The Unnecessary War

[Haggis@wk]

The US has begun to increase its efforts to capture Adam Gadahn, AKA “Azzam al-Amriki”. Gadahn became the first American charged with treason since World War II, and the State Department would love to get him alive for trial. A massive ad campaign will be launched in Afghanistan to find AQ’s translator:

The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty.

The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn’s whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture.

Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have already begun airing. Additionally, printed materials including matchbooks, handbills and posters will be distributed throughout the region in the coming weeks in attempts to elicit cooperation from members of the Afghan community.

The lack of English translations on recent video and audiotapes suggest that Gadahn reached room temperature in a January attack on a terrorist safe house. AQ itself insists that Gadahn either survived the attack or wasn’t there at all. If he still lives, he has become much more quiet than usual.

But the sudden effort to get the Afghanis to identify Gadahn’s location may indicate that the US has intelligence that he’s on our side of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.

While Gadahn’s capture might be a big psychological boost for the US, it’s not that critical operationally — so this new campaign probably didn’t just appear out of the blue.

I hope we get him, I always wanted to watch an honest-to-God treason trial. I would love to see Gadahn marched into detention and tried for treason. Thanks to his technological abilities, we have millions of witnesses to his treachery even though the Constitution only calls for two.

The satisfaction of such a trial would only be exceeded by his execution. That’s worth a seven-figure ad campaign.

And yes, I really am that bloodthirsty!!!

[piqaboo]

I expect OT feels that way about the _____ family, who gave the Soviets the technology that let them build the Alpha class subs. He got quite the look on his face the other day when talking about them.

<Ed: Useless without a name, you know. Me: Yes I know. Sigh. DAMN I wish I could remember propernames! Ed: get a grip. you are pathetic. You probably call your husband OT.>

[Haggis@wk]

I expect OT feels that way about the _____ family, who gave the Soviets the technology that let them build the Alpha class subs. He got quite the look on his face the other day when talking about them.

<Ed: Useless without a name, you know. Me: Yes I know. Sigh. DAMN I wish I could remember propernames! Ed: get a grip. you are pathetic. You probably call your husband OT.>

Walker family. The father recruited the son, despicable. Personally, I would have like to have seen them (or at least the father) executed.

In addition to the horrendous damage they did to the submarine service and our country, the unintended consequence to those of us who logged in and/or destroyed crypto classified material was a major, MAJOR pain in the ass!!!! Two man rules for the most mundane admin task for crypto caused a number of overtime hours for me and thousands like me; any of us would have been willing to pull the lever on the trapdoor!!!

Don’t forget the other family who betrayed us.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They have been cause celeb of the hard Left for years convinced that the secret files that were finally declassified would exonerate them; they didn't. The KGB records reflected that Julius was guilty of espionage and his wife's brother, David Greenglass, was passing atomic secrets and was probably recruited through his sister's action or at least with her complicity. I suspect they were tried for espionage rather than treason since espionage would have been easier to get a conviction on. As recent records have been declassified it's apparent that serious damage was done to our country by both even if they were innocent of passing the atomic bomb secrets and I'm not convinced they were.

[analog]

Haggis wrote:
"As recent records have been declassified it's apparent that serious damage was done to our country by both even if they were innocent of passing the atomic bomb secrets and I'm not convinced they were."

Richard Rhodes' book "Dark Sun" has some good chapters on the extent of soviet spying during latter part of WW2. Rosenbergs sure look guilty to me. But it's easy to see how people got sucked into compromise, after all we were sorta allies and it was largely US made machinery that the Russians were riding into Germany.

If I imagine myself in those times and filling some shoes significant to national security, it's not much wonder that upon realizing the extent of technology theft we went into an anti-communist frenzy.

Sure wish I had fifty years' hindsight on today.
What's the course to an orderly spin down of the world's present oil feeding frenzy?

[Haggis@wk]

IT'S A QUAGMIRE: U.S. out of D.C. now!

