought to use the events of the Peloponnesian War to confirm his pessimism, whether his philosophy emerged inductively from the mayhem that he witnessed over three decades, or both is not really known. But his history is more than a narrative of now obscure battles and massacres. Instead, as he predicted, it serves as a timeless guide to the tragic nature of war itself, inasmuch as human character is unchanging and thus its conduct in calamitous times is always predictable.

If the Peloponnesian War still teaches us something about men at war, it is the lesson that interim armistices may quiet down the fighting but cannot with any degree of consistency end the conflict unless they address why one party chose to go to war in the ?rst place. More often resolute action, for good or evil, can bring lasting peace, usually when one side accepts defeat and ceases its grievances through a change of heart or government — in either freedom or tyranny. In that sense of how to make a war end for good, the no-nonsense Lysander understood the nature of this awful conflict far better than the stately Pericles or naive Nicias.

Both states initially went to war unsure of how to defeat the other. Yet after nearly twenty years of futile killing, the war was resolved in about seven years when Sparta realized how Athens could be vanquished (keep its people inside the walls, its tribute and food outside, and sink its fleet). The disturbing message here is that discussions follow the sway of the battlefield, and diplomatic solutions work best when they accurately reflect military weakness or strength.

It is common to label this appreciation for power and its role in state affairs "realism" or "neorealism." But Thucydides — and this is why he is truly a great historian — is too discerning a critic to reduce strife down simply to perceptions about power and its manifestations. War itself is not a mere science but a more fickle sort of thing, often subject to fate or chance, being an entirely human enterprise. The Peloponnesian War, then, is not a mere primer for international relations studies, and the historian does not believe that "might makes right." Tragedy, not melodrama, is his message.

Yet Thucydides does recognize that humans are also subject to other inexplicable emotions that make them do things that do not quite make sense, whether that means Spartans who "fear" Athenian success, the poor Plataeans who choose to resist the siege, the supposedly stern Spartans who panic after the fall of Sphacteria and cease all their invasions into Attica on news that a mere 120 of their elite might be executed, the Melians who in vain hold out for Spartan support, or the once haughty Athenians who sail to Syracuse and persist in folly with the same reliance on "hope" that they had earlier damned the naive Melians for entertaining. If moderns wonder why entire countries of several million people can be held hostage when masked criminals threaten to behead a single one of their citizens on global television, we could do worse than to remember why panicked and shocked Spartans simply abandoned their entire strategy of invading Attica.

For a writer who is supposedly interested in power rather than tragedy, Thucydides misses no occasion to note how heartbreaking the losses of particular armies were. What seems to capture the historian's attention is not, as is so often claimed, the role of force in interstate relations but the misery of war that is unleashed upon the thousands — the subject of this book — who must fight it.

Thucydides sometimes opines that a particular campaign was wise or foolish, but he nearly always adds enough detail and editorializing to convey to us that the soldiers who believed in the cause for which they were dying deserved commemoration in terms that matched their sacrifice. So one discovers that the Thespians who perish at Delium are not around the next year to save their city when their erstwhile allies, the Thebans, tear down the walls. The town of Mycalessus loses not merely its schoolboys but even its animals — and we, his readers, should know that and mull it over. The Athenians are not merely slaughtered at the Assinarus River but perish as they fight one another to drink the blood and mud of the river. Whereas historians search for messages about the "lessons" of Thucydides embedded within his text, the general reader has no problem in sensing immediately what his history is about precisely from those memorable passages that will never go away, reminding us of the passions and furor that are unleashed on otherwise normal men when they go to war.

The young men of Athens, on the eve of the initial Spartan invasion or during the debate about Sicily, are always eager for war, inasmuch as they have had no experience with it. In contrast, "the older men of the city," the more experienced, who know something of plagues, assassinations, terror, and sinking triremes, always are reluctant to invade, and thus often strive to give the enemy some way out during tough negotiations that otherwise might leave war as the only alternative. Thucydidean war can have utility and solve problems, and it often follows a grim logic of sorts; but once it starts, it may well last twenty-seven years over the entire Greek world rather than an anticipated thirty days in Attica and kill thousands at its end who were not born in its beginning.

Such recognition is not necessarily cause for pacifism; rather, to Thucydides it calls for acceptance that thousands will end up rotten in little-known places like the Assinarus River and Aetolia, the logic that follows from decisions made far away in the hallowed assemblies of Sparta or Athens. A wild-eyed Sthenelaidas or sophistic Alcibiades might rouse his volatile assembly to war without good cause, while an Archidamus or Pericles might think that his own sobriety and reason will either preclude or mitigate the killing. But between emotion and logic resides the fate of thousands of the mostly unknown — Astymachus and Lacon executed at Plataea (427), the Tanagran Saugenês cut down at Delium (424), Scirphondas butchered at Mycalessus (413), and the Spartan Xenares falling at Heraclea (419) — who will surely then and now be asked to settle through violence what words alone cannot. Remember them, for the Peloponnesian War was theirs alone.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His latest book is A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

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