Into the Hornet's Nest The United States prepares its troops and its allies for the coming offensive in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual home.

Foreign Policy

BY ANDREW SWIFT, PETER WILLIAMS | MARCH 17, 2010

At the Taliban's doorstep: Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, is the spiritual homeland of the Taliban -- and one of the bloodiest arenas of the coalition's war. Since 2001, 237 coalition soldiers have been killed in action there, a death toll second only to the 421 killed in Helmand. Grim milestones have taken place in Kandahar, including the 2002 assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai and Afghanistan's first suicide bombings in 2005. Now, military officials have named it the next battleground in defeating the Taliban, following the conclusion of the recent coalition operation in Marjah. Above, a U.S. soldier wades through an opium field on March 15 in Howz-e-Madad.

A view from above: Kandahar's long border with Pakistan makes the city an easy crossing point for insurgents. Kandahar is also only 100 miles from Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan and the suspected location of much of the Taliban's leadership. The porous border between the two countries has hindered peacekeeping efforts, and both governments have blamed the other for not stemming the flow of militants. Above, U.S. Army chaplain Carl Subler looks out over the Arghandab River near Maiwand, central Kandahar province, en route to a coalition base on March 9.

Poppy dreams: Kandahar and its neighboring provinces of Helmand and Zabul form the major poppy belt in Afghanistan. The Afghan government outlawed the crop in 2002, but in 2009 the country produced 6,900 tons of opium just the same. The Taliban relies predominantly on money from opium distribution for funding, earning as much as $50 million off the trade in 2008. But many Afghan farmers also depend on the crop, making coalition efforts to eradicate poppy fields vastly unpopular. Above, an Afghan farmer watches as soldiers from the Afghan National Army walk through his poppy field in Kandahar province on March 14.

Boomtown: Securing Kandahar city, the Taliban's former seat of government, is a key goal of the Obama administration's counterinsurgency strategy. But the greater test may be in the rural areas of the province, home to nearly two-thirds of Kandahar's population, where the Taliban is still the acting government, the only existing source of logistical support for ordinary people. The coalition forces are planning a steady buildup of forces to engage the Taliban and build up local government. But with the Taliban so enmeshed with the local population, the project is difficult and complex. Here, a perimeter wall is constructed on March 11, as part of an enlargement of Forward Operating Base Ramrod in Kandahar province.

Building trust: Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, does not envision a "D-Day that is climatic," like with the recent offensive in Marjah, but rather "a rising tide of security." Part of this, of course, is the counterinsurgency work of building ties with Kandahar's inhabitants. Above, an Afghan Army engineer with his cell phone camera photographs an uncovered IED reported by local residents on March 14. The explosive was later detonated safely.

Prison break: Last weekend, Kandahar city was rocked by four separate suicide bombings. At least 35 were killed and many more injured in what Kabul officials believe was an attempt to free comrades from jail. It wouldn't be the first time the Taliban has tried such a bloody rescue: In 2008, the group successfully staged a suicide bombing at Sarposa Prison in Kandahar that freed almost 1,000 prisoners, some 400 of whom were Taliban fighters. Here, U.S. and Afghan National Army soldiers take a break from patrolling in the southern province of Kandahar on March 14.

Soldier to soldier: According to a Rand study, the Afghan National Army was approximately 80,000 soldiers strong in 2009, just about the size of the 90,000-strong NATO force. But training the Afghan military and police has turned out to be one of the most formidable challenges that NATO has faced in Afghanistan. With the U.S. withdrawal date set for July 2011, it remains to be seen whether Kabul will able to adequately provide for its own security and stability once foreign troops are drawn down. Above, a U.S. soldier and a member of the Afghan National Army relax in the shade after a patrol through the village of Howz-e-Madad on March 15.

A rising tide: Sporadic skirmishes with the Taliban have been a part of everyday life for troops in Kandahar since July 2006, when the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force first expanded its jurisdiction to include the southern region of Afghanistan. This summer's Kandahar push could either provide some respite from those attacks or weaken the coalition's position considerably. According to a senior U.S. administration official, "If our overall goal for 2010 is to reverse the momentum and gain time and space for the Afghan capacity, we have to get to Kandahar this year." Above, five U.S. soldiers walk past a cemetery after exchanging fire with Taliban forces at Howz-e-Madad in Kandahar province on March 14.

"Where is U.S. Public Diplomacy?" Pakistani Diplomat Shamshad Ahmad Laments Deepening Gulf in U.S.-Pakistan Relationship,

