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March 29, 2007

Barry McCaffrey on Iraq II

Retired Gen Barry McCaffrey is just back from Iraq and has another must-read report. Last May I reported on his April trip, in which he called our army in Iraq "The Most Brilliantly Led Military We Have Ever Fielded". In June I wrote a post on his report on Afghanistan, in which he was cautionary but mostly positive.

I ran across it in a post by Rich Lowry on The Corner. It's reported in a story by Thomas Ricks in The Washington Post, but you can also download the actual report as a pdf file (most of the excerpts below I just copied from Lowry's post after double checking them against the document).

First, the bad news, or "The Problem", as he sees it:

Iraq is ripped by a low grade civil war which has worsened to catastrophic levels with as many as 3000 citizens murdered per month. The population is in despair. Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate. A handful of foreign fighters (500+) —- and a couple of thousand Al Qaeda operatives incite open factional struggle through suicide bombings which target Shia holy places and innocent civilians. Thousands of attacks target US Military Forces (2900 IED’s) a month—-primarily stand off attacks with IED’s, rockets, mortars, snipers, and mines from both Shia (EFP attacks are a primary casualty producer) —-and Sunni (85% of all attacks—-80% of US deaths—16% of Iraqi population.)

Three million Iraqis are internally displaced or have fled the country to Syria and Jordan. The technical and educated elites are going into self-imposed exile—-a huge brain drain that imperils the ability to govern. The Maliki government has little credibility among the Shia populations from which it emerged. It is despised by the Sunni as a Persian surrogate. It is believed untrustworthy and incompetent by the Kurds.

There is no function of government that operates effectively across the nation—- not health care, not justice, not education, not transportation, not labor and commerce, not electricity, not oil production. There is no province in the country in which the government has dominance. The government cannot spend its own money effectively. ($7.1 billion sits in New York banks.) No Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO, nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi—-without heavily armed protection.

The police force is feared as a Shia militia in uniform which is responsible for thousands of extra-judicial killings. There is no effective nation-wide court system. There are in general almost no acceptable Iraqi penal institutions. The population is terrorized by rampant criminal gangs involved in kidnapping, extortion, robbery, rape, massive stealing of public property —-such as electrical lines, oil production material, government transportation, etc. (Saddam released 80,000 criminal prisoners.)

The Iraqi Army is too small, very badly equipped (inadequate light armor, junk Soviet small arms, no artillery, no helicopters to speak of, currently no actual or planned ground attack aircraft of significance, no significant air transport assets (only three C-130’s), no national military logistics system, no national military medical system, etc. The Iraqi Army is also unduly dominated by the Shia, and in many battalions lacks discipline. There is no legal authority to punish Iraqi soldiers or police who desert their comrades. (The desertion/AWOL numbers frequently leave Iraqi Army battalions at 50% strength or less.)

That's all certainly bad news. Add to that his accurate statement that "US domestic support for the war in Iraq has evaporated and will not return" and you've got problems.

But that's not all. Under "The Current Situation" he's relatively optimistic, which may seem a bit odd given what we just read. But we should not expect wars to be all good or bad news. Most of the time they are a mixture of both. Victory, after all, goes to the side that makes the fewest mistakes, not to the side who makes none at all.

Here are some excerpts

Since the arrival of General David Petraeus in command of Multi-National Force Iraq—- the situation on the ground has clearly and measurably improved.

1st: The Maliki government has given the green light to prune out elements of the renegade Sadr organization in Baghdad...

2nd: The US and Iraqi Forces have now dramatically changed their operational scheme. More then 50+ Iraqi Police/Army and US Army Joint Security Stations (JSS) are now being emplaced across the city and extended into the suburbs....The Iraqi people are encouraged....The murder rate has plummeted....

3rd: The Iraqis have finally committed credible numbers of integrated Police and Army units to the battle of Baghdad...

4th: There is a real and growing ground swell of Sunni tribal opposition to the Al Qaeda-in-Iraq terror formations....The Takfiri AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) extremism of: no music, no photos, no videos, no cutting of beards, etc does not sit well with the moderate form is Islam practiced among the western tribes. This is a crucial struggle and it is going our way - for now.

5th: The equipment and resources for the Iraqi Security Forces has increased dramatically...

6th: Reconciliation of the internal warring elements in Iraq will be how we eventually win the war in Iraq—-if it happens. There is a very sophisticated and carefully integrated approach by the Iraqi government and Coalition actors to defuse the armed violence from internal enemies and bring people into the political process...

7th: US Combat forces are simply superb...Re-enlistment rates are simply astonishing.

8th: The US Tier One special operations capability is simply magic. They are deadly in getting their target - with normally zero collateral damage....

Much better than the first part. If you're not clear on our new strategy, or think that we're just sending more troops to do the same thing, I suggest you go read the unclassified version of the plan. It was put together by ret. Gen Jack Keane and AEI resident scholar Frederick Kagan, and is called "A Plan for Success in Iraq." Most media reports simply refer to it as a "surge" and leave it at that. The truth is that there's a lot more to it.

McCaffrey's conclusion is that

In my judgment, we can still achieve our objective of: a stable Iraq, at peace with its neighbors, not producing weapons of mass destruction, and fully committed to a law-based government. The courage and strength of the US Armed Forces still gives us latitude and time to build the economic and political conditions that might defuse the ongoing civil war. Our central purpose is to allow the nation to re-establish governance based on some loose federal consensus among the three major ethnic-factional actors. (Shia, Sunni, Kurd.)

However,

We have very little time left. This President will have the remainder of his months in office beleaguered by his political opponents to the war....This insurgency will continue in some form for a decade. This suggests the fundamental dilemma facing US policymakers.

Insurgencies are not like World War II. Even in ones in which the government eventually wins, they drag on for years. As Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia", said; defeating an insurgency is like eating soup with a knife. You can do it, but it's messy and takes a long time.

In the end, McCaffrey says

We have a brilliant military and civilian leadership on the ground in Iraq. General Dave Petraeus, LTG Ray Odierno, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have the country's treasure and combat power at their disposal. Our cause is just. The consequence of failure will be severe.

So it's like I've been saying for some time; beat up on the Bush Administration if it makes you feel better. Berate Rumsefeld, Franks, Abazaid, whomever you like.

Contrary to polls I do think that we did the right thing in invading Iraq and deposing Saddam. My Belgium friend and blogger Michael wrote an eloquent piece recently about Why Operation Iraqi Freedom Was the Right Thing to Do, and I second every bit of it.

But at this point whether you agree with that assessment or not doesn't matter. We are where we are. The bottom line is that McCaffrey is right: " Our cause is just. The consequence of failure will be severe. "

Posted by Tom at 9:11 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 25, 2007

When All Else Fails, Blame American Capitalism

This morning I'm flipping through the paper, and come across an AP article titled "Youngsters in Britain Seen as Menace to Society". Ok, I think, another article about how the country is going to pot. More about crime, juvenile delinquency, and the general decay of manners.

And that's pretty much how the story started out. Pretty soon, however, the political correctness started in. The Institute for Public Policy Research, described as "center-left", decided that it's all the fault of the complainers, terming it all "pedophobia". "There has always been a culture in Britain that's a bit anti-children," said one of the researchers.

Standard stuff, however regrettable. Then came this:

Britain's poor performance may be one of the downsides of the country's embrace of American-style free-market competition -- a move that has unleashed enormous economic energy since the 1980s, but widened inequalities and left many without a safety net.

I had another drink of coffee to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

So it's American-style capitalism then, that has caused all these poor "youths" go commit crimes? A lack of welfare checks causes them to join gangs?

You don't have to have all of the figures in front of you to know that Western countries have been spending more and more on the social welfare "safety net" and less and less on the military. I recall some figures recently published in the Washington Times in which during most of the Cold War the United States spent 8-10% of GDP on its military, and the UK over 5%. Today the US is at 4% and the UK 2.3%. During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and 60s 50% of the Federal budget went to the military. Today it's 19%. I'm sure the figures are similar for the UK.

No safety net? What do people like Jill Lawless and the people at the Institute for Public Policy Research think the rest of the money was spent on?

Posted by Tom at 9:10 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

The Moral Blindness of Omar Shakir

When I decided to file this under two categories; the Middle East and Moral Clarity I had to smile. Rarely do Muslims or those on the left have moral clarity when it comes to the Middle East. They go to great lengths to excuse the terrorism and human rights abuses committed by every Muslim regime in the region, while complaining incessantly and loudly about their favorite whipping boy; Israel.

I open this mornings paper and find an article titled "Student urges Stanford divestment from Israel".

Grrr

You just know what such a story is going to be about, and you just know how awful it's going to be. This one didn't disappoint.

Student Omar Shakir wants Stanford University to divest from a country that he says engages in an apartheid-style system of oppression and human rights abuses against a beleaguered minority.

Bosnia? Sudan? Not quite. Mr. Shakir is referring to Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians, and his campaign has become this year's hot political topic on the Stanford campus.

"We don't want our university to profit from abuses of human rights and violations of international law," said Mr. Shakir, a senior international-relations major who heads Students Confronting Apartheid in Israel.

