ISIL/ISIS...real threat or overblown?

The airwaves have been filled with dire warnings of ISIL, ISIS or IS if you prefer, being a tangible threat to the security of these United States. And to be sure, they're well organized and have made what appears to be astounding gains over the last few months. But are they really the cat's meow?

The War Nerd, Gary Brecher, expalins some reality based facets of their so-called blitzkrieg through some parts of Iraq:

If you know the ethnic makeup of the turf they’ve taken, their “shocking gains” don’t seem so shocking, or impressive. After all, we’re talking about a mobile force–mounted on the beloved Toyota Hilux pickup truck, favorite vehicle of every male in the Middle East—advancing over totally flat, dry ground in pursuit of a totally demoralized opponent. In that situation, any force could take a lot of country very quickly. It’s just a matter of putting your foot on the accelerator, moving unopposed on the long stretches of flat desert, then dismounting at the next crossroads town for a small, quick firefight against a few defenders who didn’t get the memo to flee. Once they’re dead, you floor it again until the next little desert town.

So this isn’t the second coming of Erwin Rommel by any means. Everything has conspired to push the Sunni advance, from the lousy opponent they’re up against to the terrain, which is a light mechanized commander’s dream.

Flat and dry is how a mechanized force commander wants his ground—and believe me, you haven’t seen flat and dry until you get to Iraq. Once you’re south of the Kurdish mountains, you’re on a dried mudflat. Iraq is much flatter than the deserts of the US, most of which get much more rain than central Iraq. No rain means little erosion, with few wadis or ravines to slow those Toyotas down. This is, after all, Mesopotamia, a land literally built by the sediment of the Euphrates and Tigris. It’s river mud, but nice and dry because very little rain falls, especially in June (average rainfall in June is 5 mm, the size of the numbers printed on an ATM card).

On ground like that, any force with good morale and enough fuel could advance as quickly as the Sunni have. It’s the Bonneville Salt Flats of insurgency, the place you go to set new speed records.

Regardless, I do advocate raining steel from above, on every Hilux we can target...as well as assisting the Kurds in very concrete ways. I just wish our pathetic media would understand that sensationalism+ratings does not equal journalism.

Hey GOP: If ISIL/ISIS is such a threat to the homeland......

Do something about it. Stop your bedwetting petulant tantrums and conduct a roll call vote to declare war. Use your Constitutional powers or just quit....just go the fuck home.

Well....this is uncomfortable......

On Memorial Day in 2013, John McCain went on a secret trip to Syria to meet with the rebels who were fighting against Bassar Assad. At the time, McCain described his visit as ‘moving.’ During an appearance on CNN, McCain elaborated on his experience. 

“It was a very moving experience to meet these fighters who have been struggling now for over two years. And they’re very aware of the battlefield situation and they’re very disturbed about the dramatic influx of Hezbollah fighters, more Iranians, and of course, stepped-up activities of Bashar Assad.” 

McCain posed for pictures with these rebels, smiling as the camera snapped. Now, ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria formerly known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, is using those pictures as a campaign ad. 

If hear one more time.......

the equating of the Quetta Shura Taliban...with al Qaeda and 9/11...equating the aims, motivations and threat posed to the United States......

I'm going to lose my shit.

I expect nothing less than vacant-eyed, mouth-breathing, slack-jawed sensationalism from our shit media......but I would really like to hold Congress to a higher standard.

Pipe dream, I know.

Sheepdogs

 

I constantly find  people who put my thoughts to words better than I can; Laura Walker has done so on this occasion.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, “Baa.”

Until the wolf shows up

This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door. Look at what happened after September 11, 2001, when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, “Thank God I wasn’t on one of those planes.” The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, “Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference.” When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.

While there is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, he does have one real advantage. Only one. He is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population.

Read the rest at SOFREP

Convenient definitions of terror

In a paradigm where we have declared "war" against an elusive and amorphous enemy....a war that strains the normal framework of the definition....when infrastructure and officials of our Government are attacked, is it really an act of terror?

Or is it an act of war?

"It’s hard to define because one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist." George H.W. Bush, on supporting the Contras and UNITA.

Seems that we like to have it both ways, since we like to think that we get to define the rules.

Dear Middle East,

Just stop it.



Sincerely,
Everyone

Men of Cornwall stand ye steady

Every 11th of September, I am reminded of the life and deeds of Rick Rescorla. An immigrant to this nation, he showed us time and again how to be an American. If you have not read the seminal account of his deeds over at The Mudville Gazette......you should.

