Redstate

Posted at 10:27am on Jun. 17, 2008 Book Review--War and Decision

for those interested in grappling with serious issues

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

If there was any justice, Douglas Feith's book would get a great deal more attention from the press than would Scott McClellan's opportunistic tell-all. Unlike McClellan, who confines himself to reciting the words and arguments of others and who does not present any kind of original or interesting analysis, Feith presents genuine scholarship, an interesting and original argument concerning 9/11, American actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and the general war on terror and a valuable behind-the-scenes look at the way in which foreign policy, defense and national security policy was made during the course of the Bush Administration.

Read on...

Posted in Afghanistan | Donald Rumsfeld | Doug Feith | History | Iraq | Pentagon | War and Decision — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:23pm on Jun. 16, 2008 Obama caves to the right again: Now, he's "going to visit Iraq and Afghanistan before the November election"

Is there anything we *can't* make him cave on?

By Jeff Emanuel

Barack Obama doesn't want to engage in any "political stunts." That's why he's not going to visit Iraq to see whether his announced dogma vis-á-vis the U.S. strategy there (Run away! Run away!) is remotely what the doctor prescribed for success; that's why he hasn't convened, and will not convene, his Senate Subcommittee responsible for overseeing NATO efforts in Afghanistan. He already knows what's best in those two countries (apparently withdrawal from one, and an infusion of Arabic-speaking farmers into the other); he certainly doesn't need to see the situations there with his own eyes, or attend hearings about them to hear what experts have to say.

No matter what you say, Barack Obama does not need to travel to Iraq or learn about Afghanistan to know the right courses of action in those two countries. How dare you suggest that he must? He doesn't have to do what you say.

Like I said, he probably won't go; but may, if he so chooses -- but if he does deign to do so, it is not because anybody told him to. Nobody's his boss; big boys can tell themselves what to do.

Like I said, Barack Obama's seriously thinking about going to Iraq -- but again, Barack decides what Barack does; stop trying to make him do unnecessary things like actually learn facts before he makes up his mind! That's the trouble with all of you pundits and blogger-types: you're so darned forceful in this meddling with your betters. Can't you learn when to sit down and shut up, and listen to the consistent message that those who rule over you have been preaching?

It's always been the same; your minds is where the inconsistency is! Like I've said this whole time -- have you been paying attention? -- Barack Obama is promising to visit Iraq and Afghanistan before the November election.

Did you really think he wouldn't? You clearly misunderestimate his capacity for caving in.

Posted in 2008 | Afghanistan | He wasn't visiting them before he was visiting them | Iraq | Obamafiles — Comments (20)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:04pm on May 14, 2008 Poppies in Iraq and Arabs in Afghanistan: Did Barack Obama “Pull a McCain” in his SpeechTuesday Night ?

No -- What he did was far worse.

By Jeff Emanuel

You could say that Barack Obama "pulled a John McCain" with his verbal gaffes regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Arabic-speaking translators, and the War on Terror in his May 13 speech to supporters in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

You could say that -- but you would be wrong.

“Conflating” Sunni and Shi’a?

Two months ago, pundits and politicians alike descended upon Senator McCain with accusations of confusion, a lack of touch, and even outright dishonesty when the Republican presidential nominee said that al Qaeda fighters in Iraq have been receiving funding, training, and equipment from Iran during the last year-plus of the Iraq War.

Mr. McCain "conflated" Sunni and Shi'a organizations, which clearly "represent opposing sides in the Iraqi civil war[sic]" crowed the liberal web site ThinkProgress (an outlet with its own track record of mixing up historical events).

In an ABCNews blog post entitled "Err-Jordan," reporter Jake Tapper wrote that McCain "seemed to step in it" with his assertion that Sunni al Qaeda and Shi'a Iran were working together, asking if the Senator was suffering from "jet lag." (Tapper, who has been one of the most solid reporters of this campaign season, later posted an opposing viewpoint, if not an outright correction.)

Susan Rice, then still a senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama (she was later relieved of the position for undermining Mr. Obama's claims that he would initiate an immediate withdrawal from Iraq if elected, and for referring to Hillary Clinton as a "monster"), called McCain's assertion "very bizarre," saying that "there is no body of evidence to suggest Iran is aiding Al Qaeda in Iraq" and noting that Mr. McCain had "made the same statement three times in as many days. Surely he must know, as Senator Lieberman reminded him, that Iran is not engaged with Al Qaeda in Iraq. I don't know if he is confused, or is he cynically trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iran as Cheney and Bush did Al Qaeda and Iraq in 2002 and 2003?"

