Terror War news & commentary – Jun. 22, 2008

Here’s part of Mike Williams' letter today followed by my comments below the star line.

Mike begins - - -

Strategy Page has two postings today that I think are well worth a read.

The first one starts off:

Everyone is down on the U.S. Air Force these days. Long criticized as being detached, and obsessed with developing and buying the latest (and most expensive) aircraft and technology, the air force was largely a victim of its own success.

Critics should not forget that the U.S. Air Force has been the main reason the U.S. has dominated the skies, worldwide, for the last 65 years. That was no accident, it took a lot of effort and imagination.

A certain amount of myopia regarding jet fighters, and how to shoot down everyone else’s, was necessary to obtain that air supremacy. Without it, winning on the ground is difficult, if not impossible. Let's not forget that the zoomies are, above all, winners….

The article goes on to discuss the recent firings of the civilian Secretary of the Air Force and the military Chief of Staff, the worrisome security missteps in strategic (nuclear) weapons units, and the impact of precision guided munitions on modern warfare.

I would just add, it would be impossible to fight the war on terror as we have since 9/11 without command of the air, or command of the sea for that matter.

We probably would not be winning on the ground in Iraq and in Afghanistan without both. (emphasis JinC)

So as a thought exercise, imagine what more mischief Russia and China might be up to in the world if they could project military power in a competitive way.

The other Strategy Page article is about using in Iraq the Israeli tactic of “going for the brains behind the bombs” to defeat al Qaeda. As many of you know, two people on this email distribution spent a year in Iraq helping hunt roadside bombs – and bombers. For them, catching the bombers in the act of placing the bombs was far more effective than trying to find the bombs themselves.

In their war with the PLO and Hamas, Israel took that one step further: “This included going after terrorist leaders and technical specialists, and either capturing or (failing that) killing them.” Petraeus was astute enough to follow suit. A key [Strategy Page] observation:

For the rest of the world, treating terrorism as if it were just a police matter, allowed the terrorists to continue building support, and the ability to launch more attacks. By going into the terrorist neighborhoods, you disrupted their planning and recruiting efforts, and eventually destroyed the network of support.

The United States clung to the police approach throughout the 1990s [the Clinton years, remember? - JinC], and the attacks continued.

Only after September 11, 2001, was the war carried to the terrorist heartland, and the attacks in the U.S., and against American targets elsewhere, ceased. The terrorists were forced to defend their base, and in doing so they killed many Moslems….

Strategy Page concludes:

That cost al Qaeda their public support in the Moslem world, while the Israeli tactics cost al Qaeda its key people.

Even the MSM isn’t totally oblivious to the ***winds of change blowing in Iraq. So how to enable Obama’s election in the face of his totally wrong call on The Surge?

Resurrecting Abu Ghraib, as McClatchy and the N&O have recently done? Or supporting the Boumediene travesty? Or, even better, outing KSM’s chief interrogator?

Comments:

We’ve surely made great progress in the War on Terror, but we must remember that doesn’t mean the enemy can’t and won’t still strike with devastating effect.

Just recall December 1944. The German army in the West was effectively beaten, yet still able to launch the Battle of the Bulge.

In a month’s time the Germans inflicted more than 75,000 Allied casualties, about 90% of them American.

Almost all of you reading this are smart enough to know Al Qaeda and its enablers don’t want to face the kind of American assaults they’ve endured since 9/11.

They’d much rather face the kind of “strategies” advocated by Rep. Jack Murtha, former Sen. John Edwards and Speaker Pelosi.

And while Chris Matthews, Fr. Pfleger and the NY Times editorial board are confident a President Obama would be a brilliant commander-in-chief and outstanding foreign policy leader, Al Qaeda’s remaining leaders must smile and smirk at the thought of Warren Christopher and Madeline Albright “back in the game” with Jamie Gorelick and Eric Holder deciding whether the U. S. should seek to indict Osama bin Laden without first getting an opinion from the World Court.

There’s no doubt OBL and Co. would love a return to the Clinton 90s. .

That means they’ll do whatever they can to influence the American election to tip it to Sen. Obama and the Dems.

And that means as we get closer to the November election, the terrorists will do all they can in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere to ramp up attacks on Western targets, particularly American ones, in order to discourage public support for the current Terror War strategies which Sen. McCain favors.

What I’m saying will upset many people, but it’s important and true.

Final words – Thanks, Mike.