re: "Where the push for ground troops may come from ... "

CDR Salamander at Cdr Salamander ("Proactively “From the Sea”; leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.") correctly opposes mission creep in Libya.

Money quote(s):

"(W)hat if, as things are trending, the rebel forces simply cannot dislodge Kadafi and his sons from power? With no one left to save and unlikely to destroy Bengazi in order to save it - a lot of nations are left having attacked a nation with nothing to show for it to the world or their citizens.

Somewhere between a full collapse of the rebellion and a last stand - someone will point out what has been invested at this point and the danger of a Qadaffi family's survival and the shaming of all the coalition nations. All that good advice about, "If you are set on regicide, you must succeed." and "If you set out to take Vienna; take Vienna." will come to the front along with a healthy bit of, "You won't get a second chance."

Everyone will look to the USA. I think SECDEF Gates is not bluffing - and I don't think the CINC will put troops ashore.

The rest of the Coalition therefor will not do it - because they cannot do it militarily without the USA - and politically with their population."

It's always nice to have Big Sam to rely, and blame, upon.

"(W)e are in this - I support 100% all efforts to win this ... to a point. We do not need another occupation by USA forces of a Muslim nation.If the rebellion continues to collapse, the push will come for ground troops ... and will pass. Uncle Sam will shrug - and I will support the President 100% saying "No."

I will fault him for getting involved in this folly to begin with - but will support his and SECDEF Gates's wise decision to let this opportunity for imperial humanitarianism pass.
Will it be a complete POL/MIL mess with second and third order effects that will be exceptionally distasteful? Yes. That is why you don't do things like this."

Once you go "kinetic," there no taking it back. If Qhadafy survives in power, even in a rump state, he will exact revenge. It's how he rolls.

WT - EDITORIAL: PMOI's place on the terrorist watch list. People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran should be cleared.

From my archive of press clippings:

Washington Times

EDITORIAL: PMOI's place on the terrorist watch list


People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran should be cleared


By THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hears the case of People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran v. United States Department of State. The State Department says the PMOI is a terrorist organization. The PMOI says the United States is falling for Iranian propaganda.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The PMOI was founded in 1963 as a violent anti-Shah movement. It supported the revolution that brought the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power, who returned the favor by executing the group's leaders."

"The group renounced violence in 2001, and it has not engaged in terrorism since. A U.S. Intelligence Community Terrorist Threat Assessment acknowledged that there "has not been a confirmed terrorist attack by [the PMOI] since the organization surrendered to Coalition forces in 2003."

The PMOI has assisted the United States in Iraq by warning Coalition troops against planned attacks by Iraqi insurgents. The PMOI also has provided critical information on Iran's secret nuclear program, such as the first reports of hidden facilities at Qom and Natanz."

"Removing the PMOI from the list of foreign terrorist organizations is one of the few issues on which both parties in Congress agree."

"\The United Kingdom and European Union have removed the group from their terror lists, which has created a disconnect with America's allies that complicates policy-making. The political rationale that put the PMOI on the U.S. terror list also has changed. The Clinton administration tagged the PMOI as terrorists in October 1997 as a means of reaching out to Iran's newly elected moderate leader Mohammad Khatami."

"America's terror list has become an enabler for Iran's state terrorism."

&

"Taking the PMOI off the terror list acknowledges that the group has put violence behind them, creates a credible incentive for other terror groups that might desire to reform their ways, and removes a tool from the hands of a theocratic regime bent on terrorizing its own people."

re: "We’ll See If The “Perfect” Record Continues"

Robert at Expat Yank ("One American living in the south of England") made a point that seems to be nearly universally overlooked (except by soldiers).

Money quote(s):

"As we know, most in media are perpetually wilting over the fact that the U.S. actually detains enemy who fall into U.S. hands alive. Moreover, they have little to n0thing to say about how nearly all of those the U.S. detains survive to be released."

&

"Insofar as this blog is aware, every single U.S. or coalition soldier captured by the jihadist enemy, has been murdered in captivity. That is a 100 percent record of barbarity unequalled by any enemy in all of human history."

re: "Not To Compare Bataan To Baghdad, But…"

Robert at Expat Yank ("One American living in the south of England") reminds us about the nature of the enemy. And does so exceedingly well.

Money quote(s):

"(F)or years we have endured bemoanings about “lack of proof,” unfair trials and above all, “torture.” And not just from every released prisoner (Allied forces have evidently “tortured” EVERY captured jihadist) and their lawyers. We’ve also heard it endlessly from many politicians, “activists” and much media.

Ironic all that. For coalition behavior towards this enemy in the War on Terror, 2001-2009, had actually been far better than its behavior in any previous conflict. In fact, it has inarguably been the best treatment ever meted out policywise to captured enemy in all of human history.

Consider this: imagine any enemy held previously engaging in a “hunger strike“? Those held in the past didn’t hunger strike: that’s a “privileged captive’s” jail tactic."

U.S. service members are given some training on how they are expected to conduct themselves if taken prisoner. Unlike our enemy, that indoctrination does not include how to wage lawfare against our captors by making false accusations of mistreatment.

