November 21, 2007

ANNAPOLIS: SELLING OUT ISRAEL FOR A BARREL OF OIL

With oil approaching $100/barrel, and none of it pumped in Israel, the West has invited the hungry Arab hyenas to dine on the Jewish state in return for an addict's fix. The Czechs at least objected when Chamberlain served them up to Hitler. Olmert not only doesn't object, he wants to be known as chef de cuisine.

Churchill's words to Chamberlain apply equally to Condi Rice and Ehud Olmert: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war."

April 05, 2007

NANCY PELOSI'S MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR IS DYING TO TAKE YOU AWAY

"...Defying the White House's Middle East policy by meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Pelosi said, "The road to Damascus is a road to peace..."

        Contemporary liberals constantly remind the rest of us how much more intelligent they are. I personally heard a retarded man express disbelief that anyone could have voted for President Bush because “he’s so stupid.” Calling someone like the President ‘stupid’ is an indirect way of asserting one’s own superior intelligence. Long ago, Liberalism devolved into a psychotherapeutic stance, a set of attitudes, rather than a coherent body of ideas. Horsefeathers regards Liberalism as the therapeutic religion of the playground. Its aim is to assuage hurt feelings, to reassure true believers that they really are better, smarter and more empathic creatures whose exquisite sensibilities entitle them to decide what’s best for the rest of us. After all, they care, they ‘understand the other’, they're "in touch" with their inner child. They know that war is foolish and misguided as well as bad for children, that Amerika is the greatest problem, and that victim status trumps everything. They were the good little girls and boys who told the teacher about those dreadful boys in the playground who just wanted to win the stickball game and didn’t care that the losers felt bad.
        Enter Nancy Pelosi, a creature stuffed full of platitudinous, politically correct beliefs and possessed of fatuous self regard, based on no actual real world accomplishment. Her plastic surgeon’s multiple efforts to sustain her denial of biological reality have, instead, made her into a bizarre looking caricature of the human condition, female variety. In a way, she is the perfect physical representation of Liberal fantasies about human nature: utopian fantasies trump reality. It's possible to remain, in the words of a Bob Dylan song, "forever young".
        This would all be laughable, were it not that Nancy Pelosi is number three in line for the Presidency, and as such she encourages the belief in followers of totalitarian Islam that the United States is too decadent, too in love with its comforts, too feminized to actually fight against our enemies. While she hasn’t literally proclaimed “Peace in our time”, her smiling photo session with Basher Assad is filled with obvious self-satisfaction. She will return to Washington convinced that she is a better person than the President. She would be eager to remind us that Neville Chamberlain was a "good" man, a man who just needed more time to talk things out with Hitler. How sad that Chamberlain never got the chance for one more meeting, one more opportunity to bond with Hitler and acknowledge the validity of his grievances. Meanwhile, American marines are dying while Damascus Nancy gazes into the eyes of Basher Assad and shows respect for our enemies by donning their garb of female enslavement. But of course, she's so, so intelligent. Just like Neville Chamberlain.
        "The magical mystery tour is dying to take you away, Dying to take you away, take you today.."

March 10, 2007

DOES BIN LADEN HAVE A DIRECT LINE TO ALLAH: HORSEFEATHERS REVIEWS THE LOOMING TOWER

Once every few hundred years an individual is born who single-handedly, for good or ill, changes the world forever. Jesus was one such individual, Hitler, another. These individuals are endowed with exactly the right set of personal characteristics which will combine with the exactly right set of accidental opportunities to create a transcendant event, immutable and irreversible. Perhaps Osama Bin Laden was such an individual. So suggests Lawrence Wright in “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11.”

“One can ask, at this point, whether 9/11 or some similar tragedy might have happened without bin Laden to steer it. The answer is certainly not. Indeed…history [was] promoting a period of conflict between the West and the Arab Muslim world; however, the charisma and vision of a few individuals shaped the nature of this contest…. Al-Qaeda depended on a unique conjunction of personalities, in particular the Egyptians—Zawahiri, Abu Ubaydah….But without bin Laden, the Egyptians were only…parochial. At a time when there were many Islamist movements, all of them concentrated on nationalist goals, it was bin Laden’s vision to create an international jihad corps. It was his leadership that held together an organization that had been bankrupted and thrown into exile. It was bin Laden’s tenacity that made him deaf to the moral quarrels that attended the murder of so many and indifferent to the repeated failures that would have destroyed most men’s dreams. All of these were qualities that one can ascribe to a cult leader or a madman. But there was also the artistry involved, not only to achieve the spectacular effect but also to enlist the imagination of the men whose lives bin Laden required.”

Wright’s book is about others—Zawahiri and John P. O’Neill, the heroic G-Man who was killed on 9/11 at the World Trade Center; and also about the outrageous struggle between the CIA and FBI to keep each from getting important information which might have prevented the catastrophe. But the central focus of the book is on the evolution of Al-Qaeda and bin Laden as an international terrorist.

Wright is a master storyteller endowed with the integrity and conscience of a historian, resulting in a trustworthy and compelling narrative.

Bin Laden’s story begins with his father, Mohammed bin Laden. “One cannot understand the scale of the son’s ambition without appreciating the father’s accomplishment. Remote and powerful but humble in manner….He presented a formidable model to a young man who idolized him and hoped to equal, if not surpass, his achievements.”

Mohammed bin Laden, an illiterate but clever young man, fled a severe drought in Yemen to go to Arabia in the early thirties, before oil had been discovered. At that time it was a poor and desolate place where the economy had to survive on the few tourists who might make their once-in-a-lifetime visit to Mecca. In 1931, bin Laden could find work only as a dockworker in Jeddah. But soon after oil became a major interest in the country he became a bricklayer for Aramco. He was quickly recognized by American engineers as a hard-working, exacting builder of projects too small for the major contractors, and was supported by Aramco in his entrepreneurial efforts.

Gradually and in small increments bin Laden’s reputation grew and he became increasingly close to the royal family by responding to their special needs and palatial whims. Eventually his loyalty was rewarded when a British contractor defaulted on a project to build a highway between Jeddah and Medina; the contract was given to bin Laden at the same fee that would have been paid to the foreign company.

In the following years—the fifties—there were countless building projects—highways, major mosques, palaces, the bureaucracies at the new capital city of Riyadh—resulting in a consortium of bin Laden companies collectively known as the Saudi bin Laden Group, one of the largest construction companies in the world.

Although he became immensely wealthy and was on close terms with the Royal Family and all of the important people in the Kingdom, he lived quietly and unpretentiously in Jeddah in a large ramshackle house with his many wives and 57 children. Although most of them yearned for his companionship, he saw them infrequently and when he did he was distant and frugal in his communications.

Osama was especially frustrated in this respect for bin Laden divorced his mother when he was four or five and he went to live with his new stepfather not too far from the large house where his 25 brothers lived. Perhaps this circumstance had to do with the fact that even though Osama was sent to the same fine school as his brothers, he did not do well there and in fact left school. His brothers went on, succeeded educationally and went into the family business while Osama remained to some degree alienated from the rest of his sibs and their interests.

