Category Archives: defense policy

The Mosul Campaign

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A couple of things.

Regarding the well-publicized upcoming Mosul, Iraq, campaign (remember the ability of WWI allied general staffs to predict German army movements by reading Berlin newspaper society pages? President Barack Obama plainly does not), a carefully unnamed “military official” had this to say:

When we feel that the Iraqi forces are ready to go and win decisively, we will go and advise the Iraqis to begin the operation.

Hmm….

Keep some things in mind for a broader context of this official’s remark. These are the same Iraqi forces that failed so miserably against the Iranian army. These are the same Iraqi forces that failed so miserably against the American military, twice. These are the same Iraqi forces that failed so miserably when the Daesh ran all over them just a few months ago. These are Iraqi forces.

Update: As prelude to the upcoming Mosul campaign (and from which all the publicity may have been intended to distract as well as to show “initiative”) a 30,000-strong mixed Iraqi, Kurdish, militia, and Iranian force began an assault on Tikrit, which some 1,500-2,000 Daesh terrorists are holding, over last weekend.

This force is made up of Peshmerga, Sunni and Shia militia units, and units from Iran’s Quds forces.  Some Iraqi army units are along, too, to lend a government imprimatur to the operation.

As happened the last time the Iraqi army tried to take Tikrit, the offensive has stalled short of the city’s suburbs, having run into mines on the roads and other key approaches: Daesh emplaced IEDs.  The move now is to attempt to surround the city; Quds leadership is guiding the eastern part of the operation.

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.