This Omar Shakir sounds about as vile as Jimmy Carter.

Shakir is head of a group caleld Students Confronting Apartheid in Israel. They're beyond disgraceful.

I've no idea whether Shakir will achieve his goals. On the one hand I rather doubt it. The article does mention that he has "legions" of critics. On the other hand these leftists are nothing if not persistent, and if not countered quickly and forcefully they will get their ideas adopted.

Some time ago on this blog I laid out my position on the Israeli settlements. Since there's no point in reinventing the wheel, here it is again

Today we hear from the Arabs that the settlements are the major obstacle to peace. And, if you read the papers, you can be forgiven for thinking that if only the Israelis would give up their settlements a peace could be quickly worked out. The solution, it is said, is to give the Palestinians a country on the West Bank, and to let (demand, really) that Israel live within it's pre-1967 borders.

This is not true for a number of reasons.

1. If the settlements are the problem today, then what was the problem before 1967? Terrorism against Israel did not begin with the end of the Six Day War. The PLO, for example was formed in 1964.
2. If the West Bank is such a perfect home for the Palestinians, why didn't Jordan give them this land as their country when they had the chance (i.e. before 1967)?
3. The fact is that Israel is willing to negotiate with the Arab countries but with the exception of Egypt and Jordan the Arab countries still refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist.
4. The Palestinian "right of return" must be abandoned. This is not something that you read about often (if at all) in your daily newspaper but it is one of the most important things that must be resolved. In short, during the 1948 War of Independence, some 800,000 Arabs fled the area (for reasons that are disputed). Today their ancestors demand the right to return to Israel and claim the land they left, or at least to take up Israeli citizenship. One need not be a demographer to see that these ancestors (and anyone could claim to be one as documentation would be impossible to verify) would now number in the tens of millions. They would simply flood Israel with Arabs, and, in the next election, vote the state of Israel out of existance.
5. In short, if the Arabs had not opposed Israel's right to exist from the beginning, had negotiated a peace, had given the Palestinians a homeland on the West Bank, stopped their terrorism, formed democratic (or at least representative) governments, the present situation could have been entirely avoided.
6. Further, the Security Fence that Israel is building is not preventing peace as some alledge. It is stopping terrorism, and that is a good thing. My only question is why didn't the Israelis think of it earlier. And I don't care what any "world court" has to say about it.

So "the settlements" per se are not really the issue preventing peace.

The Real Issues

The main issues preventing peace are the following

1. Lack of Moral Clarity. I've written on this before here. Here are two of the essential elements of moral clarity lacking in some people:
A. Israel is an imperfect democracy, but it is a democracy. No Arab state is a democracy. This does not mean that Israel may do anything it wishes, but it does mean that we should give them the benefit of the doubt.
B. Israeli forces practice discrimination in warfare. That is, they only attack military targets. Civilians are sometimes killed as a byproduct, but the civilians are not the target themselves. Arab/Muslim terrorists deliberately target civilians. Why this is hard for some people to understand is beyond me.
2. Lack of Democracy among the Arab States. Natan Scharansky wrote about this in his excellent book "The Case for Democracy". Simply put, democracies do not fight each other. We in the west are partly responsible for the current state of affairs, since in the past we did not pressure Arab governments to reform.
3. Palestinian terrorism - until the Arab states and/or the PA put and end to terrorism by organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the others there will be no peace.
4. The expansion of the settlements should stop. Ok, I know I said earlier that "the settlements per se" are not the problem. And that is true. But it is also true that in my opinion Israel does not need new settlements, and by expanding them they give Palestinian extremists a propaganda message that is useful in recruiting terrorists.

I'll even add that Israel should abandon most of the setttlements. Not all, but most.

The Bottom Line

In the end the Arabs have had many opportunities for peace and have blown every one of them. They could have accepted the UN partition in 1948. Jordan could have given the Palestinians the West Bank at any time before 1967. They could have at least offered to join Sadat in his peace talks with Begin. Arafat could have listened to President Clinton at Camp David in 2000 and accepted what Prime Minister Baruk offered him.

And when Israel unilaterally handed over Gaza they could have shown the world what wonderfully peaceful people they were by spending their time trying to make the place better, instead of turning it into a base from which to attack Israel.

But no, they can't do this. And they cry foul when Israel does the only sensible thing and builds a wall to keep the terrorists out. But then, such is the moral blindness of people like Omar Shakir

Posted by Tom at 8:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 24, 2007

Motivations and The Mahdi

One of our current problems in the war on jihadism is that we can't even call it by it's rightful name. We insist on "War on Terror", an unfortunate description started by our president. I think he had good motives in that he wanted to divide moderate Muslims those with evil intent and get good Muslims on our side.

Unfortunately the world didn't cooperate. We should have called a spade a spade right off the bat and termed it "War on Jihad". There is an important religious aspect to this war whether our government wants to admit it or not.

The Khumeinists (and here) in Iran are one leg of the jihad. They are motivated not by nationalism but by religious beliefs. The Ayatollah himself is on record as speaking out against Iranian nationalism, saying among other things that "Those who, in the name of nationalism, factionalism, etc, create schism and disunity among Muslims, are armies of Devil, opponents of the holy Quran and helping agents of the superpowers", and that "Our Movement is Islamic before being Iranian." (I've got another quote somewhere and will put it up when I find it- ed)

The way I see it too many people look at Iran and the situation in the Middle East as if they were looking at 19th century Europe. They see it in terms of power struggles between nation-states. I believe this is mistaken. We will never understand what is going on unless we understand their motivations, and the Western concept of nationalism isn't one of them.

Ahmadinejad and The Creation of Chaos

From the invaluable MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute):

In his just-published memoirs, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy relates the story of a meeting between three European foreign ministers together with Javier Solana of the European Union and President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The meeting, which took place at the United Nations on September 15, 2005, dealt with what Douste-Blazy characterized as "the generous European offer" to Iran regarding its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad was characterized by Douste-Blazy, a surgeon and a professor of medicine by profession, as stubborn, and the meeting was described as leading nowhere. Suddenly, Ahmadinejad changed the course of the conversation with the following aside: "Do you know why we should wish to have chaos at any price?" he asked rhetorically. "Because, after the chaos, we can see the greatness of Allah."(emphasis added)

A casual observer would ignore or pass over the mention of "chaos". Ahmadinejad is, after all, fairly nutty by our standards. He did, after all, host a holocaust denial conference last December.

Unfortunately it's not so simple. It is rumored that Ahmadinejad and some of his close associates are members of the Hojjatieh, a radical sect within Shia Islam.

The Hojjatieh believe that chaos and bloodshed will prompt the return of the 12th Imam, or Mahdi (Muhammad al-Mahdī (محمد المهدى) (or Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Al). To Muslims, the Mahdi is "the ultimate savior of mankind", and will one day arrive to set things right by Muslim standards.

Patrick Poole, writing for FrontPage Magazine, elaborates on the Mahdi

Most Shiites await the return of the 12th Shiite Imam, Muhammad ibn Hasan, the last direct male descendent of the Prophet Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali, who disappeared in 874AD and is believed to be in an invisible, deathless state of existene, or “occultation”, awaiting his return... His reappearance will usher in a new era of peace as Islam vanquishes all of its enemies. The Sunnis, who reject the successors of Ali, believe that the Mahdi has yet to be born.

But rooted in the Shiite ideology of martyrdom and violence, the Hojjatieh sect adds messianic and apocalyptic elements to an already volatile theology. They believe that chaos and bloodshed must precede the return of the 12th Imam, called the Mahdi. But unlike the biblical apocalypse, where the return of Jesus is preceded by waves of divinely decreed natural disasters, the summoning of the Mahdi through chaos and violence is wholly in the realm of human action. The Hojjatieh faith puts inordinate stress on the human ability to direct divinely appointed events. By creating the apocalyptic chaos, the Hojjatiehs believe it is entirely in the power of believers to affect the Mahdi’s reappearance, the institution of Islamic government worldwide, and the destruction of all competing faiths.

So far this is interesting but only from an academic view if you're not a Muslim. But here's where it gets interesting.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has clearly indicated that he is a true believer in this faith. It has been reported that he has told confidants that he anticipates the immanent return of the Mahdi. When he previously served as Mayor of Tehran, he advocated for widening the roads to accommodate the Mahdi’s triumphal entry into the city. One of his first acts of office as President was to dedicate approximately $20 million to the restoration and improvement of the mosque at Jamkaran, where the Mahdi is claimed to dwell.

Pool also quotes Ahmadinejad as saying that "“Our revolution’s main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi.".

By itself we would not rely on one article from FrontPage Magazine. But talk about the Mahdi has a way of popping in with regard to Iran.

Again from MEMRI, we have on the website of the governmental Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting(IRIB) an article titled "Waiting for the Mahdi: Official Iranian Eschatology Outlined in Public Broadcasting Program in Iran" . The link is to the actual Iranian website (note the .ir), where they have helpfully provided an English translation.