Wright can only provide a fragmented picture of bin Laden’s childhood and youth, barely enough to suggest connections between his past and his role as apocalyptic leader.
He saw himself, early on, as an authority in his immediate family—perhaps even superseding his stepfather. Everyone around him felt his self-confidence and charisma. He was often lost in his own thoughts and fantasies, which probably contributed to the fact that he was not a superior student in school and unlike his brothers dropped out of college. At about age fourteen he became extremely pious, excessively religious and anxious about matters of sexuality. This soon led to a preoccupation with the puritanical spirit of radical Islam and to his studying the works of Sayyid Qutb. It was a short step from there to his joining the Muslim Brotherhood, which at that time had more benign political aims than its successors eventually adopted.

What stands out from the fragments of information from that period of his life is his unswerving dedication to his own beliefs and views, and his incapacity to be influenced by others.

Al-Qaeda did not spring suddenly from bin Laden’s imagination. He is not an instigator, an entrepreneur of terror; if anything, he is a capitalist of terror, the supporter of schemes. Al-Qaeda emerged gradually out of the struggles among a number of radical Islamic groups, beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood, and between them and the various governments hostile to their theocratic aims. After the withdrawal of the infidel Soviets from Afghanistan in 1988, many of these splintered Jihadist groups tried to unify themselves into an effective group which came to be known as Qaeda—the base. There were several leaders among these groups, but bin Laden was thought to be the central figure because of his wealth and contacts in Saudi Arabia; also important was Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, who is now deputy leader of Al-Qaeda but in the early days was the leader of an anti-Egyptian terror group and had clear ideas for a jihadi strategy which included the murder of even innocent muslim women and children—a jihad notion known as takfir. And although there were others opposed to Zawahiri, the latter saw bin Laden as the carrier of his own ideas. He would supply the direction to the movement and bin Laden would be the nominal leader—the Sheik—and supply the money. So Al-Qaeda came into being in 1988 as an attempt to unify the splintered radical Islamists, but without any articulated antagonism yet against America or the West. Each of the various factions was primarily interested in bringing a purer form of Islam to its respective country.

For the next three or four years bin Laden hibernated in Sudan, where he kept his little army—paid well by his great fortune from his family’s assets—engaged in various forms of failed business enterprises, prayer, and bootcamp-style training. Typical of bin Laden, he could not formulate a mission or plan without another individual to inspire him.

In 1992 his close friend and Imam Abu Hajer performed the role of instigator. He and bin Laden, persuaded that American power and influence were moving into the area, not only in a military base in Saudi Arabia, but using the excuse of the famine in Somalia to occupy the Horn of Africa. Now it seemed to them that America was expanding its influence into the whole Islamic region.

At the end of 1992, they discussed the threat of the expanding U.S. presence, and saw that America was the locus of Christianity—not the increasingly secularized Europe—especially the evangelizing American kind. Says Wright, “Viewed through the eyes of men who were spiritually anchored in the seventh century, Christianity was not just a rival, it was the archenemy. To them the Crusades were a continual historical process that would never be resolved until the final victory of Islam. They bitterly perceived the contradiction embodied by Islam’s long, steady retreat from the gates of Vienna, where on September 11—that now resonant date—in 1683, the king of Poland began the battle that turned back the farthest advance of the Muslim armies.”

It was on Abu Hajer’s authority that Al-Qaeda was permanently transformed from the anti-communist Islamic army that bin Laden originally envisioned into an international terrorist organization with America as its target. Now “Al-qaeda would concentrate not on fighting armies but on killing civilians,” according to the principle of takfir.

The Quran explicitly states that Muslims shall not kill anyone, except as punishment for murder.The killing of Muslims is an even greater offense. Sayyid Qutb, the philosopher of modern Arabic terrorism, found a way around these Quranic strictures. He asserted that a leader who does not impose sharia law on the country must be an apostate. This is based on a well-known saying of the Prophet that the blood of Muslims cannot be shed except in three instances: as punishment for murder, or for marital infidelity (of the wife), or for turning away from Islam. It was only a step or two to extending the principle of takfir to apply to any modern behavior. And this is what the new radical Islamists have done. Explains Wright, “The new takfiris…extended the death warrant to encompass, for instance, anyone who registered to vote. Democracy, in their view, was against Islam because it placed in the hands of people authority that properly belonged to God. Therefore, anyone who voted was an apostate, and his life was forfeit….The new takfiris believed that they were entitled to kill practically anyone and everyone who stood in their way; indeed, they saw as a divine duty.”

Thus, the bombing of the American Embassy in Kenya in 1998, the first terrorist attack unambiguously attributable to Al-Qaeda, which killed and maimed mostly Africans and Muslims and which was greeted by horror by Muslims all over the world, was only the first in Al-Qaeda’s terror agenda. It was quickly followed by the Khobar Towers blast in Saudi Arabia, and then the even bolder attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.

Wright’s discussion of how Al-Qaeda actually accomplished the 9/11 attack is disappointing. Perhaps we will never know the operational details. But we do know a few things. We know that although it was not bin Laden’s idea to use planes as missiles, he did actually believe that America could be destroyed by bombs in select places. In one of his sermons he is quoted as saying, “America is a great power….but all this is built upon an unstable foundation which can be targeted, with special attention to obvious weak spots. If it is hit in one hundredth of those spots, God willing, it will stumble, wither away and relinquish world leadership.”

We know too that among all of the supposed vast army of recruits Khaled Sheik Mohammed, the operational commander of the 9/11 attack, had to choose from, he could find only four familiar enough with the language and ways of America to lead the four hijackings. These four were the best they could find, and even these seemed, where it came to competence and common sense, to be hanging on by their fingertips. The most famous one, Mohammed Atta, grim, dark eyed, unsmiling, “constantly demonstrated an aversion to women, who in his mind were like Jews in their powerfulness and corruption. His last will states that: ‘No pregnant woman or disbelievers should walk in my funeral or ever visit my grave. No woman should ask forgiveness of me. Those who will wash my body should wear gloves so that they do not touch my genitals.’ The anger that this statement directs at women and its horror of sexual contact invites the thought that Atta’s turn to terror had as much to do with his own conflicted sexuality as it did with the clash of civilizations.”

Wright has much to say about the fractured intelligence system that made it possible for 9/11 to occur. The basic story is well known; he only excites our rage with details. It is clear that had the intelligence services cooperated in the investigations prior to 9/11 there is a good possibility that 9/11 could have been prevented. No doubt the audacity of the scheme and the element of surprise were largely effective in its success. But so many things could have gone wrong for these ignorant, barely competent young Arabs—a hundred things—and the nineteen were not great geniuses or great warriors. But they were very, very, lucky in three of the four planes. All it needed was a sharp intelligence service that could have cooperated to find or create more errors among the anxious terrorists.

Right after 9/11, when we ordinary citizens first began to hear of bin Laden, he came as a package wrapped in considerable mystique, making him into something with magical attributes and formidable beyond our powers to contain him. And although Wright can give us little insight into the way bin Laden’s mind works, it is possible to speculate along certain lines based on some facts, sketchy as they may be, about what bin Laden’s strengths and especially what his weaknesses may be.

Among one of his greatest strengths as a leader in the radical Islamic movement is his mythical reputation, developed during the Soviet-Afghan war when he brought a small Arab army with him to fight against the “infidels.” He came with much money and supplied his men with equipment, religious support, and inspiration. And even though he was not considered an important or valued ally by the Afghani mujahedeen who actually prosecuted the war against the Soviets, bin Laden created for himself and his little army a myth that he had been instrumental in defeating the Russians. This myth was perpetuated and spread in the Arab world.

