Tag Archives: osama bin laden

June 16, 2013 · 23:59

Padre Steve’s 2013 Down and Dirty Primer on the Muddle East

“When you are up to your arse in alligators it is hard to remember that your mission is to drain the swamp.” Old British Colonial Saying

Note: This is an update to my 2011 Primer on the Muddle East

During the dark days of World War Two when Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was making fools of a series of British commanders in North Africa people including senior British military and government leaders sometimes referred to the theater of operations as “the Muddle East.” Some things never seem to change. The Muddle East today is quite frankly speaking in a real muddled state if there ever was one with world leaders and regional leaders muddling about as if they were the New York Mets.

A large part of the muddle goes back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the close of the First World War when the victorious Allied Powers redrew the map of the Middle East and made alliances with various local tribal sheiks who many times were crowned king over other tribes who didn’t necessarily want them as king. This along with heavy handed European military actions such as the British using poison gas dropped from aircraft in Iraq and a real lack of effort to better the lives of the newly “liberated” peoples of the region was just the start. Add to the cesspool a bunch of oil presided over by major oil companies, the anti-colonial movements that flourished in the years after World War Two when the French, British and Italians had to divest themselves of their Middle Eastern holdings. The French had to fight a real war in Algeria but finally withdrew leaving Algeria’s new rulers to goof up the country and oppress their people for decades to come. In the coming years many of these newly independent nations found that life still sucked so in a number of countries military officers overthrew the despised monarchs promising reforms but oppressing their people while blaming all their problems on the Israelis. They got their asses kicked by the Israelis in a series of wars which did a number of things that made the Middle East Muddle even worse.

First it ensured that Palestinian Arabs ended up under Israeli rule and were used with great aplomb by the Middle Eastern despots to prop up support for their regimes while doing nothing to help the Palestinians other than to put them in camps in Lebanon. Even when the Egyptians made a peace deal with Israel most of the Arab World ostracized them. Then in 1979 the Shah of Iran was sent packing by a bunch of Mullahs and in 1981 Saddam Hussein’s Iraq attacked Iran in one of the bloodier wars of the late 20th Century which finally ended in 1988. Of course the United States was pissed at the Mullahs so Saddam became our favorite Arab despot for a while. Add to the mix the Soviet Union and the United States arming their favorite Arab dictators who were given carte blanche to continue oppressing their people so long as it didn’t interfere with their support of either party or the oil supply. Finally the Soviets went Tango Uniform in 1989 not long after being forced out of Afghanistan by the U.S. supplied, Pakistani supported and Saudi Arabian fundamentalist financed Mujahideen.

With the Soviets “Tango Uniform” and the Warsaw Pact nations trying to get into NATO the United States was now the uncontested Numero Uno country in the world Saddam presumed upon his late supporters and invaded Kuwait, albeit after thinking that the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq said that we wouldn’t mind.

Well he was wrong we did mind and got a lot of countries from NATO and including a bunch of Arab countries like Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia to get on board on a mission to get Saddam’s troops out of Kuwait. It was a kick ass mission and since the United Nations didn’t authorize removing Saddam and because President George H.W. Bush was smart enough to not to drive on Baghdad to kick him out preferring the despot we knew to a quagmire Saddam was left in power.

So we stationed ground and air forces around the Gulf to keep Saddam and Iran in check and even put them in Saudi Arabia which a large number of radicals such as Osama Bin Laden equated to letting the Devil play in Allah’s Holy Sandbox. So Osama went and set up a base with the Medieval bunch of Pashtun known as the Taliban in Afghanistan stirred up a bunch of shit killing Americans and blowing up stuff including the World Trade Center in 1993, the Khobar Towers barracks complex in 1996, the USS Cole in 2000 and then 2001 another attack on the World Trade Center which took down the towers with hijacked aircraft and also struck the Pentagon triggered an American response against Bin Laden and his Taliban hosts. The United States then invaded in Iraq in 2003 and succeeded in taking out Saddam but also succeeded in alienating a good many Iraqis who greeted us with open arms because we goofed up the occupation and pissed a lot of them off by dissolving the Army, Police and Civil Service and letting thugs and opportunists take over. Unfortunately since we didn’t go in with enough troops to secure all the Iraqi bases, their weapons depots and actually take control of surrendering Iraqi units these newly unemployed and dishonored people launched an insurgency bolstered by Al Qaeda and other foreign fighters even as Sunni and Shi’a Moslems began to settle scores with each other. Insurgency and civil war, two great tastes that go great together, but what the heck right?

Of course it took years to get control of the situation on the ground and thankfully the United States forces in Iraq were helped when the Sunni Moslems in Al Anbar Province realized that these foreign fighters were a worse enemy than the United States and switched sides. This turned the tables in Iraq and the insurgency was brought under control and an elected government managed to start to get their stuff together and allow us to begin withdrawing from Iraq. Of course the focus on Iraq gave the Taliban a chance to regroup as the Afghani Government proved itself corrupt, incompetent and not to give a shit about the Afghani people. So the Taliban who had been hated made a comeback and made our lives much harder so that now almost 10 years into the fight we are having a really hard time. Well enough about us there was plenty more going on in the Muddle East besides the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Let’s see….there was the law of unintended consequences in that by taking Saddam Down and weakening Iraq we took away Iran’s natural enemy and the key to the balance of power in the region. Iran was strengthened and began a nuclear program that everyone with half a brain knows in intended for military use and expanded its influence in Lebanon where the Iranian backed Hezbollah took power. Now Hezbollah which actually has an experienced military force and probably owns 40,000 or so rockets and missiles a good number of which can hit deep in Israel seems to be ready for war especially because they fought the Israelis to a stalemate in 2008, the first time an Arab military ever did that. Not only did they take on the Israelis but they are also helping Syrian dictator Bashir Assad turn the tide against the polyglot Syrian rebel forces which are being assisted by Sunni foreign fighters from all over the Middle East and the ever present Al Qaida presence.

Then was the effect that the wars in those countries made things harder for us in many other friendly Arab nations. Of course there is the problem of a nuclear armed Pakistan which is about as stable as a Japanese nuclear reactor after getting hit by a tsunami and plays both sides of the street in the war on terror. The Palestinians and Israelis continued their love affair and since Fatah which ran Palestinian Authority was so corrupt and gooned up a more militant group, Hamas took power in the Gaza strip. Hamas is a pretty bloodthirsty lot too but not the same level of threat as Hezbollah to the Israelis. Of course the Israelis have done little to help the situation by their often heavy handed treatment of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.

The witches’ cauldron of the Muddle East is getting even more muddled on a daily basis as young Arabs throughout the Muddle East are rising up against their despotic rulers and it doesn’t seem that any are safe, those allied with the United States and the West as well as those that have been a thorn in the side of the United States and the West. It just seems that despots and tyrants are no longer in vogue. The uprisings began in Iran after a disputed election where reformers were cheated of power and the revolt crushed by the Revolutionary Guard and other thugs of the Iranian regime. However with the election of “moderate” whatever that means cleric Hasan Rowhani as President hopes are that Iran, despite the machinations of many other clerics and the Revolutionary Guard might be brought to the negotiating table. That being said Iran is reportedly sending about 4000 troops to go help Assad in Syria so go figure.

Elsewhere in the Middle East things continue to boil. In December 2010 the people of Tunisia rose up and overthrew their President for Life Ben Ali in a peaceful uprising followed shortly after by the Egyptians who tossed out long term President and U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak. In Tunisia a “moderate Islamist” regime has been attempting to maintain control of radicals and keep some semblance of balance in that country while in Egypt the Islamic Brotherhood was able to get majorities elected in the Parliament and elect Mohammed Morsi as President. Needless to say both countries are still in turmoil.

In Iraq the Sunni Shi’a divide is as wide as ever and that country is threatening to become engulfed in yet another civil war as sectarian violence increases and the Kurds make more moves toward independence.

Turkey, the heart of the old Ottoman Empire is now beginning to erupt as secularist elements in the society are protesting the policies of Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leading to repeated clashes over the past two weeks between protestors and police.

