Obama vs. Bwazir the Gitmo Detainee Who Wouldn’t Leave

Posted on January 23, 2016 by mjgranger

So, Mohammed Ali Abdullah Bwazir, 35- or 36- year old detainee at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a “committed” and a “trained al Qaeda fighter,” with a four page Department of Defense docket, wants to stay in President Barack Obama’s gulag. Really?

Bwazir

I can see the Saturday Night Live skit now. Obama travels to Gitmo to try and convince Bwazir to leave. He tells Bwazir that if he stays he will cause terrorist organizations all over the world to increase their recruiting. “It’s not who we are,” Obama would plead. “It’s an embarrassment,” he’ll kvetch.

“Are you kidding?” Bwazir would counter (to the theme of “Green Acres”). “Club Gitmo is the place to be. Island living is the life for me! Land and sea spreading out so far and wide, forget Yemen, give me this Caribbean paradise!”

Obama: “Bu, bu, but, Bwazir, my brother, you can go back to your squalid, dirty, disgusting life! You know, the one that led you to seek jihadi training at the Khaldan Training Facility, in Afghanistan?!”

Bwazir: “Barack, my brother, here, I get prayer beads, prayer rug, a free Koran, your military Muslim chaplains to help me pray (and smuggle uncensored messages to my peeps), and a green arrow painted on the floor of my cell pointing the way to Mecca. Plus, I get halal meals, and lamb and baklava on holy days.”

Gitmo Quran

Obama: “Forget about that! What about your mama’s home cooking? Sugar konafa, goat milk curds and honey-glazed beetles!”

Bwazir: “You don’t understand, Barack, my brother. This ocean air is good for my formerly sand infested lungs. I love to watch the black Cuban rock iguanas sunning on the beach rocks. The banana rats are hilarious when they fight for the food scraps we save to feed them with at night. Besides, they don’t have Harry Potter books in Yemen!”

black_iguana

Obama: “OK, OK, so the flora and fauna at Gitmo are more entertaining than in your home town. I get that. But I’ve really got to close this place. I promised to do it over seven years ago and people are beginning to think I can’t keep my promises. Can’t a brother get some love here?”

Bwazir: “I feel you, my brother, but do you realize I have had better treatment here in 14 years than I could ever hope for back home or in some third world country of your choosing? Free check-ups, dental and vision care, and Ensure when I’m not feeling like eating for myself. And have you seen the candy they give in the MRE’s?

Obama: “Bwazir, I’m going to have to insist that you leave.”

Bwazir: “OK, I will leave on one condition. I get to come and stay at your house. I hear you have two lovely daughters!”

Obama: “Whoa, there padnah! Let’s not get carried away! I said I gotta close the place, but coming to the United States is out of the question.”

Bwazir: “But I thought you had to prove to people you were not a liar. If you don’t close this place you will lose your legacy of effective foreign policy.”

Obama: “No, no, no. You don’t understand. If I let you come to the United States and let you loose people will say I don’t care about the safety of the American people.”

Bwazir: “Fine, but I don’t want to go back to Yemen. I want to go live with my sister and brother-in-law Saudi Arabia, or with my uncle in the UAE.”

Obama: “Uh, I’d like to do that, but we don’t have enough money to bribe them with, and they won’t take credit.”

Bwazir: “Then I am staying here. That turf soccer pitch is my field of dreams. I could never leave it, or this great free Muslim resort you have here. Thank you, my brother, but no. It’s the White House or Gitmo.”

White House

Obama: “Final offer?”

Bwazir: “Final offer.”

Obama: “OK, you can come to Washington, D.C., but you’ll have to accept a job with CAIR. Nobody who’s a brother of mine is going to live on welfare.”

Curtain.

When Artistic Expression Equals Death

Posted on October 2, 2015 by mjgranger

The bodies lay where they were moments before innocently creating humor, or so they had thought. Militant Muslims, jihadis, terrorists or Islamists depending on your level of political correctness, had just murdered 12 artists in the offices of the French satirist newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

The comic newspaper had published cartoon images of Mohammad, the Muslim prophet, against the threats and warnings of Islamists. Charlie Hebdo had been warned against portraying the religious icon in physical form and against satirizing him. In fact, the paper had suffered a previous terrorist attack several years prior to this one, just nine months ago, but made no accommodation in their artistic expression to the sensitivities of those they knew would be violently offended at their art.

When does basic human decency, and sensitivity to others and the right to freely express oneself meet? When people ignore the entropy of equal parts responsibility with equal parts rights.

We’ve all been scolded at one point or another by a loving parent who taught us at a young age, “Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD do something.” Don’t we have a basic human responsibility not to purposely offend others, even if we feel we have a right to do so?