In Article Titled "Where is U.S. Public Diplomacy?" Pakistani Diplomat Shamshad Ahmad Laments Deepening Gulf in U.S.-Pakistan Relationship, Says: "U.S. Image-Building is Now Left to the Pentagon – With Very Little Left to Non-Military Institutions for Articulating America's 'Ideas and Ideals' Overseas and Advancing Its Foreign Policy Goals" In a recent article, former Pakistani diplomat Shamshad Ahmad notes that it is the U.S. military, rather than the State Department, that is now leading U.S. diplomatic efforts overseas. This, he says, causes anti-U.S. resentment, particularly in Pakistan. Ahmad was Pakistani foreign secretary; in Pakistan, the foreign secretary serves directly under the foreign minister. In his article, Ahmad blames the U.S. government for "nearly abandoning" its public diplomacy efforts, which he says could project the cultural values of the American people. Noting the difficulty of the task of U.S. image-building in Pakistan, he adds that the October 2009 visit to Pakistan by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had revived hopes of change in U.S.-Pakistan relations, but that "the way things are unfolding, it seems we are heading into another cul-de-sac." Following are excerpts from the article:[1] "Since 9/11, It Has Been the U.S. Military or the CIA that Communicates with Foreign Audiences... U.S. Image-Building is Now Left To the Pentagon" "The post-World War II generation grew up admiring America's ideas and ideals, and always felt inspired by its universal values of freedom and democracy. As students in the 1950s and '60s, we were regular visitors to USIS (the United States Information Service centers), the best reading places in town with books on all subjects and journals and newspapers for every taste. In that intensely bipolar world, there could not be a better instrument of public diplomacy. "With the end of the Cold War, that approach is now history, and that diplomacy is nowhere in sight. Since 9/11, it has been the U.S. military or the CIA that communicates with foreign audiences. American diplomacy in Pakistan, in particular, is a classic example of this new approach. Our most distinguished frequent diplomatic interlocutors from Washington are not State Department officials but hardcore military commanders from the Pentagon and CIA functionaries. Admiral Mike Mullen, General David Petraeus, and General Stanley McChrystal are now household names in Pakistan. "According to a veteran U.S. diplomat, this 'mission creep' has gotten way out of hand. Pentagon-led U.S. public diplomacy is a dismal failure. Critics all around, Washington insiders and the public beyond the Beltway, members of both major political parties, even America's friends abroad, all recognize that U.S. public diplomacy has had a great fall. A number of separate studies, reports and findings on American public diplomacy issued by governmental and non-governmental commissions and groups also endorse this conclusion while urging remedial measures. "The common theme in these reports is that the U.S. now has totally different priorities to be followed in the world. In the past 10 years, its budget for foreign public diplomacy, which had been originally conducted by the U.S. Information Agency and now the State Department, has remained static. On the other hand, there has been a disproportionate increase in resources available to the Defense Department, for 'public affairs.' Thus, U.S. image-building is now left to the Pentagon, with very little left to non-military institutions for articulating America's 'ideas and ideals' overseas and advancing its foreign policy goals." "The U.S. Government Has Nearly Abandoned its Public Diplomacy Efforts to Project the Cultural Values of the American People" "It is 10 years since the U.S. government reorganized its public diplomacy effort, but one has yet to see any coherent display of U.S. public diplomacy that is sufficiently effective in long-term relationships and image-building. Instead, the relationship-building effort is limited to academic exchanges while the image-building efforts are left to the Pentagon, rather than the State Department. The U.S. government has nearly abandoned its public diplomacy efforts to project the cultural values of the American people through cultural presentations or full-fledged libraries, relying almost exclusively on provision of informational material via the Internet. "Even the laudable 'American Corners' – for all their value – are but small parts of larger institutions, such as local libraries that have their own missions. They can never present American culture the way that USIS libraries and centers once did. No wonder we are witnessing a clueless U.S. public diplomacy in Pakistan. Never in our history did we have so much public resentment against U.S. policies and behavior..." "Despite the America's expansive diplomatic footprint, the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan could not anticipate the backlash to the Kerry-Lugar Bill and also has not been able to handle the issue involving the movement of its diplomatic and consular vehicles. The Vienna Convention on diplomatic privileges and immunities provide the U.S. Embassy and the Pakistani Foreign Office a clear framework to resolve this issue amicably. Apparently, the U.S. Embassy has been bypassing normal channels and instead dealing directly with governmental agencies and functionaries in handling cases that could be best dealt with through the normal channels." "Washington's Continued Insensitivity to Popular Sentiment In Pakistan Only Reinforces the Global Perception That the U.S. Is Not a 'Steadfast and Reliable' Friend" "It has been our experience that as soon as the U.S. achieves its objectives vis-à-vis Pakistan, it loses interest in cooperating with us. Pakistan has been either consigned to benign neglect or hit with a succession of punitive sanctions that left in their trail resentment and a sense of betrayal. This sequence of 'highs and lows' turned into a love-hate relationship between the two countries. Every U.S. 'engagement' with Pakistan was issue-specific and not based on any shared perspectives. "Washington's continued insensitivity to popular sentiment in Pakistan only reinforces the global perception that the U.S. is not a 'steadfast and reliable' friend and that over the decades, the U.S. neglect and 'self-serving' exploitation of its friends had been contributing to most of the current problems in the world. There is no consistency between America's values and ideals and its actual practices. In fact, it follows two sets of values, one for itself and the other for the rest of the world." "Ms. Clinton Must Have Also Seen How Disturbed the Pakistanis Are About Their Country Being Treated as America's Traditional Fall Guy; They Consider the U.S. Responsible for All Their Terrorism-Related Problems" "During her recent visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left a positive message in Pakistan. After eight years of the Bush administration, during which suspicions between the two countries had deepened, Pakistan now had a 'friendly' new administration in Washington, where, according to her, both she and her president, Barack Obama, were seeking to build a new bilateral relationship to be based on mutual respect. Getting this message across was an uphill task, as she herself admitted, even as she hoped that her visit would be the turning over of a new page in U.S.-Pakistan relationship. "Turning one page, it seems, was not enough. It has not changed the 62-year-long history of a relationship which has lacked continuity, a larger conceptual framework, and a shared vision beyond each side's 'narrowly based and vaguely defined' issue-specific priorities. It has been a curious, if not enigmatic, relationship, as it never had any conflict of interest, and yet it experienced repeated interruptions in its intensity as well as integrity. "We expected a positive turnaround in our relationship after her visit. But the way things are unfolding, it seems we are heading into another cul-de-sac. "Besides their persistent trust deficit, the two countries have had no control over the growing list of irritants. There are scary Blackwater stories, almost daily incidents involving interception of suspicious U.S. diplomatic and consular vehicular movement with fake identity papers for the vehicles involved, continuing drone attacks, non-disbursement of Coalition Support Funds, lack of any progress on market access and ROZs [Reconstruction Opportunity Zones proposed by U.S.], and now the inclusion of Pakistan in a short list of 'special interest' countries whose nationals will be subjected to enhanced screening on arrival in the U.S.. These are some of the irritants that need to be resolved through mutual discussions and diplomacy. "Ms. Clinton must have also seen how disturbed the Pakistanis are about their country being treated as America's traditional fall guy. They consider the U.S. responsible for all their terrorism-related problems. They are concerned over the growing Indo-U.S. nexus, beginning with their defense and nuclear deals three years ago and now developing into a multi-dimensional strategic partnership with ominous implications for the critical balance of power in the region and for Pakistan's legitimate security interests. This situation needs correction through a criteria-based approach for transfer of nuclear fuel and technology." "We Thought Washington's New Focus Would Be On the Pakistani People – Rather Than the Corrupt Ruling [Elite]... We Have Yet To See Any People-Centered Projects in the Cards" "One fears that the KLB [Kerry-Lugar Bill, now the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009] issue was the beginning of yet another 'estrangement' phase in our troubled relationship. For her part, Ms. Clinton wanted us to forget the unpleasant past and look to a promising future. She assured our people that this time the U.S. would not abandon them as it did after the Soviet withdrawal. She repeatedly said that the current U.S. engagement with Pakistan is going to be enduring, not transitory. These were welcome assurances. "Hillary Clinton had promised that she and her president were determined to redress this historic sense of injustice among the Pakistani people. The change of leadership in Washington did provide a watershed opportunity for 'remaking' of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. We hoped Vice President Joe Biden's vision of a new people-centered approach in transforming this 'transactional' relationship into a normal one would soon become reality. But there is no sign of this equation moving beyond the question of terrorism anytime soon. "Also on disbursement of U.S. aid under the KLB, we thought that Washington's new focus would be on the Pakistani people – rather than the corrupt ruling political and bureaucratic elite who have always abused this relationship for their own self-serving purposes. We have yet to see any people-centered projects in the cards. This is also an issue on which the U.S. missions in Pakistan must engage in, in a well-calibrated public diplomacy." Endnote: [1] The News (Pakistan), January 13, 2010. The article has been lightly edited for clarity.

Najibullah Zazi: Genome of the Homegrown Jihadist

AmericanThinker.com
By Walid Phares

Najibullah Zazi is not just an "isolated extremist" caught in September 2009 while crossing a New York bridge with plans to bomb few tunnels -- end of the story. Zazi's "jihad" story is way more than the impressive facts the Justice Department has already revealed. If we focus more on the journey of this determined jihadist, we would discover that one of the "genomes" of homegrown terror. In this essay, I'll only follow the government's release:

The Justice Department announced that Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty in a "conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in the United States" in connection with al-Qaeda. His main attack targeted the New York subway system.

1. Location: "Zazi is a resident of Aurora, Colorado." Urban jihadists aren't found only in mega-cities and their suburbs, like the Virginia Paintball cell of 2002. They are also found in medium cities, towns, and small towns. They can also be found in the countryside, as in the North Carolina case of 2009. It is not a "city social problem," but an ideological one.

2. Age: "Zazi is 25." A reminder that the age group Najibullah belongs to was the teenage generation on 9/11. As in the cases of Georgia, Arkansas, and Florida, the question is: Who is indoctrinating young Americans and immigrants at such an early stage?