Part of the strength of his mystique and the myth of his power had to do with his access to vast amounts of wealth—at first supplied by his family’s wealth, but lately from other unknown sources. If you can pay and equip hundreds of men from impoverished families then you do have real power, at least for as long as you pay them. For a period of time when he was disowned by his family and his access to that wealth was removed, many of his “loyal” followers disappeared in search of other forms of income.

In addition to his access to vast amounts of money, he apparently has contacts in the Arab world who continue to believe in his mission and his leadership. At least among those who welcome the rise of radical Islamism, he appears to be still a player.

Certain other personal characteristics play a part in his ability to hold power over his followers. He has a large and imposing physical presence which always plays a part in casting a psychological spell over people. He tends to speak ex cathedra, as though he had some legitimate power, and knowledge that he has special access to. This kind of charismatic quality can be very effective with unsophisticated and unempowered followers.

Among the weaknesses which bin Laden may have and of which we may be fortunate beneficiaries in the future is his serious tendency to deny reality in making judgments about his mission to destroy America and the West. He imagines that his views of America are true, and that as long as he believes them his plans will come to pass. He is a visionary, a dreamer who takes his dreams as messengers of truth. He has lost millions of dollars in projects that were unrealistic or in which he failed to acknowledge their complexity. And he has very grandiose fantasies about his own place and power in the world, and is a poor judge of people whom he delegates to carry out his grandiose missions.

It is probably not an accident that America has not been victimized again since the attack in 2001. We could have been victims of a thousand individual suicidal bombers wearing explosive belts like those there have been in Israel and even London. But it would be highly unlikely that bin Laden—leader of the only terror group that would seriously target the U.S.—would authorize a piddling, unimportant attack in his name. It would have to be big time and iconic, something even the Arab street would hear about—something sufficiently aggrandizing for him to be satisfied and not humiliated by. It would not be enough to blow up a bar mitzvah at the Carlyle, even if it killed a hundred people. But a “dirty bomb” attack in front of the Empire State Building which killed only 6 people and messed up the local streets with low-level radiation that required weeks to clean up would be acceptable to bin Laden because it could be spun by the Arab press into something grand—“Atomic Bomb Explodes at Empire State Building—Al Qaeda claims responsibility.” That’s more like it.

Bin Laden and his minions have been very, very lucky; we have been asleep, and our defenders have been at war with each other. Now that we are awake, more assertive and unified, let us see whether they’re so lucky.

PS

After finishing writing the above, I attended a performance in an off-off-Broadway theater (Culture Project) of author Lawrence Wright’s one-man “play”titled “My Trip to Al-Quaeda.” It was something of a surprise.

Soft-spoken, informally dressed, and seemingly as objective in tone as his book, Wright appeared on a near-bare stage occupied only by a desk, a bulletin board, and a screen on which photographs and film clips illustrating his talk were projected. Toward the end of his performance, if such it was, he seemed to lose the objectivity that characterized his impressive feat of history/reportage in “The Looming Tower” and offer some narrative tidbits that his New York downtown avant-garde audience ate up. An earlier silence was broken by laughter and occasional applause as he referred to being questioned by a couple of FBI agents he made sound like buffoons (they asked if he knew Caroline Wright. Of course, she was his daughter, and was not a terrorist despite having gone to school with Jenna Bush); showed pictures of naked prisoners at Abu Gharib being confronted by dogs (as though this were the common treatment of prisoners rather then an anomaly, compared, say, to the lives of detainees at Guantanamo, probably the most comfortable, if not the most pampered existence they have ever known); showed excerpts from his 1998 movie “The Seige” in which Denzel Washington makes an impassioned plea for refraining from actions that would make us Americans just like our enemies—in which case, what are we fighting for?). At the end, Wright repeats the exhortation of his screenplay hero. In our humiliation of others we are becoming like them. We must guard against becoming them. Not, one might suggest, the kind of thinking that would enable us to defeat those who would, as they make perfectly clear in much of what he has quoted and illustrated, destroy us. In the last few minutes of his presentation, Wright has segued from being a reporter we can trust to being another spokesman for the “savvy” (Culture Project’s founder’s word) intellectual left embodied by his New Yorker colleagues and editor and his theatrical director. It is probably hard to resist being taken to the bosom of such eloquent voices of the bien-pesant. Too bad.

February 05, 2007

GRASPING THE NETTLE: AT LAST, A WINNING STRATEGY FOR IRAQ

During World War II it came to the notice of seven or eight million GIs that their GI world was an imperfect one. Sometimes more and sometimes less but always imperfect. This they expressed in an acronym they made famous all over the world—SNAFU. In fact our greatest generation developed a set of acronyms which was capable of even expressing the degree of imperfection with which they were dealing. In order of seriousness there was:

SNAFU—SITUATION NORMAL, ALL FUCKED UP

FUMTU—FUCKED UP MORE THAN USUAL

TARFU—THINGS ARE REALLY FUCKED UP

And, best, or worst of all,

FUBAR—FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION

Horsefeathers believes that the final stage of fucked-upness—FUBAR—has at last been achieved in Iraq. Not only is no one on the same page anymore, but no one can find the pages. No one can even find the people any more. Rumsfeld is gone, General Casey is gone, General Abizaid is gone, Bolton is gone, the Republicans are gone and have taken their chairs and chairmanships with them, and Nancy Pelosi seems to be too busy with her new toy gavel to pay attention to business.

The President acknowledges that things are not going well in Iraq and now proposes his new Surge plan which nobody likes—the retiring generals don’t like it, none of the 2008 Presidential candidates like it and Congress doesn’t like it. It seems that everyone who holds any office or who has held any office in the past, or who might hold any office in the future has ideas and strongly held opinions about Iraq. Most of them boil down to “send troops in” or “get troops out.” Those opposed to these strategies say that if we cut and run there will be civil war and chaos, and if we send more troops in we will be incurring more casualties in a lost cause. Probably both groups are right.

Things being what they are—FUBAR—Horsefeathers offers a few outrageous suggestions which may help us regain a constructive strategic perspective, reduce useless, uncontrollable and demoralizing casualties, and save us from more world-class humiliating foreign policy errors.

Horsefeathers’ new ideas about Iraq requires that the government give up its public relations model of foreign policy development, in which every pundit and media outlet make a contribution to policy. Foreign policy cannot be made by bureaucratic leaks, congressional investigations, public polls, the media, talk radio, or by Hollywood.
The true nature of foreign policy development in Western diplomacy has been too immoral, too sanctimonious, too hypocritical, too dishonest, to be viewed by any normal non-politician as anything but disgusting and shocking. But that is the only way that foreign policy can be formulated in the world of realpolitik, especially in wartime. Winston Churchill once wisely said in World War II that “In time of war the truth must be protected by a bodyguard of lies.”

Furthermore, we must confess our sins against common sense and history, and the cultural illusions that led us into Iraq in the first place.

First of all, we don’t fight non-conventional wars very well. Time is always on the side of guerillas and insurgents. So we must stop fighting on the enemy’s terms. We’ll never beat them with a conventional force. We don’t have to go native but it will be wise to use some of their own tactics against them.

We must give up our misguided attempt to transform Iraq and Arabia into Western civilization. The Arab street doesn’t get Western political values. Sophisticated Arabs may understand the value of freedom and the free market but they live in London or Jordan, and the average Joe Mohammed just wants to shoot off his AK-47 once in a while and get his two hours of Al Jezeera every night.