The document is rather lengthy and readers can go to it and form their own conclusions, but here is the summary by MEMRI

The program describes in glowing terms the messianic age to be inaugurated by the Mahdi. He is to begin his uprising in Mecca, and then march on Iraq, where he will establish his "seat of world government" in the city of Kufa and subjugate the current world powers. This will be an age of unparalleled happiness; there will be completely new technologies at mankind's disposal, and "corruption, war, and rebellion will no longer exist." Neither will "liberal democratic civilization."

Various days of the year are mentioned as being propitious for the appearance of the Mahdi, though the program says that the precise date cannot be known.

The series also includes, in parts not reproduced here, a lengthy polemic against the West, focusing on Evangelical Christians, Zionism, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Hollywood. It also gives a historical survey of Western thinking, from Saint Augustine to Francis Fukuyama.

Just as with the mention of "chaos" by Ahmadinejad to the European ministers, if we didn't know any better we would pass over this article on IRIB. Non-Muslims would, or should, treat it with academic curiousity, but that's about it. Decent people don't make fun of what other people believe, we just don't believe in it.

The problem is that we've seen and heard too much from Ahmadinejad and his cohorts over the past several years. When we read this stuff we have to pay attention.

Yes I know that Ahmadinejad does not hold all of the real power in Iran. Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei is the Supreme Leader and holds, well, supreme power. But from what I can tell Khameini and his fellows differ from Ahmadinejad more in style than substance. They share his Khumeinist goals of creating a regional Shiite superpower armed with nuclear weapons.

The reason motivations matter is that the way I see it Iran isn't going to give up on obtaining nuclear weapons because of a few trade sanctions or a "carrot and stick" approach. No I'm not saying we ought to go to war against them, as I've proposed many options that fall short of that while being more intensive than "sanctions".

All I'm saying in this post is that we must stop looking at Iran and the Middle East as if it was 19th century Europe.

Posted by Tom at 8:17 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 21, 2007

Book Review - "Future Jihad" - Part 6: al Qaeda

Scroll to bottom for links to previous parts of this review

It will seem odd to the uninitiated that a discussion of al Qaeda has not appeared until Part 6 of a book review on jihadism. To most people, I think, al Qaeda is the jihad. They've heard our president and leaders talk about a "War on Terror", and it was al Qaeda who attacked us on Sept 11. Most people by this point are suspicious about Islam as a "religion of peace", but they still see al Qaeda as the primary, if not the only, enemy.

And I am not trying to downplay the threat from al Qaeda. If they had the capability they would set off nuclear devices in all major American cities.

But as Walid Phares patiently explains in Future Jihad, the threat is far more extensive than that of a single terrorist organization, no matter how dangerous it might be. In the first five parts of my review of his book, I laid out the historical background and logic of jihad, and discussed the three parts of the jihad; the Wahabists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Khumeinists as explained by Phares.

In this part of the review I'll explain the origins of al Qaeda, why Phares describes it as a "neo-Wahabist" organization, why Osama bin Laden decided to directly attack America, and what he thought would happen after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Origins of al Qaeda

As Phares tells it, "Osama bin Laden did not create al Qaeda. It created him." By this he means that it was the culture of jihad the permeates the Middle East that "sculpted" him for the roll. Comparing it to the Lord of the Rings series, Phares says that in the case of al Qaeda and OBL it was the "rings" that found the lord.

al Qaeda ("base" in Arabic) is described by Phares as "an advanced form of neo-Wahabi jihadism." He also calls them the "SS of the jihad" because they have taken Saudi-based Wahabist teachings and carried them to their logical conclusion. This is why during the 90s Saudi leaders did not reveal in any detail to American policy-makers the philosophy of al Qaeda, because to do so would have exposed them as having the same goals of al Qaeda minus the terrorism.

Once the Ottoman caliphate fell in 1924, and the ability to call for a jihad went private, al Qaeda was inevitable. As mentioned earlier, it is simply the logical conclusion of Sunni Salafi Wahabist Islam (think of it as concentric circles; Islam is the largest circle, them Salafism, then Wahabism, and finally al Qaeda).

Bin Laden's three causes were Beirut, Kabul, and Baghdad. He was in Beirut in the summer of 1982, and was incensed at the sight of Israeli jets rocketing downtown buildings. The invasion of Afghanistan by the athiest Soviets was the second outrage. The third trigger was the presence of American troops in Muslim lands, particularly Saudi Arabia, the home of Mecca and Medina.

The Importance of Afghanistan

Between the fall of the caliphate and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets in 1979, there were few opportunities to put the jihad into action. The Wahabists and Muslim Brotherhood could infiltrate their targets, but there was no place for those inclined to direct action to participlate. Even the fight against "the Zionist entity" was carried out by secular Arab regimes.

Afghanistan provided "the perfect war and a huge opportunity for the jihadists worldwide." The Saudis provided most of the support for the jihad, believing that they could achieve two objectives; the first to mobilize all Salafis under their banner, and secondly to get in the good graces of the West by showing that they were good allies in the fight against Soviet communism. The purpose of the first was so that the Saudis would be in control of the worldwide jihad, the second that it is simply easier to infiltrate a society that thinks you're their friend.

The war in Afghanistan drew jihadists from around the world. All those of the Salafist tradition, whether Wahabist, Muslim Brotherhood, or other factions, eagerly participated. Best of all from their standpoint, much of it was funded by the United States. Even those monies that came from Saudi Arabia came by way of oil revenues from the West. Painful as it is to admit it, our money jump-started the very jihadists we are fighting today.

Me: As commenter "jason" pointed out in the previous segment of this review, all jihadists are not allied in some sort of united movement. While they all share the same general goals, they spend considerable time fighting among themselves. In Afghanistan, for example, there was never a united front against the Soviets.

Me again: So was it right for us to support the Afghan resistance? Yes, even if we had known that we were creating jihadists. The reason is that Soviet communism was the greatest single threat to the planet in the latter part of the 20th century, and we had to do everything we could to defeat it. It was not knowable at the time whether the Soviet Union would fall, or what would be the straw that breaks the camels back. Some today say that the Soviet Union would have fallen anyway, even if we had not supported the Afghan resistance. But such things are unknowable. Our fault was not in supporting the Afghan resistance, or even in shipping them Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, it was in ignoring the country once the Soviets had left.

Why Attack America Directly

Put simply, bin Laden decided to attack America because his reading of the 1990s showed that we were a paper tiger. Time and again he or other jihadist terrorist organizations attacked Americans and got away with it.

The list of attacks by jihadist groups on America in the 80s and 90s that we did not respond to is long: Beirut(1983 Marine Corps barracks), Algeria, Somalia, the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Khobar Towers, Chechnya, Bosnia (we allowed a jihadist brigade to form up and fight "alongside" us), ignoring the Taliban, the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole.

Worse, on Feb 22, 1998 Osama bin Laden issued a formal declaration of war against the United States. He had all his t's crossed and i's dotted; the text met all of the legal requirements as established by centuries of Islamic law. Yet the United States completely ignored it. Bin Laden was stunned.

His assumption was that it was a sign from Allah that America was ripe for the picking.

What Osama bin Laden Thought Would Happen after September 11

Osama bin Laden thought that three things would happen after the attacks

Popular Chaos: Bin Laden thought that Americans would rise up by the millions against the government. He thought that congress and the president would be paralyzed and that the economy would collapse.

Backlash on Arabs and Muslims: Bin Laden expected us to do what he would do if the situation was reversed; slaughter anyone remotely associated with the enemy. Let us not think that by "backlash" bin Laden was expecting what we would call "discrimination" or even name-calling; he was expecting pogroms of the sort that used to happen against Jews in Czarist Russia. He thought there would be armed strife whereby fascist militia groups would murder Muslims by the hundreds or even thousands.

American Wrath Overseas: Just as bin Laden would have slaughtered his enemies at home, he would have done likewise with a foreign enemy that dared to attack him. He was thus expecting us to lash out at all Muslims and Arabs overseas, perhaps even using nuclear weapons in a mass slaughter.

The net result, he thought, would be that the United States would be in disarray and Arab Sunni Muslims would rally around him and annoint him the new caliph.

What Might Have Happened

It is easy to smile at what bin Laden thought would happen, for in fact he was wrong on all counts. But what if he had waited 5 - 10 years? What if he had waited until he was able to infiltrate hundreds into this country instead of barely more than a dozen?

Instead of 19 hijackers on 4 airplanes, imagine 50 - 60 on a dozen or more.

Imagine also that the terrorists are not only boarding airplanes, but that al Qaeda has infiltrated people into the FAA, where they now work as air traffic controllers. Others are mechanics at working at airlines. On the appointed day they all work in unison. The air traffic controllers issue bogus commands, and the mechanics sabatoge aircraft.

Truck bombers attack attack police stations and government offices, not just in Washington DC or New York, but around the country.

U.S. Military bases experience terrorist attacks carried out by soldiers and sailors working for al Qaeda. Aircraft are destroyed and ships crippled. Others in intelligence or communications units work to sow confusion.

Still terrorists act as snipers in cities, perched atop buildings or holed up in strategically located apartments, shooting at random those below.

