Between Iraq and a Hard Place: In Which I Bail the President Out From His Bad Middle East Optics

ISIS column in Anbar Province, Iraq.

After an early enthusiasm for the Viet Nam war, other than Grenada, I have not supported any American intervention overseas in my lifetime. So for once, I find myself in agreement with the 44th president.

Mr. Obama has some bad optics with the ISIS assault in Iraq. Sure, it wasn’t his war, but his Vice President did say this in 2010:

(Iraq )”could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”

The rout of the Baghdad government from large parts of the country looks bad, and calling it Bush’s war will resonate with the faithful, but others are a bit jaded with the” Bush did it” excuse six years in.. No matter who may be seen to “own” Iraq politically, the ISIS advances represent at the very least, a massive intelligence failure – or perhaps failure to act on intelligence. Coming so soon after the Crimea takeover, it just looks like crap.

As senator, Obama did not vote for Iraq, and rather than his frequent custom of listing himself “present,” voted against it. Others in his party cannot say the same. Mrs. Clinton was in, and both her husband and his VP, Al Gore, are on record long before the war, pointing to the danger posed by Saddam. Many other Democrats joined in the war vote, including the current Secretary of State, John Kerry.

Shiite militia parade, Baghdad, June 20, 2014. Despite the Nissan in the lead, from the headlights, it looks like Toyota has the conflict sewed up,truck-wise.

So how can Mr. Obama clear up his Iraq optics?

Embrace the Iraq war, and then kiss it goodbye.

Here, Barrack, let me show you how to do it.

“Good evening.

My fellow Americans, I am asking for your time this evening to speak on the recent and ongoing events in Iraq. This country has cast a long shadow on American politics and foreign policy, across administrations and parties, long before I became President.

These Shia ladies are on our side, sort of.  In Syria and Lebanon, their veiled sisters are on the other side. Got it?  I don’t. Did American really think it could handle this place?  What were we thinking?

It is no secret that I voted against the Iraq War as Senator and ran against it when I first campaigned for the office of President. I promised an end to ur role in the conflict, and I kept that promise. As President I have learned much, and I have come to know this about America’s role in Iraq.

The men and women, in both parties, who voted for, and worked towards the ouster of Saddam, l believe, especially in view of Iraq’s present agony, were wrong.

But they were not, and are not, selfish or evil. There was no war for oil. Those who supported the war policy had two things in mind:

The national security of the United States, and, along with a hatred of Saddam’s tyranny, a sincere wish that Iraq be stable and free, and in time, lead the region out of its sad history of conflict and deprivation.

They should not be vilified for misplaced hope.

I, they, and all Americans honor the courage and sacrifice of the many thousands of our forces who served, died, and were maimed in Iraq. We also recognize the contributions of our civilians there, the diplomats, engineers and technicians, doctors and nurses, educators, and the whole range of specialists who worked to bring Iraq back from ruin.

In 2010, when we finally withdrew our forces it seemed we had succeeded.

That we have not is not the fault of any administration. America expended massive amounts of her treasure and expertise, and above all, the precious lives of our best and brightest young people, to give the Iraqi people a chance at a future of freedom and progress.

We are deeply saddened that ancient hatreds should make this unlikely for the foreseeable future.

But we have done enough, and can do no more. Nor would we if we could.

Self reliance is a core American value. While we cannot instill such a value where it is not, we understand that it must exist for any nation to succeed.

Therefore, while I will take such action as may be necessary to our immediate security needs, and may provide assistance where it can be used efficiently and honestly, the United States under my administration will not intervene in Iraq. Our time in Afghanistan is also coming to an end, and I hope profoundly hope that our friends there will look to Iraq and resolve to do better.

That so grand an undertaking has failed is a tragedy, but I urge you all tonight and in the days to come, to look back upon this chapter in our history as one of many times when America has given much, in return for little.

God Bless America

God bless our veterans

Thank you, and good night.”

 

C’mon, Mr. President. I guarantee you a 5% overnight bounce in the polls.