3. National Background: "Zazi is a legal permanent resident of the US from Afghanistan." While other jihadists come from a variety of countries such as Yemen, Somalia, Egypt, Pakistan, and beyond, the ethno-national parameter isn't applicable as much as it was asserted before. It is the doctrine, not the origin, that stands behind these acts of terror.

4. Decision to wage jihad: "Zazi admitted during the guilty plea allocution, he and others agreed to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and fight against United States and allied forces ..., they were recruited by al-Qaeda after arriving in Peshawar." This statement shows that Zazi and his companions have already made the decision, based on their previous indoctrination, to join the Taliban, and then al-Qaeda. This means that an ideological machine is creating the jihadists here in the U.S. before the graduates decide to join the ship of their choice.

5. Training and reinserting

The statement said that "al-Qaeda transported Zazi and others to the Waziristan region of Pakistan and trained them on several different kinds of weapons, asked them to conduct suicide operations in the US. Zazi had discussions with al-Qaeda leaders about target locations, including subway trains in New York City."

These facts describe the path of an indoctrinated young man in America to become a weaponized terrorist overseas. Note that during all that time, the jihadists trained by al-Qaeda were still not detected in the U.S. The question is: How many similar Zazis are there being trained and reinserted in the U.S.?

6. Taqiya insertion

"Taqiya" in modern times is the jihadi method of deceit. The government said, "Zazi returned to the United States in January 2009 and moved to Denver; began reviewing the bomb-making notes from his training and conducting research on where to buy the ingredients for the explosives. Zazi then traveled to New York and met with others to discuss the plan, including the timing of the attack and where to make the explosives."

After having been indoctrinated, connected with al Qaeda, received training, devised attack plans, returned to the U.S., and moved to Denver, he still wasn't detected -- not as a member of al-Qaeda, or even at least as a jihadi. More dramatic, he connected with other undetected jihadists in New York and planned the last steps. How many other jihadists have been successful in being reinserted in the U.S. or recruited by returnees?

The last step before the act was the operational part, where Zazi and the jihadi cell were on their last prep before the strikes. Regardless of the ideology or the identification of the enemy, this is the segment where the challenge is strictly a law enforcement and counterterrorism (CT) one. How many jihadists have already traveled the journey of indoctrination, training, reinserting, and early stages of preparing for similar operations? In these cases, our law enforcement and CT resources are meeting the jihadists in the very last stage.

Aside from its legal aspects, the Zazi case shows that America is being penetrated by a network that is producing the jihadists, whether as lone wolves or in cells. The latter come about once the ideologically self-conscious are on their own and move forward to their irreversible task: to connect with the mothership and strike back at America. We are meeting them in the last stage.

Dr Walid Phares is an academic adviser to the Anti-Terrorism Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He is the author of The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad.

The Marriage of Terrorism and Nuclear Capability

AmericanThinker.com
By C. Hart

When you think of a nuclear Iran, you probably think of atomic bombs or nuclear-tipped missiles. But few people think about the implications of an Iranian nuclear umbrella providing a cover for terrorism and subversion.

At Israel's recent Jerusalem Conference, Dr. Dore Gold, former ambassador from Israel to the United Nations, predicted a possible 2012-2014 scenario in which the United States might face an attack from Shiite or Sunni terror groups. Could America respond to such an attack, as it did after 9/11, if it occurs under the threat of a nuclear Iran?

According to Gold, prevention of a nuclear Iran isn't just about the security of Israel, nor does it concern only the free flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

Prevention of a nuclear Iran has implications in the overall war against radical Islamist terrorism. And, because Iran has shown that it has the ability to provide support and sanctuary for both Shiite and Sunni groups, the effects of a nuclear Iran are huge.

He explained that at the time of 9/11, the U.S. security establishment stated that they would go after terrorist regimes, and they did. It was an important demonstration that made it clear that if a country supported terrorism, there would be a price to pay.

However, what about a future era of nuclear proliferation, when many Arab states try to acquire a nuclear weapon as an act of self-defense in the face of a threatening nuclear Persian Empire?

The West has not adequately examined all the ramifications that a nuclear Iran poses. For example, despite the Shiite-Sunni divide, Iran has been willing to help Hezbollah, a Shiite organization, and Hamas, a Sunni organization, in wars that have been fought against Israel. One of Shiite Iran's key allies today in the Sunni world is the Moslem Brotherhood, which has a large presence in Jordan and Egypt.

When U.S. forces went into Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaeda split its forces and ran to Pakistan and Iran for cover. Then, al-Qaeda reportedly ordered terrorist attacks from its command center within Iranian territory. Today, some analysts worry that a nuclear Iran will cause a global market increase of nuclear arms supplies, which could fall into the hands of al-Qaeda and other non-state actors.

These examples indicate that Iran is willing to work with both radical Shiite and radical Sunni groups despite the rivalry between the two. Iran's objective is to become the supreme Islamic power in the Middle East, wrenching control away from Arab nations. Iranian leaders may even look to exacerbate the Sunni-Shiite conflict in order to attain regional hegemony.

By threatening rivals and encouraging subversive forces in Arab countries, radical jihadists could increasingly take direction from a nuclear-capable Iran. Leaders in Iran such as the Revolutionary Guards, who have trained their proxies well, could equip these terrorist non-state actors with dirty bombs in the future. The result would be massive global instability.

Achieving nuclear capability would embolden Iran to try to change the balance of power in the Middle East, with a goal of world domination. Just the threat of terrorism, followed by attempted attacks to weaken Western powers, would be a major step towards that goal.

As Western allies evaluate the increasingly long-range ballistic missile threat coming from Iran, it's important that politicians, diplomats, and military leaders consider a wide range of issues concerning nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Foremost is how an Iranian nuclear umbrella, providing cover for terrorist groups, could undermine the ability of nations to defend themselves.

Gold reiterates, "It is the marriage of terrorism and nuclear capability that is the immediate threat that the West will face if it doesn't live up to what it is saying, which is preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

C. Hart is a news analyst reporting on political, diplomatic, and military issues as they relate to Israel, the Middle East, and the international community.

Obama Giving U.S. R&D to China

By Howard Richman, Raymond Richman, and Jesse Richman
AmericanThinker.com

The United States and China are involved in a trade war, the outcome of which will determine who gets America's remaining manufacturing industries and research and development centers. The Chinese are actively fighting; President Obama is actively talking.

The Chinese government fired a huge broadside in December when it issued new rules requiring that American corporations doing business in China move their research and development centers and patents to China as a condition for selling goods and services to the Chinese government.

Nineteen trade groups that represent America's largest corporations responded with a January 29 letter to several U.S. government officials. Here is a selection:

Of most immediate concern are new rules issued by the Chinese government in November to establish a national catalogue of products to receive significant preferences for government procurement. Among the criteria for eligibility for the catalogue is that the products contain intellectual property that is developed and owned in China and that any associated trademarks are originally registered in China. This represents an unprecedented use of domestic intellectual property as a market-access condition and makes it nearly impossible for the products of American companies to qualify unless they are prepared to establish Chinese brands and transfer their research and development of new products to China.