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Nothing we can do will stop these people from committing senseless acts of violence. It's in their culture. The best thing we can do is to withdraw and leave them to each other. . . .

[jamiebk]

IT'S A QUAGMIRE: U.S. out of D.C. now!

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Nothing we can do will stop these people from committing senseless acts of violence. It's in their culture. The best thing we can do is to withdraw and leave them to each other. . . .

Sounds like a sequel to the movie "Escape From New York"

[Shapley]

"Neighborhood Safety Zone", is that, like, a "Green Zone".

Despite our long-term presence there, they're no closer to achieving reconciliation.

Of course, they can't simply disarm the factions, despite stringent gun controls, becuase of the flow of arms through their open borders. I don't know why they didn't secure the borders from the outset.

V/R
Shapley

[jamiebk]

"Neighborhood Safety Zone", is that, like, a "Green Zone".

Despite our long-term presence there, they're no closer to achieving reconciliation.

Of course, they can't simply disarm the factions, despite stringent gun controls, becuase of the flow of arms through their open borders. I don't know why they didn't secure the borders from the outset.

V/R
Shapley

I think they need to install an interim government that can form a basis for bringing the factions together and establish a more democratic means of control. Other states could pledge armed forces to bolster the local forces.

[Shapley]

You mean like a 'coalition force'?

[jamiebk]

You mean like a 'coalition force'?

Absolutely...this is needed to overthrow the drug and gang lords who control the region. Once that is done then the interim govenment can restore order to the streets

[Shapley]

You mean like a 'coalition force'?

drug and gang lords who control the region.

I believe we refer to those as 'insurgents' and 'factions'.

[Haggis@wk]

The Guardian, not known for its support of the war in Iraq or the Bush administration’s policies there, admits two crucial points today: al-Qaeda has lost Iraq, and the surge of American troops provided the means for their defeat. The paper portray this as fear of a new front for AQ, but cannot escape the conclusion that the strategy against the terrorist network in both Iraq and Afghanistan has worked:

Evidence of al-Qaida’s problems in Iraq is weighty and convincing. It has been badly hit by the fightback from the American-backed Sunni “Sons of Iraq” and the US troop “surge”. Western intelligence agencies estimate that the number of foreign fighters is down to single figures each month. The border with Syria is now harder to cross.

Iraq-watchers point, too, to financial strain caused by the arrests of al-Qaida sympathisers in Saudi Arabia, mafia-like disputes over alcohol licences and difficulties recruiting the right calibre of people. Last month, a sympathetic website carried a study showing a 94% decline in operations over a year. The Islamic State of Iraq claimed 334 operations in November 2006 but just 25 a year later. Attacks dropped from 292 in May 2007 to 16 by mid-May this year.

Dia Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on radical Islamists, says recent al-Qaida propaganda footage from Iraq is old and cannot mask the crisis it is facing. “They have not got new things to say about Iraq though they are trying to give the impression that they are still alive. The material isn’t convincing.” Nigel Inkster, former deputy head of MI6, now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, agrees: “Al-Qaida is starting to prepare their people for strategic failure in Iraq.”

Al-Qaida is also perceived as being “on the back foot” because of attacks by Muslim clerics on its takfiri ideology and revulsion at the killing of innocent Muslims. Participants in Zawahiri’s recent “open dialogue” on Islamist websites compared al-Qaida’s performance unfavourably with the successes of Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Challenges to the use of violence by Sayid Imam al-Sharif, founder of the Egyptian Jihad group, have rattled his old colleague Zawahiri, says Rashwan. Influential Saudi clerics have helped undercut al-Qaida’s theological arguments. How far such rarified debates affect radicalised Muslim youth in Bradford or Madrid is a different question.

Our success has not been limited to Iraq, either. Afghanistan’s situation has improved in large measure because of the aggressive new tactics adopted at about the same time as the surge in Iraq.

The use of close air support to chase down Taliban ambush teams has more than decimated their forces and kept them from launching their traditional offensives against NATO the last two springs. Predator drones find senior leadership in Pakistan more often, and with more devastating results.

