No, Senator Biden, This is OUR War

“I know we in Congress agreed to go to war, President Roosevelt, but here in December 1942 the war is costing us too much in expenditures and casualties, and so now we want nothing to do with it. This is now your war President Roosevelt, and you alone will be responsible for its outcome. Although we authorized the war and agreed our intelligence on Hitler justified action, we now think you were wrong and will not support the war.” As outlandish as this fictional exchange may sound, Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), the incoming Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed just such a course in comments made during a teleconference with reporters today. Biden, apparently unaware that Christmas should bring goodwill toward men, spent the day after Christmas blasting the President’s Iraq strategy. While such behavior is normal for Biden, the Senator made a few remarks that deserve further scrutiny.

Biden told reporters he wants to hold hearings on Iraq beginning on January 9, and added that the purpose of the hearings would be to create bipartisan consensus on Iraq. The Senator is so enamored with the recommendations of The Iraq Study Group Report that he wants to review its findings and give them more media attention than they initially received. Of course, the ISG findings were highly critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the war, so it is unclear how rehashing its findings in the media will generate bipartisan consensus on anything. It is far more likely that Senator Biden seeks a more public forum in which to present Americans with his diplomatic bona fides in advance of his bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008.

More troubling was this comment from Biden: “Mr. President, this is your war.” In the difficult early years of U.S. involvement in WWII, there were some very bleak moments, many lost battles, and terrible casualties. Hitler continued to advance, and many were losing hope of eventual victory. Despite such misery and with no certainty of success, where were the Senators telling President Roosevelt, “Mr. President, this is your war”? Fortunately, that generation, unlike Mr. Biden’s, understood that once American troops are committed to a war, bipartisanship means doing everything necessary to ensure victory rather than ridicule the President or accuse him of lying to create the war in the first place. There is no such thing as “your war” or “his war” or Bush’s war.” When our troops are fighting, it is OUR war. When they win, we win. When they lose or are prevented from winning by obstructionists like Biden, we all lose. There will always be time for hearings, committees, investigations, and other tools for embarrassing a president after the war is won and the troops have returned home.

However, for Senator Biden and other Democrats seeking the presidency in 2008, victory in Iraq is unacceptable politically. It would give too much credibility to Republicans who stayed the course in supporting the Bush strategy, and make those who opposed the war appear like nothing more than 1960s peaceniks with little stomach for difficult times or battles. A U.S. victory in Iraq, in the minds of today’s Democrats, means political defeat in 2008. Accordingly, even the politically astute Hillary Clinton has joined the ranks of anti-war presidential hopefuls in a risky gamble that victory in Iraq will not be snatched from the jaws of defeat prior to the 2008 election. Pete Rose’s betting on a sport he was personally involved in pales in comparison, and the stakes were never this high.

Candidates like Biden rise up indignantly when their patriotism is questioned, but patriotism is displayed by how well one works to achieve American victory, not how fast one can bring the troops home. Based on that criterion, it is fair to challenge Biden’s patriotism, because he has labored unwearyingly to cast the war in a negative light and clamor for a pullout of all U.S. troops at the earliest possible date. He is not interested in victory because he believes the war should never have been fought. He continues to carp on this administration for waging this war instead of offering useful ideas for how to win it now that we are in it. Either Biden has no such ideas or he simply cannot bear the thought of eventual victory, because winning the war would confirm he and the entire anti-war, anti-bush movement within the Democratic Party were wrong about this President and the Iraqi people.

Thankfully during the many initial defeats America faced in WWII, Senators possessed sufficient patriotism to tell President Roosevelt, “This is OUR war.” The size of the war does not matter. Which party was in office when it started is insignificant. Who will receive the credit for victory or the blame for defeat is irrelevant. The only questions so-called bipartisan lawmakers should be contemplating are: “how will we win OUR war, and what can I do to make that possible?” When a Senator holds hearings to discuss those questions and then acts to achieve victory, then his/her patriotism will be beyond question.

Joseph Biden Iraq Study Group Hillary Clinton Iraq War Senate Foreign Relations Committee

You Say Sunni, I say Shiite, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off!

After 5 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) has been selected as the new Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. This man bravely served in Vietnam as a helicopter crew chief, and has sat on the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees. Yet despite these credentials, this man, like most of his colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee, has no grasp of even the basic beliefs and motivations of the various sects warring with each other in Iraq.