These organizations concluded their letter with the following request:

We respectfully request that your agencies make this issue in particular a strategic priority in your bilateral economic engagement with China; develop, in consultation with the business community and like-minded foreign governments, a strong, fully coordinated response to the Chinese government; and raise this issue with your Chinese counterparts in all appropriate unilateral and bilateral settings and forums.

The Wall Street Journal reported on February 16 ("U.S. Expected to Press China on Yuan") that in response, the Obama administration took the following action:

In an unusually broad response, U.S. officials from several government agencies have approached the Chinese to relay concern over the proposed rules, according to people familiar with the situation. "We are expressing our serious concerns with all appropriate counterparts in the Chinese government," said Carol Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office.

However, the Obama administration has not responded with anything stronger than an expression of concern. A commentary by Kendra Marr in The Politico ("White House takes tougher tone with China") reports Peterson Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow Nicholas R. Lardy saying that the Obama administration's "tougher tone" with China is mainly for public consumption: "'For now, however, these moves are just "trying to head off critics in Congress who think the administration is lying down in front of the Chinese,' Lardy said."

The Peterson Institute is an international economics think-tank with close ties to the Obama administration. This is not the first time that they have approvingly pointed out that Obama's tough trade rhetoric is phony. Just after President Obama was elected, Senior Fellow Gary Hufbauer correctly told Reuters:

As strong as Obama's [campaign] rhetoric on China has been, he'll probably moderate his stance as president to head off any bill that opens the door for "an avalanche of countervailing duty cases."

The February 16 Wall Street Journal story reported that the Peterson Institute currently advises multilateral diplomacy at June's G-20 meeting:

"If the administration is going to be serious about putting pressure on China, it has to be multilateral," said Nicholas R. Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who pointed to the G-20 meeting in June as an important forum where Obama can rally world support against Chinese practices.

Lardy hopes that President Obama gets another communiqué passed in June like the ineffective one the G-20 passed at their September meeting, which urged "adequate and balanced global demand." But China, so far, has been very good at resisting international peer pressure.

Perhaps Obama is afraid to take action against Chinese mercantilism (the strategy of maximizing exports and minimizing imports) for fear of losing the Chinese loans that help finance his budget deficits, which are projected by some to total over a trillion dollars per year throughout his presidency. The Chinese hinted that they might stop financing the U.S. budget deficits when they sold $34 billion of U.S. Treasury Bonds in December.

When the Chinese government sells U.S. Treasury Bonds, it tends to drive up the interest rates that the U.S. government pays, but the effect is muted if China simply moves money from one U.S. asset to another. The fact that the dollar-yuan exchange rate hasn't changed in nineteen months shows that the Chinese government is still converting its trade surplus with the U.S. (more than $200 billion in 2009) into dollar assets. It has not wanted to diminish the value of the dollar relative to the yuan because that would raise the prices of Chinese goods to Americans and reduce the prices of U.S. goods to the Chinese.

The U.S. government should not fear Chinese threats to bring about a dollar collapse today. With the Greeks making sure that the euro does not provide an immediate threat to the dollar, the Chinese government would probably not be able to cause a dollar collapse now even if it wanted to. And there is little chance that China will dump the dollar while America still has lots of industry and research and development left that China wants to steal. If it were to crash the dollar, it would cause investment in the U.S. manufacturing sector to come roaring back, which would wreck its plans. The U.S. should, however, fear the Chinese government's threats to bring about a dollar collapse in the future.

That future is becoming clear. Now we are losing our good-paying blue collar manufacturing jobs to China because of our unwillingness to require balanced trade. Soon we will lose our good-paying white collar research and development jobs to China because of our unwillingness to require balanced trade. When the dollar collapse comes, we will have nothing left but agriculture, service industries, and scrapyards.

But this grim future can still be avoided if we are willing to invoke the WTO rule which lets trade deficit countries require balanced trade. For example, we could impose a tariff on Chinese products in proportion to the trade deficit. When the U.S. trade deficit with China goes up, the tariff rate goes up; when the trade deficit goes down, the tariff rate goes down. When trade reaches approximate balance, the tariff disappears. If the Chinese government continues to exclude American products from its markets, it would be excluding Chinese products from American markets. A proposal by Warren Buffet to use import certificates to balance trade would work in about the same way.

But President Obama's solution has been just to take a "tougher tone" in order to keep Congress from acting. The United States and China are fighting a trade war which will determine America's economic future, and we don't yet know which side President Obama is on.

The authors maintain a blog at idealtaxes.com and co-authored the 2008 book Trading Away Our Future: How to Fix Our Government-Driven Trade Deficits and Faulty Tax System Before it's Too Late, published by Ideal Taxes Association.

Israel's Last Chance of Survival

Saultin Knish
From NY to Jerusalem,
Daniel Greenfield Covers the Stories Behind the News

In the summer of 2011, it will have been 18 years since the Oslo Accords were signed by Shimon Peres, secretly and without the knowledge of the Israeli public whose rights to their own land were being signed away. The accord was based on meetings by left wing academics with terrorists that were illegal under Israeli law, signed covertly by a disgraced politician who had been an admirer of Marx and finally sealed with a public handshake between the world's greatest terrorist and an Israeli Prime Minister suffering from such severe dementia that he had trouble recognizing the man beaming down on them both as the President of the United States, who 5 years later would be facing impeachment.

That handshake with Arafat took place on September 13th, 8 years minus 2 days, before terrorists would duplicate a feat that only Arafat's own terrorists had previously accomplished, by simultaneously hijacking 4 aircraft. Even as the United States had begun pandering to Arafat, the rise of the next wave of terrorism was already underway with Bin Laden hard at work on the organization that would evolve into the Al Queda we know today. The Oslo Accords would play a crucial role in the rise of Islamist terrorism creating a vacuum into which the Muslim Brotherhood could step into with groups such as Hamas and Al Queda. And the Oslo Accords would also come to define Israel's worst defeat since the accords it had signed with Rome over two thousand years ago.

Now as that fateful 18 year mark approaches, there is still a crack in the door remaining through which Israel can save itself. In Hebrew the word for life is Chai, whose letters code as 18. And eighteen years after the scourge of Oslo has brought war and death into the heart of Israel, turned its town and cities into targets for missiles, made its roads into highways of death and now threatens to divide Jerusalem itself-- Israel has the chance to choose life over death by appeasement.

Each year since Oslo, the situation has grown steadily worse. Not just militarily, not just in relation to the children who have been left without arms and legs by Arab terror. But even diplomatically as well. The political war against Israel has reached an unprecedented height with no comparison to even the ugliest days of the Intifada. And all of it has one common element, a blood lust spurred on by Israel's willingness to accommodate, appease and retreat. Not only has any Israeli concession, any act of goodwill and compassion, not changed the way Israel is portrayed-- but each one has only fed the furious hate that Islam and the international left feels for it.

Today when Israel does nothing more than sit on the other side of a fence and absorbs the missiles fired at its schools by terrorists-- the left shrieks itself hoarse with an orgy of hate against "The Wall" and for "The People of Gaza", particularly those wearing bomb belts who are being kept from their religious duty of blowing themselves amid crowds of Jews. As Mohammed proclaimed in the Hadith, "The Hour [of Resurrection] will not arrive until you fight the Jews". While Israel supplies Gaza with electricity and swine flu vaccines, and builds bomb shelters under its schools-- the world demands that Israel tear down its cruel wall and open the doors to the terrorists of Hamas. The message is painfully clear, nothing short of Israel's destruction will suffice.