Afghanistan though technically not part of the Middle East continues to be a problem for US and NATO consuming intelligence, economic diplomatic and military resources that could be put to play with better effect elsewhere. What T.E. Lawrence said of the British occupation of a restive Mesopotamia in 1920:

“We realise the burden the army in Mesopotamia is to the Imperial Exchequer, but we do not see as clearly the burden it is to Mesopotamia. It has to be fed, and all its animals have to be fed. The fighting forces are now eighty-three thousand strong, but the ration strength is three hundred thousand. There are three labourers to every soldier, to supply and serve him.” ‘France, Britain, and the Arabs’ by Col. T. E. Lawrence The Observer, 8 August 1920

In Libya the Arab Spring claimed the long time pain in the ass Moammar Gaddafi. That conflict center of the action in 2011 until Gaddafi was overthrown and murdered. Since then Libya has remained in turmoil despite elections, militias run amok and the US Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in an attack on the US Consulate and CIA base in Benghazi on September 11th 2012.

Yemen and Bahrain, Algeria, and Jordan have or are experiencing demonstrations which look to be revolts in the making and even Saudi Arabia is trying to head off a potential popular uprising.

However the real problem now, the problem that threatens to send the region into a regional war is the revolt in Syria which began with peaceful protests by reformers against the Assad regime. However the hard line response of that regime to the protests spawned a civil war which now threatens to overflow the borders of Syria. France, Britain and the US have stated that they believe that there is evidence that the Syria government has used chemical weapons, in particular Sarin nerve agents against the rebels. The conflict has claimed the lives of an estimated 80,000 people with hundreds of thousands more now living as refugees.

The conflict in Syria epitomizes one of the greatest challenges in the Middle East that many in the West are just beginning to recognize, the Sunni Shi’a divide. That divide is becoming more serious with every passing day as Iran continues to lead and assist Shi’a elements in predominantly Sunni Arab countries, as well as in Iraq where the Arab Shi’a are in the majority. The conflict in Syria is predominantly Sunni versus Shi’a though in that patchwork nation of Sunni, Shi’a, Alawite Shi’a tribe of the Assad clan, various Christian and Druse groups. Lebanon which borders Syria is as divided as its larger neighbor and Hezbollah holds tremendous power in that country.

Yes my friends this is a mess and almost everybody that is anybody in the military and economic power houses of the world doesn’t have their handprints all over at least some part of this mess. All of these own some of the blame for what is going on, both the rulers of the nations in the region as well as world powers who all try to influence the nations and peoples for their own diplomatic, intelligence, military or economic gain. Almost no one is unsoiled by their involvement in the Muddle East over the past 90 years or so and so in a way all of great world powers, as well as the despots who ran these countries are to blame.

The region is more volatile than at any time in recent history and events there could easily ignite a regional war with worldwide implications. That is why the region has been called the Muddle East for decades. We all hope and pray for the best and that somehow all of this that the promise of a peaceful and democratic “Arab Spring” will become a reality, but there are better than even odds that things get way worse before they get better. There are just too many wild cards in this deck and the swamp is full of hungry alligators.

With the announcement this week that the US would provide military aid and training to the Syrian rebels and that US forces will remain in Jordan even as US and NATO Patriot missile batteries stand ready in Turkey there is a really good chance that the conflict in Syria will not stay in Syria.

Of course there is always the wild card if what Israel may do in what it perceives to be its security interests against outward foes such as Iran and Syria but also inside its borders and occupied territories, especially if it is attacked or provoked by Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas.

May God help us all and bring about peaceful change, or as my Iraqi friends simply say “Inshallah, God willing.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 4th 1979: The Beginning of the Iranian Hostage Crisis and a New World

Tonight Judy and I went and saw the movie Argo. I saw it the day it opened here but Judy had not seen it. When the movie began with the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran on November 4th 1979 I looked at Judy and said, “it is the anniversary.” It is hard to believe that 33 years ago was when that event happened. At the time Judy and I were still in the early stages of our courtship and it was then that I decided that I would enter the military.

I enlisted in the Army National Guard and entered Army ROTC after the hostages were released. I had been accepted into the Air Force ROTC program in early 1980 but waited a year and did the Army because I needed the money provided by a summer job that could not be made up in a 4 week Air Force Summer camp before the school year began in 1980. Such is life when you didn’t get any academic scholarships and chose to attend college in a high cost of living area.

The hostage crisis was an event that changed my life and watching the film Argo was a very emotional experience the first time that I saw it and brought tears to my eyes again tonight. It was so well done and having travelled in much of the Middle East and been surrounded by crushing crowds in Bazaars, thankfully without being accosted for taking pictures and going through various Middle Eastern nation airport security checkpoints, as well as numerous other countries in Europe and Asia I could feel a bit of the anxiety rise in me as the film showed the American fugitives from the embassy as they went through the motions of being Canadians. There have been a number of times when traveling alone on official Navy business to countries after 9-11 that I relied on my skills in German to pass a German when accosted in public for being an American in a foreign country rife with anti-American sentiments. Thank God for bad grammar and a Bavarian accent.

So now 33 years later I am still in the military and the United States and Iran are still mortal enemies and if some politicians, pundits and preachers have their way will be at war with each other, for some the sooner the better. I personally don’t understand the mentality of people that have never, or will ever serve in the military who preach a Gospel of war, of pre-emptive war under the guise of “protecting America.” Having seen the effects of the war-mongers that preach “pre-emptive” war in Iraq, both on the people of that unfortunate country and our own troops I cannot fathom yet another pre-emptive war. But there are plenty of politicians, pundits and preachers, the Unholy Trinity of war and pestilence who seek such a war with Iran. Of course should Iran ever attack us that is another matter, but to launch another war after we destroyed the military potential and power of Iran’s natural and traditional enemy Iraq which kept the Iranians at bay is altogether one of the most stupid ideas ever dreamed about, especially when the American military is stretched thin with close to 70,000 troops exposed to disaster in Afghanistan if supply lines are cut and Iran becomes more actively involved.

In January 1980 Jimmy Carter gave final approval to CIA operative Bob Mendez’s operation to bring those 6 Americans out of Iran. Since the publicity could have caused harm or death to the other American hostages held by the Iranians Carter gave the credit to the Canadians. He ordered a military operation to free those hostages which ended in disaster and would go on to lose his re-election to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Back then I did not appreciate anything that Jimmy Carter did but I have to respect the fact that he was willing not to claim credit for something that could have helped his re-election campaign in order to protect the lives of Americans.

Afghanistan is something else that hasn’t changed that much. In December 1979 the Soviets invaded that country and the United States would supply and support the Afghan Mujahideen. Some of these became the nucleus of the Taliban who along with their Arab “foreign fighter” allies under Osama Bin Laden became Al Qaeda. The Reagan administration began a program in 1985 to trade arms to Iran for American hostages with monetary proceeds being used to fund Nicaraguan rebels which resulted in the Iran-Contra affair. Both of funding of the Mujahideen and the Iran-Contra affair have come to cause the United States much grief in both the Middle East and Central and South America.

Both were short term expedient operations conducted without long term though to the results of both for American prestige as well as foreign policy, politics, economics and military operations since.

Hindsight is not a bad thing, but foresight is much better. Perhaps we can learn not to repeat the follies of those that helped create the world that we now live.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as 9-11 2001, afghanistan, al qaeda, argo, bob mendez, cia, iran, iran-contra affair, iranian hostage crisis, iraq, jimmy carter, middle east, mujahideen, osama bin laden, president ronald reagan, taliban

September 12, 2012 · 23:59

Pouring Gasoline on the Fire: The True Believers and Unending War

The Consulate in Benghazi Burns

“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance.” Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

September 11th 2012 was a day that initially was marked by somber reflection on the attacks that killed nearly 3000 people 11 years before. However as the night settled over the Continental United States Americans were again attacked. This time two events, one in Egypt and one in Libya brought about the loss of American lives including Ambassador Chris Stevens and ignited a political firestorm.

It is no secret that extremist Moslems, Christians and Jews, each for their own particular theological and political reasons have been trying with all their might to bring about a global conflagration between the the Islamic world and the West, especially the United States and Israel. Hatred of the other, power and the desire for vengeance against crimes real and imagined motivate all of them. The desire for the ultimate judgement of God being poured out on their enemies is a motivating force because their enemies are by necessity the enemies of their God.