Apparently in the artistic world, limits and self-control do not apply. If they do apply, say militant artists, then it is not free expression and we are doomed as a society if we flinch in the face of bullying and terrorist tactics like those perpetrated against Charlie Hebdo.

In free societies we still have limits. There are limits to free speech in the United States. One cannot yell out “FIRE!” in a crowded movie theater if there is no fire without exposing onesself to legal prosecution should their negligence cause injury or property damage or financial loss due to stampeding patrons. One cannot maliciously write libelous and slanderous accusations about someone they don’t like without the potential for legal consequences.

So why is it that some artists feel they are immune to natural and moral limits on their expression?

In the Manhattan, New York, Park Avenue Armory, a military drill hall turned performance space, artist Laurie Anderson has created a multi-media expression of art that is highly offensive to a vulnerable segment of our society.

Ms. Anderson’s show includes the live projected image of a released Guantanamo Bay detainee by the name of Mohammed el Gharani. Gharani also speaks to the audience who roam the space, listening to Ms. Anderson’s music and Mr. Gharani’s “stories.” He is physically in West Africa, but his image is projected onto a white plaster likeness of a human being, presenting the frightening perception of his physical presence here, live, in the place where soldiers once trained and near the place where Mr. Gharani’s colleagues, on 9/11/01 destroyed more lives and property than did our enemies in WWII at Pearl Harbor and on the beaches of Normandy, France, on December 7, 1941 and June 6, 1944, respectively.

This would be like allowing neo-Nazi’s to perform mock executions of Jews in the preserved remains of Auchwitz, Poland, in the name of artistic expression.

Gharani’s stories include those of his alleged poor treatment at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also known as Gitmo. In fact, Mr. Gharani was treated with dignity and respect from his very first steps into Camp X-Ray on February 8, 2002. I know because I was there, as the ranking U.S. Army Medical Department officer with the Joint Detainee Operations Group, Joint Task Force 160, seeing to his treatment after he fell/fainted in the detainee shower during his in-processing.

Mr. Gharani impressed me and my medical colleagues as a liar, someone who was behaving as the Al Qaeda manual on how to act when captured instructed him to – including disruption of detention operations, faking injuries, lying about treatment, claiming to have been tortured, hunger strikes, and lawyering up as soon as possible. I write explicitly about this encounter in my memoir, “Saving Grace a t Guantanamo Bay.”

Mr. Gharani had been captured in the Tora Bora section of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in the fall of 2001, after U.S. and coalition forces invaded Afghanistan in an effort to destroy Al Qaeda the Taliban and then bring AQ’s leader, Usamma bin Laden to justice.

Gharani has a Department of Defense rap sheet ten pages long, and is a trained Al Qaeda foot soldier, suicide bomber and high level courier who interacted with bin Laden, and who was captured while engaged in hostilities toward the U.S. and coalition forces.

Lest we forget, these actions by the U.S. and later up to 39 other countries, were in response to the Al Qaeda’s planned and executed attack of September 11, 2001, which saw the murder of over 3,000 men, women and children, and the destruction of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in the very city where Ms. Anderson is producing her feckless show.

Insult to injury is the purpose and method of her insidious performance. Not too far from Ground Zero and the monuments and memorials of the dead from 9/11/, and housed in the hallowed space where a museum and artifacts of New York’s storied 42^nd Infantry Division are preserved, and in fact in the place where I served military duty as a combat medic during the First Gulf War in 1991, Ms. Anderson is pulling off the perception of having a freed Gitmo detainee appear on U.S. soil.

It is illegal for Gharani, a former detainee, to be present in the United States, and this performance flaunts the spirit of that law, on purpose. And in so doing, Ms. Anderson rips open sensitive wounds of the victims of terror, their families and loved ones, of veterans and military personnel, and the memory and sacrifice of those who gave their lives in defense of this great nation so that people like Ms. Anderson could enjoy the benefits and privilege of freedom of expression.

This betrayal is on the same scale as that of (Hanoi) Jane Fonda’s stunt during the Vietnam War when she visited our enemies in Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, while U.S. soldiers were being killed by North Vietnamese soldiers in the jungles of South Vietnam. Ms. Fonda was protesting the war, but at the same time giving aid and comfort to the enemy. To this day I have no idea why she was let back into the United States and then not prosecuted for treason – or at least a civilian version of “misbehavior before the enemy,” a military charge facing accused Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

Where does freedom of expression and artistic license end and common decency and respect to the sensitivities of others begin? Does it exist at all? Should it?

The Golden Rule of treating others the way you want to be treated, the foundation of the Judeo/Christian ethic that founded this great nation of ours, is being ignored, in favor of Ms. Anderson’s Pagan, utilitarian, humanist ethic of, “if it feels good, do it,” and “if it’s useful to ME, it is good.”

The result is damage to the hearts and souls of those who are rightfully offended at this insensitive mockery of the meaning and purpose of all that is good and wholesome about our country, our military and our City of New York.