"(A)fter page upon page of Mr Hastings’s having shared numerous examples of Japanese mistreatment (to be polite) of Western and Chinese PoWs and civilians. They ran the horrific gamut from of course starving and working them to death, to beheadings, tying them to trees and bayoneting them, leaving them to drown in the sea, kicking them into latrines and drowning them in excrement, casually pushing them over cliffs, and even subsequently noting how Japanese doctors engaged in the murderous vivisections, without anaesthesia, of eight living (at least, they were at the outset), captured U.S. pilots.

Another source tells us, for example (and no doubt Mr Hastings would not be surprised), of two downed U.S. pilots having been plucked from the sea and “rescued” by Japanese submarine and interrogated — but not harshly. Yet after questioning, their personal effects were parcelled out among the crew and the unfortunate PoWs (men captured in uniform, clearly engaged in military activity against another military) were taken up on deck, (and without even a “military tribunal” finding) weighted down with water-filled gasoline cans, and thrown overboard. And the barbaric list could go depressingly on."

Whole library shelves can attest to the barbaric treatment received by Allied prisoners of Imperial Japan. As it happens, my own family included a Baatan survivor. I grew up listening to his stories, when he would tell them. It's the sort of thing that forever innoculates one from developing an overly-optimistic or romantic view of warfare or defeat.

"(D)id any of that sort of treatment regularly happen at the hands of coalition forces in Iraq or to Guantanamo detainees? For example, was Khalid Sheik Mohammed “waterboarded” (which would have likely been considered a holiday “swim” to many an American or Briton tortured by the Japanese) . . . and then removed to shark-infested waters by U.S. submarine and unceremoniously tossed into the ocean?

During WWII, Western media rightly made much of Japanese atrocities. Yet today Western media has almost nothing to say of the last eight years’ enemy’s."

"(W)hile the Japanese were indisputably brutal in the extreme, even they never reached the all-encompassing depths of depravity and viciousness of the current enemy?"

"(I)nsofar as this blog is aware, not a single coalition serviceman, over the last eight years, has been released alive willingly by the current Islamist enemy.

That bears repeating: not one.

Nor are any now held alive anywhere."

&

"(H)ow such now almost Spartan-obsession to leave no one behind stems from the foreknowledge that every single one captured might just as well be tallied with the rest of the dead?

However one gets there, that means the current Islamist enemy has murdered 100 percent of coalition military personnel (primarily Americans, Britons, and Australians, coincidentally enough) who have fallen into their hands. No enemy has ever engaged in such barbarity in the entire history of warfare. That is to say nothing of the fate of nearly all Western non-combatants who’ve been taken.

Thus the most damning perspective of all is almost universally overlooked. That level of murderous brutality makes Japanese atrocities pale in comparison. And it makes Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and a few hours in a dog pen, look like child’s play.

Do we even want to think that in this conflict the Islamist enemy is even more inhumane that WWII Japanese? One suspects we’d rather not."

S&S - Romania honors soldiers from 1-4 Infantry

From my archive of press clippings:

Stars and Stripes

Romania honors soldiers from 1-4 Infantry


Stars and Stripes


Mideast edition, Sunday, January 25, 2009


Three Germany-based U.S. soldiers killed in action while serving with the Romanian Land Forces were posthumously honored at the unit’s headquarters in Bucharest earlier this month, the Army announced.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Romanian Lt. Gen. Teodor Frunzeti conferred the Medal of Honor of the Romanian Land Forces on Maj. Brian Michael Mescall, 33, of Teaneck, N.J., and presented the Badge of Merit, “In the Service of Peace,” 3rd Class to Sgt. Jason Ray Parsons, 24, of Lenoir, N.C., and Cpl. Joseph Michael Hernandez, 24, of Hammond, Ind.

The awards were to be sent to the soldiers’ families.

The 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment soldiers were attached to a Romanian unit when they were killed Jan. 9 when a roadside bomb blew up near their Humvee in Zabul province, Afghanistan."

S&S - Poland shifting its Iraq focus from war to business alliance

From my archive of press clippings:

Stars and Stripes

Poland shifting its Iraq focus from war to business alliance

By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Sunday, May 18, 2008

Lisa Burgess / S&S Poland’s Ambassador to Iraq, Gen. Edward Pietrzyk, said that with stability established in Diwaniyah, the Iraqi province that Poland’s military forces are overseeing, economic partnerships are his country’s new priority.

ARLINGTON, Va. — After spending nearly six years as a member of the coalition providing security to Iraq, Poland is preparing to draw down the last of its troops from Iraq later this year, but America’s European ally has no intention of closing the book on Iraq for good, according to Poland’s ambassador to Iraq, Gen. Edward Pietrzyk.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Poland contributed 2,700 soldiers to the Iraq coalition in 2003 and Pietrzyk, who was commander of Poland’s Land Forces at the time, came with them as their leader.

Poland, and Pietrzyk, was then assigned command of 12,000 international troops in the Multi-National Division-Central South region, including Diwaniyah province.

Since then, most of the international coalition members have left, and the Polish contingent has also gradually drawn down.

After 10 six-month rotations, it now numbers about 900 troops, with the last Polish troops scheduled to leave in October, Pietrzyk said."

&

"Although Poland’s military has gained invaluable direct combat experience from Iraq, the mission has not come without a price, Pietrzyk said.

Twenty-three Polish military members have died in Iraq."