Iraq cannot be unified except by a political strong man. It was never meant to be a unified country back in 1922 when it was invented. It was created geographically to serve British political purposes. But even they soon realized that it wouldn’t work, and got out. We must give up the strategic aim of unification and let the three sects work out their borders, and their economic inequities on their own terms. This will mean civil war, dislocation, suffering, death, and political instablitiy for years, maybe decades. The same has been true when any country splits up. England/Ireland, India/Pakistan, our own Civil War, but wars never go on until there is no one left standing. No matter how long they last—several days or decades—they end when those fighting get tired of fighting and make up a reason for stopping. In Iraq, whether allies participate or not, the fighting will continue until the sects decide to stop or their allies decide to stop paying the bills.

Whatever partitioning occurs, whatever boundaries are finally agreed upon, whatever oil agreements are arranged, they will be finalized after much blood is shed and that fact will make the arrangement much more acceptable than any political arrangement between non-combatants.

TWO CHEERS FOR THE IRAQI CIVIL WAR AND ITS POLITICAL TURMOIL AND CHAOS

A civil war is, of course, a catastrophe for the Iraqi people, but not for the United States. Although there are those who will try to hold America and George Bush responsible for it. They will be wrong, just as Colin Powell was wrong when he tried to reduce American foreign policy to Pottery Barn etiquette when he uttered his famously simplistic and inappropriate warning “If you break it [Iraq], you’ve bought it.” Nothing of the sort is true nor has it ever been true throughout history. That was Powell’s middle class Bronx morality, similar to the sense of honor and fair play that almost cost us World War II when fighting a foe that doesn’t know or care about the rules of cricket. In wars past, the winners killed the men, raped the women, took the children for slaves, took anything that wasn’t nailed down, and burned down the rest.

Those who are and will be engaged in civil war are the extremists who are the enemies of peace in Iraq and the enemies of the United States everywhere. Arab hearts and minds, Shia and Sunni, it seems, are different from Americans’, they are in love with death and shooting AK-47s. The Sunnis and the Shias have been feuding with each other over the same thing now since 632 A.D.—whether Ali, Mohamad’s son-in-law, should have succeeded him as leader of Islam. In the short run nothing will change, they will go on killing each other because they love their tribalism and tribal values. Those who continue to fight each other are our enemies too—extremists, jihadists, and fundamentalists. Those Iraqi moderates who hate and fear violence have already left war-torn Iraq for neighboring countries and safer provinces and will continue to do so.

The situation as it stands today—FUBAR to the unimaginative—can be a unique opportunity for the pursuit of America’s long term interests. During the chaos that emerges during a civil war there is no better place for a small American force to be—an opportunity that rarely comes along. We can accomplish many Special Operations that are in the interests of America, under cover of the chaos. We can recruit intelligence agents during this time from amongst the warring factions to provide invaluable intelligence with little or no cost. We can identify targets of opportunity with the help of these bought and paid for informants.

This is the way out of the Iraq mess without losing another casualty. Publicly we remain strictly neutral, except for our humanitarian assistance in helping refugees who need it. Privately, we play the great game of Middle-Eastern strategy and covert exploitation. We do whatever has to be done to serve the interests of America in secret and deny publicly any culpability for anything.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” So goes an old Arab proverb. What could be more satisfying than knowing that one of our enemies is killing another of our enemies without our incurring any risk at all. And that this may be happening thousands of times a day.

The first step is to publicly acknowledge the de facto civil war and that the United States cannot fulfill any of its obligations until the different factions agree to peace so that rebuilding Iraq can continue. After such an acknowledgement we have to declare publicly that we stand as a neutral power and will undertake only humanitarian activities—medical supplies, food, and transport of refugees to distant camps that provide safety for either sect.
Under cover of these humanitarian activities performed by a force of twenty or twenty-five thousand non-combatant troops, a well-organized military intelligence program can be created that would include recruitment of spies from all factions, acquisition of human intelligence about our enemies and their operations, and the identification of targets of opportunity.

INSTEAD OF CUTTING AND RUNNING, OR SURGING, HOW ABOUT REDEPLOYMENT

“…but I tell you, my lord, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety….”

In addition to exploiting the opportunities of the civil war there is one more important strategic aim that must be accomplished. Contrary to cutting and running we must carry out a plan of redeployment. A large component of our present force should be redeployed to a new and permanent base to be built in Northern Iraq—non-Arabic Kurdistan. There we will be welcomed by the cooperative, pro-American Kurds, and out of the way of harassment by IEDs, RPGs, and light artillery from hostile Arabs. Kurdistan is already a mostly autonomous country and desires to become completely independent of central and southern Iraq.

We need a long term base there much like the ones we have had in Korea and Germany for more than fifty years. What are the advantages of such an arrangement? For the Kurds it will bring dollars and employment. It will also bring political stability and reassurance—about their hostile neighbors, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.
In fact, an American base will tend to stabilize the Middle East as well as put pressure on America’s Middle-Eastern enemies, Syria, Iran, and Saudi extremists.

The strategic purpose of such a base should be as a center for the acquisition of and recruitment of human and signal intelligence and agents. And for the location of a large Special Operations cadre to do covert operations in and around the Middle East against our enemies and those who support our enemies

Such a permanent base in the region will put constant pressure on antagonistic governments. After all, we have demonstrated that an Arab country—a country in which political factions love death more than victory—is highly vulnerable to America’s newest weapon—political ineptitude. We have demonstrated unequivocally that we can reduce a country to impotence and chaos without dropping a single nuclear bomb.

December 19, 2006

MAY BOTH SIDES TRIUMPH

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas policemen and forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fought gunbattles at Gaza's main hospital on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding 11 in a further sign that a day-old truce was in tatters.

        Horsefeathers begins to discern a strategy for winning against the jihadis: turn their primitive death cult loose against itself. Let them send each other to reunion with Allah. In the battle between the holocaust denying, slow jihadis of Fatah vs. the "let's have the second holocaust now", fast jihadis of Hamas, Horsefeathers is rooting for both sides. The same applies to the sunnis and shias in Iraq.

December 18, 2006

IT MUST BE BUSH'S FAULT

Iranian students are probably safer hiding out in Iran than they would be on an Ivy League campus.

"Iranian student activists who staged an angry protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week have gone into hiding in fear for their lives after his supporters threatened them with revenge.

One student fled after being photographed holding a banner reading, "Fascist president, the polytechnic is not for you", during Mr Ahmadinejad's visit to Tehran's Amir Kabir university. At least three others have gone underground after being seen burning his picture. Vigilantes from the militant Ansar-e Hezbollah group have been searching for them..."

December 11, 2006

CAMPUS REBELLION IN IRAN

The Iranian Hitler would have gotten a far better reception at Columbia University than at Amir Kabir Technical University, in Tehran. From Gateway Pundit:

"Iranian Students Smash Cameras, Burn Ahmadinejad Photos During His Speech in Tehran!!

Students smashed Iranian state television cameras installed to cover the event!! The students lit firecrackers and burnt his picture while he spoke..."

December 09, 2006

A CHILD'S GARDEN OF INANITIES: THE BAKER-HAMILTON REPORT

"It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion."--William Inge

        Two weeks after the Iraq war began, Horsefeathers penned the following warning:

"...A form of Utopianism is on the loose, a neo-Wilsonian urge to make the world safe for democracy again.