Now with Gaza held by Hamas, the party that was the choice of the Palestinian Arabs in the last legal election, and an unelected Fatah regime maintained in the West Bank by American money, both of which continue carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel-- the Obama Administration and European leaders continue pressing Israel for more concessions, even when there isn't even a single state available to make those concessions to. This madness has nothing to do with the desire to set up a Palestinian state, an entity that could no more exist than pigs can fly, and everything to do with the Dhimmi desire to trade off Israel to the Muslim world in the hopes of pacifying their anger.

Israel's left wing Labor party made the devil's bargain of Oslo in order to stave off the conservative Likud party that had come to dominate Israeli politics and brought real reform and change to Labor's moribund socialism. And with that they created a precedent in which every Israeli Prime Minister, regardless of party, has been dragged off to negotiate with the terrorists setting off bombs on Israeli city buses and pizzerias, sometimes even while the negotiations were underway. Netanyahu is only the latest pawn in this peace shell game (can you find the peace, is it under shell number one, number two or number three. Here's a hint, it's under none of them. The dealer pocketed it while switching around the shells.) and there is no way to win except to stop playing.

Not only can Israel not achieve peace with either Fatah or Hamas (let alone both at the same time), something which everyone in Israel but the most delusional leftists already know, but it cannot win the approval of the world for trying to make peace with them. Israel's willingness to make peace has made it into a target by an international community that blames Israel for Muslim violence around the world. As their thinking goes, if Israel would just do whatever it takes to make peace, then Muslim violence would stop not just in Israel, but in Paris, Manchester, Basra, Kabul and yes of course, Oslo.

Meanwhile the international left has embraced Islamic terror as the new radical chic, and the grandchildren of Nazis have discovered how much fun it can be to don a Keffiyah and call for Jewish boycotts, just as their grandparents did in the 1930's. Their hatred for Israel, which has nothing to do with anything that the country or its people actually do, is fed by Islamic propagandists and the leading figures of the left, who view Israel as one of those exploitative capitalist nation states that must be destroyed to pave the way for a global humanism, and share the old implacable Communist and Socialist hostility toward the idea of the Jews gathering together in one state.

Oslo was a show of weakness by a country that had heretofore deterred aggression by demonstrating that it could and would defend itself. It and every successive concession poured more blood into the water. Islam and the International Left, both inside and outside the country, are determined to destroy Israel. And though the average Israeli continues to ignore the situation, replying with bluff good humor that the IDF could clean out Gaza in a few days, the reality is that under internal and external pressure Israel is busy destroying itself.

As deep sea creatures evolve in peculiar ways to survive the atmospheric depths, Israel's left has devolved into an arm of Islamic terrorism, from its politicians to the Supreme Court to organizations such as the New Israel Fund (itself an arm of the International Left) down to the academics and anarchists are doing everything possible to destroy the country and terrorize its residents. They have done their best to turn the IDF and the police into a weapon against the most patriotic and Zionist of its citizens. They have turned the media and the newspapers into a non-stop barrage of hate against anyone who questions their destructive policies of appeasement. They have criminalized dissent as incitement, turned the court system into a legislative body to promote their own agenda and tied the hands of the military in fighting terror. In concert with the terror wrought by Islamic terrorists, they have wrought terror against ordinary Israelis, destroying farms, homes and synagogues on behalf of the terrorists.

Israel can still survive, but to do so it must make it clear that further negotiations are off the table until there is a dramatic change in the situation on the ground. It must put a halt to the envoys and diplomatic missions. It must tear down the wall and annex the West Bank and Gaza. It must show the international corps of media propagandists, the frowning talking heads tsking the latest manufactured atrocity and the photographers handing out coins to Arab boys in exchange for tossing some stones at a soldier, to the door, and invite them to never come back. And the left must be pushed back to the margins, where they were until Oslo.

There is no doubt that Israel will suffer by doing this, both politically and economically. But it will suffer less than it would from another 5 years of appeasement and concessions. The international left will go on screaming, but they always have. And without any visible effect, they will move on to something else. The international community will be outraged, but once they learn that Israel will not back down, they will move on as well. The Muslim world will rage, and the few countries that have open relations with Israel will break them off... something that has already happened for the most part anyway.

With the 18th year of Oslo approaching, Israel has the chance to revive itself. Or to go further down the dark road of appeasement until it has so thoroughly destroyed itself that there is no way back.

U.S. Special Operations Ordered Deadly Afghan Strike

The Wall Street Journal.com

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG

Associated Press

U.S. Marines, tasked with protecting civilians while fighting the Taliban, carry an Afghan boy with a gunshot wound to a medevac helicopter.

KABUL—U.S. Special Operations Forces ordered an airstrike that killed at least 27 civilians in southern Afghanistan and the soldiers may not have satisfied rules of engagement designed to avoid the killing of innocents, Afghan and coalition officials said Monday.

The airstrike Sunday hit a group of minibuses in a remote part of the south near the border between Uruzgan and Daykundi provinces. The area is hundreds of miles from Marjah, where the largest allied offensive since 2001 is now in its second week. But the airstrike nonetheless illustrated one of the major problems for coalition forces as they try to win over civilians in Marjah and across Afghanistan: figuring out who is a civilian and who is an insurgent—and not killing the civilians.

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It also underscored the risks of the expanding use of Special Operations Forces, whose primary mission is hunting down Taliban, as the leading edge of the fight against the insurgents. Many Special Operations missions by their very nature emphasize the use of violent force, and coalition officials say they have led to a string of recent successes against valuable targets.

By contrast, operations now being carried out by conventional forces, such as the Marines fighting in Marjah, place a greater emphasis on protecting ordinary people.

Afghanistan's cabinet called the latest airstrike "unjustifiable." Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials ordered an immediate investigation into the incident, and both sides dispatched investigative teams to the site, officials said.

A large proportion of the thousands of civilians killed by coalition forces since 2001 have been slain in errant airstrikes, and the anger over such deaths runs deep here.

Afghans can often recite from memory the deadliest coalition mistakes: the bombing of fuel tankers in the northern province of Kunduz in September that killed up to 142 people, many of them civilians; the 2000-pound bomb dropped by a B-1 bomber during a battle in western Farah province in May that left dozens of civilians dead; the November 2008 airstrike on a wedding in the southern province of Kandahar that killed 37 people.

The incidents have repeatedly handed the Taliban propaganda victories. The errant strikes now pose a direct challenge to the counter-insurgency strategy laid out by U.S. Army Gen. McChrystal, the top coalition commander in Afghanistan, and endorsed by President Barack Obama.

The strategy uses conventional forces to protect civilians and emphasizes the role of governance in an effort to win the trust of the Afghan people and wean them from the Taliban. Special Operations Forces are being more quietly employed to go after the middle and upper ranks of the insurgency, in theory presenting them with a choice of giving up the fight or facing the consequences, say NATO officers with knowledge of the effort.

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“ Modern war is more and more like a video game. It's so easy to push the button and kill the bad guys, or just anything that's moving. ”

—Mike Zheng

Aware of the fallout caused by civilian deaths, Gen. McChrystal ordered the rules under which airstrikes could be called in tightened when he arrived this past summer. Civilian casualties caused by coalition forces dropped by a third last year. In contrast, the number of people killed by the Taliban and other militants rose by about 40%.