But for Barrack Obama to make such a statement would require both humility and magnanimity, two qualities in which he is signally lacking.

Not a chance.

 

 

Give the Taliban a hug

Yesterday, September 13, reports appeared in the press that the U.S. has approved the establishment of a Taliban representative office in Doha, Qatar.  On Sunday, September 11, the Taliban celebrated the ten year anniversary with an attack on a base in Southern Afghanistan that  left 77 NATO troop wounded. August  was a particularly bad month, with 80 coalition troops dead, 71 of them Americans.

Within hours the wisdom of this outreach to “bring the Taliban  in from the cold” as MSNBC put it this morning, was validated with a coordinated attack on NATO in downtown Kabul.  Wait, Ambassador Crocker now blames the Haqqani, a Pakistan based group affiliate with both the Taliban and Al Quaeda.  Same bunch that attacked a Kabul luxury hotel back in June.  Forgot about that one, did you?  Me too.

And as things were settling down, the Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack on a school bus near Peshawar.  The Taliban often go after schools,and school kids.  Their name means “students,” but they don’t much care for studying, unless the Koran is the subject.  As I write, the BBC is reporting a large car bombing in Iraq.  Huge one yesterday, too, 51dead as I recall.

Taliban, Haqqani, Al Qaeda, whatever, they all blow stuff up, and they don’t like us at all.  As to why this should be, the President, forign policy wonks, and academics  caught up in the embrace of Religion of Peace explainers and apologists, remain clueless.

Sometimes, I just can’t take it.  So, I wrote the President a letter.  Here it is:

“It was with both rage and despair that I read the press reports that your administration has approved Taliban representation, in Qatar.  This is the Taliban that tortured Afghanistan under the most brutal theocracy of any age, marked by wholesale slaughter, gender apartheid , and the obliteration of ancient cultural artifacts.  These are people who perform public executions, and impose hudud punishments: stoning, beheading, and amputation.  And the Taliban that just hours ago took responsibility for attacking a school bus in Pakistan.,

Taliban means students, students of the Koran and hadith.  They know these texts well.  It is clear that you do not, nor did  your predecessors for the decades that elements in the Islamic world have warred on us.

If you had studied Islam,  you would understand that it is inherently violent and has always been so.  Do you know why the name for the mountain range Hindu Kush means  “Killers of Hindus“?  Do you acknowledge the Arab slave trade that for centuries enslaved black Africans, and to some extent still does so?  Have you ever read the history of the North African Muslim abduction and enslavement of  a million or more innocents  over three centuries from Northern Europe?  And one can leave history and simply look at the daily news.

Instead, it is more important to you to, as you said in your Cairo speech, root out “Islamophobia” wherever you find it, without ever giving any thought to why so many are concerned, and even terrified of this ideology,

Madam Clinton, at your behest, works with the OIC  to end criticism of Islam.  Why should any religion be free from criticism?.  It is disappointing in the extreme that you show little, if any concern for the Muslim assaults on Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities that occur daily in many countries, yet are always ready to address the concerns of Muslims,  Your intelligence  advisor ludicrously called the Muslim Brotherhood largely secular when their goal has always been a sharia governed Caliphate.  I learned this more than thirty years ago.  The information was available in  the pubic library.

Mr. President, I too grew up in Indonesia some years before you, when Islam was just one strain in a gorgeous tapestry of cultures.  The Islam you and I knew then was not the Islam of the Koran, the hadith and the Sira.  Have you read these texts, or do you rely on advisors and “community leaders” to tell you what Islam is?

Your persistence in the same useless outreach efforts as  your predecessors is baffling.  This opening to the Taliban is the most egregious of a long series of such failed, useless, and ultimately dangerous efforts. Yesterday’s attack in Kabul should show anyone not yet convinced of the inevitable end of these diplomatic openings which only emphasize the weakness of our resolve.   Worse, it is an insult to our forces who already labor under ridiculous rules of engagement which place them in even more danger in the course  of pursuing a perilous mission.