Early in the formation of Bush’s Iraq policy the aim was simple and militarily achievable—“regime change.” Then came “liberation of the Iraqi people,” and, finally, “the ultimate goal of regime change is liberal democracy.” It does not require the mind of a policy wonk to see that the idea of “liberating” the Iraqi people and transforming them into liberal democrats is a way of sugar coating the naked aggression that is implied in getting rid of Saddam. It represents a fear of our own power and of the assertion of our appropriate role of leadership in the world of nation states. Our enemies and rivals call this “unilateralism” or “imperialism.”

Like a guilt-ridden, frightened grownup who is afraid to assume his rightful responsibility lest his parents—“old Europe”—get angry with him and withdraw their affection and esteem, we make up rationalizations and fantasies that fly in the face of facts and history. So we have to tell ourselves and the hand-wringing appeasers of Europe that the Iraqis are waiting for us to liberate them, that they will dance in the streets when we arrive, that they are lining up to buy copies of the “Federalist Papers.”

Even now, after barely two weeks of war, the chimerical idea that the Iraqis are longing to breathe the free air of democracy is beginning to dissolve..."

        Now, almost 4 years later, the fool's errand has become the terrible problem we anticipated. An electoral consensus has formed that we must do something different. But what? For the answer our media elites look for guidance to the doddering Arabist Jew bashers, led by James ("Fuck the Jews") Baker and architects of previous foreign policy disasters. And what have they produced? The same old, same old.
        Horsefeathers takes this as confirmation of Kipling's "truth" about human nature:
"...the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,/
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.."
        Does anyone remember how the mainstream media hated James Baker for his role in the 2000 Presidential election? All is forgiven now. Listening to NPR the day following release of the ISG report you might have thought Mr. Baker had ascended the Lord's throne. Yet reading the ISG's farrago of jejune nonsense, far from being the product of wisdom and knowledge, it expresses a childish utopianism even more dangerous than the Wilsonian one that has bedeviled us in Iraq. Perhaps Baker and Hamilton need a resupply of Viagra, for their report reads like something written by 13 year old girls attending a model UN meeting. It assumes our enemies are motivated by sweet reason, rather than violent homicidal urges. It fits rather neatly in the Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin castrati tradition, calling for appeasement and offering up Israel as Chamberlain once offered up Czechoslovakia. Additionally, it ladels into the appeasement stew large helpings of Jew hatred and masochism, the sort of cant that explains the unmistakable tone of orgasmic glee on NPR. It urges us to sit down and negotiate the future of Israel--absent Israel-- with the Hitler wannabe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the rest of the Middle East's primitive tyrants. It deserves the reply Churchill gave to Chamberlain when he said:
"The Prime Minister has believed in addressing Herr Hitler through the language of sweet reasonableness. I have believed that he was more open to the language of the mailed fist..."
        The most laughable part of the whole enterprise is use of the word "realist" to describe the latest group of fantasists, but then again, in dreams, reality can be whatever the dreamer wishes. Lewis Carroll described our post-modern condition long before PoMo theorists decoupled words from meaning and it surely applies to the James Baker school of "realist" thinkers.

        "...When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less..."'
        The only "realists" we can discern are the Iranians, who immediately understood the ISG report as signifying weakness and retreat on the part of our governing and opinion elites. They have announced yet again that they are hellbent on producing the materials for nuclear weapons and will brook no interference.
        President Bush, if he has not been completely worn down by the incessant attacks, has another chance to show the kind of leadership he exemplified post 9-11. He should explain why the Baker-Hamilton solutions are unacceptable to a great nation. He ought to then indicate that all diplomatic efforts to dissuade the Iranians have failed, and announce that we are undertaking an air campaign to destroy their nuclear facilities. This would serve to instill fear and respect in our enemies who need to understand the power of the mailed fist. Taking out Iran's nuclear facilities would not, however, be enough. To drive our message of survival home, we should destroy Iran's oil refineries, thereby collapsing their economy. This would weaken the ruling mullahs enough, we suspect, to allow for a new regime to emerge. It would also drive up the price of oil--a good thing as it would speed up our shift away from dependence on Middle Eastern tyrants. Meanwhile in Iraq, we should (as we recommended in 2003)station American forces in the Kurdish north where we're welcome, let the Shias and Sunnis continue their 1400 year old mutual slaughter and use special forces and intelligence data to insure that al Qaeda and other foreign forces don't try to establish bases in non-Kurdish Iraq. Oh, and by the way, we should divert a few of the planes from Iran to Syria to leave our calling card for Mr. Assad. The President would tap the latent sentiment of Americans who want a clear path to victory in World War IV.

December 04, 2006

THE SIX FLYING IMAMS: WHAT THE MEDIA DIDN'T TELL YOU

A couple of days before Thanksgiving the NY Times and many other papers around the country ran a story about 6 middle eastern men who claimed to be “imams” and who were eventually bumped off a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix. They were seen to be acting in a manner sufficiently unusual to attract the attention of passengers and crew alike. The Captain of the flight felt that their behavior was suspicious enough to deplane them and hand them over to officials for further questioning. After several hours they were released and continued their journey the following day on another airline.

What is interesting is that the media coverage transformed the story into a case of religious persecution by the airline all stirred up by a couple of nutty/paranoid passengers. And that the poor group of innocent religious clerics were victims of prejudice and isn’t this worthy of a congressional investigation so that we can preserve the practice of religious freedom in our great country?

Below you will find a vivid description of the story of the 6 flying “imams” from the point of view of one of the passengers who witnessed nearly all of the events. Her description of the events is in the form of a letter to US Airways in response to her outrage at reading the media coverage the next morning. Upset by the distortion of the events and lack of important details in the stories she read, she decided to tell the story of what she herself observed. Shy, she goes by the nom de plume “Pauline.”

(Thanks to Pajamasmedia for making her letter available.)

November 21, 2006

US Airways Airline

To all news stations concerned:

“In reference to the removal of the six Muslim gentlemen from flight 300 at the Minneapolis –St. Paul airport last light, prior to the planes departure.

“I was a passenger on that flight, sitting in seat 5-E originally and later
temporarily sitting in the front row of first class, while waiting for everyone to disembark the plane for a safety check. Having been on the plane, witnessed what transpired first hand and talked at great length with the first class steward regarding other facts, I am “ENRAGED” at the national AND local news reports I have seen this morning.
The facts reported are incomplete and inaccurate. This event was immediately jumped on by their attorney, who told the American people on CNBC they need to get over 911, stop being paranoid about Musliums and he even threatened a huge law suit against US Airways for the discriminating and humiliating treatment of his clients. I am convinced this entire thing may have been done to intimidate not only US Airways, but all airlines and airports in order to get them to back off on their security efforts. This is only part of the real story.

“In defense of US Airways: They did a splendid job of handling the situation. No panic was created we felt protected at all times. They did not make a knee jerk reaction as a result of one passenger passing them as note as reported by the media.

“Most importantly, the public needs to be told that there was a series of” many suspicious events”, which were observed by the crew and several passengers. The captain made his decision based on all of these events and not just one note.

“Their [the Imams’] attorney is trying to turn this into a “right to pray in a public place issue” and it is not that at all. He is claiming they were removed from the plane for praying in public. And inferring [sic] it is wrong to discriminate against them for this. Claiming that we Americans don’t understand their religion and their need to pray everyday at specific times, he stated that WE need to be more tolerant of their religious beliefs. He made a statement trying to
draw an analogy of the right to carry a bible or a rosary on a plane. This is nothing more than a smoke screen to make this a human rights issue and intimidate the airline industry. They were already claiming discrimination to Fox TV news when I got home from the airport. Something does not smell right here.