The Guardian quotes an expert claiming that AQ will rebuild if the next American administration follows the Bush policies in the Middle East.

Come again? What’s working will stop working unless we stop what’s working?

AQ has suffered severe blows in the last two years, and the only conclusion is that we should continue to do what's working; killing them.

[piqaboo]

and revulsion at the killing of innocent Muslims.

I'd wondered if this would ever have an effect. I'm glad its starting to. I've been stunned the past years at the complacency of a group of people at having their own blown up by their own, repeatedly, as collateral damage and 'statement'.

Its good in general to see that the folks serving out there are making more than a paper difference to daily life and our long term sovereignty.

I wonder me if we'd gone in with 'more boots on the ground' up front, if this all would have happened faster: less loss of infrastructure, more people keeping an eye on things.
Of course, there would have been more folks there, if we'd done a better job managing relations with Turkey. Lessons learned for next time, should there be one.

[OperaTenor]

I wonder me if we'd gone in with 'more boots on the ground' up front, if this all would have happened faster: less loss of infrastructure, more people keeping an eye on things.
Of course, there would have been more folks there, if we'd done a better job managing relations with Turkey. Lessons learned for next time, should there be one.

Yup, Rummy spitting on "The Powell Doctrine" was wasteful and stupid.

[Shapley]

I wonder me if we'd gone in with 'more boots on the ground' up front, if this all would have happened faster: less loss of infrastructure, more people keeping an eye on things.
Of course, there would have been more folks there, if we'd done a better job managing relations with Turkey. Lessons learned for next time, should there be one.

Hard to say. It is entirely possible that, had al Qaeda seen us as formidable, they may not have moved their resources into Iraq, and we would still be battling them worldwide, instead of on the battlefield of our choice.

Better late than never, I say.

[Haggis@wk]

Good News

"Iraqi police have captured three Iranian-backed Special Groups operatives behind the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers at the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center in January 2007. Meanwhile, US troops captured another Special Groups leader in the Al Kut region."

The US military immediately suspected Iran's Qods Force, the elite external operations branch, of being behind the 2007 attack in Karbala. The raid was well planned and executed, as the attackers appeared to be Americans, spoke English, and used American equipment. One US soldier was killed and three wounded during the initial attack, and four soldiers were subsequently taken hostage. They were executed shortly afterward after Iraqi police and Coalition forces tracked their movement eastward towards Iran and went into pursuit. US satellite imagery specialists found a
mock-up of the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center at an Iranian base in southern Iran.

(emphasis added)

As a former counterintelligence professional I would give a lot to be in on those interview.

As a p****d off G.I. it’s probably best that I won't.

I suspect this falls under Art. 106 of the UCMJ - Spies.

Text. “Any person who in time of war is found lurking as a spy or acting as a spy in or about any place, vessel, or aircraft, within the control or jurisdiction of any of the armed forces, or in or about any shipyard, any manufacturing or industrial plant, or any other place or institution engaged in work in aid of the prosecution of the war by the United States, or elsewhere, shall be tried by a general court-martial or by a military commission and on conviction shall be punished by death.”

Not much leeway in the punishment phase, nice and simple; "... on conviction shall be punished by death"

[jamiebk]

too bad that there has to be a trial

[Haggis@wk]

too bad that there has to be a trial

Really, I can't tell you how much I cringed when I read how those G.I.s were conned. The idea that another right talking G.I. in the right uniform was possibly a plant to lure me into an ambush makes my skin crawl.

That you might have to consider another G.I.s legitimacy during a crucial moment can get you killed. I can't believe these guys are going to be released from American military jurisdiction. The crime is too heinous and combat G.I.s are going to demand retribution.

I suspect the punishment part of Art. 106 has historical roots leading back to the Battle of the Bulge and German infiltrators wearing U.S. Army uniforms.

[Shapley]

Baghdad Back In Business

[Shapley]

New Report: Iraq Has Met 15 of 18 Benchmarks.