But Gen. McChrystal and Afghan President Hamid Karzai say the number has to come down much further if the coalition and the Afghan government are to prevail over the Taliban and its allies.

The coalition and Afghan forces fighting in Marjah have also accidentally killed civilians since the offensive began after midnight on Feb. 13. So far, at least 19 civilians have been killed in the offensive, along with at least 13 coalition troops and one Afghan soldier, officials have confirmed.

Coalition commanders say they worry the civilian deaths will undermine the operation's ultimate goal – restoring the authority of the Afghan government in the southern town and convincing the people there to throw in their lot with the government and the coalition.

Sunday's airstrike appears to be precisely the kind of incident that Gen. McChrystal and his team were trying to avoid with the new rules.

NATO's Afghanistan task force said its forces believed the minibuses were carrying insurgents who were on their way to attack Afghan and NATO troops. It engaged the minibuses with "airborne weapons," NATO said in a statement, without elaborating.

But when troops went to the scene, they "found women and children," the statement said, not insurgents. The wounded were taken to a NATO facility for treatment.

Afghan officials said 27 civilians were killed. The NATO statement didn't provide additional details on the incident.

A NATO spokesman said he couldn't confirm that U.S. Special Operations Forces called in the strike. But other NATO and Afghan officers said the airstrike was ordered by Special Operations Forces who were carrying out a raid with Afghan soldiers and believed the minibuses carried fresh Taliban fighters sent to help those under attack.

How the soldiers came to that conclusion was unclear.

The NATO investigative team is trying to determine whether the soldiers had satisfied the requirements for calling in an airstrike.

Under the rules, which are classified, airpower is meant to be a last resort for soldiers who can't pull back from an imminent threat or sit it out. Airstrikes are also allowed on targets engaged in clearly predatory action, such a planting a hidden roadside bomb, one of the deadliest threats faced by coalition forces.

Troops calling in an airstrike on a threat that isn't immediate are, when possible, supposed to have secondary confirmation that the target is indeed hostile, such as from a spotter or a trusted informant on the ground.

A NATO officer in Afghanistan cautioned that the investigation is still in its preliminary states. But right now, "it doesn't look like the rules were properly followed," the officer said.

Special Operations Forces missions have recently led to the deaths or capture of a number of senior and mid-level Taliban field commanders. But NATO officers also say a number of recent accidental killings have been the result of Special Operations Forces actions, although they declined to specify which ones.

Afghan officials complain Special Operations Forces are killing and arresting too many civilians in so-called "night raids," a major source of tension between coalition officials and the Karzai administration.

"Nobody has an idea what were they doing there because they don't share anything with the Afghans," said an official at the presidential palace. He added that U.S. Special Operations Forces "arrest people and they raid houses without keeping the Afghans in the loop."

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The presidential palace echoed those sentiments in a statement condemning Sunday's air raid. Afghanistan's "council of ministers strongly urges the NATO forces to closely coordinate and exercise maximum care before conducting any military operation so that any possible mistakes that may result in harming civilians … can be avoided," the statement said. Gen. McChrystal apologized to Mr. Karzai, according to a later statement released by the palace.

In the statement released by NATO, Gen. McChrystal was quoted as saying, "I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people, and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission. We will re-double our efforts to regain that trust."

Read More

• NATO Chief: Support for Mission Still Strong

Meanwhile, a suicide bombing in the eastern city of Jalalabad killed at least 15 people, including a prominent tribal elder, Mohammad Zaman Ghamsharik. Mr. Ghamsharik, also known as Haji Zaman, led the Afghan forces who cornered Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora in 2001 before bin Laden slipped away. Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, confirmed he was among the dead. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.

—Michael M. Phillips in Marjah, Afghanistan, and Habib Zahori in Kabul contributed to this article.

Write to Matthew Rosenberg at matthew.rosenberg@wsj.com

Smuggling Jihadis - (Somalis into U.S.)

Safe to say we ain't heard the last from these devout Muslims.

Va. man accused of helping smuggle Somalis into U.S. Washington Examiner hat tip Ann

Authorities are searching for 270 Somalis believed to have entered the U.S. illegally with the help of a Virginia man who admitted contacts with an Islamic terrorist group.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent said his agency had yet to locate any of the suspected illegal immigrants.

According to an affidavit filed in Alexandria's federal court, Anthony Joseph Tracy told authorities that he came in contact with the Somali terrorist organization Al-Shabaab, which announced an alliance with al Qaeda earlier this year.

ICE Agent Thomas Eyre testified during a hearing that authorities are "concerned" about the 35-year-old's dealings with the group.

In an e-mail, Tracy reportedly wrote, "i helped alot of somalis and most are good but there are some who are bad and i leave them to ALLAH," the affidavit said.

He has been held without bail. Tracy's attorney, Geremy Kamens, declined to comment for this story.

Eyre testified that authorities had not yet tracked down any of the Somalis whom Tracy allegedly helped travel to the U.S. The affidavit says Tracy's e-mails, combined with information on Facebook, show that the Somalis have spread across the country and are living in New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Minnesota and Arizona

Posted by Pamela Geller on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 10:49 AM in Refugee Resettlement: The quiet Jihad tsunam

What Iran Sanctions Won't Do and What They Can Do

AmericanThinker.com
By Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker

President Obama recently promised strict and biting sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran for its continued refusal to curtail its nuclear program or even to enter serious negotiations. Such sanctions, and even embargoes, will not cause Iran's current government of Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i and his chosen representative, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to reverse course and terminate the nuclear program. In truth, nothing will convince the present Iranian regime to retreat on its mad rush to become a nuclear power. Khamene'i and his coterie of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) supporters regard the nuclear card as their ace in the hole that will keep them in power and in control of Iran. For Khamene'i, Ahmadinejad, and the IRGC, giving up the nuclear card is tantamount to surrendering to the ever-mounting opposition to their corrupt rule. Hell will freeze over five times before this cabal will stop seeking nuclear arms.

So if sanctions and even embargoes will not stop the mad mullahs, what's to be done? Is all-out war the only option left? Is the nuclear clock about to strike midnight?

Sanctions and embargoes still have an important role to play, but we must understand what that role is. Putting economic pressure on Iran will not cause its leadership to reverse course, but it can convince the majority of lower-class Iranians -- who until now have not opposed the regimen -- that this regime is more concerned about its own power than it is about the average Iranian's welfare. The presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been a deep disappointment to most Iranians. Candidate Ahmadinejad promised in 2005 that he would introduce economic reforms and he was swept to power on an anti-corruption platform that basically promised "a chicken in every Persian pot in the country."

Four years later, it was clear to all that reforms hadn't occurred and that the economy had worsened considerably, due in large measure to the huge sums spent financing Iran's terror proxies abroad (Hezbollah, Hizballah-Iraq, Hamas, al-Qaeda-AP [in the Arabian Peninsula], Islamic jihad) as well as the huge sums spent on the nuclear and missile programs. Tired of being fleeced, the Iranian electorate voted for a change last year. Iranians discovered just how corrupt their government had become when Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a two-thirds majority the day after the elections, even before all of the votes had been counted! As the actual vote had been a two-thirds majority for Mir Hussein Mousavi, the Green Revolution began to gather steam as more and more Iranians began to question the legitimacy of their government. When Khamene'i -- who until then as Supreme Leader was viewed as above the fray -- sided with Ahmadinejad, the populace turned against the regime.