“This has all of the earmarks of a preplanned “set up” with their attorney all ready to go. I am sure their attorney has made a point of contacting all of you immediately, even last night, in order to get their slanted side of the story out first. Do not be fooled by this propaganda. You in the media have a moral responsibility to investigate all of the facts, not just statements you are fed by
them.

“I would encourage you to interview the planes’ captain, the first class steward and the gate ticket taker to confirm the following facts. These are the correct facts:

“The airline employee taking tickets reported to the crew that she felt very uncomfortable with the men and so she engaged one of them in a conversation to feel him out. I assume he spoke English to her in their conversation. She stated she felt uncomfortable with them and she felt they were extreme fundamentalists. She needs to be interviewed by the news media for her side of the story.

“Several passengers observed the men praying and chanting near the gate prior to boarding. They were sitting apart from everyone else, behind the wall which stands behind the ticket counter at the gate. I was eating dinner while they were praying and chanting and did not observe this part, but spoke with a passenger, after we disembarked who has observed this.

“I seem to remember hearing something on the news after 911 about the terrorists praying at the airport prior to departing on 911. If this is true then there is a legitimate cause for concern and doing so created an inflammatory situation. If it is their custom to pray at a certain time each day at sunset, they know this in advance and easily could have taken the 7pm flight, two hours later, doing their prayers prior to arriving at the airport. One question is: were they intentionally trying to create fear in the passengers by praying loudly in public, hoping to get removed from the plane?

“I took a seat next to the men about 20 minutes prior to boarding. (I had been having dinner earlier and did not observe their prayers.) They spoke no English while seated next to me only Arabic, or what ever language they speak. One of the gentlemen acted very intense and nervous. He was on one phone call the entire time talking very fast while he paced back and forth in front of me. I said nothing to anyone about this, but was later told by first class passengers that this same conversation continued for at least another hour from his front row seat in first class. A man in the third row of first class told me he had a very uncomfortable feeling about this man. Their seating arrangement was very unusual and it raised a red flag to the crew. Only one of the 6 sat in first class, with the telephone, although they were all together. The rest sat in coach. The second one sat in the first row of coach in front of me; I think another mid way back in the plane and the rest in the very rear of the plane. They were there early enough to get seats together but chose to spread out.

“Another strange thing the crew noticed was the way they boarded. When they made the call for first class passengers the other 5 boarded as well.

“The one in first class, which had been on the telephone, did not stay seated in his first class seat, but walked back to the rear of the plane twice to talk to his friends, during the delay.

“One of the passengers sitting close to them in the rear of the plane overheard their conversation and became very nervous. I believe he may have been the one who sent the note up to the crew and captain. I was told later that there was mention of Ala and the word terrorists in their conversation.

“A woman passenger, who understood their language, indicated they were making slanderous remarks about the American people, thinking no one would know what they were saying. This raised concern also.

“The most suspicious thing, which has not yet been mentioned on the news, and needs to come out publicly, is the fact that the man in the first class front row asked for and was given a seat belt extender as did one of the men in the rear of the plane. This can be confirmed by the male steward serving first class on the flight. The strange and totally unexplainable thing about this request by them was the fact that neither of these men was fat enough to even need an extender strap for their seatbelt in the first place and the crew noticed that they not even put it on but placed them on the floor by their feet. Why ask for them and not use them, especially if you don’t even need one?

“I was a witness to the seat belt extender on the floor in first class, as the steward asked me to hand him so he could show it to the FBI and the Police. It was a totally detachable strap about 18 in length that could easily be used as a noose around a flight attendant or passenger’s neck to create a hostage situation on the plane. With one in the back of the plane and another in the front and their people positioned in between they were perfectly positioned to take control of the entire plane with out any weapons. The captain, crew, police and FBI all obviously also felt this was a real possibility when combined with the note passed to them by an obviously shaken man who had heard some of their conversation. Put all of this together along with the fact that the ticket agent at the gate was not comfortable and a couple of other passenger observations it added up to a situation of possible danger.

“Should the Airline, crew and captain be blamed for deciding to protect the safety of several hundred passengers after their lengthy deliberation of the facts? No, it was not just a note from a paranoid passenger as reported on television, but many things that just added up to a very uncomfortable feeling. The airline, police and FBI acted responsibly, professionally and in the interest of the majority of passengers. Any potential law suits from these people are totally unfounded and ludicrous.

“Doesn’t the fact that these men already had an attorney lined up to
immediately alert the media seem like a “pre-set up deal” to get the airlines and security to back off and ease up on the high alert issue?

“Did they even tell their own attorney about the seat belt extenders sitting on the floor? Probably not.

“With all of their accusations on CNBC’s morning news about passenger paranoia put aside there is still no answer to a very simple question…. What were they going to do with the seat belt extenders?

“Why did they have one in the front and one in the back of the plane and why were they sitting on the floor by their feet and not in use?

“I can only determine two possible scenarios: Either they were planning to use the seat belt extenders to subdue hostages and take over the plane and were caught by their suspicious activities…Or, it was done intentionally to induce suspicion and make a big public fuss to intimidate security at the airports.

“They claim we have discriminated against them and they were humiliated. They fail to accept the fact that what happened to them on flight 300 was a direct result of their own people’s hateful behavior on 911, while once more trying to put the blame for everything on the Americans.

“What about the human rights of the several hundred people sitting on flight 300? Most of the passengers were going home for the thanksgiving holiday. Don’t we have the right to get home safely for thanksgiving? Any psychologist will tell you they were simply trying to project the blame for this unfortunate event back at the airline in order to avoid any personal responsibility for their actions, or the actions of the 911 terrorists.

“Upon watching the 5 o’clock news tonight I heard more about this incident. Now they are reporting the men to be clerics. Last night at 1 pm they were calling themselves scholars who were attending a conference. It would be interesting what kind of a conference they had been attending. I question, from my close personal observations of them prior to boarding that they are either. I would also like to see this investigated also. I believe there is a real story here that the American public deserves. US Airlines has been caught off guard by these accusations and is being painted as the bad guy, stating they will make their own internal investigation. Why, all of a sudden now, are they made to look guilty by the media? Only the media can clear the air on the truth here. They need your help and support in this matter.

“Let’s not sweep this under the rug as yesterday’s news. I challenge the news media to investigate the real facts of these backgrounds, what had they been attending in Minneapolis as well as interview the crew and people involved bringing the real truth to the American public. They deserve the truth for the future of their own safely. Please do not just let this matter drop. Thank you!”

Modern Arab Jihadis are clever and adaptive in fighting their enemies. Rarely do they fight battles head on with those stronger than themselves. They strike and run, they disguise themselves as women or hide in hospitals, Mosques, schools—using any wile they can find or invent. The flying Imam event last week was clearly part of the Jihadi program to defeat our airline security program piecemeal. It was a trap the Jihadis set and our naïve politically correct media fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

The Jihadis know that one of their best allies in America is political correctness, and assuming the role of the victim. So whenever possible they will shout “discrimination,” whether it is wearing veils, swearing on the Koran instead of the Bible in open court, and a thousand other matters of Sharia law. They will cry “You are keeping me from practicing my religion!” And sure enough you can count on an in-depth story one Sunday morning (with pictures) on the front page of the NY Times with interviews of all the Arab Moslems who claim their civil rights have been invaded and stolen.

