Category Archives: defense policy

“US special forces tried to rescue hostages in Syria but failed”

Posted on by
Reply

So screamed a recent Fox News headline. And

The Obama administration sent US troops to Syria recently to attempt to rescue hostages being held by Islamic State militants, including journalist James Foley, but failed to find them, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

But why is the Obama administration mentioning this now, just after the beheading of Foley by these terrorists? There’s no reason at all, other than as another self-serving claim to be doing something in order to show that they’re doing something in response (!) to an act of monstrous barbarity. This administration also claims ISIS terrorists were killed in the raid. Really? Where—in the aftermath of that failure, or now, in the aftermath of the claim of that effort—are ISIS’ braggings about having inflicted such a defeat on the Great Satin?

Also, why is the Obama administration giving up this classified (or it should be) information at all?

NSC Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said in a statement that the administration had not planned to release details of the operation, out of concern for the safety of the hostages. However, she said, it became clear Wednesday it would be reported in the media and the administration had “no choice but to acknowledge it.”

This makes no sense. If Obama’s administration didn’t leak any of this information, on what basis does it claim this information “would be reported in the media?”

Worse, giving up information about the raid (if it occurred), gives critical information concerning methods and sources to the terrorists, and to anyone else who’s listening, endangering friendly lives and hindering the ability to execute future ops of this type.

Of course, the Obama administration understands all of that. Which brings me back to that earlier purpose, mentioned above. This exposure is all about making Obama and his administration look good in the shower. As illogical as that seems, as immoral as that is, it’s entirely consistent with this administration’s performance these last six years. This act is all about Obama and his administration, and not at all about the safety of American troops or of American civilians situated overseas. After all, after his pretty speech about the beheading, and while Obama’s Own were blatting on about this failed raid, President Barack Obama went back to his golf game and his vacation.

 

Finally, a quibble. This butchery was by ISIS terrorists, not any nation. Full stop. The press really needs to stop muddying the situation, and it really needs to stop legitimizing these terrorists by euphemizing them.

Was the Palestinian Authority Ever Serious

Posted on by
Reply

…during the latest cease fire in its terror war against Israel [emphasis added]?

Israel has suspended talks with Palestinian factions in Cairo after three rockets from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel, breaking a cease-fire aimed at allowing negotiators to broker a long-term truce for the conflict-ridden territory.

The rocket fire came hours after Israel and Palestinian factions resumed negotiations toward a cease-fire deal. On Monday night, both sides accepted a proposal by Egyptian mediators to prolong their cease-fire from Monday to Tuesday midnight local time to give extra time to reach an agreement.

…Izzat Al Risheq, a senior Hamas official and delegate to the talks, expressed pessimism on Monday that more talk would produce a durable accord.

No, they never were. They just wanted the days in which to rest, recuperate, and reform so they could resume.

Neither, evidently, is the UN serious.

…Robert Serry, the UN special envoy to the Middle East, urged negotiators to agree on a durable cease-fire so reconstruction could start.

“Gaza urgently needs houses, hospitals and schools—not rockets, tunnels and conflict,” Mr. Serry told the council.

Sure. If he actually believed that, he’d be moving to stop UNRWA from warehousing the terrorists’ rockets for them, allowing the terrorists to dig their tunnels under UNRWA facilities, or participating in the terrorists’ staged propaganda.

No, this was all about buying time for the PA to get their rest, recuperation, and refitting.

A New Defense Alliance

Posted on by
2

This thought was triggered by a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary General, and General Philip M Breedlove, SACEUR and Commander US European Command, concerning “A NATO for a Dangerous World.”

Given European NATO members’ long-standing disdain for national defense, for providing their treaty-obligated share of men and equipment for NATO defense, for providing their treaty-obligated GDP share of funding for NATO defense, it’s time to walk away from NATO and form a new mutual defense alliance with selected nations of eastern Europe.

As Rasmussen and Breedlove themselves note, NATO (and the underlying EU) aren’t facing the current threats (the US isn’t either, but the US can control that), and they’re failing the spirit of their defense obligations, if not exactly the letter of them. Yet Rasmussen and Breedlove themselves underestimate the problem.

Now, an unprecedented period of peace has been challenged by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

And against Georgia, its nuclear threats against Poland over a missile defense capability, its economic war against Europe (vis., Russia’s winter cutoff of natural gas to Ukraine a couple years ago, which caused gas shortages—as Russia knew it would—in Europe). We have, in fact, a new cold war with Russia. (And one with the People’s Republic of China, and a shooting war that we don’t recognize with terrorists—ISIS, for example. The latter two, though, aren’t directly relevant to this article; I’m writing about an alliance to deal with Russia in the face of NATO’s evident failure.)