During a recent interview with Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly, Reyes did not know whether Al Qaeda was Sunni or Shiite, nor did he understand the difference between the two factions. Reyes likewise demonstrated an equally appalling lack of knowledge when asked about Hezbollah. Stein’s descriptions of the interview and his conversations with other members of the Intelligence Committee (Democrats and Republicans) serve as an expected, yet still chilling, illustration of the consequences of the American penchant for selecting shallow, ambitious leaders lacking judgment and character, which I wrote about recently. Ambition is time-consuming. Having been closely involved in a professional capacity with a few campaign cycles, one thing has been obvious to me: our elected officials spend far more time working to get elected and remain in office than they do conducting the business of our government.

It should surprise no one that members of a House Intelligence Committee have not studied any of the issues before the Committee. Sadly, that is what staffers are for. Congressman and Senators simply do not have time to become educated on such trivial matters as Al Qaeda, Sunnis, Shiites, and Hezbollah, because studying issues interferes with fundraising and campaigning. Our elected officials, at best, receive briefings which consist of sound-bite length snippets spoon fed by staffers who are not experts in military, terrorism, or intelligence matters. There is no more potentially dangerous example of “the blind leading the blind” than how the House and Senate handle intelligence.

Of course, it would be helpful if candidates could be found who bring some level of experience (military, intelligence, counter-terrorism, etc) into office, but this should not be a requirement. Rather, it should be required that once elected and selected for any committee, the Representative or Senator must become conversant in the topics of that committee. Yet this is all too often how government committees are formed, not by qualification but instead by name recognition and/or seniority. The Iraq Study Group is a perfect illustration. Sandra Day O’Connor, Vernon Jordan, and Leon Panetta had no background in military or intelligence matters, yet they were selected to analyze the situation in Iraq and determine what military and intelligence tactics and strategies should be implemented to improve the situation. Jordan and Panetta were Adviser and Chief of Staff to Former President Clinton, with no known credibility within the military or intelligence communities.

Not surprisingly, in the anti-war hysteria of the 2006 mid-term elections, the ISG was forced to conclude the only solution was a 79 point plan to pull out of Iraq and let the new democratic Iraqi government be crushed in a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. How narcissistically ironic that a group consisting of 7 former attorneys came to the conclusion that talking (to Iran and Syria, both of which are funding and training, and arming our enemies in Iraq) was the best way to handle terrorists. Lawyers seem convinced they can talk their way into or out of anything including radical Islam’s hatred for infidels. They could find no strategy for victory because they know nothing about military strategy or the situation in Iraq.

Stein’s interview with Reyes should alarm every American. If our “intelligence” committees do not understand the root causes of conflict and who the various players are on the stage of world terrorism, how will they make decisions about funding our intelligence agencies and what tactics or technologies should or should not be utilized? We should not be blinded or awed by office holders with extensive credentials on government committees. Committees meet infrequently, and that merely makes running for office the only full time job that has our leaders’ full attention. Perhaps our televised debates should include questions that actually test a candidate’s knowledge rather than his skill for eloquently stating nothing of substance.

Would Reyes be serving a 5th term in the House if he had been asked in a debate, “is Al Qaeda Sunni or Shiite, and what’s the difference”? Unfortunately our elections and debates are not a screening process for qualified applicants; they are pathetic pageants for shallow contestants. In Reyes’s case, he appears to have been a potentially valuable addition to Congress when first elected, but chose instead to remain shallow, at least in his knowledge of the most important issue of our time: protecting America from those who want to destroy it and its allies. We should and must demand better.

elections Al Qaeda Silvestre Reyes Iraq Study Group House Intelligence Committee Sunni Shiite

4 Hand Grenades, 1 handgun and a Partridge . . .

Yesterday, the FBI thwarted a plot by an Illinois man to acquire 4 grenades and a handgun, and detonate the grenades on December 22nd in the CherryVale shopping mall in Rockford, Illinois. The 22 year old suspect, Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef, claimed he wanted to conduct “violent jihad” during what he believed would be the busiest evening for Christmas shopping, as the 22nd would be the Friday of Christmas weekend. The date and target site were selected with the desire to inflict maximum casualties among shoppers. Shareef reportedly met with an undercover FBI agent in the mall parking lot and attempted to trade 2 stereo speakers for 4 grenades (which were of course inert) and a handgun.

It seems this self-proclaimed terrorist has not been monitoring the news lately, because he seems to have missed the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report, which should have pacified any terrorist who still believed our nation had the stomach to fight terrorists. Since the Iraq study group came to the laughable conclusion that we are creating terrorism by our presence in Iraq, and that if we leave Iraq, terrorists will stop plotting to kill Americans, their recommendation to tuck tail and flee Iraq in shame should have doused the flame of radical Islam roaring in Shareef. Apparently radical Islam did not get the congratulatory memo from the ISG granting victory to the terrorists, since they are still fomenting terrorist acts against America despite our obvious move toward a withdrawal. Will leaving Iraq end the radical Islamic desire to kill Americans? Of course not. Shareef is living proof of this fact.

The ISG also declared that settling the eternal war between Israel and its neighbors will end terrorism. Oh! I thought ending terrorism required something challenging, but if all it takes is ending the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, then we should have that wrapped up before Christmas, right James Baker? To the members of the ISG, if our tremendous military could not eliminate the “insurgents,” why should anyone believe the Iraqi military and police forces will succeed in protecting and preserving this newly established democratically elected government? We rushed to push Sadaam out of Kuwait because he was supplanting an existing government, not even a democracy. Now in Iraq, millions braved suicide bombers and IEDs and snipers to vote and establish a democracy, and you recommend leaving this fledgling government to protect itself because things are tough there? Sadly, the ISG proved that countless years of experience (who knew Sandra Day O’Connor was a military and counter-terrorism expert?) do not automatically produce wisdom to match.

What is surprising is that despite all of the political thriller books, television programs, and movies depicting small cells of terrorists in the USA carrying out acts like the one planned by Shareef, none have occurred. Yet. Israel has borne the brunt of shopping mall and restaurant bombings, largely due to its proximity to its enemies. We have been fortunate to avoid such widespread, small-scale attacks. Yet during our period of good fortune, our enemies have made deep inroads into American culture and have become experts in using our personal liberties to conceal their true intentions. The question no one wants to think about, the nightmare for the intelligence and law enforcement communities is “how many Talib Shareefs are there among us?” The chilling follow-up question is “can we catch them all before they strike?” As anyone in the intelligence or law enforcement field will admit, the answer is no. We cannot be right 100% of the time, and the resources are simply not sufficient (nor is the public willing) to secure all potential targets. One need only look at the public paranoia (encouraged by the MSM) over surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act to know we will eventually be defeated from within, not from without. No global power will land on our shores and conquer us. We will fold from within, as we have been doing since Vietnam and continue to do at an ever increasing rate in the War on Terror.

This raises a critical issue that receives insufficient attention. Since terrorism is a product of ideology, can we really wage war on it? Our military and intelligence personnel have discovered that killing “insurgents” does not serve as a sufficient deterrent when fighting an enemy that views martyrdom and suicide bombing as a path to eternal glory. They will never openly confront our far superior military on any battlefield, but will continue to strike with small scale but lethal tactics until they frustrate their mighty opponent in Iraq and convince the American public (with ample and gleeful assistance from the MSM) that the fight is not worth it (which has already been accomplished). Perhaps we have all forgotten that whether or not the Iraq Conflict is a cornerstone in the larger War on Terror, the name of the military operation there was, and remains, Operation Iraqi Freedom. The name is not “Operation Iraqi Freedom Unless it Becomes Difficult or Grave.” Iraqi Freedom. How long is too long to fight to preserve freedom?

Complicating the matter is the fact that conversion of young Islamic radicals to a Jihad-ready ideology is occurring at an alarming rate in America. The home grown terrorist poses enormous investigative and prosecutorial nightmares in a society based on individual liberties. The FBI and other agencies are relatively proficient at tracking persons with known terrorist ties who visit the US. However, as the Shareef mall grenade plot demonstrates, attacks planned by home grown terrorists usually are discovered only when an informant (a friend, neighbor, or family member) reports them to law enforcement. Many assassins and attackers in the planning stages cannot help but boast of what they intend to do. It is an often irrepressible human urge. Islamic radicals, if they discuss their planned attacks, will not boast to “infidels” but to others of their faith and, they hope, sympathetic brothers and sisters in that faith. This is the key to winning the War on Terror. Muslims need to demonstrate that they truly belong to a religion of peace by policing their communities and yes, informing on those with ties to radical factions espousing violence. Until this happens regularly and as a matter of course in predominantly Muslim communities, the potential for attacks like Shareef’s will only increase.

An eternal debt of gratitude is owed to the friend who contacted the FBI in time to prevent a Christmas tragedy in Illinois.

FBI CSAG Iraq Jihad James Baker War On Terror Iraq Study Group radical Islam