Some believe your ultimate allegiance is to the ummah, not the nation.  I do not, but your view of Islam is remarkably uninformed, and can only be due to willful arrogance, or nostalgic sentimentality.  If it is the latter, I can be sympathetic to some extent.  My childhood in Indonesia led me to be favorably disposed to Islam, and later residence in Saudi Arabia, and even 9/11,did not dispel this impression.  When, however, I finally read the texts, and watched how their adherents acted, I came to know the truth.

You too, need to read and understand them, Mr. President.  They are not that complex, and you need not be a scholar or Arabic linguist, despite the obscurantist claims of many defenders of Islam. The  foremost translations are wholly consistent. They say what they mean, and Islamists mean what they say, and do what their texts tell them to.

If you do not make this effort, you will be judged wanting, if not by the electorate in 2012, then by history.”

I figured I could count on the President to understand the Arabic terms I used.  If I get pulled aside the next time I go to the States, I’ll know “rage” was a little strong.

HuffPoofery: My Response to Ariana’s 9/11 Piece

I wouldn’t expect other than fatuous nonsense from this source.  What is disturbing is the many who agree with her.  So I put my two cents ( actually around 750 words in four sections due to 250 word limitation per post).

Here it is in its entirety:

I of course expected Ms Huffington to make no mention of Islam in her 9/11 piece, and after scrolling through the first six pages of comments I find it almost completely absent from the the  thoughts expressed.  One commenter viewing American foreign policy as a “root cause,” mentioned Iran in 1957.  I would be rather surprised  if Osama Bin Laden  had ever heard of Mussadegh, and if he had it would be ludicrous to assume this Sunni  Salafist would care about a Shia secularist from the left in Iran.  This is typical of  the logical gyrations in which some  people  engage so as to  exonerate Islam.

Whatever one thinks  of the “Wars to Help Muslims” (Beginning with the Gulf war, I have I opposed all five – count them – other than taking out the Taliban in Afghanistan, which was fumbled) and the growth of the National Security State, these developments have their origins in a total lack of understanding in the US of what Islam is, and how it affects statecraft in nations that profess it.

The absurd lengths to which people will go in order not to mention Islam stuns me at times.  Israel, or US foreign policy have nothing to do with the ongoing  murder, oppression and violence against Christians and other minorities in parts of Nigeria, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh,  Sudan.  They have nothing to do with the internecine Muslim violence endemic in Iraq and Afghanistan,and the persecution, suppression and murder of Ahmadis in Indonesia.

One simply has to look at the rest of the world to see that there is no other belief system giving rise to such persistent and high levels of violence, not to mention appalling human development indices, outside the rich Gulf nations, and a general disregard for basic freedoms, most especially manifested  in low status for women, and in places, outright gender apartheid. Simple logic dictates that this is no coincidence.

On 9/11 we were attacked by Islam, a renascent Islam fueled by petro-dollars, another term  for our money. There have been other such  attacks throughout the history of Islam, starting from its base in the Arabian Peninsula,  sweeping hence to  rapid  dominance of the southern Mediterranean littoral and on into Western Europe

Tarik ibn Zayid, Arab conqueror of Spain. Artist's rendition, as no true portraits exist due to Islamic restrictions on depicting living being. He landed at Gibraltar, which is a corruption of Jebel Tarik, "Tarik's Mountain.".

Charles Martel, King of the Franks, who decisively broke Muslim power in France, at the Battle of Tours, 732.

from Africa, and later from Turkey into Southeast Europe .  These waves were beaten back, but never has a country or region relinquished Islam voluntarily, or more accurately, has Islam peacefully relinquished territory.  The secular experiment of Ataturk in Turkey is at an an end, and Malaysia and Indonesia( where I live) may follow. We are, in a sense, experiencing the Third Jihad.  It will be the last.

The_Battle_of_Lepanto_by_Paolo_Veronese

Despite continuing attempts, increasingly from lone actors, and of fairly amateurish nature, the US will most likely not see another 9/11 in my view.  This hardly means the danger is past.   We must prepare for an Islamic World from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia that, while chaotic and disunited, will be unified in its hatred of us and our values.