In St. Augustine, Dan Hill was laying tile in his upstairs bathroom when his wife called, "Dan, get down here! An airplane just flew into the World Trade Center. It's a terrible accident." Hill hurried downstairs, and then the phone rang. It was Rescorla, calling from his cell phone.

 "Are you watching TV?" he asked. "What do you think?"

"Hard to tell. It could have been an accident, but I can't see a commercial airliner getting that far off."

"I'm evacuating right now," Rescorla said.

Hill could hear Rescorla issuing orders through the bullhorn. He was calm and collected, never raising his voice. Then Hill heard him break into song:

Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;
Can't you see their spearpoints gleaming?
See their warriors' pennants streaming
To this battlefield.
Men of Cornwall stand ye steady;
It cannot be ever said ye
for the battle were not ready;
Stand and never yield!

Rescorla came back on the phone. "Pack a bag and get up here," he said. "You can be my consultant again." He added that the Port Authority was telling him not to evacuate and to order people to stay at their desks.

"What'd you say?" Hill asked.

"I said, 'Piss off, you son of a bitch,' " Rescorla replied. "Everything above where that plane hit is going to collapse, and it's going to take the whole building with it. I'm getting my people the fuck out of here." Then he said, "I got to go. Get your shit in one basket and get ready to come up."
Hill turned back to the TV and, within minutes, saw the second plane execute a sharp left turn and plunge into the south tower. Susan saw it, too, and frantically phoned her husband's office. No one answered.

About fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. It was Rick. She burst into tears and couldn't talk.
"Stop crying," he told her. "I have to get these people out safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I've never been happier. You made my life."

Susan cried even harder, gasping for breath. She felt a stab of fear, because the words sounded like those of someone who wasn't coming back. "No!" she cried, but then he said he had to go. Cell-phone use was being curtailed so as not to interfere with emergency communications.

From the World Trade Center, Rescorla again called Hill. He said he was taking some of his security men and making a final sweep, to make sure no one was left behind, injured, or lost. Then he would evacuate himself. "Call Susan and calm her down," he said. "She's panicking."

Hill reached Susan, who had just got off the phone with Sullivan. "Take it easy," he said, as she continued to sob. "He's been through tight spots before, a million times." Suddenly Susan screamed. Hill turned to look at his own television and saw the south tower collapse. He thought of the words Rescorla had so often used to comfort dying soldiers. "Susan, he'll be O.K.," he said gently. "Take deep breaths. Take it easy. If anyone will survive, Rick will survive."

When Hill hung up, he turned to his wife. Her face was ashen. "Shit," he said. "Rescorla is dead."

The rest of Rick Rescorla's morning is shrouded in some mystery. The tower went dark. Fire raged. Windows shattered. Rescorla headed upstairs before moving down; he helped evacuate several people above the 50th Floor. Stephan Newhouse, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, said at a memorial service in Hayle that Rescorla was spotted as high as the 72nd floor, then worked his way down, clearing floors as he went. He was telling people to stay calm, pace themselves, get off their cell phones, keep moving. At one point, he was so exhausted he had to sit for a few minutes, although he continued barking orders through his bullhorn. Morgan Stanley officials said he called headquarters shortly before the tower collapsed to say he was going back up to search for stragglers.

John Olson, a Morgan Stanley regional director, saw Rescorla reassuring colleagues in the 10th-floor stairwell. "Rick, you've got to get out, too," Olson told him. "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out," Rescorla replied.

Morgan Stanley officials say Rescorla also told employees that "today is a day to be proud to be American" and that "tomorrow, the whole world will be talking about you." They say he also sang "God Bless America" and Cornish folk tunes in the stairwells. Those reports could not be confirmed, although they don't sound out of character. He liked to sing in a crisis. But the documented truth is impressive enough. Morgan Stanley managing director Bob Sloss was the only employee who didn't evacuate the 66th floor after the first plane hit, pausing to call his family and several underlings, even taking a call from a Bloomberg News reporter. Then the second plane hit, and his office walls cracked, and he felt the tower wagging like a dog's tail. He clambered down to the 10th floor, and there was Rescorla, sweating through his suit in the heat, telling people they were almost out, making no move to leave himself.

Rick did not make it out. Neither did two of his security officers who were at
his side. But only three other Morgan Stanley employees died when their building was obliterated.