How would Americans have acted then? The answer is that we don't know, but it might get ugly very quickly.

Phares lays out just such a scenario in Future Jihad. Now, I think the chances of such a plot going undetected are pretty slim, even in a pre-9/11 mentality. Yet even so, it is not clear that if we had caught some terrorists we could have prevented the entire operation. It is something to think about, certainly.

Up Next:

Guidelines and prescriptive policies.

Previous

In Part 1 I introduced Walid Phares' book Future Jihad and explained the logic of jihad.
In Part 2 I mapped out the three branches of the jihad as identified by Phares.
In Part 3 we discussed methods of the jihad as told by Phares.
In Part 4 we covered how the Saudi Wahabists Undermine the West
Part 5 was about the success the Muslim Brotherhood has had in penetrating the government of Egypt, and it's success in establishing an Islamist government in Sudan

Posted by Tom at 8:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 20, 2007

On Target

I'm not typically one to refight old battles. What's done is done. We invaded Iraq and we are there. Whether it was right or not is pretty much irrelevant. I'm interested in what we do next.

But today I'll make an exception.

I thought that yesterday's piece by Christopher Hitchens in Slate titled "So, Mr. Hitchens, Weren't You Wrong About Iraq?" was dead spot on. As such, I'm simply going to reprint part of it here. When Hitch is on, he's on.

Four years after the first coalition soldiers crossed the Iraqi border, one can attract pitying looks (at best) if one does not take the view that the whole engagement could have been and should have been avoided. Those who were opposed to the operation from the beginning now claim vindication, and many of those who supported it say that if they had known then what they know now, they would have spoken or voted differently.

What exactly does it mean to take the latter position? At what point, in other words, ought the putative supporter to have stepped off the train? The question isn't as easy to answer as some people would have you believe. Suppose we run through the actual timeline:

Was the president right or wrong to go to the United Nations in September 2002 and to say that body could no longer tolerate Saddam Hussein's open flouting of its every significant resolution, from weaponry to human rights to terrorism?

A majority of the member states thought he was right and had to admit that the credibility of the United Nations was at stake. It was scandalous that such a regime could for more than a decade have violated the spirit and the letter of the resolutions that had allowed a cease-fire after the liberation of Kuwait. The Security Council, including Syria, voted by nine votes to zero that Iraq must come into full compliance or face serious consequences.

Was it then correct to send military forces to the Gulf, in case Saddam continued his long policy of defiance, concealment, and expulsion or obstruction of U.N. inspectors?

If you understand the history of the inspection process at all, you must concede that Saddam would never have agreed to readmit the inspectors if coalition forces had not made their appearance on his borders and in the waters of the Gulf. It was never a choice between inspection and intervention: It was only the believable threat of an intervention that enabled even limited inspections to resume.
...

Could Iraq have been believably "inspected" while the Baath Party remained in power?

No. The word inspector is misleading here. The small number of U.N. personnel were not supposed to comb the countryside. They were supposed to monitor the handover of the items on Iraq's list, to check them, and then to supervise their destruction. (If Iraq disposed of the items in any other way—by burying or destroying or neutralizing them, as now seems possible—that would have been an additional grave breach of the resolutions.) To call for serious and unimpeachable inspections was to call, in effect, for a change of regime in Iraq. Thus, we can now say that Iraq is in compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty. Moreover, the subsequent hasty compliance of Col. Muammar Qaddafi's Libya and the examination of his WMD stockpile (which proved to be much larger and more sophisticated than had been thought) allowed us to trace the origin of much materiel to Pakistan and thus belatedly to shut down the A.Q. Khan secret black market.

Some people today have it in their heads that the role of the inspectors was to run around the country playing hide-and-seek with the Iraqis. Not the case. As Hitch says, their role was to verify the destruction of the material that Saddam declared following the Gulf War, not "comb the countryside" looking for weapons.

In 1987 the United States and USSR signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty ("INF Treaty"). The US agreed to destroy our Pershing II and some of our GLCMs(Ground Launched Cruise Missile). The Soviets promised to destroy several types of their medium-range missiles, most notably the SS-20.

Inspectors of each country were sent to verify the destruction of the aformentioned systems. They watched while workers cut up the missiles with large saws and burned the fuel in special incinerators. What they did not do is run around the countryside in 4x4s on wild goose chases. Such a scenario would have been unimaginable. Why, then, do so many people seem to think that we should have done just that with Saddam for an indefinate period?

Hitch has a lot more to say, so go and read the whole thing.

Posted by Tom at 10:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 19, 2007

Walter Reed Freep #100 - March 16, 2007 - 100 Weeks in a Row

Neither snow nor rain nor sleet nor gloom of night, nor all four combined can keep the Freepers from our appointed duty.

A special THANK YOU to everybody who came in from out-of-town to be with us! Many of you I know came from areas far north where the weather was much worse. Many people I spoke with told me that it was snowing that morning in their hometown when they left, and that the driving was tough the whole way down. Many I'm sure were not able to come at all. THANK YOU and we hope to see you again!

This Friday was doubly special because it was the 100th week that Free Republic has been holding rallies outside of Walter Reed! It started as a simple counter to Code Pink by a few intrepid FReepers, and has grown into a weekly pro-troops rally that we would keep doing even if the Pinkos stopped holding their protests entirely.

It started out as rain, turned into sleet, and by 8 it was snowing steadily. It rained during the day, which by evening had turned into a mixture of sleet and snow. Temps dropped from the mid-30s to just below freezing, which is about typical for this time of year for the DC area.

We decided to start an hour early because Code Pink announced that they would start at 6pm instead of their usual 7. Since we didn't want them anywhere near the entrance to the hospital, we wanted to make sure we had people there early.

When I got there at about 6:30 there were already over 20 people there with all four corners well staffed by patriotic volunteers. Here's the sight that greeted me as I drove up. The grainyness of the photo conveys the weather conditions. Thankfully I always carry a poncho in the car for just such situations.

I hoped out and quickly made my way to the "main" corner where we set up shop. There were almost a dozen people on that corner alone and I went around and spoke with each of them. It seemed that almost everybody had come in from out-of-town, the majority from places north. Impressive, given that it was much worse up in New Jersey/Pennsylvania/New York.

As you can see everyone was in their raingear

We quickly got our signs out and went to work! As usual we got a huge response from people in their automobiles. Maybe they were just amazed at our dedication, being out there in the rain and sleet, but it seemed that we got a higher number than usual of honks and waves that night

I counted heads on our side at around 8:00 and came up with about 60 people. Usually we have anywhere from 15-30, the higher number when a group like the GW College Republicans show up. 60 was a very good turnout given that the weather was so bad and that many of our regular folks stayed at home getting our flags and banners ready for Saturday's Gathering of Eagles on the Mall.

After awhile I took out my notebook and tried to record names, but had to stop after just one corner. The rain just about soaked the pages, and cold just about froze my fingers. People also came and went so I'm afraid any list will be incomplete. I thought about just trying to list the regulars but didn't want to slight folks who took the effort to come in from out-of-town. My apologies and I hope no one is offended.

Here are a pair of intrepid FReepers who came in from out of town to join us

This patriot isn't going to let a little bad weather stop her from showing the flag

About the time the sun went down the rain had turned to sleet and we had snow mixing in with the lot. It was wet snow so the flakes were large. You can even see them in this next photo

Sometime during the evening we saw the long-time Pinko we call "Squeeje Man" walk past us to join his gang of traitors. Several of us decided to follow him down and see how many of them there were. We counted about 12, which was kind of surprising. I figured that they'd have more people in town too for the events on Saturday. I guess they just couldn't take the weather, or are just demoralized from being sidelined for so long. Probably both.

Here then is the obligatory shot of the sad bad of Pinkos down the street.

One thing we've noticed is that their leaders are almost never with them. On only a few occasions have Code Pink founders Medea Benjamin and Gael Murphy been spotted, and they rarely seem to stay the entire time. That's one good reason, I am sure, that their numbers have steadily dropped. I guess Medea and Gael figure they're too important.

Kristinn Taylor, on the other hand, is present from beginning to end at almost all of our FReeps. If you want to make something a success you have to lead by example, and I'd certainly say our Walter Reed FReeps have been successful.

Here are some more of our friends from out-of-town

Bad weather didn't stop this FReeper from carrying three flags and a sign

I know this next one is grainy but poor Mrs Trooprally didn't want to use her good camera and for excellent reason. Water damage doesn't do a camera well! It's just as well though because I think the way the photo came out rather conveys the feeling of being in a mixture of sleet and snow after dark

And unless I am very much mistaken this is Jim Robinson, the founder of Free Republic, who came out to join us

Thank you once again for everyone who came out to be with us this evening! In selecting photos I tried to get the folks from out-of-town who aren't usually with us.

And for all the rest of you, we realize that it may not ever be possible for you to join us in person, but that you are here in spirit. We very much appreciate your thoughts and prayers. All I would do is encourage you to seek ways in your community to show your support for our troops. Most of you probably already participate in various programs.

Until next time...

