Category Archives: defense policy

Mulling Things Over

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The US military is considering a months-long campaign of airstrikes to squeeze Islamic State fighters in Mosul before inserting Iraqi ground forces to retake the city, officials said Friday.

The on-the-ground fight to retake Mosul isn’t likely to start until the fall at the earliest, after an intensified air campaign to target Islamic State leaders and cut off supply lines in and around the city, the officials said.

The emerging plan is at odds with a briefing by a US military’s Central Command official in February in which he said the US and Iraq were looking at starting a campaign to liberate Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, by April or May.

Why is the Obama administration kicking such things around in public, particularly in front of the Daesh terrorists? What does Obama think he’s accomplishing with this?

Why?

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…is this man still on the payroll?

Robert McDonald, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, wrongly claimed in a videotaped comment earlier this year that he served in the Army’s elite special forces, when his military service of five years was in fact spent almost entirely with the 82nd Airborne Division during the late 1970s.

Haven’t had done, yet, with these problems of stolen valor, now that it’s reaching into the upper echelons of our Federal government?

US special operations forces (SOF) are composed of exhaustively trained and highly capable troops from each military service, including the Army Rangers, Delta Force, Navy SEALs, and Army Special Forces (also known as the Green Berets)—but not the 82nd Airborne. They [SOF] are certified to undertake the most dangerous and delicate missions….

To be sure, after having been found out, McDonald has issued an apology for his lie:

While I was in Los Angeles, engaging a homeless individual to determine his Veteran status, I asked the man where he had served in the military. He responded that he had served in special forces. I incorrectly stated that I had been in special forces. That was inaccurate and I apologize to anyone that was offended by my misstatement.

This was no little white lie, though, nor a politician’s…exaggeration for effect. On something of this magnitude, I get a little stiff-necked, and I ask: if McDonald had any integrity, he never would have made the claim in the first place; how, then, can we take his apology at face value? How, too, can we trust his apology when it didn’t come spontaneously, but only after he’d been caught out in his lie?

Wobbly

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The Senate Democrats succeeded Monday night again in filibustering a House-passed bill that fully funds the DHS because those Democrats support President Barack Obama’s “executive actions” and want small provisions that would block them removed from the bill (yet they won’t permit debates and votes on amendments designed to achieve exactly that; they’d rather just defund the entire Department).

The vote was 47-46 for cloture, which means that 7 Republican Senators folded on this.

Instead of pressuring fellow Republicans to fold, as for instance Lindsey Graham (R, SC) so readily and often does, those gentlemen should be spending that energy pointing out the Democrats’ failure to support DHS in an era of large and increasing threat to our homeland.

Remember this in the primaries leading into the 2016 elections.

On Terrorist Wannabes

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Would-be ISIS terrorists are taking more roundabout routes to Syria in an effort to make European authorities’ attempts to catch them more difficult.

And

At least 3,400 European fighters are believed to have joined the ISIS army….

European authorities are concerned about that, looking for ways to stop the wannabes’ outbound travel. The authorities have this backward. They should let these folks go; Europe is better off without them. The authorities should, instead, focus their efforts on not letting the survivors back in.

Jeh Johnson and Terrorism

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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said allowing the agency to lose its federal funding after Friday could jeopardize the US efforts to thwart a domestic terror attack by the Islamic State and will result in 30,000 employees being furloughed.

“It[‘s] including people I depend on every day to stay one step ahead of” the Islamic State, he told NBC’s Meet the Press.

Johnson carefully elided the small detail that 200,000 DHS employees—including all of his security forces—would remain on the job. More importantly, he would do well to direct his concern to his fellow Democrats in the Senate. Those worthies are busily filibustering a bill that fully funds Johnson’s DHS.

Separately, but relatedly, Johnson, in the course of making his Sunday talk show rounds, said this on Fox News Sunday:

The thing I hear from leaders in the Muslim community in this country is ISIL is attempting to hijack my religion[.]

So he says. The only leaders in the Muslim community that are getting any press are from CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood in President Barack Obama’s “Conference on Violent Extremism” coffee klatch a week or so ago. Where are the serious Muslim leaders? I actually agree with the thrust of Johnson’s claim, but if these guys really are upset, they need to speak up. At least as loudly and publicly as are these religion hijackers.

And this on the same show:

Whether it’s referred to as Islamic extremism or violent extremism, what it comes down to is ISIL is a terrorist organization that represents a serious potential threat to our homeland, which has to be addressed. I’m more concerned about that frankly than I am about what two words we use to refer to them.

If that’s the case, if “two words” are such a trivial matter, then why are you so absolutely resistant to using them out loud? Why not just do so and rid yourself of this turbulent distraction?