In order to find success in Afghanistan, we'll have to convince the supporters of the insurgency, and the insurgents themselves, that there is more value in supporting the government than the Taliban. General Petraeus is optimistic about that prospect:
"The prospect for reconciliation with senior Taliban leaders certainly looms out there, and there have been approaches at [the] very senior level that hold some promise," Petraeus said Thursday.
Petraeus, the Afghanistan war's commanding general, briefed reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrived in the Afghan capital after a stop in Iraq on Wednesday to mark the end of combat operations there. Petraeus' spokesman said the high-levels talks so far have been between Afghans and do not involve U.S. officials.
I hope so, but it is important to remember that the government we are expecting these insurgents to support isn't that credible itself. That may be the largest obstacle to reconciliation and ultimately to success in a war that is already nine years old.
Washington DC - The nation's largest progressive veterans organization, VoteVets.org, is calling on President Obama to relieve former Senator Alan Simpson from his chairmanship of a deficit reduction commission for defamatory comments about veterans.
In a letter to the President, Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org, wrote, "On Tuesday, Senator Simpson actually put veteran's benefits on the chopping block... blaming disabled veterans for the country's fiscal situation. And for us, that is the final straw." The full text of the letter is below.
On Tuesday, in regards to the cost of treatment of veterans exposed to Agent Orange, and now suffering ill-health effects, Simpson said, "The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess."
His comments came on the heels of outrageous comments about seniors and others on Social Security, as well as women. The veterans pointed to those comments as well, but wrote that Simpson's attacks on ill veterans compelled them to write. They said firing Simpson was a matter of honoring our veterans.
"President Obama, this week you called for all Americans to honor and thank our troops," Soltz wrote. "I know you agree that honoring our troops can't just be lip service. And the best way to honor those who serve our country is to make sure that we take care of them once they return home."
"We ask that you remove [Simpson] from his current position so that the commission can continue its work in a way that will give the military community--and all Americans--confidence in the conclusions it reaches," the letter concludes.
VoteVets.org is a pro-military organization of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, dedicated to the destruction of terror networks around the world, with force when necessary. It primarily focuses on education and advocacy on issues of importance to the troops and veterans, and holding politicians accountable for their actions on these issues.
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September 2, 2010
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President,
I write to you as the chairman of VoteVets, a pro-military organization comprised of over 50,000 veterans and military families and another 50,000 civilian supporters, about the head of your Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, former Senator Alan Simpson.
We have long been concerned about Senator Simpson's troubling pattern of denigrating those who rely on Social Security. As you are aware, of the more than 23 million veterans, almost half--approximately 10 million--collect Social Security benefits. And that number has quadrupled since the 1960s.
So you can see why Senator Simpson's comments referring to people on Social Security as "greedy geezers" and "lesser people" were so troubling. And his recent email to the Older Women's League where he accused the executive director of "babbling into the vapors" in her work to protect the vital program while referring to it as "a milk cow with 310 million tits" has only deepened our concern.
We were also troubled when reports surfaced in August that Senator Simpson was interested in using the commission as a means to freeze military pay and raise the amounts that service members pay for their healthcare.
But then on Tuesday, Senator Simpson actually put veteran's benefits on the chopping block, too, blaming disabled veterans for the country's fiscal situation. And for us, that is the final straw.
President Obama, this week you called for all Americans to honor and thank our troops. I know you agree that honoring our troops can't just be lip service. And the best way to honor those who serve our country is to make sure that we take care of them once they return home. That means strengthening the vital programs we rely on, including Social Security and veterans' health care, not undermining them as Senator Simpson seems intent on doing.
It has become all too clear that Senator Simpson cannot be trusted to objectively review the budget and make impartial recommendations about our nation's economic priorities. We ask that you remove him from his current position so that the commission can continue its work in a way that will give the military community--and all Americans--confidence in the conclusions it reaches.
Recall the story of LTC Terry Larkin, the birther Army doc who Blue Facloned his unit by refusing to deploy to Afghanistan as a result of his belief that the President is a secret Muslim Martian, or something with about as much of a realistic foundation as that.
As Dave Weigel of Slate informs us, Fox News analyst LTG (Ret.) Thomas McInerney has submitted an affidavit of support to the court in LTC Larkin's case. The guy is an all out nutjob:
[I]t is my opinion that LTC Lakin's request for discovery relating to the President's birth records in Hawaii is absolutely essential to determining not merely his guilt or innocence but to reassuring all military personnel once and for all for this President whether his service as Commander in Chief is Constitutionally proper. He is the one single person in the Chain of Command that the Constitution demands proof of natural born citizenship. This determination is fundamental to our Republic, where civilian control over the military is the rule. According to our Constitution, the Commander in Chief must now, in the face of serious-- and widely held-- concerns that he is ineligible, either voluntarily establish his eligibility by authorizing release of his birth records or this court must authorize their discovery. The invasion of his privacy in these records is utterly trivial compared to the issues at stake here.
If McInerney sounds familiar to you, it may because I previously covered his comments that all 18-28 year old Muslims should be strip searched before boarding airplanes. McInerney was able to keep his position as a Fox analyst after making those radically racist comments. Any bets as to whether Fox will show McInerney the door now that he has acknowledged his birther beliefs? My guess is no.
Alan Simpson, a former Senator and the Republican co-chair of the President's deficit commission, was already in hot water after making offensive remarks regarding Social Security last month, comparing the system to "a milk cow with 310 million tits". If he hadn't already, Simpson has most assuredly crossed the line with his latest comments blaming Veterans for the country's fiscal woes. Alan Simpson seems to blame Veterans of the Vietnam war for breathing Agent Orange:
"The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess," said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee.
Absolutely appalling. In an era when our country is producing tens of thousands of new combat Veterans, we are hearing that rather than caring for service connected disabilities, our government will blame Vets for acquiring them. Using Vets as a scapegoat for fiscal mismanagement is unacceptable and Alan Simpson needs to be in the unemployment line.
Regardless of whether it was hold, cold, raining, clear, breezy or still, there was one omnipresent inconvenience you could never escape at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan. Anyone who has ever been on the place already knows what it is I am referring to.
On any given day at KAF, it is certain that the lingering smell of the man-made landmark known as the "shit pond" will be all around you.
For those who haven't been to KAF, the "shit pond" is exactly what it sounds like. There is no septic, sewage or water treatment facility on the sprawling installation. All of the human waste from across the base is piped into one central location, a large man-made lake that could serve as a DNA record of every service member ever deployed to the AO.
By next summer, however, NATO plans to close down the site, which the more couth Jeff Schogol at Stars & Stripes' calls the "poo pond", and replace it with a new water treatment facility:
The infamous lake of sewage at Kandahar Air Field affectionately known as the "Poo Pond" is set to be replaced in June with a new wastewater treatment plant, said Karl Mahon, a spokesman for NATO.
"The current sewage treatment lagoon, as part of decommissioning, will be emptied and then filled in," Mahon said in an e-mail. "Currently, there is no plan for use of this area of the site once decommissioning is completed".
This makes me feel kind of like when we went from black to desert boots in the Army. Yeah, it was nice not having to spit shine boots any longer, but damn it if that wasn't a task that gave the institution character, and younger soldiers needed to spend their time shining boots just like I did.
So while it will be nice for future iterations of KAF dwellers to not have to smell a giant lake of feces everyday, KAF will lose a little bit of its character next year, and those stationed there won't have the character building experience of waking up each morning to the smell of human waste.
The President must make that clear tonight. Though planned combat operations are done, every single one of the 50,000 remaining troops is a combat troop. There's a reason that convoys are called "combat patrols." There could still be casualties. Whether our troops engage in combat will be decided on the ground in Iraq, not in Washington, DC.
Additionally, the war within Iraq still rages on. There is no stable government. There is no long-term settlement among Iraq's factions on issues such as oil-revenue sharing. We are all pleased that the President stuck to the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the past administration, and the removal of thousands and thousands of Americans is a good development. But, by no means is this war over.
One need look no further than Somalia and Beirut for what happened at what were supposed to just be peacekeeping operations to know that there are no guarantees. Heck, one need look no further than the last declaration of major combat operations being over and "mission accomplished." The point is, the President cannot and should not use this as a "victory speech," no matter what his pollsters tell him. Should he do so, it's very likely to blow up in his face.
Additionally, the President should look to Iraq for lessons that can be applied to Afghanistan - a war he will surely note was put on the back-burner because of Iraq. While the Iraq surge was a tactical success because American troops are the best in the world, it still is not a strategic success. The surge was never complemented by a surge in diplomatic and political armies, and as such, we just were keeping the cork on the bottle. As attacks mount in Iraq among warring factions absent American forces, that lesson has become all too clear.
The President has made his decision to ramp up troop levels in Afghanistan far past what he promised during the campaign. Many veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq disagreed - favoring a more limited counter-terror operation. But, now that the decision has been made, the President must ensure that the Afghanistan surge is not a military one alone. Unless a non-corrupt and stable government with the confidence of the Afghan people is put into place, there can never be real success in Afghanistan.
The purpose of writing all of this isn't to minimize the accomplishments of this administration when it comes to keeping their timeline for moving troops out of Iraq. Nor is it to be a 'Debbie Downer.' It's my sincere hope - as it is all of ours - that Iraq stabilizes and we can fully remove our troops. And, of course, all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans stand with the rest of America in wanting to see success in Afghanistan.
But, where the previous administration continually blew smoke and painted rosy pictures regarding the wars, this President must deal honestly with the American people. Only by doing so - by being straight about the challenges we still face - can the American people be prepared for the tough road ahead.
A federal judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit by Oregon Army National Guard veterans against war contractor Kellogg Brown & Root can proceed.
The decision makes the federal court in Portland the apex of a legal battle that stretches from Oregon to West Virginia, and from Indiana to Texas, over who is responsible for exposing American troops to a known cancer-causing chemical early in the Iraq war.
[...]
KBR brought additional sodium dichromate to Qarmat Ali in June 2003, stored and worked with it. KBR has consistently claimed the chemical was left by Iraqis after Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
KBR knew of the sodium dichromate before most of the troops ever arrived, warning a subcontractor -- but not the U.S. military or Soldiers -- that areas of the water plant were contaminated. The Oregon Guard members weren't notified of the chemical until August 2003, two months after they had guarded employees at the plant.
KBR was contractually obligated to provide an environmental assessment at Qarmat Ali and report hazards. KBR says the Army was responsible for the assessment.
The downside of this? Even if KBR is found liable, nothing will stop the war-profiteering corporation from receiving additional contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. You'd think they'd be cutoff after repeated incidents of negligently killing American troops. Apparently not.
As a veteran of the Iraq war and as an American citizen, I shared your outrage to learn that life insurance companies were banking millions of dollars in profit off the death benefits paid to military families. Rather than paying the benefits directly to families as requested, insurance companies kept the money in their own accounts and earned a much higher interest rate than was paid to the families of the deceased. It's wrong, and they need to stop.
I've called on these companies to end these deceptive practices and return any profit they made off these arrangements to the families. As we speak, I'm working with my colleagues on legislation to end this practice and ensure military families get their rightful benefits.
That families who have lost so much - who have already made the ultimate sacrifice - deserve better. I thank all of you at Vote Vets for joining with me to fight to end this practice and stand up for our brothers- and sisters-in-arms.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-KY) will be speaking tomorrow before the American Legion Convention (color me surprised) in an address that will criticize the Commander-in-Chief without any sense of irony:
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) intends to broadcast his differences with the Obama administration's national security policy in his second major policy address in as many weeks.
The top-ranking House Republican, who supported President Obama's request for additional troops in Afghanistan, will highlight his growing concerns "about how Washington is implementing the new strategy there," a Boehner aide told The Hill.
The would-be Speaker will also focus on his differences with the administration's handling of the broader war on terror.
"He will also discuss the war on terrorism, this administration's handling of attempted terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and its lack of a comprehensive strategy to confront and defeat the terrorist threat," the aide explained.
Remember, this is the same John Boehner that spent eight years carrying water for the previous Administration which had NO strategy in Afghanistan, other than to neglect it and allow it to spiral downward to the situation we have today where even the most narrowly defined metrics for success may be unobtainable. This is the same John Boehner who lead the cheers for George Bush in Iraq where we did nothing but empower Iran and weaken our armed forces nearly to the breaking point while allowing al-Qaeda to reconstitute capacity after initial defeats prior to the invasion of Iraq.
There are legitimate points of criticism for the current policy in Afghanistan. We've articulated many of them here. But on this subject, John Boehner has no credibility and should really just keep his mouth shut. Funny though, his nonsensical ramblings on a subject of which he has no authority will find an audience with the American Legion.
A combined security force captured Zia Ul Haq, who was described as "a senior Taliban commander operating in Logar province and responsible for the facilitation of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into Kabul City," according to an International Security Assistance Force press release. ISAF often uses the term "foreign fighters" to describe al-Qaida operatives.
Haq was detained along with a Taliban sub-commander "responsible for planning and coordinating attacks" and a fighter during a raid in Pul-e 'Alam on Aug. 26.
One day, we'll realize that Obama Administration directives on intelligence and interrogations just don't help us find those that would do us harm. Back to waterboarding and CIA black sites, please.
In 2007, CNA Corporation wrote, "climate change is a threat multiplier in already fragile regions, exacerbating conditions that lead to failed states -- the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism." In 2010, the Pentagon followed suit, writing in its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review that global warming impacts and disasters will "act as an accelerant of instability or conflict." In fact, the Pentagon has already started war-gaming climate change, to prepare for the effect it will have on our commitments around the world if that instability comes to pass.
Now, this summer, we are seeing the tip of the (quickly melting) iceberg of what's to come, with the flooding in Pakistan. The catastrophic floods that hit the country this year have killed more than 1,500 people, left 4 million homeless, millions more displaced, and left one-fifth of the country under water. As organizations begin to set up aide efforts, the threat of terrorists groups capitalizing on the disaster for recruitment purposes increases, potentially putting America's mission in Afghanistan in peril.
According to Reuters, "Islamist charities, some with suspected ties to militants, stepped in... to provide aid for Pakistanis hit by the worst flooding in memory, piling pressure on a government criticized for its response to the disaster."
That's right. As thousands of people flee Pakistan's most populist areas because of the flooding, terrorists could be stepping in where the government has not -- winning chits with the public that they could cash in at a later date.
Think terrorists can't pretend to be nice people when it suits them? Look no further than the Palestinian territories, where for years, Hamas has taken care of many social services, and provided for the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists. The result? Hamas won open elections in the territories, and now controls Gaza.
So, yes, that's happening right there in Pakistan. Reports CNN, "An official with Falah-e-Insaniyat, a group widely believed to be the charity wing of a Pakistani terrorist group, said Shah, the USAID administrator, visited a camp the group was running. Kuaateeb Ullah, Falah-e-Insaniyat's leader in Sukkur, said the charity is running five camps in the Sindhi city and providing food and medicine to 3,500 flood survivors. He told CNN that Jumaat Ud Dawa, banned by the United Nations and the Pakistani government as a terrorist organization, was helping fund the relief missions."
Not a good development in a country where the US is already seen as the enemy by every 6 out of 10 people.