Acknowledgements and More

Don't be shy! We'd love to have you with us one evening. If you'd like details on location, parking, etc, please send FReepmail to me or any of the other DC chapter members. You can also reach me by email at redhunter43@yahoo.com

* A special Thank You to Mrs Trooprally for taking the photos for this AAR. You can find all of the photos she took for this FReep on her Photobucket site

* Thank you to BufordP for maintaining the BIG LIST of all Walter Reed FReeps.

* Thank you always to Kristinn and tgslTakoma for all the work they do to keep these FReeps happening.

* This post can also be viewed on Free Republic

Posted by Tom at 8:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 17, 2007

A Gathering of Patriots

It was a historic day in Washington DC today when thousands and thousands of American war veterans and other patriots gathered to show their support for the troops currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as counter the moonbats of International ANSWER and other sumilar groups.

Months ago when they set this up, ANSWER no doubt thought they'd have the day largely to themselves. But not this time. First, the incident on Jan 27 at the UPJ protest where anarchists spray-painted the capital made a lot of people mad. Second, ANSWER decided to start their march at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. That torqued off Vietnam veterans, who remember well how they were stabbed in the back by leftist protesters and said they're not going to use our memorial extremist agenda.

A grassroots organization called a Gathering of Eagles sprang up to take action. Melanie Morgan led a caravan across America called "These Colors Don't Run", making her final stop the Mall in Washington DC. Sgt. Artie Muller, Founder and Executive Director of Rolling Thunder, put out a call to all chapters to show up at the Wall on March 17, because "we do not want, nor will we tolerate a repeat of what happened at the U.S. Capitol." Veterans for Victory and Free Republic also put forth a full-press efforts.

The result was that although it was a cold, windy and muddy day on the Mall in Washington DC, thousands of Vietnam veterans and other patriots showed up to show their support for our troops currently serving and to make sure the moonbats knew that their message was not appreciated and that if you got right down to it, they were a bunch of traitorous idiots.

And if you don't believe me when I say these things about ANSWER, check out David Horowitz entry on them at DiscoverTheNetwork, and if that's not enough for you take it from David Corn himself, a writer for the leftist magazing The Nation. His October 2002 article on them tells it all.

I got uptown at about 8:30m, and made my way to 21st and Constitution, across from which on the Mall was the Gathering of Patriots sponsored by the aforementioned groups. People continued to show up all morning, but there were several hundred there when I arrived. Our space (all reserved by permit) was maybe 200 yards from the Vietnam Memorial(more on it later). ANSWER and other traitors had permits for other areas. In between the permit areas hundreds roamed freely. Perhaps it was my perception from where I was, but it seemed like the vast majority of them were on our side.

As you'll see from the photos below, there were a huge number of Vietnam vets there

American flags were at the patriot rally by the hundreds. I saw not one among the leftists.

In this one you can see the stage and other tents in the background. Behind that is Constitution Avenue, where later that morning we countered some moonbats on the march, including the odious Code Pink.

I thought this next sign was especially good

After awhile we decided to pay our respects to the Vietnam Memorial itself. I've been there before, but it seemed like a good thing to do today. Before today's event there was a lot of talk on blogs by lefties about how "we're going to the wall and what are you going to do about it? (I even had one such comment). Veterans and other patriots were understandable nervous, given the episode in January where the Capitol steps were defaced, and because of how in general leftists tend to act at their protests.

Fortunately the Park Police had the situation well under control. They fenced off the memorial, and limited access to a single point where they used metal detectors to search everybody. All liquids and aerosols were banned, as you might imagine. There was a line of a few hundred waiting to get in, and it took us maybe 1/2 hour to make it to security.

While waiting in line we could hear the ANSWER rally getting underway a few hundred yards away by the Lincoln Memorial. I can't be certain but I think we heard the disgraceful Cindy Sheehan parroting whatever latest talking points were handed to her. We heard a few other speakers rant and rave about the usual stuff. We also heard them play Calypso music, which we thought odd.

If you click to enlarge the below photo, you'll notice that the lady at lower right talking on her cell phone has on a Dennis Kucinich sweatshirt.

The First Moonbats Arrive!

After visiting the memorial we headed back to the Gathering of Eagles where we were earlier. No sooner had we arrived when we noticed a crowd of leftists marching down the sidewalk on Constitution Avenue. They were headed to the area by the Lincoln Memorial where ANSWER was holding their pre-march rally.

A crowd of patriots quickly gathered to see the sight and express their wonder. It was my impression that most of the patriots had not been to a leftist "anti-war" protest before, so had never seen real moonbats in the flesh. I say this because the general attitude of most of them, especially I think of the Vietnam vets from Rolling Thunder, was more one of amused contempt than anything else.

The leftists had to weed their way through a crowd of patriots that lined both sides of the sidewalk. Note to any leftists reading this: Don't get your panties in a wad, the moonbats were allowed to pass peacefully. Most of what the crowd of patriots did was chant "USA! USA! USA!" again and again. We were quite loud and drowned out even one leftist who had a megaphone

Do I even need to say that all of the American flags were in the hands of the patriots?

I got closer and mixed it up with the crowd. It was quite a mob scene there for awhile, but everyone was totally self-controlled.

Next came the nutjobs of Code Pink (exposed here at DiscoverTheNetwork). This bunch has the bad-taste to hold "anti-war" protests outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center every Friday night(Details here, here, and here. In January 2005 we got them moved down the street so that they're no longer at the main entrance, but of course they shouldn't be there at all. Everyone has a right to protest, but it is disgraceful that they choose to do it in front of a military hospital. Over my year and a half of countering them there, I've spoken with hundreds of veterans and their families, and can tell you that whatever they think about President Bush or the war, they despise Code Pink.

This one with the megaphone was completely drowned out by the crowd of patriots who were shouting "USA! USA! USA!" over and over.

Here's Code Pink Nutjob-in-Chief Media Benjamin. Last year I and some other Freepers had a run-in with her and co-nutjob Gail Murphy in front of Walter Reed when they came up to confront us. Big mistake. Gail was actually beside Media but they went by so fast I wasn't able to get them both.

The ANSWER March

After all this we decided to head over to the Lincoln Memorial to see the moonbats as they marched from their gathering spot across the Memorial Bridge to get closer to the Pentagon. We brought with us several Free Republic American flags, as well as few banners. It was too windy to fly the banners, so we set up the flags and carried them.

Much to my delight there were hundreds if not thousands of Rolling Thunder Vietnam veterans and other patriots lining the march route ( From my vantage point I could not be sure how many people there where. Patriots were lined up on both sides of the Lincoln Memorial and across the bridge as well).

The ANSWER people are marching from right to left in these photos. The Lincoln Memorial is behind me, and in this first photo you can see the marchers start to make their way across the bridge. You can also see red Che Guevara flags carried by the moonbats. See why I called them communists in my earlier post rallying people to join us for this day?

In addition to the patriots on the street below lining the march route, many hundreds more stood atop the wall around the Lincoln Memorial.

Lots of flags among the patriots, none that I saw among the leftists. Update: Actually, a few photos below there are some leftists carrying an American flag. Of course, it's upside down, so it doesn't really count. Ever notice how leftists can't just fly the American flag straight? They have to jazz it up with a peace symbol in place of the stars or fly it upside down or something.

Of course the "9-11 Truthers" were there. I saw a few dozen signs like this one

More idiots

But lots and lots of patriots

A large group of patriotic war veterans just turned their backs on the protesters

Update: :

Initially I posted an estimate that there were 30,000 patriots in attendance. Since I cannot confirm that, I have removed that section and added this next paragraph:

Estimates are all over the place with regard to how many people were in attendance. Whatever the figures, the bottom line is that the leftists were successfully challenged by large numbers of patriots. The leftists expected to have the public square to themselves. The hard-core leftists may have liked a challenge, but the average person who just thought they'd show up for a "peace" march wasn't expecting to be challenged by thousands of Vietnam veterans. These leftists did not have a good time, and for that I am pleased.

The reaction of the patriots ranged from angry words, to shouted but not-angry words, to bemused contempt. Most of the older veterans just stood there shaking their heads. Most of the yelling, I think, was by the younger people (in this case under 50!), which isn't really surprising. My first few counter-protests I joined in some of the hollering, but these past few I've more just observed. Maybe I'm jaded or the novelty has just gone out of it for me.

So the ANSWER people made their way across the Memorial Bridge into Arlington where they held another rally and I'm sure railed against BushCo some more. But we were done, victims of both an early morning rise and hours out in the cold wind. The communists could have their fun in Arlington without us, for we had made our point.

It was certainly an historic day to remember.

Other Coverage

Michelle Malkin was there, and has photos and commentary. She says that they'll have video on Hot Air Monday.

BlogmeisterUSA was there and has photos and commentary.

7.62mm Justice was there and says he'll post pictures later.

Age of Hooper has one video up and I would expect more tomorrow or shortly thereafter. Update: Hooper now has another video and two photo essays up. One is of the Moonbats and the other of the Gathering of Eagles.

I saw Tantor of Conservative Propaganda there, but he was too far away for me to get his attention. Look for a post from him soon. Update: Tantor's first post is up. Part II is now up as well, and he promises a Part III. Lots of good photos and commentary. Update II: Part III and even a Part IV (the last I think) is up. Definately worth a visit.

