re: "Today's Reading Assignment"

SPOOK86at In From the Cold (" MUSINGS ON LIFE, LOVE, POLITICS, MILITARY AFFAIRS, THE MEDIA, THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE THAT CAPTURES OUR INTEREST ") expanded upon a recent Commentary article by Max Boot.

Money quote(s):

"(B)oth the U.S. military and much of the Iraqi government favored a continuing American presence, for counter-terrorism operations; as a deterrent against Iranian meddling, and to ensure adequate training for Iraqi security forces.

Boot argues that the U.S. should re-open negotiations on our military presence as soon as the current withdrawal is complete. He believes we need at least 10, 000 troops in Iraq to handle the security and training mission--about half the number recommended by senior American military commanders earlier this year.

Unfortunately, prospects for a short-term U.S. return are virtually nil."

CAA thinks the idea of U.S. troops deploying, for a third time, to Iraq is a non-starter short of a major Mideast conflagration.

10/22

re: "In Praise of NYC's Muscular Counterterrorism"

Daniel Pipes at DanielPipes.Org ("Opine briefly on diverse topics, mostly within his areas of specialization") recognized excellent counterterrorism at work.

Money quote(s):

"U.S. law enforcement agencies have generally responded to 9/11 with a pretend counterterrorism policy. They still insist that naming the enemy as Islamism causes terrorism, that Islamist violence poses no more threat than that of neo-Nazis, racial supremacists, et al., and that counterterrorism primarily involves feel-good measures such as improving civil rights, passing anti-discrimination laws, and displaying goodwill to Islamists.

And then there is the New York Police Department, an institution uniquely spurred by 9/11 to abandon its former laxity and get serious. The force that had mishandled prior terrorist incidents (e.g., the assassination of Meir Kahane) quickly transformed itself into an outstanding counterterrorist agency under the remarkable leadership of Raymond Kelly. (Andrew McCarthy calls him a "godsend"). Unlike other law enforcement institutions, NYPD names the enemy, acknowledges the predominant threat of Islamist violence, and built a robust intelligence operation."

Counterterrorism means countering terrorists. If "improving civil rights, passing anti-discrimination (?) laws, and displaying goodwill" will get you there, more power to you. But catering to Islamists surely won't.

"(T)he department dispatched officers to Pakistani neighborhoods and "instructed them to look for reasons to stop cars: speeding, broken tail lights, running stop signs, whatever. The traffic stop gave police an opportunity to search for outstanding warrants or look for suspicious behavior. An arrest could be the leverage the police needed to persuade someone to become an informant." NYPD established the Terrorist Interdiction Unit to handle these informants, including "mosque crawlers," "café crawlers," shopkeepers, and nosy neighbors."

Enforce the laws on the books. Novel concept. Target extra attention on the neighborhoods most likely to be harboring terrorists and their sympathizers (i.e., their support infrastructure).

This obviously doesn't mean that terrorists can't base themselves elsewhere, false-flag themselves, or even recruit from other neighborhoods and national groups, but it's just silly to ignore the obvious (and thereby create a sanctuary).

"It established the Special Services Unit to handle operations outside of New York City, where NYPD lacks jurisdiction, including several American states and eleven foreign countries. The effort has its share of successes; for example, a Muslim NYPD officer working undercover in New Jersey had a major role in Operation Arabian Knight, the June 2010 arrest of two New Jersey Muslims who pleaded guilty of planning to join the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab and then kill American troops.

It also established the Demographics Unit to "map ethnic residential communities within the Tri-State area [New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York State]" and to send undercover police officers, or rakers, to monitor Muslims. Made up of 16 officers speaking among them Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu, the unit lists 29 "ancestries of interest," all of them predominantly Muslim, including one described as "American Black Muslim." In all, NYPD identified 263 of what it calls "ethnic hot spots" in the city, plus 53 "mosques of concern." "

All in all, a chronicle of solid intelligence/counterintelligence work on the domestic front. This is what the FBI should be doing (and hopefully, quietly, is doing) rather than playing snuggle-bunnies with CAIR and other unindicted co-conspirators.

9/13

re: "Bin Laden Stayed Involved"

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) at Big Peace is sharing some of the take.

Money quote(s):

"U.S. counterterrorism officials have concluded that Osama bin Laden was aware of the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, but it was the last successful operation in which he played a prominent role, Reuters reports. While circumstantial information and government analysis suggests that bin Laden was in close contact with terrorist plotters abroad, data found in his Abbotabad compound does not show evidence of any new plots."

Remember: when in trouble, delegate.

It's dangerous to attribute Western-style motivations to a non-Westerner like UBL, but...... if UBL was following the precepts of James H. Boren, then the change to his management style indicates that he was, and knew he was, in trouble.

Of course, having to hide out in Abbott&Costellobad all those years, shut in with just three wives, would have been something of an indicator.

"Data seized after the raid which killed him shows that bin Laden was often aware of plots before they happened. The evidence firmly ties the al-Qaida mastermind to the 7/7 bombings for the first time and indicates that al-Qaida’s senior leadership “supervised” Najibullah Zazi’s 2009 attempt to bomb New York’s subway. It also suggests that bin Laden was personally involved in a European plot last year, which sparked heightened terror alerts in Germany, France, and Britain."

I start to get something of a sense of micro-management here, of nearly Rumsfeldian proportions. Snow-, er, sand-flakes anyone?

re: "A really bad day for bin Laden - and for Pakistan"

Robert Haddick at Small Wars Journal ("news and commentary on the goings on across the broad community of small wars practitioners, thought leaders, and pundits") cuts right to the essentials.

Money quote(s):

"The killing of Osama bin Laden is a satisfying triumph for Americans and the U.S. government. It would have been even more satisfying had it occurred in the weeks and months after the September 2001 attacks. But the fact that it took a decade to finally kill bin Laden should be warning to any who doubt the long memories and persistence of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism forces. They didn’t forget and they never stopped working on the problem.

The Joint Special Operations Command, presumably the command responsible for the mission, should get credit for demonstrating its ability to successfully raid targets virtually anywhere in the world. The CIA also gets credit for patiently developing the required intelligence and for reminding everyone of the value of battlefield captures, interrogations, and human intelligence." (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA)

It was a job well done.

More than that, it was years of jobs well done and literally decades of capacity building from the disaster that was Desert One to today's robust and diverse special operations capacity.

"(T)his raid is a black day for Pakistan and its relationship with the United States. As the White House background briefing on the raid makes clear, the United States kept the raid completely concealed from the Pakistani government. Combine this with the fact that bin Laden was found in a highly protected compound in a wealthy town near Pakistan’s capital, and a stone’s throw from a Pakistani military academy. Americans will be right to conclude that Pakistan was bin Laden’s long-time friend and not America’s. What little support Pakistan still enjoys in Washington will now likely melt away. Pakistan will have to look to China, its last friend, for the support it will need to survive."

The political fallout from this will play out over the coming several years. Pakistan, as a unitary state, may not survive it; the hazards it faces are too numerous to mention.

Last Week's Links

Joerg Wolf at Atlantic Review ("A Press Digest for Transatlantic Affairs") in "The U.S. is increasingly looking to new partners."

Money quote(s):

"For the European Union stating the obvious is already progress."

So it is.

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Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") in "Now Comes the Purge."

Money quote(s):

"(A)ll work is easy if somebody else has to do it."

If at first you don't succeed, don't worry about it: someone else will do it for you.

"(O)ne of the joys of punditry: One need only have a strongly held opinion, not any subject matter expertise."

CAA really tries, you understand, to opine on those subjects he actually knows something about.

"The general is targeted because he gave his soundest military advice, based upon decades of personal experience, to the National Command Authority, as he was duty bound to do."

So are we all, by our oaths of office, duty bound to give the best professional opinions we can provide, not merely parrot whatever the popular party line or flavor of the month might be.

&

"It is not enough for Mr. Cohen to win the policy fight. Those who opposed him cannot have done so from any principled standpoint, and they are therefor unfit to serve. The ranks must be purged."

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Lt.Col P at OPFOR ("Fair Specimens of Citizen Soldiers") at "Marine Corps Commandant Has To Stay."

Money quote(s):

"I detect also a note of good-war-ism; you know, those old WWII movies were great because WWII was the last good war, not what we have today with these awful provincial people and their tacky state university degrees who beat up on various Third Worlders and refuse to love gays."

WWII was also the last good war, in certain circles, because the socialists (at least of the non-NDSAP variety) were on the same side as the U.S., (at least once the national socialists in Germany launched their attack on the soviet socialists in Russia and her near-abroad).

(Until they did that, at least once Stalin and Hitler had made their mutual non-aggression pact, WWII wasn't a "good" war at all.)

(History matters. Especially the inconvenient kind.)

"(T)hose of us who have served know that Hollywood can't match reality, and that the real soldiers and Marines in the platoons aren't simply pets or mascots for the chattering classes."

Remind me to discuss the whole "hero" phenomenon sometime.

"When he writes "education and training" what he really means is "re-education and indoctrination." Those who lived through the purge-trial aftermath of Tailhook will know what I mean."

Active duty personnel can look forward to eve more hours and hours of mandatory "homosexual awareness" training. Yes, that's what it's actually called and has been going on since Pres. Clinton signed DADT into law way back when.

Good thing nobody needed any of those training hours to prepare them to fight a war or anything.

"The Commandant is stating his considered professional opinion that repeal of this law will have a detrimental effect on the combat readiness of his service, and furthermore that doing so during active overseas operations is a particularly ill-conceived course of action. Remember how long this man has been in uniform, and the positions he has held. He understands his Corps, and what makes it tick, and he has been entrusted with shepherding it through the next four years of war."

&

"Unit cohesion keeps the force together when things aren't going well. Unit cohesion is born of hundreds of Americans dedicated to a single cause, welded together into a fighting instrument by hard realists who do sometimes hold contrary opinions. But what has no place in the realm of unit cohesion, or of any aspect of combat readiness, is compulsory acceptance of behaviors that most find distracting at best and deviant at worst. The gay soldier or Marine who subordinates his behavior for the greater good of his unit gets treated like a soldier or Marine, like one of the family."