Read on.

Posted in 2008 | Afghanistan | Barack Obama | GWOT | inexperience | Iraq | John McCain | War | zero-sum foreign policy — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:58am on May 14, 2008 Obama, Afghanistan, Idiocy, and the Flag

By Erick

Blackhedd put this in an email earlier and I wanted to share. He's cool with that:

Of course, this link has been passed around a lot, but check out David Wright’s (the ABC reporter) update.

So Obama got called out on calling for Arab-speaking translators for Afghanistan. Well, his campaign responded to that, saying basically: Hey, numbnuts, there are plenty of Arabic-speakers in Afghanistan. They’re the foreign fighters who have been infiltrating the country.

To which David Wright responds: Umm, I’ve been to Afghanistan a lot. Those Arabic-speakers are shooting at us, not talking to us.

That’s the cat the Obama let out of the bag. He talks a lot about resolving the situation in Afghanistan while pulling out of Iraq, but he’s probably planning to invite the bad guys to a tea party. He’s probably too smart to say it out loud after he said that’s what he’d do with the Iranians.

About the flag pin: I’m just imagining the conversation he had with Michelle: “Barack, this isn’t about being true to yourself. That’s just sissy s**t. This is about getting POWER. You can’t do squat unless you get the big job. So suck it up and let the morons see you wearing their stupid flag. After you’re inaugurated, you can wear it upside down if you want.”

Posted in 2008 | Afghanistan | Barack Obama — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:45am on May 13, 2008 Reading War and Decision: Part One

Chapters 1-3: The First Days

By Mark I

From its very first pages, War and Decision, Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, by former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, takes the conventional wisdom about the war on terror and throws it out the window. Nothing, literally nothing you know about the way that the Bush Administration planned, decided, and executed the United States’ strategy for fighting and ultimately winning the war can stand up to the scrutiny imposed by this consequential book. In twenty years, when historians start to write a dispassionate history of the Bush Administration and its actions, they would do well to start with Feith’s careful, detailed, and surprising account of the issues, decisions, mistakes, and triumphs that America experienced in the early stages of its war against fundamentalist Islamic extremists.

Throughout her history, America has been fortunate to have great leaders at decisive times: George Washington and the Founders; Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II; Ronald Reagan after the decline of the 1970s. America’s democracy, by design or by Providence, always seems to produce a man for his times to steer the nation through turbulence. In the case of the war on terrorism, there was not so much one man--although George W. Bush will ultimately be judged kindly by history for his principled leadership--as there was a particularly important plane trip. On the day after September 11th, 2001, when America had been brought low from the skies by hijacked airplanes used as weapons, it is both ironic and entirely fitting that the germ of the battle plan that would ultimately bring the terrorists to their knees, would begin to take shape in the belly of a military cargo plane en route from Europe to Andrews Air Force Base.

Read on…

Posted in Afghanistan | Donald Rumsfeld | Douglas Feith | Iraq | National Security | Pentagon | War and Decision | War on Terror — Comments (39)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:28pm on Apr. 29, 2008 Great Game Redux

By streiff

Geopolitics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

From India Defence:

Indian television news channel 'NDTV' reports that a team from the Indian Army will be actively training the Afghan National Army (ANA) later this year. The team is heading to Kabul in the upcoming months.

The Indian Military team will be in Afghanistan as soon as May end to conduct infantry and education corps related training. Another team is to be dispatched to Uzbekistan in the next six months for a similar training programme. Besides teaching English to the troops, it will train them in weapon handling, map craft and fundamental battalion procedures.

'NDTV' quotes "top military officials" as making the revelations to the news channel.

The decision is bound to raise eyebrows in Rawalpindi, which forever has thought of Afghanistan as a Pakistani colony and has been following the "strategic depth" policy for over 3 decades with reference to Kabul.

Since 2001, several Indian military delegations have visited Afghanistan but this is the first time a full-fledged military team will be stationed there. India already has BRO jawans in Afghanistan engaged in various security missions.

The decision to send the team to Kabul was taken in February, and on last Friday the annual Army Commanders' conference also approved plans to send a similar team to Uzbekistan reports NDTV.

Although India is one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping forces around the world it is for the first time in the past decade that India is getting involved in a non-UN military mission.

Afghanistan is a important country in the region and security and stability in Afghanistan is critical for stability in India and South Asia as a whole.

Read on.

Posted in Afghanistan | Foreign Affairs | India | Pakistan | the great game — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:18pm on Apr. 13, 2008 On Doug Feith's "War and Decision"

By AcademicElephant

Promoted by Dan McLaughlin

[In the interests of full disclosure, Doug is a friend and I am biased in favor of him and of this book - AE.]