On September 11, 1683 King Jan Sobieski III Of Poland joined battle with the Ottoman Turks to lift the Siege of Venna, begining the roll back of muslim power in Central and Southeastern Europe

One commenter here suggested withdrawing form the region( the Middle East and Afghanistan.  I would agree, and extend this withdrawal to ceasing any attempt to reach out to, understand, interface with, or influence developments in  the Islamic world.  Withdraw, but maintain our guard toward both external and internal threats. This would make as safer, and perhaps afford us the time and resources to heal  ourselves.

Finally, I exhort one and all: read the texts of Islam!  I sincerely doubt Messers Bush the elder and younger, Clinton or Obama ever have.

September 13: It is noteworthy that the anniversary of the two day battle outside Vienna in 1683,  in which the advance of Turkish Muslim power in Central Europe was stopped, is September 11/13.  Now we have no captains to fight the crescent, and Europe lies supine, while America slumbers.

Hiroshima, 9/11, Chinook Down in Afghanistan

Yesterday was the anniversary of the bombing. I had forgotten. Now I know why I chanced, upon a “Yamato,“ yesterday on the Asian Movie channel,.  A docudrama of the last battle of the last of the class of the largest battleships    ever launched.

Quite gripping, great human interest, and all kinds of cool cgi explosions as the doomed young men fought their ship against a swarm of Douglas Avengers.  Of course, some of the sailors had family and lovers in Hiroshima, and there was a post sinking scene of a  surviving crewman searching for a loved one among the horrors in a casualty station there.

You’ve all read about Sadako and the paper cranes.  With all sympathy for the dead and maimed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the official Japanese construct on the War has more than a waft of victim hood when talking about the defeat.  Little mention is made of Operation Olympic, the invasion of the Home Islands that would have sent the allies against an armed populace of all ages, ready to die for their parts in the thousand year narrative of Yamato, the Sun descended emperor..  Who remembers?  When was the last time you saw  a “Pearl Harbor Survivor“ license plate?

So what about 9/11. Jihad? And dead SEALS in Afghanistan?  The issue is historical memory, collective amnesia,,  altered, and even, stolen narratives,..

Nearly ten years ago a group of young men, citizens of a putative ally, legally present in our country, in order to further their studies, killed more than three thousand of our brothers and sisters.  They did it in the name of Islam and they shouted Alllahu Akbar as they entered physical, but certainly  not political, cultural and historical oblivion.

Our country, culture, and national psyche have been forever changed.  Yet, how many really remember?  I haven’t checked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if once again, the Chrysler  building is illuminated green for Ramadan,  Ten years ago, how many Americans had heard of Ramadan?  Now the president gives official greetings replete with Arabic interjections, and praise for non existent Muslim contributions( really, Nobel prize winners?  I come up with one, in Chemistry: Ahamad Zewail, an American Egyptian dual national, who, parenthetically, has interesting things to say about the impact of “traditional culture“ on scientific enquiry)

In his praise of Islamic charity, the president neglects to mention that such charity is enjoined by Islamic doctrine to help only fellow Muslims,. “Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings…”

One only has the to consult the roster of OIC members to see a roll of appalling human rights violators, and abysmally low HDI scores.  Protocols and style manuals within USG prohibit the use of “Muslim”, Islamic” and “terrorist” in the same sentence  A feel good narrative to scare off demons and night terrors.

The president only continues what George W. Bush “Islam is a Religion of peace” began.  Imagine a narrative of World War Two with the Japanese and Germans absent.

From Minnesota, young, sometimes Americans born, Somali men travel to Somalia to find salvation and meaning in another chapter of a 1500 year old narrative of conquest and subjugation, eschewing the old narrative of assimilation and success in America,.

The daily bombings, church burnings(Nigeria: have you heard of Boko Haram?)   and shootings and beheadings (Thailand: have you heard anything of the brutal assault on Buddhists  in the south of this world beloved tourist playground?)  are reported as “religious clashes( the BBC and Reuters are particularly egregious in this respect)  Agenda-tweaked narratives. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, daily killings and executions as muslims die for other muslims’ reading of Muhammed‘s narrative.