The latest violence appears to have its genus in the release of a a film produced by someone named Sam Bacile who claims to be real estate broker and Israeli citizen. The Israelis say there is no such Israeli and some wonder if the name is actually a pseudonym and the AP reported that the cell phone led to a man named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula a man convicted of financial crimes who admitted a role in the film today. Nakoula is neither an Israeli or a Jew and has used the the name as a pseudonym.

Koran Burning Pastor Terry Jones

The film, called alternately “The Innocence of Moslems” or “Mohammed: Prophet of Moslems” is being promoted extensively by Egyptian Coptic Christian expatriate and anti-Moslem zealot Morris Sadek and Koran burning “pastor” Terry Jones. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal the man who calls himself Sam Bacile claimed that the film was “a political movie” and that “Islam is a cancer, period.” One of his collaborators an Evangelical Christian named Steve Klein told Fox News that “we went into this knowing that this was probably going to happen.”

Bacile or Nakoula, whoever he happens to be released a 13 minute long trailer for the film on You-Tube in English and it was translated into Egyptian Arabic. It has gone viral in the Islamic world. The Islamic preachers of hate and the cottage industry that thrives on finding reasons to hate Americans used the film to launch demonstrations at the US Embassy in Cairo and the Consulate in Libya.

Egyptian Protestors desecrate the American flag after breaching the Embassy Wall

Warned of upcoming demonstrations the Press Officer of the US Embassy in Cairo published the following statement six hours before the protest. Please note it is not an apology, it is diplomats in danger trying to calm the situation:

“The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.”

In Egypt the new government headed by Moslem Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi did little to break up the demonstration yesterday and the crowds entered the compound, pulled down and desecrated the American flag and raised the black Islamic banner. However, they did no more. Today more demonstrations have occurred but Egyptian security forces interposed themselves between the demonstrators but the Egyptian government did nothing to condemn the demonstrators.

However during the initial phases of the crisis Republican Presidential Candidate condemned the Obama administration and the Embassy for “apologizing” for the “right of freedom of speech” in response to the attack on the Cairo embassy. Romney was criticized for the statement by many Republicans for appearing to use the attacks for partisan political gain. After doubling down on the comments this morning many analysts believe that Romney has come out of the day worse off on how he is viewed than before.

Romney’s remarks were contrasted with those of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in 1980 when the military operation ordered by President Jimmy Carter to free the US hostages during the Iranian hostage crisis. Reagan made this statement: “This is the time for us as a nation and a people to stand united and to pray” while Bush said “I unequivocally support the president of the United States — no ifs, ands or buts — and it certainly is not a time to try to go one-up politically. He made a difficult, courageous decision.” Both Reagan and Bush would campaign using the “weakness” of Jimmy Carter as one of their key points of attack but on the day of the disaster both had the decency not to use it for their political gain.

Ambassador Chris Stevens

In Libya there was a small demonstration at the consulate. However that demonstration appears to have been pushed aside by an armed group of 20-30 men wielding RPGs, machine guns and other automatic weapons. The assault by the group lasted between 4-5 hours and during it Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans including two Marines were killed.

The Libya attack appears to be a planned and premeditated attack, possibly to avenge of Al-Qaeda’s Libyan born second in command Abu Yahya al-Libi on June 4th, which Libyan Al Qaeda allies have promised to retribution. The fact that the attack occurred when a Ambassador Stevens was on a visit to promote the opening of a new cultural center. Stevens was respected by many Libyans for his role during the Libyan revolution and the Libyan government has apologized and Libyans have marched to apologize for his death.

Libyans protest in Sympathy with the US

President Obama has order a Marine Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team (FAST) platoon to Tripoli to bolster the embassy defenses and ordered two Guided Missile Destroyers to Libya. He has promised that “justice” will be served on Ambassador Stevens’ killers. Osama Bin Laden and many other Al Qaeda leaders have faced that justice during Obama’s term and I expect that these brutal killers will not live long. He also made a telling comment about how he and the administration now view the situation in Egypt:

“I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy…I think it’s still a work in progress, but certainly in this situation, what we’re going to expect is that they are responsive to our insistence that our embassy is protected, our personnel is protected.”

The operative words in his remarks about Egypt are that “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally.” It appears that the President fully recognizes that despite hopes that pro-western modernists would gain power after the revolution that the newly elected government of Moslem Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi is not our friend.

Tonight the demonstrations in Cairo continue, others are breaking out in other countries and many Arab leaders recognize the danger and are trying to defuse the situations.

The problem is that no matter who is President that the instigators of the attacks on the embassy and the consulate as well as those that egg them on and those that intentionally try to provoke them will not stop. They will continue to do all that the can to bring about the war that they think will bring the fulfillment of their apocalyptic visions, be they Islamic, Christian or Jewish. The fire is burning and these fools are doing all that they can to spread the flames around the world.

I wish I could say that it was going to get better but it looks like we are being pulled even deeper into this war without end.

Pray for peace but know that those that want war do more than pray for it, they are willing to do anything for it, even kill.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as Abu Yahya al-Libi, al qaeda, ambassador chris stevens, “Mohammed: Prophet of Moslems”, “The Innocence of Moslems”, barak obama, cairo embassy attack, egypt, eric hoffer, FAST platoon, george h w bush, iran hostage crisis, jimmy carter, libya, libya consulate attack, mitt romney, mohammed morsi, Morris Sadek, muslim brotherhood, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, osama bin laden, pastor terry jones, president ronald reagan, prophet mohammed, religious extremists, sam bacile, the true believer

September 9, 2012 · 16:39

Padre Steve Remembers 9-11 and the Forgotten War

It has been nearly eleven years since that fateful Tuesday when the world changed.

I can still remember it like it was yesterday despite the intervening years.

I was in my office at Camp LeJeune where I was serving as Chaplain for Headquarters Battalion 2nd Marine Division. I had just finished an early morning counseling case and had delayed my early morning PT in order to handle the case and after I checked e-mail I was about to close my internet browser when I saw a small headline on the Yahoo News headline section.

The headline simply read “Plane crashes into World Trade Center Building.” My immediate thought was “some dumb ass flew his Cessna into the building.” I simply thought that some inexperienced pilot had gotten lost and crashed his plane into a tower. Thinking nothing more I closed out the page and left the office. It was 0900.

I got in my car and the radio was tuned in to a local right-wing talk radio station, yes I used to listen to it all the time. The talk show host was former Congressman Bob Dornan. He was talking with someone about what kind of aircraft had struck the building when he shouted “oh my God another plane has crashed into the other tower!”

I was stunned. I knew that it had to be terrorism. I drove to the gym since they had multiple televisions and I figured that I could find out more there. I walked in and saw Marines, Sailors and civilians gathered around the sets. Every TV was tuned in to different news programs, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC as well as shows such as the Today Show and Good Morning America. Some whispered to each other but the silence of most was deafening. I remained a few minutes, transfixed by the images on the set. I then left the gym, got in my car and went back to the office where I showered, got into uniform, made a check of the news which was now reporting a strike on the Pentagon and the collapse of the South Tower of the WTC.

I drove to our battalion command post where I met with our Commanding Officer, Colonel Lake and Executive Officer Major Foster. We all knew that this was the beginning of a war and all of us had been through countless instances where we had been notified to get ready to deploy, most recently during the Kosovo action where Marines were to take a lead roll had the Serbians not backed down. While we talked the North Tower of the WTC collapsed. The emotions on everyone’s face showed, it was hard to believe that so much had happened and the great towers were smoldering heaps of rubble with possibly tens of thousands of victims crushed or incinerated in the ruins. I was instructed to get my gear and be back for a staff meeting as Colonel Lake was heading to division to meet with the Staff of 2nd Marine Division.

I made a quick run to my town home, hugged the dogs since Judy was out and grabbed my gear and some extra uniforms and underwear and headed back into the base through the back gate. I deposited my gear in my office and went around the building so see our Marines and Sailors assigned to our Truck Company, MP Company, Medical Company and Headquarters Company and all were waiting for more word, most gathered around televisions and watching breaking news. Some came to me and asked what it meant and expressed concern for families and friends in the affected locations. Then I went back to our headquarters where we heard from Colonel Lake what was known and what our actions would be. We were placed on high alert, patrols by full combat ready Marines were to patrol vulnerable areas of the base while roadblocks and checkpoints were established near every major headquarters aboard the base. The base was also locked down and only Marines, Sailors or Civilian workers returning to work were allowed aboard.