Now, imagine global climate change hitting places like Pakistan again and again and again. Floods in some regions. Abnormally hot temperatures in others, killing vegetation and spreading disease. General misery among the people. A perfect place for al Qaeda and groups connected to it to step in and help, winning sympathy -- if not outright converts. At a time when we need Pakistan to put the squeeze on al Qaeda, the terrorist group could easily be gaining breathing room.
Further, the potential for regional conflict expands greatly. What if Pakistanis have to move further and further towards India, a country with an already itchy red-button finger? Or if Bangladeshis do? It's a nuclear powder keg that is in our own national security interest to contain. That means an even greater commitment of troops to the region, just to try to keep the peace.
Yes, we were warned. At VoteVets.org, those of us who served in Iraq and Afghanistan joined the fight, running ad after ad after ad supporting a Clean Energy Climate Change plan -- one that gets serious about reversing global climate change. The forces of the status quo (read: "Big Oil") won the most recent battle, by successfully delaying consideration of the bill in the Senate.
Unfortunately, for them and for us, no amount of campaign cash and lobbying will stop the coming humanitarian and national security catastrophe we're getting a glimpse of this summer.
The question now is: Do Washington politicians even give a damn?
And may be justifiably so, being that he said some pretty inflammatory things about his superiors, though he didn't name them by names:
Consider it a new version of death by PowerPoint. The NATO command in Afghanistan has fired a staff officer who publicly criticized its interminable briefings, its over-reliance on Microsoft's slide-show program, and what he considered its crushing bureaucracy.
Army Col. Lawrence Sellin, a 61-year old reservist from New Jersey who served in Afghanistan and Iraq prior to this deployment, got the sack Thursday from his job as a staff officer at the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Kabul. The hammer fell barely 48 hours after United Press International ran a passionate op-ed he wrote to lament that "little of substance is really done here." He tells Danger Room, "I feel quite rather alone here at the moment."
The colonel's rant called into question whether ISAF's revamped command structure, charged with coordinating the day-by-day war effort, was much more than a briefing factory. Or, as Sellin put it, "endless tinkering with PowerPoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenged generals in order to spoon-feed them information."
Anyone who has worked in a head-shed knows he is correct, and I wish he would have found another target other than generals. Maybe just leaving it at "the cognitively challenged" would have been fine. He'd probably find support from CENTCOM Commander General James Mattis, who once said "PowerPoint makes us stupid."
Some officers don't want to hear any information unless it can be briefed on a slide, accompanied by a red, green or amber status. How do you categorize the nuances of counterinsurgency or conventional combat that way on a daily basis?
Then there is the time required to make pretty slides that would make the savviest administrative assistant blush. Many staff officers spend so much time making slides for a brief that they can't accomplish their regular duties, only to be attacked in that briefing for one of those duties not being classified as "green".
It's really taxing, and it's what leads us to a paradigm where we are trying to fight wars like this:
Norwegian journalist Paul Refsdal was somehow able to score an embed with Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan. Aside from the utterly asinine commentary from the anchor in the beginning, this is a really insightful peace of journalism:
Here are some observations:
Some will be angry that this guy was hanging out with the enemy, and I can definitely understand that sentiment and even share it, partially. But this video has real value, aside from journalistic and historical value, in the intelligence contained within. This is a recorded display of enemy TTPs. Also, the shots Refsdal took can be used to easily identify the fighting positions of Darwan and his men.
Refsdal seems to not understand the Taliban's penchant for exaggeration. "Killed 30 men with this weapon" likely means fired a couple shots at a FOB. "80 mujaheddin" in "groups of 10" is probably more like 12 in buddy teams. A "stopped patrol" with a "destroyed vehicle" and "troops are killed" likely means they shot a tire out on a humvee.
Darwan says "they do this when they are wounded", referring to indirect fire. Interesting that his perception is that, rather than "they do this when our attack has revealed our position".