-----

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive in "Concealed carry is counterterrorism."

Money quote(s):

"We simply do not have the resources to expect that we will have police wherever the terrorists decide to attack us. They have obviously figured out that our soft underbelly is nationwide. What is going to happen when the jihadi maroons stop failing at bomb-building and decide to succeed at firing a gun into a crowd? Ignorant as these goat-raping clowns are, they can pull that off. At that point any who is not armed is a victim in waiting. But if the swine happen to hit a food court at the Mall where I am having a snack, it will turn out quite differently.

At the risk of revealing my true arrogance, I do not recognize the right of any individual or group to disarm me. So regardless of what rules petty bureaucrats may enact, I will retain my right to self defense."

Which is why the terrorists will lose against us in the end. Badly.

"This type of response is most likely to happen in red state areas and if the jihadis had any intellectual firepower they would concentrate their efforts in Chicago, NYC and DC where the government has disarmed the populace."

&

"The bottom line is that when seconds count the police are minutes away. Yet the unorganized militia is all around, kinda like the Founders figgered."

Personally, I prefer the formulation "Militia of One."

-----

Bing West at the Small Wars Journal blog ("facilitates the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field") in "Bigotry as Opportunism."

Money quote(s):

"Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote that the Commandant of the Marine Corps “is one step short of being a bigot.” Cohen, who strongly supports homosexuals in the military, insisted that the Commandant be fired because he held a different view. According to the dictionary, ‘a bigot is one who is strongly attached to his view of politics and intolerant of those who differ.’ It is Cohen, not the Commandant of Marines, who defines the word bigot."

"His column is a clarion call to incite the very divisiveness the legislation was intended to expunge."

&

"The best way to treat a bigot is to ignore his opportunistic self-promotion. Let the Washington Post correspondents who risk their lives alongside Marines deal with Cohen and his warped journalistic ethics."

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Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") in "Green Light."

Money quote(s):

"Ivy League schools provided the services with gifted officers for the front lines, many of whom served heroically in combat before coming home, tempered by both experiences, to build a great nation. It also provided undergraduate students who lacked the money and connections a fully-funded opportunity for a first rate education at our country’s flagship universities. All of that ended at certain Ivies during the culture turmoils of the late 1960s."

The Ivies have a golden opportunity to make themselves relevant again to the nation beyond the academic ghettos and law firms of the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Washington corridor. Or they can simply beclown themselves in an orgy of self-parody. I expect a mixed set of results, with perhaps a third of them taking the opportunity to redeem themselves.

"Now that the dreadful discrimination of DADT has been swept into the ash bin of history, the rationale for the prohibition against on-campus ROTC has lost whatever veneer of plausibility it once held."

And a thin veneer that was, a mere vapor of substance.

&

"(I)t is not just the military who have shifted south (and west). The country is doing so, or at least those who can afford to; those who are not immobilized by joblessness or the paucity of after-tax income traceable to Ivy League social and economic theories. Both the working and entreprenurial classes have seen what modern day political liberalism has to offer and are voting with their feet. The heart of America is shifting south, and it does not much surprise that the military is moving with them.

As for the Ivies, it appears the rest of us have decided that, when it comes to building and defending our nation, we might just have to do it without them."

Relevance, to coin a phrase, matters.

S&S - Communication stressed in first intel conference

From my archive of press clippings:

Stars and Stripes

Communication stressed in first intel conference

By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes

Online Edition, Friday, February 19, 2010


HEIDELBERG, Germany — There were spies everywhere.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"They came from the U.S. military services, the FBI, Interpol.

Mostly administrators, they discussed their sensors, platforms, metadata.

There were no cloaks and daggers."

&

"(S)peakers discussed the difficulties in sharing intelligence and yet the importance of doing so in countering terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, and on the battlefield."

re: "What Would Real--Rather Than Rhetorical--Change in U.S. Foreign Policy Look Like?"

Gregory at The Belgravia Dispatch ("occasionally comments on foreign policy matters at this site") lists "six critical areas for Obama and his foreign policy team’s consideration".

Money quote(s):

"(P)artly because of these very economic challenges—and the consuming efforts that will need to be directed towards alleviating them--one is concerned the scope of change required in the foreign policy realm may not prove quite as dramatic as necessary, perhaps with President Obama not being able to devote as much attention to same as he might otherwise."

"Counter-terrorism is not nation-building. Retention of counter-terror surgical strike capacities and requisite intelligence-gathering capabilities can be maintained via a modest presence in key cities like Kabul, perhaps too temporarily bases like Bagram as we nonetheless move to phase them out, ‘over the horizon’ forces, drone strikes, a heightened ‘train and equip’ effort for the Afghan Army, and the like. U.S. marines should not be dying to try to de-Talibanize, if we might call it that, remote portions of the Pashtun south of Afghanistan."

&

"Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke is an immensely talented negotiator—with few able to cajole, harrumph, corral, threaten, bluster as relentlessly as he."