Link

COINsanity

I've followed the ongoing debates around the Counterinsurgency [COIN] theory of warfare for quite some time, especially during my ramp up to spend 15 months in Baghdad during the much vaunted 'Surge'. Folks like Gentile, Metz, McMasters and Nagl would take to the wonkish forums like Small Wars Journal and the Center for Defense Studies to defend their strategy of taming asymmetric warfare in the 21st century. The discussions waxed and waned over topics like understanding indigenuous cultural values and the efficacy of armor and artillery in a COIN environment. These men are not superstars outside of their arena, as the media has not given due diligence to the architects of strategies that have influenced national policy and news cycles....though one name had stood out the brightest and for the longest. LTC John Nagl [Ret] wrote Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, which was published in 2002, and soon became the rising star of a cadre nicknamed the COINdinistas.

COIN soon became the new currency of strategic success, coming at a time when our outlook for obtainable metrics in Iraq was rapidly diminishing. But as many have noted, COIN is not a band aid for bad national policy, nor poor planning.

Nagl is leaving the world of strategic studies and the Center for a New American Security, but the debate still rages on.

Learning to Eat Soup with a Spoon
The American Conservative

Cogent commentary on the TAC article
Small Wars Journal

Green on Blue attacks and the illogic of national policy

Nothing like friends and allies, eh? This is what we get when we attempt to nation build in a loose, tribal confederation...while propping still corrupt, former warlords as national leaders. The current Administration should be ashamed at not only not addressing this issue earlier with the Kabul regime....but for not addressing this issue with the American people. Political sensitivities should never outweigh the consequence when the lives of our forces are in danger from within.

Of course, had the previous Administration opted to continue the fight against al Qaeda, instead of embarking on both an errant civil and political reconstruction plan - and - an invasion of the nation that previously served as the counterweight to Iranian hegemony in the Persian Gulf.......we'd likely not be in this position today.

The political and social makeup of Afghanistan has not lent itself to the type of vetting processes needed to ensure that our freinds and allies really are our friends and allies. That we apparently thought different at the national level, is exasperated by the fact that we made much the same mistake in Iraq.

Our military is designed for - and maintains the Constitutional mandate to - shoot people in the face when they threaten US national security. The Taliban does not pose that threat, yet the overwhelming majority of military, analytical and fiscal assets are directed towards what can politely be called a mob of illiterate goat herders, who can infiltrate the ANSF with apparent ease - all the while al Qaeda remains aloof and largely unengaged.

A pretty good article on this recent rise on Green v. Blue attacks over at Defense IQ:

For the enemy in Afghanistan, nothing succeeds like success. The last year in Afghanistan has seen an increase in the frequency of attacks upon U.S. and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel by Afghans who were soldiers, recruits undergoing training, acting as embedded advisors, or otherwise occupying low-level security positions at bases or outposts jointly occupied.

If IEDs were eliminated as causal factors since July 2010, the percentage of all ISAF casualties in Afghanistan through hostile action reaches a staggering 33% caused by the intentional actions of Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) or Afghan Security Guard (ASG) personnel. Put simply, one out of every three ISAF killed since June 2010 has been murdered by the Afghans he is training or otherwise serving with.[i] This may be the highest incidence of intentional fratricide in recorded military history.

The media have made much of this phenomenon and recent press statements on this issue by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Obama indicate the depth to which it continues to influence strategic policy. Defense Secretary Panetta’s recent trip to Afghanistan included a specific discussion of the issue with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, followed by yet another press statement which was gobbled up by a Western news media anxious to seize upon it as evidence of yet another strategic miscalculation by a superpower in quagmire.
 

Read the rest

And he's one of those scary Mooslims......

At CIA, a convert to Islam leads the terrorism hunt

WaPo Article: Ten reasons we're no longer the Land of the Free

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

Read the rest......WaPo

Thanks Mr President....We're no longer the Land of the free....

After engaging an upstanding fellow in a debate over the conclusion of the Iraq adventure and the current problems in Afghanistan over at TAH, I dug up one of the many files in my digital library for anyone else who may be a foreign policy nerd.

SSI

The American Politics of Terrorism

Political Lexicography

A great short piece by noted terrorism expert Paul Pillar.

One of the most misleading and distracting formulations that has been applied to the countering of terrorism is the notion that this effort is a “war.” The notion was in full bloom with the Bush administration's “war on terror.” Terrorism being a tactic, this concept, as Zbigniew Brzezinski once observed, makes as much sense as a “war on blitzkrieg.” The “war” idea also ignores several other realities: that military force is only one of several tools that can be used for counterterrorist purposes (law enforcement resources and the criminal justice system being a couple of the others); that counterterrorism does not entail a struggle against a single identifiable foe, as a real war does; and that counterterrorism does not have identifiable beginnings and endings, as real wars do.