Later in the day I met with the chaplains who served our independent battalions, 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Recon Battalion and 2nd Tank Battalion. I explained what I knew from my meetings with the Division Chaplain and Battalion Commander. We concluded our meeting with prayer for the victims of the attacks, the responders and for our Marines and Sailors.

It was both grim and surreal as the day passed and night fell. We remained in that condition four days. Meals were served at the Chow Hall, MRE’s issued and we went everywhere in full combat gear. I visited Marines at their guard posts during the night and worked counseling those who were concerned about family members or friends. They did so for good reason as nearly 3000 people were killed in the WTC, Pentagon and aboard the four hijacked aircraft.

Within a month U.S. Forces were engaged in combat in Afghanistan, driving the Taliban from power and sending Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda into hiding. Various units of the division were deployed to Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa over the coming weeks and months and even as we did so rumors circulated about Iraq.

I knew that the war would not be the short war that everyone hoped for and within 6 months I would be deployed with the USS Hue City and the USS John F Kennedy Carrier Strike Group to the Arabian Gulf, Horn of Africa and Gulf of Oman. We would take part in maritime interception operations off the Horn of Africa and in the Arabian Gulf where we took part in the UN Oil Embargo on Iraqi smugglers.

I would travel to the Middle East frequently over the coming years supporting Marines from the Marine Security Force Battalion and later deploy to Iraq from EOD Group Two. I have lost friends and see the effects of the war every day at Camp LeJeune.

Osama Bin Laden is now dead, and it has been 11 long years of war. However it has been a war that for the most part has not been a national effort. After 9-11 the nation was not called to sacrifice, it was told by political leaders to “go shopping.” The brave men and women of our military and their families have made incredible sacrifices over the past 11 years. 2024 have died in Afghanistan while 4486 died in Iraq before the withdraw of US forces in December 2011. Another 32,223 were wounded in Iraq while 15,332 have been wounded in Afghanistan. These numbers do not count American contractors, State Department, CIA, FBI or other law enforcement agencies.

They also do not count the thousands afflicted by PTSD or other illnesses contracted in the combat zone, nor does it count the large number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have taken their lives on active duty or following their discharge or retirement. Then there are the lives of over 1500 coalition soldiers, mostly British, Canadians and Australians who have given their lives in these wars. Finally there are the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghan civilians who have died or suffered injury or have been dislocated or exiled as a result of the wars.

Then there is the economic cost which amounts to trillions of dollars for both wars which have been funded by borrowing against our economic future.

Despite this for most Americans the war in Afghanistan is unpopular, little understood and distant, far from daily life. This is backed by polling data and by words of some politicians of both major political parties, in every major poll over 60% of Americans say that the war in Afghanistan is not worth the cost and needs to end.

One of the most glaring examples of how political leaders think about Afghanistan, but certainly not the only one is Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Romney did not mention either Iraq or Afghanistan in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, although he did mention “strengthening the military.” He explained it later in an interview by saying to Fox News anchor Brett Baier “When you give a speech you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things that you think are important….”

The sad fact is that no matter why Romney left out any mention of an ongoing war out of his speech that his words “you talk about the things that you think are important” are indicative not only of him but the majority of Americans. The reality is that Romney and most Americans have no personal connection with the war or the military. The war has been fought by a relatively small professional military that represents less than one percent of the population. Marine Lieutenant General John Kelly who lost his son, a Marine Lieutenant in Afghanistan noted at the 2012 American Legion national convention:

“America as a whole today is certainly not at war, not as a country, not as a people… Only a tiny fraction of American families fear all day and every day a knock at the door that will shatter their lives….”

This Tuesday we will reflect on something called Patriot’s Day and pause to remember the events of that bloody Tuesday of September 11th 2001. I hope, probably in vain that the American people and their leaders will do more than mouth a few words, talk about how terrible the day was and go back to business as usual. I hope, probably again in vain that Americans will wake up to the fact that tens of thousands of Americans are in harm’s way and that even more and probably more terrible wars loom just over the horizon.

I have no idea what it will take to actually engage the vast bulk of the American population that what happens in Afghanistan is still important. Nor do I think that most people have any idea that a war with Iran could be disastrous for US and coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan.

It is odd to think that we can think about 9-11 and then ignore the subsequent wars the way that we have done. I really don’t.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 1, 2012 · 23:52

Remembering the Killing of Osama Bin Laden While Realistically Looking at Afghanistan and Pakistan

A year ago US Navy SEALs from SEAL Team Six and other Special Operations Forces made a daring night raid into Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden had orchestrated the Al Qaeda attacks on September 11th 2001 which killed over 3000 Americans, the near sinking of the US Navy Destroyer USS Cole, the Luxor Massacre of 1997 and the bombings of the US Embassies in Dar es Salaam Tanzania and Nairobi Kenya in 1998 and numerous other terror attacks throughout the Middle East. Bin Laden was the sworn enemy of the United States. The killing of Bin Laden was a victory, perhaps the biggest victory that we have achieved in over 10 years of war. In fact Bin Laden was the reason we went to war, the reason that we became embroiled in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden had been the “guest” of the Afghan Taliban government and used Afghanistan as his base of operations to train his fighters and plan his operations. After September 11th the United States attacked Afghanistan, toppled the Taliban and put Bin Laden on the run. Pakistan which had supported the Taliban government following the fall of the former Soviet supported Republic of Afghanistan and subsequent civil war which brought the Taliban to power. Pakistan’s President Musharraf quickly allied his country with the United States. However over the course of the 10 year war in Afghanistan the government and certain elements of its security and intelligence services gave tacit support to the Taliban as well as Al Qaeda. The most damning was the fact that Bin Laden had resided in the Pakistani military town of Abbottabad with a significant amount of his family for five years.

President Obama gave the order for the SEAL team to kill Bin Laden over the objections of his Vice President and Secretary of Defense. It was a ballsy move. If it had gone wrong which it easily could have many US troops could have been killed, captured and placed on display by the Pakistani government. The credit to the planning and execution of the operation has to go to the SEALs and Special Operations Command, but credit for the order to do it needs to be given to the President. If President Bush had succeeded in killing Bin Laden I would feel the same way.

The fact is that President Obama has been successfully waging war against Al Qaeda, not only killing Bin Laden but other top leaders. Even Bin Laden before his death was concerned about the toll being taken on his organization by the reinvigorated US campaign. The Pakistanis enraged by the United States taking the war against Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies inside Afghanistan, something that it should have been doing but had not despite Jihadist terrorist attacks on it cut the supply lines to US and NATO forces running through it months ago and have not reopened them. Some ally.

But that is not surprising. As far back as November 1979, before the Soviets intervened in Afghanistan the US Embassy was ransacked and burned by Pakistani mobs, an attack which killed a US Marine. The Pakistanis only began to reluctantly cooperate with the United States in supporting some of the Afghan Pashtun Mujahideen fighters. After the Soviets left Afghanistan it continued to support its Pashtuns against Uzbek and Tajik Afghans, support which eventually allowed the Taliban to take over the country. Despite US protests in the 1990s the Pakistanis did little to nothing to hinder Bin Laden, Al Qaeda or the Taliban regime. While it quickly and officially “supported” the US under former President Musharraf factions within its ISI intelligence service are believed to have continued to support Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters and encouraged attacks on US, Afghan and NATO troops.

Pakistan itself teeters on the edge of collapse. Its economy is in shambles, it cannot control its borders, its intelligence service is often at odds with the government while extremist groups gain more power every day. It is a rapidly failing state with nuclear weapons. Every day it grows more antagonistic towards the United States which under the Obama Administration had been persistent in using arial drones to attack suspected terrorists in Pakistan. The relationship between the United States and Pakistan is as bad or worse as it was in 1979.

In the mean time our former nemesis the Russian Federation, the former Soviet Union has been stalwart in allowing our troops and supplies to flow through their country and the neighboring Central Asian Republics into Afghanistan. The Russians having experienced the agony of Afghanistan and the reality of Jihadist terrorism emanating from it as well as Chechnya do not want the US and NATO mission to stabilize Afghanistan to fail. Currently without the support of the Russians we would be unable to supply our troops in Afghanistan.

Today President Obama travelled to Afghanistan and announced the signing of a long term security and cooperation agreement with the Afghan government. The agreement will take effect after the current plan to withdraw most US and NATO troops by 2014. We have no idea how well this will turn out and despite all the good intentions on our part I doubt that the agreement stands the test of time because of the nature of Afghanistan and its competing ethnic, religious, political and tribal divisions. It is my belief that we will be lucky to get out as well as the Soviets did in 1989 because I do not see a truly united Afghanistan coming out of this and it is more than likely that Pakistan will descend into chaos making our presence in Afghanistan even more problematic.

The mission started to get Bin Laden after 9-11. In the process it became something different as we attempted to transform Afghanistan. A year ago we finally succeeded in killing Bin Laden and have significantly degraded Al Qaeda. That is why we went to war. That is probably the best it will get.

At some point President Obama or his successor will likely have to decide to withdraw completely from Afghanistan and like former Soviet Premier Gorbachev admit that “We are not going to save the regime. We’ve already transformed it.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as 9-11 attacks, afghanistan, afghanistan war, al qaeda, bin laden killed, destruction of us embassy in pakistan 1979, drones, isi, mikhail gorbachev, nato, osama bin laden, pakistan, pakistani taliban, president george w bush, president musharref, president obama, russian support of us-nato afghanistan mission, seal team 6, september 11th 2001, soviet-afghan war, taliban, uss cole bombing

March 17, 2012 · 22:57

Failing to Learn from History: The Lesson of the First Anglo-Afghan War and Questions about the US-NATO Campaign

“The Americans in Afghanistan are Demons. They claim they burned Korans by mistake, but really those were “Satanic acts that will never be forgiven by apologies.” Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai

It seems that we in the West seldom learn from history nor do certain Afghan leaders like Hamid Karzai. The situation in Afghanistan has taken on a more ominous tone as the situation continues to spiral downward with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s demand for the US and NATO to redeploy their troops to large bases and leave the countryside to Afghan control. Even more ominously he said that the Afghan-NATO relationship was “at the end of the rope.” Karzai alluded that he did not believe that US and NATO account of the killing of 16 Afghan villagers near Kandahar.

This should come as no surprise to any observer of Afghanistan or anyone familiar with the relationship of Afghan leaders with western occupiers. Karzai knows that the US-NATO era is coming to an end and even though he rules only because he is buttressed by western military power he is now trying to ensure his political and literal survival when we leave be it in 2013 or 2014. The one thing that Karzai needs to keep in mind is that like his predecessors who turned on their western supporters be they British or Soviet he will be dangling from the end of the rope when we leave. He and his corrupt band of thieves who have alienated and plundered their own people will not survive their wrath once the protective cordon of American and NATO troops is withdrawn.

Karzai’s anti-American stance is further reinforced by the growing number of killings of US and NATO troops by Afghan police, soldiers and other personnel. Even this week an attack was made by an interpreter who drove a stolen pickup truck at a Marine Corps General and his British Brigadier assistant commander at Kandahar while awaiting the arrival of Secretary of Defense Panetta. Likewise the death of a Marine in February was officially announced as being at the hand of an Afghan soldier. The death occurred before the Afghan reaction to the burning of the Koran and was the 7th NATO service member who died at the hands of Afghan forces in February.

Staff Sergeant Robert Bales at the National Training Center in 2011 (US Army/DoD Photo)

The final nail in the coffin for the campaign occurred last week when Staff Sergeant Robert Bales for unknown reasons went on a shooting rampage killing 16 Afghan civilians including 9 children when they were asleep in their homes. Bales actions whether attributable to a psychological breakdown, being drunk or if he was simply a cold blooded killer have effectively destroyed any chance of the United States and NATO recovering the situation in Afghanistan. It is already said that Bales attorney plans to use the case to also put the US war effort on trial. Since Bales reportedly has a Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI and possibly PTSD who allegedly was told that he would not be deployed again expect that the Army Medical Department and Madigan Army Medical Center will be raked over the coals. Those institutions and the Commanders of Joint-Base Lewis McChord are already being investigated for downgrading PTSD diagnosis to other mental illnesses that do not qualify for medical disability payments.

Staff Sergeant Bales appears to be a man who appeared until this incident to be an honorable and professional soldier with a distinguished combat record. However he had a number of potentially troubling legal and personal situations occur over the past number of years and had not been selected for promotion. How those events play into this and what may have happened to push him over the edge or to unleash an evil in him that no one knew was there will be the subject of much debate in the coming weeks. None of it will be good for the United States.

At the same time the question will have to be asked how and why a soldier with injuries of PTSD and TBI was deployed as part of a small team supporting Special Forces troops instead of with his own unit even after allegedly being told that he would not redeploy. That is a question that must be answered. Why would the Army deploy a soldier with known PTSD and TBI as an Individual Augment with different unit than which he was assigned? In this environment he would not be in a place to have the same camaraderie of being part of his own unit probably suffer much more isolation with the inherent dangers of such a situation. Having served on small bases in Iraq with the small teams of advisors and having worked with Sailors, Soldiers, Marines and Airmen assigned to commands as Individual Augments (IAs) and having been one myself I can say that these assignments are often much more dangerous for those with preexisting trauma.

The result of this latest incident coming on the heels of the burning of the Koran and other religious texts at Bagram Air Base, the release of a You Tube video of a US Marine Scout Sniper team urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters and the revelation of the “Kill team” in 2010 has for all practical purposes ended any chance of making a successful transition in Afghanistan.

Last Stand of the 44th Regiment of Foot 1842

Afghanistan was supposed to be the “good war” and for a couple of years that is what it was. US forces had taken down the Taliban regime with minimal effort in 2001 and appeared to be well on their way to finishing off Al Qaeda and banishing the Taliban from Afghanistan. However in 2003 the US took its focus off of Afghanistan by invading Iraq. We also had placed our trust in Hamid Karzai to guide Afghanistan into a new and democratic era. Karzai has proven to be much like Sujah Shah Durrani who the British imposed on Afghanistan in 1838 when they could not get Emir Dost Mohammed Khan to do their bidding in trying to keep Russia and Persia from dominating Afghanistan. That was a mistake of epic proportions that led to one of the greatest British military, diplomatic and political disasters of the Empire.

A survivor to the First Anglo-Afghan War Chaplain G.R. Gleig wrote about that war something that may be said about our campaign there in years to come:

“a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.”

We can pray that it doesn’t happen that way. What started as an attempt to find and kill Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan in October of 2001 has turned into a long term occupation that serves no strategic interest of the United States. Nearly 100,000 US troops are tied down in a country where they can do little conduct local operations against an intractable enemy to support a corrupt government that the people of Afghanistan loathe. It is so similar to the British experience that it makes one wonder if anyone has ever read a book about the country before invading it.

Bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda is still reeling from continued strikes on its leadership. The goal of the war was achieved. Afghanistan is Afghanistan. It will not change and any threats brought by terrorists that may try to use it as a base can be defended so long as we are able and willing to whack a mole whenever they raise their head up, just as we are in the Horn of Africa, Yemen and even Pakistan. That does not require 100,000 tied down in Afghanistan where they are exposed to local threats as well as the possibility of being cut off from supplies should Pakistan or the Russian Federation cut supply lines or should hostilities break out with Iran.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as 44th regiment of foot afghanistan 1838-42, afghan attacks on nato soldiers, afghanistan war, al qaeda, chaplain g r gleig, emir dost mohammed khan, first anglo-afghan war, hamid karzai, individual augmentee, joint base lewis mcchord, kill team, koran burning, leon panetta, magian army medical center, murder of afghan civilians, nato, osama bin laden, PTSD, staff sergeant robert bales, sujah shah durrani, tbi

December 19, 2011 · 00:52

A Weekend of Surprises and Not : Packers Lose, Colts Win and Kim Jong-Il Dies; Tebow finally Loses and Padre Steve keeps on Trucking…

Packed away

Wow what a Sunday….

The Green Bay Packers who had not lost a game for a year lost to the lowly Kansas City Chiefs who had just fired their Head Coach on Monday. It is actually fascinating because Kansas City started a Quarterback that had never started in the NLF prior to today and we facing a team that is the odds on favorite to repeat as Super Bowl Champions. It looked like that the Pack had a clear path to a perfect season and the playoffs. They will be in the playoffs but it possible that they could lose their home field advantage. I don’t think that is likely but stranger things have happened.

Not to be outdone the winless Indianapolis Colts who were coming close to being the second NFL team to go 0-16 in a season defeated the Tennessee Titans today. I was expecting that they had a great chance to tie the 2008 Detroit Lions for that seemed the impossible nightmare for any team.

The late Kim Jong Il above and son and new Dictator for Life Kim Jon Un below

To make things even weirder today North Korean Dictator for Life Kim Jong-Il died today, or actually tomorrow if you are in Korea. State media staid that he died on a train from a heart attack induced by “physical and mental fatigue.” I would guess that this was due to overwork at one of his notorious orgies with Scandinavian actresses but that is just speculation, maybe he was just trying to figure out his new Facebook profile page but I digress. Of course I could be wrong and “Team America” got him. Kim will join his pals Moammar Ghadafi, Saddam Hussein and Ossama Bin Laden on their eternal vacation on the Lake of Fire. I hope that he brought his asbestos water skis. He will be replaced as Dictator for Life by his son and self appointed heir Kim Jong-Un who is know by some as the Un-Kim. The younger Kim is in his mid to late 20s and must be a pretty sharp guy and military genius because his dad promoted him to the North Korean Equivalent of a Four Star General. Knowing this the South Korean government has placed its military on “Extra Special Chaos in North Korea alert.” All kidding aside this is not a good situation. We have a young man insulated from any real reality now in charge of a rogue nation with a starving population, a big army and lots of nukes. If it wasn’t reality it would make a great episode on South Park.

Finally the magic of Tim Tebow ran out today against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. It was a good battle but the Tebow and the Broncos turned the ball over in critical situations and the Patriots not only took advantage of every break but made their own. Yet it was a classy game. Two decent men quarterbacking NFL teams behaved with class during and after the game. The Patriots with the Ravens losing are now in control of home field advantage in the AFC playoffs. Raiders blew a 13 point lead in the 4th Quarter and lost to the Lions and thus the Broncos remained even with the Raiders for the AFC West lead as San Diego made up a game on both by knocking off the Ravens.

As far as Padre Steve, it was a day of travel followed by fellowship with friends at Gordon Biersch followed by doctors appointments for her tomorrow before making the trip back. Of course our little dog Molly is enjoying the long rides and trips through drive thru restaurants. Tomorrow evening Molly will be sweetly telling me every time that she thinks that she needs to pee or take a walk down to the beach and back. Life is good when you are a cute little dog.

Anyway, have a great final week of preparation for Christmas or whatever holiday that you celebrate or even those that you don’t.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 27, 2011 · 23:53

The War that No One wants to Fight: Pakistan 2011

Supply Lines in Peril

This weekend there was an altercation on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in which somewhere between 24 and 28 Pakistani soldiers were killed during a NATO airstrike. Afghan military and regional government officials are saying that Afghan soldiers called in for air support after they were attacked from the Pakistani side of the border. The Pakistanis are calling the the strike an “unproved attack.” NATO and Afghan officials note that the border is not very distinguishable and that Taliban forces often will shoot from positions near Pakistani outposts. Unfortunately in Pakistan the only truth that matters is that NATO killed its soldiers and the fact that their country and some agencies specifically the intelligence service actively support the Taliban is irrelevant. The truth is that the only reason that the Pakistani government and military has halfway cooperated with NATO is because of the vast amount of military and economic aid it receives from the United States. The thin veneer of cooperation was broken this weekend and there may be little that anyone can do to reestablish any kind of real trust or cooperation despite the fact that the cooperation of the Pakistanis is a “necessary evil” as long as the US an NATO have over 100.000 troops deployed in “penny packets” around the vast rugged expanse of Afghanistan.

The fact is that depending on whose statistics you look at some 40-50% of NATO’s supplies are transported overland from the Pakistani port of Karachi to Afghanistan. The bulk of these goods are things like fuel and heavy equipment without which the ability of NATO forces in Afghanistan cannot conduct effective operations. The Pakistanis have already demanded that the US pull its CIA drone units from a key Pakistani air base and the Pakistanis are still smarting over the killing of Osama Bin Laden on their soil. The simple truth is that unless the Pakistani military can calm their country our supply lines will be cut off. Unfortunately this same military and government has used any excuse or provocation to stir up their population against the United States and NATO in order to preserve their hold on power. Now it appears that the situation has reached a point that they will not be able to control the passions that they have stirred whenever the need suits them.

If the Pakistani military and government have put themselves and us in a bind. If they appear to be “soft” on NATO in the eyes of their people they risk a popular revolt and more terrorism at home. If they harden their opposition to NATO and the US or use the latest incident to whip up more anti-NATO support they could find themselves in a war with the United States and NATO. Any misstep could be disastrous to all concerned.

Unlike the Iranians the Pakistanis actually have deployable nuclear weapons in addition to a large conventional military force. If they were to decide to stop US and NATO resupply convoys for more than a few days our operations in Afghanistan would be affected and if the impasse were to become long term it could cripple US and NATO operations in that country.

The sad truth is that the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are terribly exposed to dangers that neither they or their commanders control. It is what happens along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that matters what happens between the United States-Israel and Iran can have a dramatic and even calamitous effect on our deployed forces.

The fact is that it is hard to replace 40-50% of your bulk supplies when they have to come by sea and the only port is in a hostile or at best semi-hostile country. If the Pakistanis were to force the issue the mission in Afghanistan would be untenable. A smaller force tailored to anti-terrorism operations could be sustained by air and via overland routes which pass through former Soviet republics but a heavy force of over 100,000 troops scattered across thousands of square miles of mountainous terrain cannot be sustained unless the supply lines for bulk fuel, water, food and heavy equipment are secure.

Logistics is not sexy but no modern military can do without it. You do not operate heavy mechanized forces in hostile territory without reliable supply lines. Simply ask the Germans in Stalingrad or the French at Dien Bien Phu how well they did when supplies were cut off.

It just doesn’t seem to me that most people especially politicians see the danger that US and NATO troops face in Afghanistan from forces that they cannot control in surrounding countries. This is a dangerous situation and even if the current impasse is resolved the long-term outlook is bleak as long as the Pakistani regime plays both sides of the fence.

If the supply lines were severed for any length of time the mission in Afghanistan would have to be reevaluated and the possibility of military action to reopen them considered. At that point all bets are off and God help us. It would not be good.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as afghanistan pakistan border incident, afghanistan supplies, afghanistan war, cia, dien bien phu, drones, killing of osama bin laden, logistics, nato, osama bin laden, pakistan, stalingrad

October 3, 2011 · 00:53

Fighting a World Wide Insurgency Part Two: The changing nature of War and the Justified Killing of Anwar al-Awlaki

This is a belated follow up to my article Fighting a World Wide Insurgency: The Problem Fighting Revolutionary Terrorists and Insurgents- Part One . It deals with the killing of American born Al Qaeda cleric and propagandists Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan by U.S. Forces in Yemen. There is controversy in the American media, body politic and among U.S. based civil rights groups such as the ACLU. My premise is that the killing of Awlaki and Khan was justified because of their actions and because the nature of warfare itself has changed radically since the current “Law of War” contained in the Geneva and Hague conventions the U.N. Charter and other international law standards were laid down. The were all written with the nation state in mind, not apocalyptic terrorists that recognize no borders do not differentiate between civilians and military targets and have not regard for citizenship either their own or that of others. Alan Dershowitz the noted jurist, legal scholar and civil libertarian wrote “The great American justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr once remarked that “it is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.”

Awlaki and Khan were not mere criminals they were enemy combatants and the fact that they were not on a recognizable battlefield when targeted is irrelevant. They played games with their citizenship, never officially renouncing it even as they did everything that they could from a propaganda point of view to wage war against their country and incite others including members of the U.S. Military to kill Americans. Yes, they were combatants waging war and not “victims” of an “assassination” ordered by the President. They knew they were at war and said so quite openly. The provided aid and encouragement to those that killed American soldiers at FortHoodand attempted to bring down a Delta Air Lines jet on Christmas Day 2009. Derschowitz commented on the kind of strike used to kill Awlaki and contrasted it with terrorism saying “A targeted assassination is exactly the opposite of terrorism. Terrorism is untargeted assassination — you just throw a bomb in a cafeteria and you get everybody. Targeted assassination is designed to be very precise and very specific.”