Again, I find this video incredibly valuable. However, as they say in the Army, there is a fine line between stupid and hooah. I don't think there's any question as to which of those two categories "white guy embedding with Taliban forces" falls in to (it's definitely not "hooah").
For more commentary on this, check out Spencer and Ex.
I've already written on twooccaisions to point out that the Pentagon stating that all "combat-troops" have left Iraq does not mean that there are not American troops in combat in Iraq. Here's another reminder:
Don't worry about losing your extra pays and combat zone tax exclusion when combat operations in Iraq officially come to an end.
Starting Sept. 1, the U.S. mission in Iraq will officially change to mentoring Iraqi troops and police, marking a symbolic end to the U.S. combat mission there. Even though the Defense Department has said the move won't affect troops' pay, rumors along those lines have persisted, prompting Stars and Stripes to ask the department about this matter.
"Iraq (land and airspace) is included in the list of designated hostile fire or imminent danger pay areas (effective since Sep 17, 1990)," said Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen Lainez in an e-mail. "These pays are based upon a location's designation as a combat zone or direct support area. Therefore, the pays won't change Sept. 1."
Don't get me wrong. Every Soldier who is deployed to Iraq deserves ever cent of special pay and tax exclusion they are getting, if not more. But, while there are supposedly no "combat-troops" in Iraq, we still have units conducting training and advising missions (as well as counterterrorism missions), we are still losing Soldiers in combat, and Soldiers are still getting payed for being in a combat zone.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it's not an end to combat-troops in Iraq.
G4 has ordered a high-stakes documentary-style reality show that follows a bomb-disposal squad in Afghanistan.
Billed as a real-life version of the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker," the Comcast-owned cable channel has ordered 10 one-hour episodes of "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan."
The show's producers (unrelated to the team behind the film) secured a special agreement with the U.S. Navy to follow an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit. The show will cover the unit's training sessions in the States and its deployment for several months in Afghanistan.
I have two issues with this. First, I can't imagine this kind of thing being done in any manner other than a trivializing way that makes it look like an episode of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here! We've all seen the way ridiculous reality shows are cut and edited for those with short attention spans. Spinning sparkling graphics, quick cut aways, lack of context, etc. This thing will be craptastic and will surely gloss over the realities and nuances of combat.
Second is an operational concern. What are they going to show to make this thing interesting? Actual EOD bomb techs dismantling ordinance? The equipment they use and how it works? That will be a great instructional video for the enemy on how to build IEDs that are more complicated to thwart. This thing has a serious potential to endanger the lives of our troops down range.
I realize I'm making a lot of assumptions on the content here, but how else will the show be produced where viewers will actually want to see it? Guy puts on bomb suit (viewed from a distance so as not to show any vulnerabilities the suit may have) and walks towards what may be an IED. Cut to "confessional" of bomb tech saying "yep, I dismantled that ordinance". That would be boring, and anything that would make it not boring shouldn't be shown on television.
Let's hope this thing get's squashed before it ever airs.
Oh, and on his way out the door, USMC Commandant James Conway is doing his best to raisesomeeyebrows. Conway has been acting a little to big for his britches (as we say in the South) for a while now, thinking he is someone who gets to decide which orders he will or will not obey from the Commander-in-Chief. If he were a Private, he'd be spending a couple hours rolling around in the mud. James Amos can't get in the job fast enough.
Today, VoteVets is launching an open letter to the organizers of the Park51 Community Center in lower Manhattan in support of their project. Here is the text of the letter:
As veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are writing to support your right to build a community center on the property you purchased in Lower Manhattan, and urge you to continue on with your project. We encourage you to distribute this letter to all those who may be interested, so they know that veterans like us see this as an important issue of our very Constitution and our national security.
There are two very important reasons we are choosing to speak out. First and foremost, when we signed up for service, we swore to uphold the Constitution. For all the talk these days from some quarters about the importance of protecting the Constitution and allowing the free market to work unfettered, those same people are fighting against a your community's right to buy property and worship freely. Our duty to protect the Constitution didn't end when our service did. It's up to us to stand up for the right for all Americans to enjoy the Constitutional freedoms that so many around the world don't have. So, we are standing up for you.
Secondly, allowing the Community Center to move forward will deal a blow to the propaganda of al Qaeda and Islamist extremists, who recruit on the talking point that the United States is in a war against Islam. Of course, we're not. But, if those forces of intolerance win, it will certainly appear that we are in a war against one religion - Islam.
As Matthew Alexander, a former interrogator in Iraq, and VoteVets.org member wrote at the Huffington Post, "Imagine an al Qaeda recruiter attempting to sway a potential charge by citing an imaginary American war against Muslims but having to face the counterargument that Americans built a Muslim community center near the site of the former Twin Towers. The Cordoba House would be a powerful symbol of U.S. tolerance and freedom that will stand in direct contradiction to al Qaeda's narrative that Americans hate Muslims."
That's the point. Defeating al Qaeda will take the use of force. But, it will also take destroying their ability to recruit, and that means winning hearts and minds. As veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we know all too well the importance of having the people on your side.
For our Constitution and for the safety of America and our troops currently in the field, we are writing in full support of your project. As veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, we believe the construction of your community center isn't "anti-America" at all. In fact, building your community center is about as pro-America as one can get.
Whenever there is an issue of bigotry directed at Muslims in America, it's a safe bet that you can find Frank Gaffney behind it. Such is the case with the opposition to the "Ground Zero Mosque" (which is of course neither a mosque, nor at Ground Zero). Organizers of protest would have you believe that this is a completely organic movement of concerned, grassroots citizens. However, if you look to the site of the organization that organizes the movement, to include Sunday's protests at the Park51 site, you'll find a different explanation.
As Glenn Greenwald discovered, the domain name for the organization is registered to the Center for Security Policy. CSP, of course, was founded and is headed by Frank Gaffney.
If Gaffney's name sounds familiar to you, it may be because, as a result of his absolute lunacy, he is a favorite target of mine here. Or, it may be because you've heard of some of his outrageous comments elsewhere.
For example, Frank Gaffney has called President Obama "America's first Muslim President" and has stated that the U.S. Missle Defense Agency's logo is a secret manifestation of the President's secret Muslim faith, that the President is not an American citizen, and that the President sends secret coded messages to al-Qaeda and the Taliban that the United States plans to submit to Sharia law. Gaffney also stated that he was "delighted" that American troops died in Iraq. As late as last year, Gaffney was still connecting Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks.
So when Fox News or some other outlet tries to convince you that the protest of the Islamic Cultural Center blocks away from "ground zero" is not about protesting Islam or general bigotry, remember that Frank Gaffney is the guy calling the shots.
"The welcome mat for memoirs by veterans of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom might never wear out so long as they write with the savvy of Brandon Friedman . . . Friedman's take is vivid, frank, precise and dramatic."--Military Times
"Add Brandon Friedman's The War I Always Wanted to the ranks of outstanding non-fiction produced by officers from elite combat units in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Always truthful, often excruciatingly so, The War I Always Wanted rises at numerous points to the level of literature."--Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire
"A Time To Lead confirms the rewarding benefits of military service at a time when such service is experiencing considerable strain. It also includes a comprehensive description of America's current national imperatives, which deserve serious consideration."--General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., former Secretary of State
"This is a primer on leadership forged in battle and by decades of experience. . .This isn't just a book; it's a manual for leading people and living a good life."--Barry McCaffrey, General, USA (ret.)
"Whip smart, sassy, with a mouth as foul as a sailor's, 28-year-old Sergeant Kayla Williams. . .tells what it's like to be a female soldier in Iraq."--Booklist
". . .echoes military memoirists from Julius Caesar to Ernie Pyle."--Publishers Weekly
". . .a shocking, on-the-ground view of one military woman's experience in Iraq."--Bookmarks Magazine
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