Applying the “war” notion to counterterrorism has several negative consequences. It overly militarizes counterterrorism itself, encouraging excessive reliance on the military instrument. It invites the tendentious association of counterterrorism with unrelated military adventures or misadventures, as happened with the Bush administration's Iraq War. It further invites the open-ended use of extraordinary and even extra-legal methods, as occurred with the Bush administration's practices on detention and interception of communications. It elevates terrorists from the status of criminals to that of warriors.
......
And so yet another important function of government, like many others, has been turned into either an ideological gesture or a campaign talking point.

The National Interest 

Man's Very Best Friend

Scout and another unknown dog lie among the rubble at Ground Zero, just two of nearly 100 search and rescue animals who helped to search for survivors

During the chaos of the 9/11 attacks, where almost 3,000 people died, nearly 100 loyal search and rescue dogs and their brave owners scoured Ground Zero for survivors.

Now, ten years on, just 12 of these heroic canines survive, and they have been commemorated in a touching series of portraits entitled Retrieved.  The dogs worked tirelessly to search for anyone trapped alive in the rubble, along with countless emergency service workers and members of the public.

Traveling across nine states in the U.S. from Texas to Maryland, Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas, 34, captured the remaining dogs in their twilight years in their homes where they still live with their handlers, a full decade on from 9/11.

Their stories have now been compiled in a book, called Retrieved, which is published on Friday, the tenth anniversary of the attacks.

Noted for her touching portraits of animals, especially dogs, Charlotte wanted ‘Retrieved’ to mark not only the anniversary of the September 2001 attacks, but also as recognition for some of the first responders and their dogs.

‘I felt this was a turning point, especially for the dogs, who although are not forgotten, are not as prominent as the human stories involved,’ explained Charlotte, who splits her time between New York and Amsterdam.
‘They speak to us as a different species and animals are greatly important for our sense of empathy and to put things into perspective.’

MMA

Gauche......and American Ideal?

Ten years have passed and we still clutch pearls at the notion of a terrorist attack......not because of any increased capability by an extreme minority of Islamic radicals, but because it's been creatively and intrinsically tied to our sense of nationalism.

Case in point - the boorish hissy-fit the right wing punditocracy is throwing over Krugman's column. Not that Krugman said anything factually incorrect mind you....but that he dared utter sentiments that are not politically correct. The same stripe of 'patriots' who gush over the fact and principle challenged screeds of Pamela Gellar, now question Krugman's patriotism, mental health  and sanity. These same sycophants are heard to scoff and roil at speakers such as Jeremiah Wright offering opinion that we have been complicit in our own turmoil......but are never heard to question those fundamentalists who preach these attacks are God's vengeance for the 'sins' of homosexuality and 'faithlessness'.

We have terrorized ourselves far beyond that which al Qa'ida could have dreamed of. We have utterly failed in the cost-benefit analysis of the threat of terrorism. We are positioned to view even usurpation of tyrannical despotism [in the form of the 'Arab spring'] as ominous warnings of extremism morphing into statehood.........utterly oblivious to the actual condition of even the boogeyman specters, much less the motivations of the citizens who pursue any semblance of democracy.

Simple introspective analysis is discarded for talking points and patriotic catch phrases. Ritual defamation is chosen over rational debate. Politically correct is favored over political risk, which ironically circles back around in the form of politics of fear.

Many Americans feel no need to lead by example, or show any decent human trait of humility....they wish for Team USA to take the field and entertain their sense of infallibility, while distracting them from critical thought. We've set a trap for our constitutional principles and liberties, disguised as 'safeguarding' and 'protection'. Once we finally [if ever] awaken from the stupor that blinds us to the realistic level of threat terrorism poses....we'll realize that we've been our own worst enemy all along.

Terrorist groups who attack us or our allies must be ruthlessly eliminated....but that would require a significant shift in national policy. A shift that doesn't quite abide by the playbook.

Remember.......

Uh...the threat is who??

"Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death knell of this country. I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat... If you got cancer or something in your little toe, do you say, well, you know, I’m just going to forget about it because the rest of me is fine? It spreads. OK? And this stuff is deadly, and it’s spreading, and it will destroy our young people, it will destroy this nation."

Sally Kern, R-OK