Awlaki, Khan and their fellow Al Qaeda travelers fight a different kind of war than we in the West are comfortable waging. They fight a war where they make no distinction between soldiers and civilians and do not recognize the borders of sovereign nations. Al Qaeda has defined the battlefield and it is not confined to Iraq or Afghanistan. Using secure bases of operations in nations that are officially our “allies,” they have been able to place themselves safely out of harm’s way until the past year while planning, training and propagandizing new recruits into their terrorist cause.

Awlaki stated his opinion succinctly about the kind of war he was waging in an interview in early 2010:

“Yes. With regard to the issue of ‘civilians,’ this term has become prevalent these days, but I prefer to use the terms employed by our jurisprudents. They classify people as either combatants or non-combatants. A combatant is someone who bears arms – even if this is a woman. Non-combatants are people who do not take part in the war. The American people in its entirety takes part in the war, because they elected this administration, and they finance this war. In the recent elections, and in the previous ones, the American people had other options, and could have elected people who did not want war. Nevertheless, these candidates got nothing but a handful of votes. We should examine this issue from the perspective of Islamic law, and this settles the issue – is it permitted or forbidden? If the heroic mujahid brother Umar Farouk could have targeted hundreds of soldiers, that would have been wonderful. But we are talking about the realities of war.” Anwar a-Awlaki comments in interview supporting attempted downing of Delta Air Lines flight on Christmas Day 2009 http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4202.htm

The United States killed two men who though technically a “citizens” were declared enemies of theUnited States. By his own words and actions Awlaki declared war against the land of his birth and the land that blessed him with an education that he used for years to encourage other Muslims, especially American Muslims to kill Americans wherever they are found.

The method of his killing appears to be by a targeted drone strike on his hide out in Yemen. His killing has been condemned and it’s legality questioned by a good number of people including Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul. On the surface I can see their concerns. Any reader of this site knows that I am on the whole with very few exceptions very much a civil libertarian and some will call me a hypocrite but I am okay with that. The fact is that I do not want our government to be engaged in activities that violate the constitutional rights of Americans anywhere in the world. Nor do I want to see Awlaki’s killing used as precedent in killing American citizens not engaged in acts of war against the United States. Critics have contended that Awlaki had not broken the law and that his killing in a country that we are not at war with made the act an illegal assassination under the 5^th Amendment while ignoring his goal of mobilizing Muslims worldwide, but especially American Muslims to kill Americans at home and abroad. However even criminal courts in the United States recognize that a person that encourages murder can be charged as an accomplice or even co-conspirator as Awlaki was to the mass murderer of Fort Hood Major Nidal Hussein.

However those that decry Awlaki’s killing ignore his words that “we have to establish an important principle: Jihad is global. It is not a local phenomenon. Jihad is not stopped by borders or barriers; they cannot stand in the way of Jihad. Jihad does not recognize the colonial borders that were made in the countries in the past that were drawn by a ruler on the map; Jihad doesn’t recognize those superficial borders.” (Chapter 3: Constants on the Path of Jihad) The critics of Awlaki’s killing as well as that of Osama Bin Laden and other men that describe themselves as combatants in a war against the United States all encourage the killing of every American because “all Americans are guilty.” Awlaki’s fellow “American” terrorist companion Samir Khan who was killed with him in the attack wrote “I am a traitor to America because my religion requires me to be. We pledge to wage jihad for the rest of our lives until either we implant Islam all over the world or meet our Lord as bearers of Islam.”

Dershowitz noted that “weapons of mass destruction in the hands of suicide terrorists with no fear of death and no home address have rendered useless the deterrent threat of massive retaliation. This threat has been the staple of military policy since the days of the Bible. Because suicide terrorists cannot be deterred, they must be pre-empted and prevented from carrying out their threats against civilians before they occur. This change in tactics requires significant changes in the laws of war – laws that have long been premised on the deterrent model.”

Yes by law Awlaki was still an American citizen at the time of his death. Despite his many calls for the destruction of this country and the killing of its citizens he never went to an Embassy or Consulate to officially renounce his citizenship and thus was still a citizen. The fact that Awlaki was a leader and propagandist for Al Qaeda on the order of what Josef Goebbels was to the Nazis is lost in the debate. The uncomfortable truth is that an “American” citizen Awlaki had for all recognizable purposes renounced his citizenship, and under most historical and legal precedents in the United Statesand Europe Awlaki forfeited his rights as such.

This country has revoked the citizenship of citizens for taking up arms against this country to include all officers who left the U.S. military and former government officials that took up prominent positions in the Confederate armed services and government. They lost their citizenship rights and all had to reaffirm their allegiance to the Union to receive pardons. Some did not and some such as the commandant of the Andersonville prisoner of war camp were executed for their crimes against other U.S. citizens.

The fact that he hid among his family’s tribal homeland inYemenis also held out as a reason that Awliki’s killing was illegal. However Awlaki did not recognize the borders that some say should offer him protection and in my view it is unreasonable for theUnited Statesto be bound by conditions that our adversaries do not acknowledge.

The fact is that Al Qaeda and other terror groups have redefined warfare and that many of our long held notions about the nature of war are obsolete. Al Qaeda and other militant groups understand the concept of revolutionary warfare in ways that are distinctly uncomfortable for us in the West. We talk about counterinsurgency in Afghanistanand Iraq without realizing that the actual insurgency is worldwide and not bound by our constraints. One of the key components of revolutionary warfare is propaganda which is exactly what Awlaki and Khan were doing. They betrayed their country, inspired who knows how many radicals to kill Americans around the world including the infamous Major Nidal Hasan who Awlaki described as “a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people…My support to the operation was because the operation brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one.”

Roger Trinquier a French officer who served in both Indo-China and Algeria recognized this method of operation in his book Modern Warfare: http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/resources/csi/trinquier/trinquier.asp:

“Warfare is now an interlocking system of actions political, economic, psychological; military that aims at the overthrow of the established authority in a country and its replacement by another regime. To achieve this end, the aggressor tries to exploit the internal tensions of the country attacked ideological, social, religious, economic, any conflict liable to have a profound influence on the population to be conquered.”

Unfortunately many in political and media elite as well as some civil libertarians like the ACLU are still acting if it was 1944 and there are clear lines that divide nations as well as military personal from civilians. But for the terrorist this is not the case, Trinquier states the matter very well:

“But the case of the terrorist is quite otherwise. Not only does he carry on warfare without uniform, but he attacks, far from a field of battle, only unarmed civilians who are incapable of defending themselves and who are normally protected under the rules of warfare. Surrounded by a vast organization, which prepares his task and assists him in its execution, which assures his withdrawal and his protection, he runs practically no risks-neither that of retaliation by his victims nor that of having to appear before a court of justice. When it has been decided to kill someone sometime somewhere, with the sole purpose of terrorizing the populace and strewing a certain number of bodies along the streets of a city or on country roads, it is quite easy under existing laws to escape the police.”

Likewise the critics seem to assume that the people plotting and waging war against the United Statesand the West are poor conscripts that do not have a choice in what they are doing but they are not. Most of the leaders including Awlaki, Khan and Osama Bin Laden were the educated children of privilege as is Adam Yahiye Gadahn an American convert to Islam who like Awlaki and Khan has devoted himself to jihad against his native land. Gadahn who has been indicted on the charge of treason makes no bones about his hatred for the United Statesin a 2004 video saying “Fighting and defeating America is our first priority….” In 2009 he praised Nidal Hassan as “a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers.”

Yes this is an ugly conflict and it is far different than any war we have every faced. It will mean having to come to terms with methods and tactics that are effective in carrying the war to the enemy, even enemies that we have allowed to retain their citizenship even as they wage war against us. Critics that think this war will be won or lost on the battlefields of Iraqor Afghanistanand those who condemn the killing of Awalki and Khan misunderstand the shape of warfare in the 21^st century.

Trinquier and others understood this and we have to adapt if we are to defeat this world wide insurgency. “On so vast a field of action, traditional armed forces no longer enjoy their accustomed decisive role. Victory no longer depends on one battle over a given terrain. Military operations, as combat actions carried out against opposing armed forces, are of only limited importance and are never the total conflict.”