Although there are literally thousands of rules in Sharia law, there is room in Islam for interpretation which will allow for flexibility of behavior in most of the laws, unless you are an Arab Jihadi and don’t want to be flexible. There are non-arab Moslems—the Turks, the Indonesians, the Indians—who fit in easily with the rest of their respective cultures, so that there needn’t be provocations and tensions. It is only the middle eastern Arab Jihadis who are determined to destroy us and our culture, if not by weapons of mass destruction then by ten million cuts and bites.

September 23, 2006

KICKING OFF THE HIGH HOLY DAYS, MUSLIM STYLE

Ramadan bomb kills 34 in Baghdad Shi'ite slum

By Peter Graff and Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed 34 people in Baghdad's Sadr City Shi'ite slum on Saturday as Iraq's minority Sunnis began the fasting month of Ramadan, which U.S. commanders said might see a rise in sectarian bloodshed...

September 17, 2006

DEPARTMENT OF: "YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP"

"Iranian hardline newspapers said there were signs of an Israeli-US plot behind remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that linked Islam to violence and created a wave of anger across the Muslim world.

The daily Jomhuri Islami said Israel and the United States -- the Islamic republic's two arch-enemies -- could have dictated the comments to distract attention from the resistance of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah to Israel's offensive on Lebanon.

"The reality is that if we do not consider Pope Benedict XVI to be ignorant of Islam, then his remarks against Islam are a dictat that the Zionists and the Americans have written (for him) and have submitted to him...".
See the rest here.

September 15, 2006

IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?

        Perhaps not. The Pope may be a secret agent of the devilishly powerful Jews."Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah Lebanon’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric denounced Pope Benedict’s remarks as Egypt warned that the pope’s comments could incite violence between Muslims and Christians." And who would such violence benefit? The answer is obvious---the hateful Jews. "...We do not want him to succumb to the propaganda of the enemy led by Judaism and imperialism against Islam,” Fadlallah said."
        Since making these remarks there have been no sightings of enraged Jews marching throught the streets of Brooklyn burning effigies of Fadlallah and shouting 'Death to Islam'.

August 12, 2006

THE PROSPECT OF BEING HANGED IN A FORTNIGHT CONCENTRATES THE MIND WONDERFULLY

Suddenly, the dithering Ehud Olmert's mind seems to have become concentrated by the possibility that Israel is about to lose a war. He finally seems to be noticing that words are insufficient. It's not clear that the IDF can accomplish significant goals before the UN imposed cease fire takes hold. There are suggestions though that the gloves are finally coming off.

"...In the last few hours, Hizballah’s command and control in the south is showing signs of distress after finding itself cut off from reinforcements and re-supply from the north by the rapid Israeli advances of the last four days.

DEBKAfile’s military sources update Israel military movements:

The Northern Division: From Wednesday, this division has been advancing north from Israel’s northernmost town of Metulla towards the plain of Nabatea, north of the Litani River, taking the town of Marjayun en route. Early Friday Aug. 11, when Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and defense minister Amir Peretz gave the go ahead for the expanded offensive, the division split in two. One headed north and entered the village of Blat east of the crook in the Litani River – a vantage point for artillery control of the Nabatean plain to the west, and Hasbaya to the east.

The second segment of the Northern Division has been positioned since Thursday on the southern bank of the Litani after capturing Qantara.

For the moment, this division is positioned on a number of hilltops along the river bank with fire control over parts of the Nabatea plain.

Saturday or Sunday morning, these troops should reach the Hardaleh bridge, one of the two linking central Lebanon to the south.

In this part of the front, Israeli troops are fighting Hizballa’s Sector No. 5.

Our military sources report that the Northern Division has encountered little Hizballah resistance in its push north. They are estimated to have gone to ground to await their moment to counter-attack. Local inhabitants in this area are friendly, some even point Israeli troops to possible Hizballah hideouts and arms caches.

Division 162: Since Wednesday, this division under the command of Brig.-Gen Guy Tsur, has been driving north along the eastern bank of Wadi Saluki in the Eastern Sector of South Lebanon up to the Central Sector. Saturday, this division fetched up at Froun village on a hilltop opposite the Litani and west of Taibe and Deir Mimas. This high point affords the division fire control of the Qeaqea bridge, the second most important one spanning the Litani.

The bridge was destroyed by an Israeli air strike at the outset of the war.

This division is fighting Hizballah’s Sectors 3 and 4.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the division commanded by Tsur is now following a westerly route along the Litani’s southern bank up to the Mediterranean coast and a place called Burj el Haoua, which is midway between Sidon and Tyre south of Beirut.

Once in position there, the IDF will be able:

1. To tighten the siege of Tyre from the north.

2. Be ready to cross the Litani and head north of the river if ordered to do so.

Division 91: Under the command of Brig. Gen Gal Hirsch, this division has also been in motion since Wednesday heading west to the Mediterranean coast from a point north of Bin Jubeil. The members of this division fought heavy battles at Ras Baida north of the Israeli town of Rosh Hanikra, and at the villages of Shmaa, Majdel Zun and Mansura south of Tyre. By Saturday morning, this division had managed to stabilize a line south of Tyre from a point north of Bin Jubeil up to Ras Baida, thereby completing the siege of Tyre from the south.

A fourth division operating mostly undercover with special operations units took control Friday and Saturday of sections of the dividing seam between Divisions 162 and 91. This gap covers the war arenas of Qana village, Jouiya and Maarake. This division has been entrusted with tightening the eastern section of the siege enclosing Tyre and preventing Hizballah harassing the flanks and rear of the two divisions.

Late last week, Hassan Nasrallah managed to rush several hundreds of fighters of his Bader Force to reinforce this arena.
See the rest here.