As if the current government wasn't unpopular enough, it recently decided to end the economic subsidies program that has been in place for thirty years -- subsidies in everything from gasoline to the price of chicken, eggs, and bread. For the lower classes, the loss of the subsidies will prove exceedingly painful. Inflation last year was 28%; without the subsidies, basic foodstuffs may see triple-digit inflation. With about 25% of the population unemployed, and most of that group under 30 years of age, the Persian pot is bubbling, to say the least.

Sanctions and embargoes -- of everything other than food and medicine -- would ratchet up the pressure to the point that the Iranian in the street will say: "Enough of this corrupt regime." Already the street demonstrations have been ringing for nearly nine months with the chant, "Na ghazeh na lobnan janam fadai iran" -- "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon is our business; no to Gaza and no to Lebanon. Iran is our business, and I give my life for that!" This is a clear indication of the popular displeasure with the Iranian regime's support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Hizballah-Iraq.

It is important to realize that the economic pressure of sanctions and embargoes has its place in our war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and make no mistake: We are engaged in a war, which this Iranian regime began with us in 1979. Economic war affects the lower classes before it does the privileged of the regime; that is regrettable. But if our economic war is accompanied by a campaign to support the Green Revolution in the same manner in which we supported the color revolutions in Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, the Iranian people will know that we ultimately seek their freedom, and they will respond positively.

There is one additional thing that President Barack H. Obama and Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton can do if they really want to get Tehran's attention: They can follow the lead of the United Kingdom and the European Union and remove the false, politically motivated "terrorist" label from the leading Iranian opposition movement -- the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). Not only will Tehran finally take us seriously, but the Iranian people will realize that we really are on their side against the mullahs and the IRGC.

It's important to realize what sanctions can and cannot do. Now it's time to use them to bring down the corrupt regime of Khamene'i, Ahmadinejad, and their IRGC thug supporters with the help of the Iranian people itself.

Nur azadi mi-ayad, Inshallah! (Farsi: By the grace of God, the light of freedom is coming!)

Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker is founder and Chairman of the Board of Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East. He may be contacted at contact@ADME.ws.

How Muslims Defeated the United States

The Brussels Journal.com

rom the desk of Diana West on Wed, 2010-01-27 10:49

Today, I am posting an extraordinary letter from a soldier currently stationed in Iraq, a sometime penpal of mine to whom I sent my three-part series on the aftermath of the surge to elicit his opinion. Knowing how thoughtful he is, I expected a substantive response. Given his time constraints alone, I did not expect an essay of this scope and I decided, with his permission, to present it here. It is unlike any commentary I have read from Iraq; it is both coolly reasoned and deeply passionate, and certain to challenge and disturb readers across the political spectrum: PC-believing liberals, Iraq-as-success-believing conservatives, Islam-as-a-religion-of-peaceniks of both Left and Right.

So be it.

He writes:

I apologize for the delay in my response. I have been putting in long days ... lately and I hadn’t had the time to put the thought and effort into writing this until now.

Your three-part column series wonderfully analyzes Iraq and reaches the correct strategic assessment that no one in power wants to acknowledge.

I have many things that I want to say but I do not wish to waste your time and I therefore put an executive summary at the beginning of this e-mail so you can skip the expanded version if you wish.

*****

You correctly assessed that we have not gained anything positive from our efforts in Iraq and that the nation is not our ally. (The same is true for Afghanistan.) I will go as far as saying that the Iraqis are our enemies—enemies better equipped to wage jihad against us than they have ever been. We will regret what we have done. We will regret that we created this officially Islamic nation. And we will regret that we created an officially Islamic Afghanistan. We will regret that we have placed ourselves in the service of Islam, waging jihad worldwide as we advance the Religion of Peace and eliminate Christians in the process. (So much for the accusation that the U.S. is on a “Crusade.”) It is a shame that so many people refuse to recognize how horrible Islam is, and that the U.S. made a fatal mistake when it refused to declare war against Afghanistan and Islam—when it refused victory by binding the greatest military force of all time.

*****

The Full Analysis:

Parts 1 and 2 of “The ‘Surge’ and ‘Success’” correctly identify that we have gained nothing positive for our efforts in Iraq while the Iraqis have betrayed us. I do not trust any Iraqi or Middle Easterner. I do not care if anyone calls me a “racist” or “bigot” anymore. Those words have lost their meaning. Do I think that every single Iraqi or Middle Easterner is bad? No. But I think it is difficult to tell. An Iraqi or Middle Easterner will smile to your face or be your best friend one moment, and cut your head off in the next. It is odd that so many people cannot comprehend this. It is even weirder that those who pride themselves on being “culturally aware” cannot grasp that Middle Eastern culture and thought, and Islamic behavior and thought are completely different than ours (than ours on the Right, at least). Perhaps this ignorance partially explains why the U.S. had no reaction when Maliki declared victory over the U.S. when we moved out of the major Iraqi cities. But even if it is a partial explanation it still is no excuse.

The Iranian War in Iraq is a travesty and has been since it started under Bush. I still cannot believe that a nation can war against us and murder Servicemen, and not pay the price of oblivion for it. Our nation sits back and apologizes, and defends itself constantly from accusations of an “illegal” and “unjust” war yet Iranians, other foreign terrorists, and even Iraqis go about murdering American troops without any consequence whatsoever. We should war back against them. But we won’t.

I remember when people said that we had brought on the September 11 attacks because “we created Bin Laden.” I never understood that. In fact, that we had helped the Afghanis defeat the Soviet Union should have been even more reason for us to kill Bin Laden and destroy Afghanistan. We had saved their lives and they repaid us for it by murdering us on our own soil. Yet our government refused its God-given duty to its people to mete out punishment and justice. History repeats with Iraq. The Iraqis lived under oppression for decades and when we liberated their nation they repaid our unimaginable mercy and sacrifice with betrayal. It is sickening.

Part 3 (“Victory” in Iraq? Really?) perfectly summarized where the U.S. is now in our “war” in Iraq. Once we made Iraq an officially Islamic country I knew that it would become among our worst enemies. (The same is true for Afghanistan.) I said years ago that the end result of our efforts will be that Iraq will be a rebuilt nation better prepared than ever to wage jihad against us. You cannot create an officially Islamic nation and expect anything less. Regrettably, our leaders and our nation cannot identify Islam for what it is: evil. And so we continue our suicidal practice. The Iraqi betrayal of the U.S. started sooner than I expected it but I expected it nonetheless. This is outrageous. Yet the situation is even more unjust than this.

Muslims have waged jihad against the West since their insane, pedophiliac founder started their cult; they have waged jihad against the U.S. since our inception. But what is worse about our policy of establishing officially Islamic nations and pouring money, technology, weapons, and training into them is that we have been labeled as “occupiers” being on a “Christian crusade to wipe out Islam.” Think about that. We have been demonized as “occupying Christian crusaders” (if only!) even as we have waged jihad in the service of Islam, helped Muslims spread Islam and wipe out Christians, and died for ungrateful Iraqis even as terrorists from all over the war invaded and occupied Iraq, and slaughtered and oppressed Iraqis. (And don’t even get me started on the fact that we—the United States of America—are truly being invaded and occupied by illegal aliens warring on us!)

I am woefully understating the situation when I say that the U.S. has no clue how to fight wars any longer. We have allowed our enemies to control this war and make it one of media and information—information warfare / information operations . We have chosen not to win by refusing to reject the enemies’ preferred warfare; we have chosen not to wage a kinetic warfare where we could easily defeat our enemies in months if not weeks with our superior technology, tactics, and Servicemen. And through it all we seem not the least bit embarrassed that a “coalition” of dozens of nations cannot beat a primitive bunch of troglodytes. I no longer can express my outrage about this or any of the myriad horrors which plague our once great land. Every day there is something new which is more perverse and inequitable than the last day’s wickedness. I sit here in Iraq and do all I can do to stomach the disastrous excuse that passes for “strategy” in this war—a strategy where our leaders openly say that the lives of our Islamic enemies are worth more than ours; a “strategy” where the Army Chief of Staff openly states that the “death of diversity” would be a larger tragedy than the slaughter of Soldiers (and get away with it with but a whisper of outcry from the American people). I pray that I get out of here alive so I can complete my Army contract and get away from this nonsense and betrayal.

Two final things.

First, I wonder how many people have considered how successful the September 11, 2001 Islamic attacks were. Think about what they accomplished. They thrust Islam to the center of the world; they undoubtedly caused more people to learn about Islam than would have prior to their attacks. And the attacks combined with the near non-response of the U.S. doubtlessly gained them converts. Furthermore, what response the United States did produce resulted in the establishment, enrichment, and training of the officially Islamic nations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the enrichment and training of countless other Muslim nations around the globe. Islam now stands better suited than ever to wage jihad across the world. The September 11 attacks also resulted in Muslims being portrayed as victims around the world (thanks to their leftist allies) and helped them (again, with an assist from their leftist allies) advance their jihad even as Muslims and leftists further vilified Christianity, America, and Western values. And finally the crowning achievement of the September 11 Islamic attacks: eight years after them the United States places as its leader a person whom can at best be described as an anti-American, racist, Islamic sympathizer (and who has the same name as an infamous Islamic dictator). This is stunning. It is bizarre. It is incomprehensible. Yet it is our nightmarish reality. The Islamic attacks on September 11, 2001 achieved success beyond the wildest dreams of the Religion of Peace cultists.

Finally, I would like you to know that I am willing to comment on other posts and articles that you publish, including some of your other posts that mention the debate that your three-part column on the Surge started. I am willing to comment for two reasons.

The first reason is that everyone on the Right needs to fight back against the Islamic War on the West and stop the jihad. And one of the ways to fight back is to speak out against it. The second reason is that I want to establish for posterity that I am firmly against this evil and every other evil. I will explain why this matters.

Leftists always rewrite history so as to demonize what is Right and so as to cover their real nature. They abhor the truth as much as the vilest of Muslims. And as a way to enable their rewriting of history they use political correctness to silence opponents; to vilify them so that they have no place in society. We have allowed leftists to use political correctness to emasculate us. In fact, political correctness is the leftist weapon of choice in paralyzing the Right and aiding their Islamic allies who also advance an anti-Christian, anti-Foundational America agenda. Political correctness is what prevents us from fighting back against the left, and what prevents us from fully fighting back against the jihad and ending the Islamic threat. Political correctness makes us acquiesce to the left so as to be “moderate” and “bipartisan.” Our capitulation to the left will doom us physically by allowing the Muslims and left to eliminate the last vestiges of the West and it will doom us historically as our enslaved descendants will look back and ask how we could have allowed the twin insanities of Islam and the left to control and destroy us when we easily could have defeated them both. Our descendants will condemn us for remaining idle in the face of evil . . . and the leftists of the future will use our submission and our descendants’ condemnation to manipulate history and blame us as the originators of the horrific agenda that they instituted. The future left will use our sinful surrender to pave the way for them to control and destroy civilization once more (all in the name of “progressivism” of course).

I do not want leftists to be able to do this. I do not want them to easily rewrite history in the future. I want to be a loud voice (wherever I may be) that opposes everything Islam and the left want. I want there to be no doubt that I, a Right-wing Christian, utterly reject them and their core beliefs. I want to make it all but impossible for future leftists to say that, “It was the Christian Right who enabled and supported the worldwide jihad (not to mention the global warming hoax, the sexual perverts, and the freedom hating communists)! It was the Christian Right who wanted them to take over and destroy the world!” I want to make it all but impossible for future leftists to say that atheists, humanists, and secularists (like Bruce Bawer, Christopher Hitchens, Tammy Bruce, and a few others) tried to oppose the Islamic War on the West but “could not convince the mentally inferior but numerically superior Right-wing Christians to join them!” I want to counteract the in-name-only Christians and conservatives who have bought into the “Religion of Peace” and leftist nonsense, and who will do untold additional amounts of damage to civilization and our good name with their cravenness and rejection of Truth. And that is why I am willing to comment on more of your posts.

I know I am in the minority with my beliefs but I do not care. I want to be like the 300—not just the ones who fought at Thermopylae—but the 300 who fought with Gideon against the Midianites. I want to stand for the Truth.

Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

A US soldier in Iraq

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 Obama announces ambassador nominee to Damascus

TOWN HALL.COM

President Barack Obama said Tuesday he would nominate career diplomat Robert Ford to become the United States' first ambassador to Damascus since 2005, a sign that U.S.-Syrian relations are thawing as Obama enters his second year in power.

If confirmed by the Senate, Ford would represent the United States' interests as it moves toward restored diplomatic relations with a nation that borders both Iraq and Israel.

"Ambassador Ford is a highly accomplished diplomat with many years of experience in the Middle East," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "His appointment represents President Obama's commitment to use engagement to advance U.S. interests by improving communication with the Syrian government and people."

Obama has made changing the United States' image in the Middle East a priority of his first year. He traveled to Cairo to deliver a speech on engaging the Muslim world. He has met with Israeli and Palestinians leaders alike at the White House. An agreement between the two, however, has been elusive.

Seeking regional partners to promote that peace, Obama foreign policy advisers last summer said the United States would fill the Damascus post that has been vacant for years. That announcement was described as an acceleration of Washington's engagement with the Arab world on the heels of Obama's trip to Cairo.

Syria remains a key to establishing peace with Israel, which still occupies the strategic Golan Heights, captured from Damascus in the 1967 war. The Syrians want a strong U.S. hand in Mideast peacemaking to regain that territory.

"If confirmed by the Senate, Ambassador Ford will engage the Syrian government on how we can enhance relations, while addressing areas of ongoing concern," said Gibbs, Obama's top spokesman.

The long-tense relations between Syria and the U.S. started to improve after Obama took office in January last year.

His predecessor, former President George W. Bush, first imposed the sanctions in May 2004, citing Syrian support for terrorism, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and other activities including efforts to undermine U.S. operations in Iraq. The economic and diplomatic sanctions were renewed by the Obama administration in May.

The U.S. withdrew its ambassador to Syria in 2005 to protest Syrian actions in neighboring Lebanon. Washington has also criticized Syria and Iran for supporting Islamic militant groups such as the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Ford, a fluent Arabic speaker, is currently deputy chief of mission in the Baghdad embassy of the U.S. He was also the ambassador to Algeria from 2006 to 2008.