This Ain't Hell has excellent photos and commentary.

Mary Katharine Ham was there and has video of the speakers at the Gathering of Eagles.

Semper Gratus has good pics from the area around the Lincoln Memorial and Memorial Bridge.

This post on Free Republic has several good photos.

Michelle Malkin has her own photo essay up as well as links to many other blogs, including this one (Thank you Michelle!)

Update: Hot Air has three new videos up: Here is their main show on the Gathering of Eagles. If you don't follow any other links, make sure you go see this one. It's one of their best. In this one Bryan has posted a photo essay, and at bottom is a video of Kristinn Taylor of Free Republic being interviewed on Fox News. And here you can see Move America Forward's TV commercial which will be shown on national TV starting Monday. Be sure to watch all of them.

Media Accounts

The Washington Post's headline was "4 Years After Start of War, Anger Reigns:
Demonstrators Brave Cold to Carry Message to Pentagon, as Counter-Protesters Battle Back". A bit overly dramatic, I think. Maybe I'm a bit jaded after having been to several of these, but I think that between the story and accompanying photo essay they tried to make it sound a whole lot "angrier" than it really was. Read the blogs for comparison

The Washington Times, on the other hand, headlined their shorter story "Anti-war protesters echo Vietnam", which was more accurate, I thought. Not as much detail, but they avoid the hyperbole of the Post.

Final Update

SMASH (who is also an occasional visitor to our Walter Reed FReeps) was uptown and filed a report on his site. What's interesting is that he goes into the history of ANSWER and the 2004 split within the Workers World Party which I did not know about. The ones who left the WWF formed the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and they now control ANSWER. The WWP formed a front group called the Troops Out Now Coalition. The odious Brian Becker has switched his membership from the WWF to the PSL as evidenced by this article he wrote which was recently published in the magazine of the PSL titled "Why We Are Marching on the Pentagon".

Posted by Tom at 6:55 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack

Mark Your Calendar for March 17

This post will stay at the top until March 17
Updated March 12, scroll to bottom

The communists at International ANSWER have planned an "anti-war" protest for Saturday, March 17th, in our nation's capital.

We cannot let them have the day to themselves. If at all possible, please make arrangements to come to Washington DC and help us counter these people. We cannot let them deface our capital unchallenged. As the date draws nearer I'll post information on where we will meet to counter these traitors, but for now just make note of March 17 your calendar.

From the ANSWER website

On March 17, 2007, the 4th anniversary of the start of the criminal invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of people from around the country will descend on the Pentagon in a mass demonstration to demand: U.S. Out of Iraq Now! 2007 is the 40th anniversary of the historic 1967 anti-war march to the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. The message of the 1967 march was "From Protest to Resistance," and marked a turning point in the development of a countrywide mass movement. ...

The March 17 demonstration will assemble at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Constitution Gardens) at 12 noon in Washington, D.C.and march to the Pentagon.

Among the endorsers listed on their website; moonbat-in-chief Cindy Sheehan.

But of course.

Update

It would appear that ANSWER miscalculated by announcing that they would start at the Vietnam Memorial. There has been a strong reaction from veterans groups who do not want their memorial used by the extreme left.

Move America Forward has organized a "These Colors Don't Run" National Caravan. It will start in San Francisco on March 8 and work it's way across the country, ending up in Washington DC on Friday, March 16th. They will set up a "Flag City" on the Capitol Mall that day. That evening they will be with Free Republic at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to show support for the troops.

On Saturday they are sponsoring a "Patriotic/Pro-Troop Rally with Move America Forward, A Gathering of Eagles, Free Republic, Rolling Thunder, Vets for Victory
& Others"

The message from Rolling Thunder's Founder and Executive Director Sgt. Artie Muller is particularly strong:

On March 17, 2007 a group of anti-war protestors are planning to march to the Pentagon from Washington, D.C. The March 17th anti-war demonstration will assemble at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Constitution Gardens) at 12 noon in Washington, D.C. and march to the Pentagon. In order to ensure that the Wall and other Memorials in the general area are not defaced, like what happened at the anti-war demonstration at the U.S. Capitol on January 27th. I am requesting that as many Rolling Thunder, Inc. chapters, members and supporters that can make it, meet at the Wall no later than 8:00 AM on the 17th. We do not want, nor will we tolerate a repeat of what happened at the U.S. Capitol. Rolling Thunder members be sure to wear your Rolling Thunder vests on the 17th. Show your support to our Troops, to those who sacrificed their lives in the past Wars and to protect our Memorials. Hope you can make it.

As a result ANSWER has changed their tune. Now they're posting this

We will not be in the Vietnam Memorial and all speakers for amplified sound are turned away from the Memorial so as not to interfere with family members visiting the site.

Heh heh.

Update II

Kristinn Taylor's Citizens Report on Iraq provides excellent information on the situation there that you won't find elsewhere. Download it, and if you read nothing else go though pages 68-75; "There is no Anti-War Left in America". Here's an excerpt

What the media call antiwar protesters are actually pro-terrorist propaganda exercises organized by Marxist front groups whose leaders cut their teeth cheerleading the North Vietnamese communists to victory in the Sixties and Seventies, who spent their time in the Eighties aiding Marxist guerrillas in Central America and working with the Soviet Union on its nuclear freeze propaganda program, and in the Nineties organizing anti-capitalism riots while propping up Cold War remnant leftist dictators like Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein.

Read it and you'll learn all about the origins of International ANSWER and other "anti-war" groups.

In addition to the information on leftist groups, the report covers much else that you don't usually find in the news. From the press release announcing the report

In the Citizens Report on Iraq, readers will learn that progress is being made in Iraq; there are large areas of Iraq that are safe and prospering; that the enemy is being killed and wounded in astounding proportion to American casualties; that the reporting on Iraq by the dominant media is universally despised as inaccurate and misleading by those fighting for Free Iraq -- Americans and Iraqis alike; that the so-called antiwar movement, including the organizers of this past weekend's protest in Washington, is led by terrorist supporting Marxists as part of a global alliance seeking America's defeat in the Global War on Terror and that a prominent White House correspondent has allied herself with one of these groups.

Check it out.

Update III

Check out this video from Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward on the "These Colors Don't Run" National Caravan.

Update IV

Michell Malkin says in a hotair video "How many times have you (watched moonbats) thought to yourself 'what can I do? . Put down the remote control, kick off your slippers, get rid of the chips, and get off your rear end!" She and Bryan Preston will be there, she promises.

And if you doubt my description of ANSWER as a bunch of communists, don't believe me, believe David Corn, the leftist writer for The Nation. Here's a reprint of his October 2002 article in which he exposes ANSWER as a front group for the Workers World Party.

Update VI

The communists at ANSWER are definately spooked. Not only have they removed all references to the Vietnam Memorial from their website, they've cancelled the rally at the jumpoff site too. Here's their latest garbage

There will not be a rally at the assembly area, as we want to hit the streets and march to the Pentagon. There will be a rally at the Pentagon. It is important that everyone make the effort to get to the assembly location at 23rd and Constitution early. Try to get to the site by noon - don't miss the march! If you are coming by bus or driving from out of town, make sure your group is leaving early enough to get you to the assembly site no later than noon.

At the assembly site, between 8 a.m. and 12:30, there will be a pre-march People's Assembly in the park at 23rd and Constitution. Contingents and organizations will be providing information displays and literature tables. We will be joined by the famous Bread and Puppet Theater. There will be children's activities, including sign-making for the march, where our children can also pick up anti-war balloons. There will be a large Impeach Bush tent with impeachment materials and a place for impeachment advocates from around the country to gather and meet.

Patriots will still meet at the Vietnam Memorial early that morning. Be there if you can.

Posted by Tom at 9:00 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

March 14, 2007

Book Review - "Future Jihad" - Part 5: Brotherhood Success Stories

In Part 1 I introduced Walid Phares' book Future Jihad and explained the logic of jihad.

In Part 2 I mapped out the three branches of the jihad as identified by Phares.

In Part 3 we discussed methods of the jihad as told by Phares.

In Part 4 we covered how the Saudi Wahabists Undermine the West

The Muslim Brotherhood: Success Stories

As explained earlier, the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the three branches of the jihad. The first two are Sunni Salafist; the Wahabists and Muslim Brotherhood. The third is Shiite; the Khumeinists. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in the 1920s by Hassan al Banna. Not directly affiliated with any government, it "uses the power of Muslims" at the grassroots level throughout the Middle East to infiltrate socities from the bottom up.

In Part 3 I laid out the Brotherhood strategy as explained by Phares; they infiltrate a target government from the bottom up and then back down again, carerful not to confront the regime until they have appropriate strength. Ideally they'll gain enough power to stage a coup, if not, influencing the rulers will do.

Their ultimate goal is the same as the Wahabi Salafists; a worldwide caliphate.

Today we'll examine some some Brotherhood success stories.

The Sudan

The biggest success of the Muslim Brotherhood has come in Sudan. In 1989 a coup brought to power the National Islamic Front(NIF). The military officers who seized power were led by General Umar al Bashir, and the NIF was led by Dr Hassan Turabi, described by Phares as a "shrewd intellectual."

As everyone knows, the government of the Sudan decided to wage a series of jihads against their own citizens. The first was against Christian and animist Africans in the south of the country, and the second, which continues today, is against African Muslims in Darfur. In addition to waging genocidal jihad, they used another weapon; slavery. Tens of thousands of Africans were sold into slavery around the Arab world in an attempt to subdue the target populations.

Turabi also invited the world's most infamous terrorist into Sudan; Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden stayed there as a guest of the NIF approximately from 1991 to 1996. From Sudan al Qaeda planned and executed a series of terrorist attacks, which we will cover in future installments.

The Palestinian Authority

In order to achieve it's goals against Israel, the Brotherhood created Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Of the two the former has been by far the most successful, gaining power in the Palestinian Authority after winning the January 2006 elections.

Hamas, of course, is part of the "rejectionists"; no negotiations and no recognition of Israel's right to exist. Their reason is not geopolitical or some Western concept of revenge for alleged wrongs, but rather purely Islamist; any land once ruled by Muslims must never revert to rule by the infidels. Brotherhood writings make clear that this holds true not only for "Palestine", but Chechnya, Kashmir, and even Spain.

Egypt

The base of the Muslim Brotherhood is still in Egypt, where it remains popular, despite being officially outlawed. President Hosni Mubarak (b 1928) is growing old, and the Brotherhood sees a chance to seize power when he dies.

In order to prepare for the day when Islamists can seize power, they have been infiltrating Egyptian institutions. Over the decades the government has attempted to destroy the Brotherhood by mass arrests and persecution, but has never been completely successful, as the Brotherhood always comes back.

The Brotherhood advocates democracy, and uses elections to place its own people in power. In fact they have made strong showings in recent elections, sometimes teaming with other parties in alliances of convenience.

Other Countries

The Muslim Brotherhood has chapters in almost all Arab Middle Eastern countries. As many of these countries have a parliament, they always try to get their members elected.

The Brotherhood is also active in the United States. According to Wikipedia, Muslim activists involved with the Muslim Brotherhood have started organizations in the US including the Muslim Students Association in 1963, North American Islamic Trust in 1971, the Islamic Society of North America in 1981, the American Muslim Council in 1990, and the Muslim American Society in 1992, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought in the 1980s.

Next Up: Al Qaeda

In the next installament we'll examine the origins of al Qaeda, it's goals, and what Osama bin Laden thought would happen after the attacks of Sept 11 2001.

Update

Two articles of interest on the Muslim Brotherhood today.

In the first one, Candace de Russy writes on NRO about that "darling of the left", Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood:

Joseph Crowley reports that this past weekend Ramadan tangled with a young policewoman who stopped him from entering a prohibited area of Charles de Gaulle Airport. Crowley writes

an indignant Ramadan pitched such a macho hissy fit that airport police felt compelled to detained and officially charged him with “insulting a public agent” - punishable by up to 6 months of relatively torture free imprisonment and a € 7,500 fine.

Crowley wonders if “you can take the chauvinist out of Sharia” and “if the SOS-Racisme…, the French equivalent of our ACLU, will pick up the Islamophobic gauntlet thrown down by the French police in this case.”

In the second, M. Zuhdi Jasser writes about "The Not-So-Moderate Muslim Brotherhood", after Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke tell us in an article in Foreign Affairs that the Brotherhood's “relative moderation offers Washington a notable opportunity for engagement.”

After reviewing their argument, Jasser comments that

As a devout anti-Islamist American Muslim I have been struggling to explain to all those who will listen the central incompatibility of the Islamist doctrine with America’s pluralistic ideology. The literal Islamization of society, consciousness, and government as advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood is an anathema to America as it is to a pluralistic and liberated Islam. Leiken and Brooke, in effect, whitewash an international organization whose mission is at odds with our own Constitutional system of governance.

Read the whole thing.

March 30 Update

Egypt is trying to stamp out the Brotherhood, and the latest tactic is constitutional reform. In an article published Monday the 26th by Amir Taheri tells how President Mubarak's proposals would rewrite 34 articles of the constitution. He says it will move the country towards democratic pluralism. Critics say that the objective is really to consolidate the grip on power held by existing elites and the armed forces. Among the critics is the Muslim Brotherhood.

Taheri relates how the proposals target the Muslim Brotherhood in two ways

* They would make it illegal for any political party or group to be based on religion, forcing the Brotherhood to drop the word "Muslim" from its name and its old slogan, "Islam is the Solution."

* They would enable the government to stop the Brotherhood and similar Islamist organizations raising funds and establishing welfare networks as a means of recruiting members. The authorities may use the new constitutional provisions as an excuse to seize the Brotherhood's considerable assets, accumulated over some 80 years of business activities.

Analyzing all this, Taheri says that

Despite the Brotherhood's objections, the idea of banning political parties based on religion appears to have substantial support across Egypt. Mubarak's liberal and leftist critics support the measure because it forces the Brotherhood and other Islamist outfits to fight for votes by offering political programs rather than fomenting religious passions.

The idea that political parties should not be based on religion is gaining ground in much of the Muslim world.

I certainly hope so.

A quick news search shows some predictable headlines: "Voters Scarce as Egypt Holds Constitutional Referendum", "Blogs show footage alleging vote rigging in Egypt’s referendum", and "Egypt introduces changes, but much remains the same"

Sigh.

Posted by Tom at 8:24 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

March 13, 2007

Book Review - "Future Jihad" - Part 4: How the Wahabists Undermine the West

In Part 1 I introduced Walid Phares' book Future Jihad and explained the logic of jihad.

In Part 2 I mapped out the three branches of the jihad as identified by Phares

In Part 3 we discussed methods of the jihad as told by Phares.

How the Wahabists Undermine the West

As Phares tells is, the Wahabi strategy runs like this:

Inside Saudi Arabia, "pure" Islam would be practiced. Sharia law in its most harsh form would be enforced.

Outside the country, a two-track strategy was pursued. The long-term one is diplomatic and financial support for like-minded Islamists around the world through their schools, charities, mosques, hospitals, and the like. The second is to use its oil wealth to influence Western governments and the media. In effect, to pull the wool over our eyes while they infiltrate us.

Phares has identified six tracks that the jihadists follow in the West:

1) Economic jihad: Oil as a weapon - Because we need their oil, we collaborate with them. This give them the opening that they seek.

2) Ideological jihad: Intellectual penetration - The Wahabis have spend much time and money penetrating academia. Many if not most Middle East studies programs are funded by Saudi money. For their money the Saudis want and get a sanitized version of Islamic history.

3) Political jihad: Mollification of the public - One, reassure the public that there is nothing to worry about, and two, promote acceptance of Islam in general and their verison in particular. They want us to turn to their approved sources for information about Islam.

4) Intelligence jihad: Infiltration of the country - The first step is to control the Islamic community in the target country. They do this by trying to gain control of the mosques, Muslim community centers and the like. The next step is to encourage their members and sympathizers to join Western governments, intelligence agencies, police units, and military.

5) Subversive jihad: Behind enemy lines and protected by its laws - As long as they obey the laws of the target government, they are relatively safe. As Phares put it during an interview on NBC after 9-11: "The safest place on Earth to hide from the dragon is inside its belly."

6) Diplomatic jihad: Controlling foreign policy - "Arabists" in the US State Department have been a problem for some time. Because we listened to Saudi advice we became convinced that the Taliban weren't really so bad, we missed al Qaeda because they didn't want us to know the truth about how close OBL's philosophy was to Saudi Wahabism, we let Hezbollah take over Lebanon, and we stalled too long over Sudan and let a genocide develop.

Other Wahabist Infiltration Strategies

Sometimes the apologists simply try to discredit their critics. Ismael Royer of CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) made it his mission to track and attempt to discredit academics such as Daniel Pipes and Walid Phares, as well as human rights activists such as Charles Jacobs.

Phares has been called as an expert witness in for the prosecution at the trials of many accused of terrorism-related crimes. He related sevaral stories about how the defense tries to conceal the nature of the material the police investigators found:

In every single case I witnessed and in all cases I reviewed (on both sides of the Atlantic), one pattern is dominant. There is a clear and firm attempt by a political faction to deny essential information and education to juries, prosecutors, and judges. The Wahabi lobby did all it could to block basic facts from reaching the United States and the western justice system regarding jihadism. In each case, where the defendants were tried for alleged terrorism, the defense and their experts would claim that Salafism is not jihadism and that jihad is not violent.

The Wahabists have also tried to exploit racial tensions by recruiting black Americans. Bin Laden and other jihadists have a somewhat strange attitude towards race. On the one hand, they talk about a war against the "white man". Yet in Sudan they favor the Arab Muslims over black Muslims of Darfur and the south. Yet again in the US they try to recruit blacks and influence the Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam. As Phares tells it, "the ultimate scenario of al Qaeda and it's sisters are for many U.S cities to look more like Sarajevo, Beirut, and Belfast at the peak of urban wars." In future installments we will explore this further when we talk about what bin Laden hoped would happen after 9-11.

Why We Missed bin Laden

The reason we missed the threat posed by al Qaeda, Phares says, is because the Wahabis had successfully penetrated the US to the degree that "before Sept 11, if the government had issued national "warnings" of potential "jihadists attacks" even by al Qaeda, it would have been faced with a barrage of apologists accusing it of bashing Islam." It is hard to see how he is wrong, given that even after Sept 11, when the President talks about "Islamic Facsists", he is criticized by at least one prominent democrat. In fairness, had President Clinton declared a "War on Jihadism", Republicans and conservatives would have dismissed it as an attempt to "wag the dog".

The failure to see the danger went beyond politics and the government, however. The media completely dropped the ball, discussing terrorism but not jihadism or any form of Islamic radicalism. The worse, Phares says, was PBS, which actually showed more programs endorsing the aplogists than all of the broadcast and cable networks combined.

Phares disagrees with the 9/11 Commission that our failure to prevent the attacks of that day were a failure of imagination. He sees it more as a failure to educate Americans on the danger of jihadism. And the reason we failed is that penetration by the Saudi Wahabists successfully pulled the wool over our eyes.

Next up: Brotherhood Success Stories

Walid Phares relates how the Muslim Brotherhood has tried, with varying degress of success, to infiltrate Middle Eastern societies and take control of governments.

Update

If you doubt that Salafist infiltration is taking place in the West, consider this editorial by Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal, titled "The Islamicization of Antwerp", which appeared in today's Washington Times. Following are the first few paragraphs (emphasis added)

The decisive battle against Islamic extremists will not be fought in Iraq, but in Europe. It is not in Baghdad but in cities like Antwerp, Belgium, where the future of the West will be decided.

I recently met Marij Uijt den Bogaard, a 49-year-old woman who deserves America's support at least as much as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Ms. Uijt den Bogaard was an Antwerp civil servant in the 1990s, who spent many years working in the immigrant neighborhoods of Antwerp. There she noticed how radical Islamists began to take over. "They work according to a well-defined plan," she says.

One of the things Ms. Uijt den Bogaard used to do for the immigrants was to assist them with their administrative paperwork. Quite a few of them came to trust her.

About three years ago, young men dressed in black moved into the neighborhoods. They had been trained in Saudi Arabia and Jordan and adhere to Salafism, a radical version of Islam. They set up youth organizations, which gradually took over the local mosques. "The Salafists know how to debate and they know the Qur'an by heart, while the elderly running the mosques do not," she said They also have money. "One of them told me that he gets Saudi funds." Because they are eloquent, the radicals soon became the official spokesmen of the Muslim community, also in dealing with the city authorities. Ms. Uijt den Bogaard witnessed how the latter gave in to Salafist demands, such as the demand for separate swimming hours for Muslim women in the municipal pools.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Soldiers Angels in Kansas City

My friend Kat, who normally blogs at The Middle Ground, has been working with some of her friends to do something special for the troops in her area.

They became involved in the Kansas City chapter of the Soldiers Angels, a 501 3(c) organization dedicated to sending care packages to our troops overseas. Their motto: "May No Soldier Go Unloved"

Among other things, Kat and her frields constructed a float and marched in the annual North Kansas City, Missouri Snake Saturday Parade. The Snake parade is a charity event and raises awareness for charities in the Kansas City area.

Videos are on the KC chapter website. Go and watch them.

Several times I have posted about Adopt-a-Platoon, an organization in which I participate to send letters and care packages to soldiers. Whether you choose to participate through one of these or another charity doesn't matter. Our troops need to know that we care about them and are willing to take action. Head over and sign up today.

Posted by Tom at 7:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 12, 2007

Book Review - "Future Jihad" - Part 3: Methods of the Jihad

One of the problems we face in fighting this war is that I do not think that most people understand who we are fighting. Much of this is the fault of the Administration, which insisted on calling it the "War on Terror"

This name implies that the only people who really threaten us are those who engage directly in terrorist acts. As such, when you mention "War on Terror" most people, I think, believe that we are fighting al Qaeda and al Qaeda only.

In Part I of my review of Walid Phares Future Jihad, I introduced his book and laid out the jihadist's world view. In Part II I mapped out the three branches of the jihad as identified by Phares; two Sunni Salafist, Wahabi and Muslim Brotherhood, and the third Shiite, the Khumeinists.

In this installment I'll discuss some of the methods the jihadists use against us as identified by Phares. Readers will note that violence is not part of all or even most of the jihad.

Following is a brief overview of the methods used by each of the three branches of the jihad. In future installments I'll go through each of these in more detail.

The Wahabists: Top Down Jihad

As discussed in Part I, Salafi Wahabist Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. The goal of the Wahabists is to spread their version of Islam throughout the world, and eventually unify it under the caliphate. The way they do this is by sending "pilgrims" into targeted societies/countries and infiltrate it's institutions. This process is funded by oil revenues. The function of the Saudi state is to reassure the targeted people that all is well and that there is nothing to be worried about. In effect, to pull the wool over our eyes.

At the end of World War II the Wahabists made two historic choices; first, they decided that they would adhere to Western concepts of international law, and second, they allied themselves with the West against the communists.

Their method of spreading their version of Islam is characterized by Phares as a "top down" approach:

The Wahabi state logic was perhaps the most perfect one: Float with the world, release the teachings without violence, let the teachings plant the seeds, wait for their growth irrigate them with money, and make sure to mollify any abrup reaction from the other side. ...

(At the formation of the Saudi state) a historic deal was cut between the emirs on the one hand and the radical clerics on the other. The monarchy would manage the finances and political power, including diplomacy, while the scholars would be in charge of the souls, especially the young ones. The other component of the equation, the Salafi clerics, roamed the world preaching Wahabism with state funding and encouragement.

The Muslim Brotherhood: Bottom Up Jihad

Unlike the state-sponsored Wahabists, the Brotherhood is independant of any state. It works with rulers who are sympathetic to it, but operates outside of them. Theirs is a "grassroots" strategy. While the Wahabists "float with the world", the Brotherhood floats with the target society, which thus far has always been a Middle Eastern one.

The Brotherhood is part of the same Sunni Salafist tradition as the Wahabists. To some extent the Brotherhood competes with the Saudi Wahabists for influence within the Muslim world. Sometimes they cooperate, it all depends on the politics of the moment.

Basically, the Brotherhood seeks to change a society and government by trying to put its members or symthathizers in positions of influence. These positions may be in the media, industry, military, or, if it exists in the target country, a parliament. It is willing to start small, encouraging members to join at the "entry level" and work their way up. Rather than fighting the regime directly, it seeks to undermine it from the bottom up.

After infiltrating from the bottom up, they work their way back down again. As Phares explains, "the Brotherhood would be intereted in spreading through the elites, converting them patiently into the Salafi doctrime, and only then enlisting them into the organization." They never engaged the regime directly until they reached full strength. Their methods were "amazingly fluid and adaptable to circumstances. Their ideal shortcut wa to infiltrate the ranks of the military and proceed with a coup d'etat against the government. Their next choice was to "advise" the ruler and influence him instead."

In addition, the Brotherhood has created Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to pursue the fight against Israel. Hamas is a terrorist group, but also participates in the political process. This is important to note, for it again shows the sophistication of the Brotherhood in pursuit of it's goals. We must understand that these are not a bunch of ignorants who sit around playing with AK-47s and C4 explosive.

The Khumeinists: The Shiite Superpower

It is important not to think of this group as Iranians for the simple reason is that is not how they see themselves. Yes, nationalism plays a role. But the mullah's highest allegiance is to Allah, not to their nation. While this is theoretically true of all religious people, it would be a mistake to see a similarity between the Khumeinists and Western Christians or Jews. The goal of the Khumeinists is not Iranian power but the creation of a Shiite Imamate.

As discussed in Part 1, for thirteen centuries the Shiites were shut out of the jihad. Considered a footnote, the West barely took note of them. All of the ancient calphates were Sunni. When they gained control of Iran in 1979 they shook the Musim world to it's foundations by announcing that they would not only participate in, but would lead, the jihad. This not only placed them in competition with the Salafists, but spurred the latter on to more extremism as well.

While the Salafists seek to infiltrate targeted countries/societies, the Khumeinists seek to build a superstate that will dominate the region. Their goals are limited by the demographics of where Shiites live; Iran and a few other countries in the region, notably Iraq.

From what some Shiite jihadists have said, once the Khumeinist superpower is in place, a more general jihad can ensue which will result in the Fatah(conquest of infidels).

Next up: How the Wahabists undermine the West

In the next installment we'll get into more detail on how the Wahabists go about the business of infiltrating Western societies.

Posted by Tom at 9:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 9, 2007

Book Review - "Future Jihad" - Part 2: Who are the Jihadists?

On September 11, 2001, our homeland was directly attacked for the first time since the war of 1812 by a foreign enemy. We learned shortly thereafter that al Qaeda was responsible. Everyone, or almost everyone, realized that what occured had been building f