August 03, 2006

GUESS WHAT? ISRAEL MAY BE WINNING

        Horsefeathers has shared the worry of many friends of Israel concerning the progress of the war. We regretted the early hesitancy and waffling by Israel's political leaders. Yet we also noticed an early disturbing defeatist tendency on the part of real friends of Israel. After less than a week, the various armchair generals and ex-Colonels were all over the media proclaiming that Israel had lost, that their reliance on air power was a mistake, that they should have immediately gone into Lebanon and/or Syria with overwhelming ground force. Ralph Peters and others assured us that, had Israel followed their approach, the war could have been wrapped up in a few days. This troubled us for a number of reasons, one being that a quick war doesn't provide time to inflict sufficient pain to convince the enemy he has lost. The pounding of Japan and Germany inflicted immense pain over a long period of time. We've had no problems from either country in 60+ years. Hezbollah needs to feel a world of hurt and it takes time to construct such a world and confine them within it. Given the paucity of information about what was actually happening, plus the overwhelming anti-Israel bias of the MSM, we wondered how the pundits could be so certain. What happened to the fog of war, the uncertainty of battle, the fallibility of journalists? One thing seemed clear, this is not the Six Day war, fought mainly out in the desert against armies moving as massed units. After all, Israel and the UN looked away for 6 years while the Hezbos turned Southern Lebanon into Okinawa.
        Now that the hand wringing has subsided, we are beginning to see hints that Israeli military strategy may be working. It seems to be inflicting more pain than the Hezbos anticipated. Iran coupled its latest bloodcurdling genocidal threats with a pathetic plea for a cease fire: "Ahmadinejad says that while main solution for conflict in region is 'elimination of Zionist regime,' at this stage immediate ceasefire was needed to end fighting between Israel, Lebanon.."
        Why would the fire breathing Hitlerian ask for a cease fire if things were going as well as the media and the brain dead Muslim street thinks? Is it not reasonable to suspect that the IDF is systematically applying air power to 1)destroy command and control structures, thereby cutting off the jihadis from their leadership while, 2)fixing the Hezbos in their tunnels, cutting off resupply preparatory to turning those tunnels into tombs. To do so requires the use of all tools at the IDF's disposal, including regular infantry, special forces and smart bomb equivalents of WWII flame throwers. Early talk of clearing only a small area of Southern Lebanon looks like disinformation, as large numbers of infantry are operating far north of the border, effectively cutting off and encircling Hezbos in the South.
        Meanwhile, the daring commando raid on Baalbeck sent a message to Nasrallah and the rest of the Hezbo leadership: you are dead men walking and we'll track you to the ends of the earth, as we did the Olympic terrorists. Get ready to live a life of endless pain, culminating in death inflicted by Jews. All the brave talk about martyrdom omits one important element: death at the hands of the IDF is very different from choosing to blow oneself up while killing hundreds of innocents. Cowards who hide behind the skirts of innocent civilians are frightened by strength and best dealt with by taking away the control they possess over the way in which they die.
        Horsefeathers recalls the words of a man who understood human nature, the nature of war, and the importance and uses of time, Karl Von Clausewitz: "If the enemy is to be coerced, you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make. The hardships of the situation must not be merely transient -at least not in appearance. Otherwise, the enemy would not give in, but would wait for things to improve." Putting the enemy in such an unpleasant situation requires time and the repetition of that unpleasantness "must not be transient".
        In past wars launched by Arabs against Israel, the Arab losers were always bailed out of their predicament in order to save them from utter humiliation.The wars were not long enough to inflict more than transient pain. There was never a truly decisive ending, the necessary prerequisite for peace. Another truth stated by Von Clausewitz: "There is just one decisive battle: the last." Let us hope the IDF presses on to that last decisive battle.
        Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

July 26, 2006

HORSEFEATHERS' POLICY FINALLY ACCEPTED

Yesterday Peter W. Galbraith, former Ambassador to Croatia, published an op-ed piece in the New York Times, "Our Corner of Iraq", suggesting a new policy designed to ease America out of its difficult position there.
[click HERE].

Alas, Horsefeathers posted an OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH on April 27, 2004 in which an identical policy was articulated--more than two years and 1500 deaths ago. Below the reader will find the relevent passages:

IRAQ IS NO PLACE FOR A CRUSADE: AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH

“I say that freedom is not America’s gift to the world. Freedom is God’s gift to everybody in the world. I believe that. And I believe that we have a duty to free people. I would hope we wouldn’t have to do it militarily, but we have a duty.”

The President has said this over and over again. That he sees his job as doing God’s political work by bringing freedom to all people in the world. And we fear that Iraq has come to mean that for him. It is crusader cant, it has the ring of messianism, and it is chimerical. As foolish as the crusades of the past were.

We were with the President when he rose to the challenge of 9/11 and proclaimed the Bush Doctrine—that any nation or state that harbored, supported, or gave aid to terrorism in any form was as guilty as the terrorists and should be punished and eliminated. He came to see that Arab radicalism—jihadism—was all connected whether it came from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen or Iraq. Isolated acts of terrorism were never really isolated, but part of a loosely knit Arab conspiracy of terrorism. And he took the lead in going to war against this conspiracy.

After Afghanistan, he saw that Iraq was a probable source of great danger. Why? Because Saddam had the largest conventional army in the Middle East, a modern air force, modern armor, and a modern command-and-control structure. It was the sixth or seventh largest military force in the world. In the previous ten years it had attacked three of its neighbors. It had programs for WMD, many of which were destroyed after the Gulf War. And for the previous five years Saddam had refused to allow UN inspectors into the country, suggesting that his WMD programs were being reconstituted. Clearly he was a man who was completely ruthless and capable of doing extremely imprudent acts—like giving or selling WMD to terrorists. He had been a threat to his neighbors and now he had become a threat to the U.S. because terrorists could deliver destruction to the shores of the U.S. much more reliably than ICBM’s.

But somehow, in the course of planning the “regime change” in Iraq, the primary aim of getting rid of Saddam’s regime and its weapons became distorted into “nation-building” and making Baghad into a City on the Hill, a shining example of American democracy and American values, including equality for women and minorities, and getting rid of Sharia law and theocracy.

Only the most blatant arrogance and messianic outlook could have allowed such nonsense to go forward.

Except for the most sophisticated and westernized, Iraqis cannot understand or accept western political values. In the world of the Arab, tribalism trumps everything. Two Arab brothers may be at each other’s throats until an infidel comes on the scene, whereupon they immediately join hands and attack the infidel. That is the way Arab culture works.

America has achieved its primary aim in invading Iraq—to weaken it as a threat to its neighbors and the world, and to show the the rest of the Islamo-fascist world what is in store unless they curb their resident terrorists.

Now, President Bush, it is time to move on. Give up your misguided mission to democratize Iraq. Iraq should be free to turn down Western values. You can’t shove it down their throats. Let’s stick to realpolitik and get past the crusader mentality. If you do you will quickly realize that you are free to:

1. Kill all of America’s enemies in Iraq without being held responsible to any future Iraqi government. You can go into Najaf and kill al Sadr. Go into Falluja and kill all the troublesome insurgents without having to worry about hearts and minds—which you will never win anyway.

2. Declare that Iraq has been given this great opportunity to create whatever form of government it wants.

3. Declare that the United Nations can help it determine whatever form of government it wants. Why not saddle the UN with the mess in Iraq.

4. Move our forces to the Kurdish part of Iraq, which is largely autonomous anyway, and get them to allow us to build an airbase there. In this way we can say that we are “staying the course” in Iraq. We can protect our friends, the Kurds, and their oil fields. We will also be able to use the base for any operations against enemies in Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. Or to launch Special Operations forces when such opportunities appear. Such a base would stabilize the entire Middle East. In such a situation our forces would be both welcome and safe from insurgents while at the same time able to mount small offensive tactics, something our troops are best at.

Won’t such a strategy—leaving central and southern Iraq to the Sunnis and Shiites—lead to civil war in Iraq? Very likely. But the fact is that Iraq was never an integrated nation. It was cobbled together by a cadre of French and English bureaucrats after the First World War for their own respective national interests, and to pay off debts in their fragile relationships with the Arabs.

History has shown, again and again, that very often the only way to solve problems between states, nations, peoples, religions, tribes, and all groups of enemies is by war. The polite, highly civilized Western democracies which are just about to enter into a European Union, with a common currency, socialized medicine, and three-week ski vacations didn’t start out that way. From the fall of the Roman Empire in the Fifth Century until 1991—about 1600 years—there were political wars, civil wars, religious wars, and revolutions almost constantly. Even peaceful Switzerland, which hasn’t had a war since 1848, was at war for seven hundred years before the Swiss got tired of it. If you let them, these things have a way of working themselves out. It may take a few hundred years but eventually they do reach an equilibrium.

Mr. President, give up your crusade and let America get on with our war against terrorism.

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