R&B do recognize parts of the problem, and they understand some of what needs to be done.

  • fundamental mission remains the same: to defend the territory, populations, and shared values of all…members
  • the presence of NATO forces in Eastern Europe for as long as necessary; upgraded intelligence gathering and sharing; updated defense plans; and an expanded training schedule with more exercises, of more types, in more places, more often
  • able to deploy even more quickly and deploy at the first sign of trouble
  • also need to pre-position equipment and supplies, so that they can travel light but strike hard if needed

All of these are needed, but NATO already has demonstrated that it’s politically unequal to the task, and its leadership is emotionally unequal to it. This is especially the case with those last two bullets. The recognition and decision to act are more political matters than military, and NATO and EU leadership have demonstrated repeatedly their reluctance to decide quickly and their reluctance to act quickly once decided.

No, I propose the following. The US should walk away from NATO. The EU’s NATO member nations have been free riders on our treasure long enough. Instead, we should form a mutual defense alliance with selected nations of eastern Europe, nations whose peoples and leaderships remember what it was like to live under Russian dominance. This alliance should have as its core mission the four bullets above, only it’ll be on their home territory, instead of western Europe magnanimously moving to “defend” eastern Europe, so long as that serves the interests of western European nations.

The eastern European nations I propose to be approached for membership in this Free Europe Treaty Organization include these, running generally north to south:

  • Norway
  • Sweden
  • Finland
  • Estonia
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Poland
  • Czech Republic
  • Slovakia (and maybe we can help them adjust their politics and economics. If not, we’ll need to rethink their membership)
  • Ukraine (even—especially—rump Ukraine if that’s all that’s left after the West’s shameful abandonment of them to the tender mercies of Russia)
  • Romania
  • Bulgaria
  • Georgia (especially Georgia)

Also, contra R&B, Russia’s hybrid war tactics involving “snap exercises, secret commandos, and smuggled missiles” should be added to our new alliance’s kit; they work, as Russia is demonstrating.

Other nations can be looked at as interest and suitability develops.

These nations will provide to such an alliance considerable interest and capability; nearly all have significant per centages of their populations who know firsthand what Russian dominated life was like. Western Europe has lost the memories of the Russian (Soviet) threat, and they have lost the associated motivation.

Unfortunately, aside from the pie in the sky aspect of the thought, this alliance also must await a more reliable, trustworthy American President.

Unproductive

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal opened its Friday commentary on President Barack Obama’s handling of Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine thusly:

President Petro Poroshenko said Friday his military destroyed armored vehicles entering Ukraine from Russia, and a Russian invasion could happen any day. So what warning is President Obama delivering to Vladimir Putin? “He could invade,” Mr Obama told the New York Times. “And if he does, that will set us on a course not to a new Cold War, but trying to find our way back to a cooperative functioning relationship with Russia during the remainder of my term will be much more difficult.”

Carefully, not a word–anywhere in the piece’s description of Obama’s Russian policy–about Ukraine’s strait from that invasion: that might “provoke” the Russians. Obama’s foreign policy generally, much less his handling of Ukraine’s crisis, just doesn’t get any more vapid than that. Or inoperative. Or unprolific. Or sterile. Or unfruitful. Or useless.

And we still have two more years of this guy.

An Inaccurate Description

Posted on by
Reply

As Nour Malas and Joe Parkinson, writing for The Wall Street Journal, put it in a larger piece,

They [Western officials, including especially US officials] now face the choice of launching a major armament program to Kurdish forces, and risk accelerating Iraq’s dismemberment, or offering smaller supplies but failing to turn the Peshmerga into the definitive proxy force against the Islamic State.

Of course, the choice is not limited to these options, nor are these options accurate reflections of reality. An obvious third choice is arming, and supporting with other means, the Peshmerga so that they can do far more than just be someone else’s proxy, but instead guarantee the Kurds’ survival as a society and a polity against ISIS’ attempts to crush, if not exterminate, them—even to crush ISIS instead.

Nor is “launching a major armament program” a serious risk to Iraqi political unity. That threat comes from an Iraqi government that has no respect—no use for—either of the other two major groupings in Iraq: the Kurds, surely, and the Sunnis as well. Arming the Kurds, far from threatening the Iraqi polity, would facilitate the survival and the effectivity of the Kurds, and give them the wherewithal to force the Iraqi government to take them seriously.

On the other hand, not supporting the Kurds adequately, including arming them with serious weaponry and giving them serious air support, guarantees their fall, which in turn guarantees Iraq’s fall to the terrorists.

Which renders irrelevant any discussion of an alleged threat from the Kurds to Iraqi unity.