Awlaki and Khan understood what they were doing and were prepared to die to achieve their goals which they did. I suppose that we could have risked the lives of more American troops on the ground to track them down and attempt to capture or kill them deep inside hostile territory as we did with Bin Laden. However, such operations are so risky that they cannot be allowed to become commonplace.

Likewise even as we step up the use of drones and special operations forces and scale back in the manpower intensive theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan we must embrace the role of the media propagandizing the truth. We must define the message and not allow future Awlaki’s and Khan’s to set the narrative of the war. We must use all available media and communications technology to our advantage and not surrender that realm of operations to whomever Al Qaeda appoints to replace Alwaki and Kahn in their propaganda minister role.

It is clear that Geneva and Hague conventions, the U.N. Charter and aspects of the U.S. Code including citizenship provisions need to be revised in light of the changing nature of war. If they are not we will always be constrained by those rules even as terrorists use those protections as part of their overall strategy. To counter such actions we cannot be bound by common law written at the time of Henry IV or laws that never envisioned the kind of war being waged by our enemies. Dershowitz wrote:

“Laws must change with the times. They must adapt to new challenges. That has been the genius of the common law. Ironically, it is generally the left that seeks change in the laws, while the right is satisfied with Henry IV. Today it is many on the left who resist any changes in the law of war or human rights. They deny the reality that the war against terrorism is any way different from conventional wars of the past, or that the old laws must be adapted to the new threats. The result is often an unreasonable debate of extremes: the hard left insists that the old laws should not be tampered with in the least; the hard right insists that the old laws are entirely inapplicable to the new threats, and that democratic governments should be entirely free to do whatever it takes to combat terrorism, without regard to anachronistic laws. Both extremes are dangerous. What is needed is a new set of laws, based on the principles of the old laws of war and human rights – the protection of civilians – but adapted to the new threats against civilian victims of terrorism.” Article in “The Independent” 3 May 2006

From a more military standpoint Trinquier noted:

“In seeking a solution, it is essential to realize that in modern warfare we are not up against just a few armed bands spread across a given territory, but rather against an armed clandestine organization whose essential role is to impose its will upon the population. Victory will be obtained only through the complete destruction of that organization.

That complete destruction of such an organization begins with its leaders including its propagandists, even those that are American citizens. Some will disagree with me on this but this war has been going on over 10 years and will not end when we withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. The killing of Osama Bin Laden and the intelligence garnered in the raid on his Pakistani compound was a watershed moment and has shifted momentum to the United States and its allies. Al Qaeda’s senior leaders are being killed in ever increasing numbers with substantially fewer civilian casualties. But we can lose it all if we fail recognize that the very nature of war has changed and that if we remain tied to law and policy written when the world in no way resembled what it is today.

Padre Steve+

P.S. For those wondering what a Priest knows about this I hold a Masters degree in Military History and a graduate of the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College. I have also studied revolutionary war and insurgency extensively since 2001. I served with our advisers to the Iraqi Army, Police and Border and Port of Entry Police in 2007-2008.

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Filed under laws and legislation, middle east, Military, national security

Tagged as adam gadahn, afghanistan war, alan dershowitz, alcu, american citizenship, anwar awlaki, civil rights, Constants on the Path of Jihad, geneva convention, international law, iraq war, jihad, josef goebbels, law of war, major malik nidal hasan, modern warfare, osama bin laden, pedator drone, propaganda, revolutionary warfare, roger trinquier, samir khan, terrorism, yemen

September 11, 2011 · 21:44

The 9-11 Generation: The Few

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers….”

Winston Churchill referred to the Royal Air Force’s heroism in the Battle of Britain. He remarked “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” By comparison with that tiny force the American military is massive. However in comparison with the missions that it has been given since September 11^th 2001 and its size relative to the population of the United States it is a small force; a force that much more has been asked than anyone could have imagined on that terrible day.

Since the attacks of September 11^th 2001 over 2.8 million young Americans have volunteered to serve in the nations military. Since that fateful day some 5.5 million Americans have served in all branches of the military both active and reserve, many like me were on active duty that fateful morning. Today about 2.2 million serve in the various components of the military, just 1.4 million on active duty out of a total estimated population of 120 million men and women aged 18-49 fit to serve.

That makes the accomplishments of those that have served so much greater. Never before has our country asked so much for such a long period of time from such a miniscule segment of the population. Every single Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman and Coastguardsman that currently serve volunteered in a time of war to either join or extend their service in the military. Over 2.3 million have served in Iraq or Afghanistan with many more that have served in the Middle East and other regions supporting those wars as well as other anti-terrorist operations around the world. While we have been committed to wars that may not be “winnable” we have accomplished so much and exacted revenge upon Osama Bin Laden and many of those who planned and perpetrated the attacks of 9-11-2001.

Many were children some as young as 8 years old when the attacks took place who have grown up in the years following the attack. Others pressed the upper age limits to enlist many seeking age waivers to do so. The vast majority of the men and women who enlisted because they felt it was their duty, not for money, not for glory. They came from every State, District and Territory where Old Glory flies as a symbol of freedom. The represent every race, creed and political party, and come from what the media like to call the “Red States and the Blue States” only for them it is not a question of “Red or Blue” but “Red White and Blue.” Others have come to the United Statesfrom other nations because they felt that there was something great and noble about this nation and our ideals.

Some would wrongly call this military and those that serve in it a mercenary force, but no it is not and they are professionals that serve our country in time of war. Mercenaries simply sign on for the money and fight for any regime that will employ them. We are not mercenaries.

Over the course of this war some of those ideals have faded and of those that go back time and time again do it often because they do not want to abandon their friends or see their sacrifices wasted. The war has taken and continues to take a toll on this small segment of America. Over 6200 have died in action and over 45200 wounded, 77 wounded just today September 11^th 2011 in Afghanistan. The numbers do not count the large numbers suffering from PTSD or other combat stress related injuries nor does it count those that have died by suicide following deployment.

Among the many speeches today I was most taken with that of Vice President Joe Biden. The Vice President talked about this generation in a speech today at the Pentagon. The speech was one of the most moving that I have heard about our military in a long time. It made me even more proud of all that I serve alongside. I have excepted this passage:

“Many of them were just kids on that bright September morning. But like their grandparents after December 7, 1941, they courageously bore the burden that history placed on their shoulders. And as they came of age, they showed up to fight for their country – 2,800,000 Americans of the 9/11 Generation were moved to join our military since the 9/11 attacks, to finish the war that began on 9/11. They joined knowing full well that they were likely to be deployed in harm’s way – and in many cases deployed multiple times in Afghanistan, Iraq and in other parts of the world….

Over a decade at war, they pioneered new tactics, mastered new languages, developed and employed advanced new technologies. They took on responsibilities once reserved only for those with years of seniority- responsibilities that extended far beyond the base or the battlefield to politics, economics, and development tasks….And one more thing about this generation of warriors-never before in our history has America asked so much, over such a sustained period, of an all-volunteer fighting force. So I say without doubt or exaggeration that the 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced.” (See the video or read the speech at http://foxnewsinsider.com/2011/09/11/video-and-text-vice-president-biden-speaks-at-the-pentagon-reflects-on-the-courage-of-the-911-victims-and-their-families/

I have long contended that this generation of patriots who serve in our military as well as in our Federal police and intelligence services are a “new greatest generation.” All of us have served to defend this country many making multiple deployments to combat zones. I have made just two combat deployments and feel that I have not done enough, especially compared to those that have done far more of these deployments. However I would guess that I will get at least one more in before my long career is done.

All Americans and millions of people around the world owe so much to these men and women as well as those from other nations that stand together with us. For us it is not just remembering that terrible day that changed the world, but to give ourselves to serve and hopefully keep this from happening again.

Always remember9-11-2001, never forget that day or those that died at the hallowed grounds of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and that lonely field outside Shanksville Pennsylvania. But please never forget those that continue to give the last full measure of devotion, the 9-11 Generation.

Peace

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under Military, History, traumatic national events

Tagged as osama bin laden, band of brothers, winston churchill, pentagon, 9-11 2001, world trade center, afghanistan casualties, vice president joe biden, iraq war, iraq casualties, afghanistan war, 9-11 2011, battle of britain, the new greatest generation, 9-11 generation, we few we happy few, shanksville pa

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The 9-11 Generation: The Few

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