Doug Feith’s War and Decision came out on Tuesday. In my opinion, everyone who is interested in the greatest challenge to our country in a generation, the Global War on Terror, should read it.

War and Decision is the first book written by someone who was actually part of the decision-making process in the Pentagon on and after 9/11. Up till now, we have been reading largely second-hand accounts that report on events in which the authors were not directly involved and that are thus heavily reliant on selective sourcing. The result, as we all know, has not been pretty and the debate, particularly on Iraq, has disintegrated into finger pointing and hysteria.

Read On....

Posted in Afghanistan | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision | WMD — Comments (41) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:52am on Feb. 23, 2008 Obama's Platoon

By California Yankee

During last night's Democratic presidential debate in Texas, Barack Obama told the following "platoon" story:

Here it is in black and white from CNN's transcript the debate:

You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon -- supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.

And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

Now, that's a consequence of bad judgment.

Today the Pentagon weighed in on Obama's platoon. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters, he
finds Obama's story "pretty hard to imagine":

"Despite the stress that we readily acknowledge on the force, one of the things that we do is make sure that all of our units and service members that are going into harm's way are properly trained, equipped and with the leadership to be successful," he said.

Read on.

Posted in 2008 | Afghanistan | Barack Obama | Democrats | Texas Debate — Comments (19)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:04pm on Feb. 11, 2008 Petraeus Wins Another One for the Counterinsurgency

This Battle Was Not in Baghdad

By Mark I

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates emerged from a meeting with Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus and announced that he is inclined to take the general’s view that a pause in the withdrawal of troops from Iraq this summer is warranted. Petraeus has been advocating for the troop drawdown to take a break for a strategic assessment after U.S. force levels in Iraq reach 15 brigades this July.

“I think that the notion of a brief period of consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense. I had been kind of headed in that direction, as well.”

The Secretary’s acceptance of General Petraeus’s recommendation all but ends a debate that had been brewing within the Administration over the troop reductions. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had come out against a pause earlier this month over concerns for the long term health of the Army and Marine Corps. Just like he did when the surge was proposed, however, Petraeus looks to have defeated the Chiefs in an internal battle for the president’s ear.

Read on…

Posted in Afghanistan | Gen. David Petraeus | Iraq | Robert Gates | The Joint Chiefs of Staff | troop surge | War — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:00am on Dec. 28, 2007 Al Qaeda Opens a New Front

Does Bhutto’s Death Mean the End of Iraq?

By Mark I

Al Qaeda’s military commander in Afghanistan claims that the terror group coordinated the effort that led to the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi, Pakistan yesterday. In a telephone interview with Asia Times Online (NSA boys, did you get this one on tape?), Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said that the killing was part of an al Qaeda plan to destabilize Pakistan by hitting at “precious American assets” there.

”We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat mujahideen. This is our first major victory against those who have been siding with infidels in a fight against al-Qaeda and declared a war against mujahideen.”

Al-Yazid goes on to describe a fairly elaborate effort at tracking and targeting Bhutto and President Pervez Musharraf involving indigenous extremist groups acting on orders from al Qaeda. California Yankee reports that US Intelligence agencies have not yet confirmed that al Qaeda was responsible. But couple the claim with reports from earlier this month that defeated al Qaeda forces were moving out of Iraq and heading back to Afghanistan, and it begs the question: Does Bhutto’s death mean that the Iraq war is essentially over?

Read on…

Posted in Afghanistan | al-Qaeda | Benazir Bhutto | Iraq | Pakistan | Pervez Musharraf | War | War on Terror — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:56am on Dec. 4, 2007 The War on Terror in a few sentences

Terrorists jumping from the frying pan to the fire

By Neil Stevens

Radio Netherlands reports (link via The Corner) some pretty good news in Afghanistan, complete with hidden bonuses of related news elsewhere in the War on Terror:

The International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan says the Taliban is in control of no more than five of the country's 59 districts. The statement comes during the surprise visit of US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to Afghanistan.

ISAF spokesman Carlos Branco says the Taliban has failed as a resistance movement. However, the Portuguese general admits that an increasing number of fighters from the terrorist network al-Qaeda are entering the country from Iraq where they are suffering defeats.

The many-fold implications of this report are just delicious for those of us who have been banging our heads against the brick walls of the Democratic left's arguments against the War on Terror.

Read on...

Posted in Afghanistan | Al Qaeda | Iran | Iraq | Victory | War | War on Terror — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »