Tag Archives: freedom

A Thought on Support for Iraq

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To a significant degree, the failure of the Russian-trained and equipped Iraqi army when the US invaded that country is on Russia. To a significant degree, the failure of the US-trained and equipped Iraqi army when ISIS invaded Iraq is on us.

But given the fact that both of those failures occurred under two independent and dissimilar training, doctrine, and equipage régimes, the abject performance of the Iraqi “army” is on Iraq and that army. This is an army that has demonstrated empirically that it has no stomach for defending itself and its members’ families, much less defending its country. This is an army that has demonstrated empirically that it has no stomach for fighting.

The Kurds—including the Peshmerga of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (most especially the latter’s all-women units)—have demonstrated such stomach. Indeed, both groups, under-armed as they are, have been holding off ISIS without Iraqi help, and with only minimal US help; they’ve even regained some ISIS-seized ground.

Now, the Sunnis in western Iraq. The Sunnis of al Anbar Province have been asking for US help in fighting ISIS, also; a small bit of that help came a few days ago in the form of airborne potshots taken against the terrorists trying to seize the Haditha dam. In the meantime, they’ve been resisting ISIS on their own, albeit to a much more limited degree, and with much less success. But they’ve been trying.

Two groups of Iraqis are willing to fight for themselves, if not for Greater Iraq, against these terrorist thugs, even if one group is doing a better job of fighting. Two groups of Iraqis should be armed and supported against the terrorists trying to destroy them. The Iraqi government will not, the Iraqi folks playing at dress-up and army will not.

The US should be supplying assistance—and air support—directly to the erstwhile Awakened Sunnis and to the Kurds, bypassing an ineffectual, and by its own performance apparently disinterested, Iraqi government.

Meandering Expansion

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And it would have done LBJ proud. Now the US is taking potshots at ISIS terrorists threatening the Haditha Dam in Iraq’s al Anbar province. This dam on the Euphrates River backs up a large reservoir and holds a major hydropower plant.

The US’ first move was to take potshots at the terrorists who had trapped Yazidis, for humanitarian reasons.

That was followed, ad hoc, by US potshots at the terrorists who were holding the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River, with that dam’s even larger reservoir and hydropower plant. Those potshots were in support of the Kurds’ Peshmerga who were pushing the terrorists off the dam, and these potshots also were for “humanitarian reasons.”

And now this drift.

Of course these three efforts are entirely appropriate as far as they go, but they aren’t serious efforts to attack the ISIS terrorists, nor are they guided by any sort of plan. They constitute only a drift of mission, reminiscent of Vietnam, authorized in their limited form by an American President who “doesn’t have a strategy, yet.”

These efforts, to succeed, must be part of a much larger effort centered on a concentrated, heavy air campaign both against ISIS’ infrastructure (along with an economic campaign against ISIS’ economic infrastructure) and in direct air support of Kurds’ (and Awakened Sunni) efforts on the ground. This air campaign, to itself succeed, must be accompanied by serious arming of the Kurds (and Awakened Sunni), including heavy weapons and man-portable antiaircraft weapons; ammunition; medical supplies; and training—bypassing, if necessary, an Iraqi government reluctant to let an indigenous population have the wherewithal to defend itself, even if that wherewithal worked to the greater good of Iraq as a whole.

Words Have Consequences

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KT McFarland pointed out some of their consequence in a Friday interview on Fox News‘ Happening Now program against the backdrop of the Russian-supported “rebellion” in Ukraine and the just being agreed “cease fire” between those “rebels” and Ukrainian forces.

It seems that President Barack Obama, while spending a day in Estonia, had assured the Estonians that NATO would, of course, rush to their defense in the event of “an attack” on Estonia. The next day, Obama repeated that assurance, sort of. This time, he said NATO would rush to Estonia’s defense in the event of “an armed attack” on Estonia.

McFarland had two comments on those phrases. The first was technical: NATO, in fact, is sworn to come to the aid of any member who has been subjected to “armed attack” not to “attack.”

Her second comment was substantive. Putin has not engaged in an armed attack against Ukraine. Instead, he fostered unrest in Crimea as a prelude to seizing and occupying that peninsula, and since he’s fostered unrest in two oblasts of eastern Ukraine with the same goal. Next, he’s infiltrated soldiers and un-uniformed fighters; he’s infiltrated weapons up to and including the SAM equipment used to shoot down a Malaysian airliner and a number of Ukrainian fighter jets; he’s infiltrated armored weapons; he’s infiltrated advisors; his forces have taken the lead in reversing the “rebels'” battle fortunes, and his forces have taken the lead in driving a land corridor along Ukraine’s Sea of Azov coast to give Russia a land connection to occupied Crimea. In short, Putin has attacked Ukraine without an overt armed attack.

With Obama’s carefully rephrased assurance to Estonia, he has given Putin a green light to press his campaign in similar fashion against that NATO member and the other Baltic States (each of which also is a NATO member).

Now, McFarland is a very sharp political analyst, and she picked up on this subtlety. Vladimir Putin is a very smart man, and he very clearly understands the import of Obama’s changed phrasing, also.

But, contrary to the attitudes of many on the right, so is Barack Obama a very smart man. This man, say I, this man of letters from Harvard, this highly skilled politician, understands full well everything he says, in all of the implications flowing from his words. That’s why he says them.

No, this change of phrasing is simply more of the flexibility that Obama promised Putin in 2012, “after his last election.”

Resign, or Resigned?

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The parents of a SEAL lost in Afghanistan, on seeing the butchery of ISIS and President Barack Obama’s decision not to respond, have written an open letter to him, via World Tribune. Here is their letter.

Billy and Karen Vaughn

After finally choosing to view the barbaric, on-camera beheading by ISIS of freelance war correspondent James Foley, I have been left with a level of rage known only to those of us who have sacrificed unspeakable offerings on the altar of world peace.

My offering was my only son—Aaron Carson Vaughn. Aaron was a member of SEAL Team VI. He was killed in action when a CH47D Chinook, carrying thirty Americans and eight Afghans was shot down in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011.

Many times over the past three years, I have been asked what drove my son to choose his particular career. What made him want to be a Navy SEAL? My answer is simple.

Aaron Vaughn was a man who possessed the courage to acknowledge evil. And evil, once truly acknowledged, demands response. Perhaps this is why so few are willing to look it in the eye. It is much simpler—much safer—to look the other way.

That is, unless you are the leader of the Free World.

As Commander-in-Chief, your actions—or lack thereof—Mr President, cost lives. As you bumble about in your golf cart, slapping on a happy face and fist-pounding your buddies, your cowardly lack of leadership has left a gaping hole—not only in America’s security—but the security of the entire globe. Your message has come across loud and clear, sir: You are not up to this job. You know it. We know it. The world knows it.

Please vacate the people’s house and allow a man or woman of courage and substance to seize the reigns of this out-of-control thug-fest and regain the balance we, America, have provided throughout our great history.

Thanks to your “leadership” from whatever multi-million dollar vacation you happen to be on at any given moment, the world is in chaos. What’s been gained, you’ve lost. What’s been lost, you’ve decimated. You’ve demolished our ability to hold the trust of allies. You’ve made a mockery of the title “President.” And you’ve betrayed the nation for which my son and over 1.3 million others have sacrificed their very lives.

But this should come as no surprise, since your wife uttered a vile statement on Feb. 18, 2008, during the primary campaign—one that speaks volumes of your true convictions. “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country,” she said.

I am sure my deceased son thanks you for that, Mrs Obama. Oh, and you’re welcome.

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such despair and such growing fear that the world’s last best hope, America, has finally been dismantled. Perhaps the better word is transformed—fundamentally transformed. Come to think of it, it’s become difficult—if not impossible—to believe things haven’t gone exactly as you planned, Mr President.

Amazingly, in five short years, your administration has lurched from one disaster to another. You spearheaded the ambitious rush to end the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan—with no plan on how to do so effectively. Also, the release of “the Taliban five” in exchange for one American—without consulting Congress—is also on your shoulders.

You have been at the helm during unprecedented national security leaks—including, but not limited to the outing of SEAL Team VI on the Bin laden raid, the outing of the Pakistani doctor who provided the intelligence for that raid, the outing of Afghanistan’s CIA station chief, and the outing of your personal “kill list” to make you look tough. In addition, 75 percent of American deaths in Afghanistan and 83 percent of Americans-wounded-in-action have occurred on your watch, according to icasualties.org.

And now, we have this recent, heinous event: the beheading of an American citizen by a barbaric organization you foolishly referred to as “the JV team” in your statements to the New Yorker magazine in January.

You, sir, are the JV team. It’s time for you to step down and allow a true leader to restore our honor and protect our sons and daughters.

America has always been exceptional. And she will be again. You, Mr President, are a bump in our road.

Obama’s decision not to respond is embodied in his speech and question/answer period while he was traveling in Estonia. While there, Obama said his goal was to “degrade and destroy” ISIS. A few short minutes later, he said his goal was to render ISIS a “manageable problem.”

 

h/t Power Line

About the Ukraine Crisis

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Zbigniew Brzezinski had some thoughts in Foreign Affairs. In 1994.

Insurance is needed against the possibility, one might even argue the probability, that the weight of history will not soon permit Russia to stabilize as a democracy, and that the single-minded cultivation of a partnership with Russia, while downgrading other interests, will simply accelerate the reemergence of an ominously familiar imperial challenge to Europe’s security….

The crucial issue here, one that might well come to a dramatic head in the course of 1994, is the future stability and independence of Ukraine. It cannot be stressed strongly enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire. American policymakers must face the fact that Ukraine is on the brink of disaster: the economy is in a free-fall, while Crimea is on the verge of a Russia-abetted ethnic explosion. Either crisis might be exploited to promote the breakup or the reintegration of Ukraine in a larger Moscow-dominated framework. It is urgent and essential that the United States convince the Ukrainian government, through the promise of substantial economic assistance, to adopt long-delayed and badly needed economic reforms. At the same time, American political assurances for Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity should be forthcoming.

Let’s see, now. Russia already has occupied Crimea, and it’s investing eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government has been trying to mend its ways and to join with, and learn from, the West, via its nascent alignment with the EU and its desire to join NATO.

And yet….

 

h/t The Wall Street Journal