Last week, between one and two hundred thousand Islamists shouting for a shariah state( Of course, by now, you know what shariah means) chased the last face bookers from Tharir square in Cairo.  “The Arab Spring” a vanished, and conveniently  no longer cited narrative.

. And there is the enormous cost of “security.”  Consider: had there been no 9/11, there would certainly have been no Afghanistan War, and perhaps Bush and Blair would have been at least somewhat circumspect about intervention in Iraq.

And no TSA. These  are not the source of all our fiscal woes, but eliminate them from the picture and the balance sheet is much improved.  An alternate universe narrative of a much happier non-possibility

Afghanistan:  Our forces die for what: a “democratic state” fashioned on paper by “ western experts” resulting in a sharia constitution( as in Iraq) where none existed before.  A impossible utopian narrative, as are all such,

Our servicewomen go veiled ( see ISAF website) and combat forces work under suicidal rules of engagement.  Google “heroic/courageous restraint.”  We went to that brutal land and graveyard of countless armies over the centuries to take revenge on the mastermind of 9/11, and on those who sheltered him. And stay to “build a nation.  An altered narrative.

And one that might be termed post modern in its utter lack of meaning, but which can also be seen as a very old form:  Unthinking hubris, and endless nemesis.

And today,  Maureen Dowd writes in the NYT:

When the president is asked what it felt like to kill Osama, he’s low-key and modest, even though he personally refocused the mission to capture the 9/11 architect after W. dropped the ball.

He has told people what a thrill it was to meet SEAL Team 6 — and the dog Cairo — which pulled off the hit, noting that the men looked less young and fearsome than he expected, and more like guys working at Home Depot.

But while Obama takes the high road, his aides have made sure there are proxies to exuberantly brag on him.

The White House clearly blessed the dramatic reconstruction of the mission by Nicholas Schmidle in The New Yorker — so vividly descriptive of the SEALS’ looks, quotes and thoughts that Schmidle had to clarify after the piece was published that he had not actually talked to any of them.

“I’ll just say that the 23 SEALs on the mission that evening were not the only ones who were listening to their radio communications,” Schmidle said, answering readers’ questions in a live chat, after taking flak for leaving some with the impression that he had interviewed the heroes when he wrote in his account that it was based on “some of their recollections.”

The White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of bin Laden to counter Obama’s growing reputation as ineffectual.

The Sony film by the Oscar-winning pair who made “The Hurt Locker” will no doubt reflect the president’s cool, gutsy decision against shaky odds. Just as Obamaland was hoping, the movie is scheduled to open on Oct. 12, 2012 — perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher.

The moviemakers are getting top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration.

It was clear that the White House had outsourced the job of manning up the president’s image to Hollywood when Boal got welcomed to the upper echelons of the White House and the Pentagon and showed up recently — to the surprise of some military officers — at a CIA ceremony celebrating the hero SEALs.

Just like W., Obama is going for that “Mission Accomplished” glow (without the suggestive harness). At least in this president’s case, though, something has been accomplished.

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Ms Dowd  makes some unsupported but hardly unbelievable assertions here, and as elsewhere in the article she included the obligatory pokes at GWB, one is inclined to give her a hearing.

So, here, an appropriated narrative, and perhaps the “October Surprise” the blogosphere anticipates, but not the expected attack on Iran.

No sooner did the story break than the conspiracy lovers were at work.  A black op to get rid of the witnesses to an operation that did not take out Osama, who “we all ( in some quarters ) know” had been dead for years,  See “I’m not into conspiracy theories” Ann Barnhart.

Of course, they had made the same mistake I did in skimming the story: some of the dead SEALS were in the same unit, but were not the same people. Misunderstood narrative

Thus, it is well to consider the men of the Enola gay, and the SEALS  down in Afghanistan, and be grateful for their true and unchanging.narratives of honor courage and service,