Haven’t we all suffered enough? Must we continue to endure the irresponsible slings and arrows of self-righteous artists who claim the moral high ground by glorifying our enemies?

What’s next, Laurie, a candlelight vigil for the 19 highjackers at Ground Zero?

God forbid this artistic expression inspires the next senseless act of terror.

NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 11: Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001 in New York City. The crash of two airliners hijacked by terrorists loyal to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and subsequent collapse of the twin towers killed some 2,800 people. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

This photo made during an escorted visit and reviewed by the US military, shows the razor wire-topped fence and a watch tower at the abandoned “Camp X-Ray” detention facility at the US Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, April 9, 2014. AFP PHOTO/MLADEN ANTONOV (Photo credit should read MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images)

Al Qaeda’s “Goebbels” to Be Released From Gitmo

Posted on September 20, 2015 by mjgranger

He wore no swastika on his arm or skull and crossbones on his cap, but if ever there were an Al Qaeda “Goebbels,” Faiz Mohammed Ahmed al Kandari is him. Captured in December of 2001, while leading Al Qaeda fighters out of the Tora Bora section of Afghanistan into Pakistan, was a religious advisor to Usama bin Laden, and has spent the last 13 years of his life at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Kandari, Kuwaiti citizen, is a religious leader, Al Qaeda recruiter and fighter, was a known associate of bin Laden. He is also known to be a university trained student of Islamic Studies (Sharia Law), and applied this knowledge when producing multi-media recruiting materials that included the success of the attacks of 9/11/01 in his appeals for young recruits to join the fight against the infidels. He indoctrinated Al Qaeda fighters, and spread the word of jihad, issuing fatwas even from Gitmo.

Surely, he would have made a great Nazi.

Why then, is his time at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, coming to an end?

The Daily Caller announced that he is slated for return to Kuwait, stating that “The [Periodic Review] Board determined the detainee’s threat can be adequately mitigated by the Kuwaiti government’s commitment to require and maintain the detainee’s participation in a rehabilitation program and to implement robust security measures to include monitoring and travel restrictions.”

Imagine if Joseph Goebbels, once named Reich Chancellor by Hitler himself before his suicide, had been captured and then, instead of being tried and then executed for war crimes, had been subsequently released to a German rehab program, promising to be good from now on?

As it was, Goebbels committed suicide, just as did his evil role model, Adolph Hitler. If only Kandari had been so bold he could have saved 13 years of incarceration. Apparently, his patience has paid off.

Obama era detainees, some of the “worst of the worst,” have been released for some of the most incredible reasons. The famous Taliban Five, known leaders of the Taliban, were released in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. Army soldier who walked away from his post in Afghanistan, came under Taliban control and was later accused of desertion.

How much longer will the American people tolerate this indignity and treason?

Article III, Section 3, Clause 1, of the U.S. Constitution defines treason this way:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

What part of this repeated exchange or release of known enemies is not treason?

Gitmo is neither corrections nor punishment, it is simply detention.

During WWII the U.S. held over 400,000 lawful combatant POW’s without one call for extra-legal privileges or trials for them. Why? The Geneva Conventions and Law of Land Warfare (Army FM 27-10) do not call for trials unless POW’s or unlawful combatant detainees (spies, saboteurs) were accused of war crimes. Captured soldiers who followed the rules were simply held “until the end of hostilities,” and then repatriated to their country of origin.

So too, should unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill us be incarcerated, “until the end of hostilities.”

Human rights groups and Islamist apologists cry “foul,” saying keeping detainees incarcerated “indefinitely” and “without charge” is unfair and “un-American.”

In fact it is VERY American to hold detainees until the end of hostilities. After the First Gulf War, U.S. forces held tens of thousands of lawful combatant Iraq soldiers who surrendered en mass rather than face the wrath of the world’s finest fighters. This was a smart move that kept them alive and fed until the end of combat activities in Operation Desert Storm – which lasted only ten days.

As per the Conventions, only days after the end of the conflict, Iraqi POW’s began to be repatriated.

What’s different now is that there are no lawful combatants being held at Gitmo. Captured for their intelligence value potential instead of being shot on the battlefield, all unlawful combatants being held at Gitmo are lucky to be alive.

U.S. forces do not train to run gulags or concentration camps. We train to provide detention and POW operations in war. So, when then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld told us in 2002, to treat Gitmo detainees “within the spirit of the Geneva Conventions,” he was making a two-fold statement. One, we recognize their legal status cannot be that of Prisoner of War because they did not follow the Geneva Conventions. And two, we will treat them with dignity and respect, within the spirit of Geneva, because we are the benevolent good guys.

“No one does [detention operations] better than the United States,” so said International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) physicians I worked with at Gitmo in 2002, and then later at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, after the abuse scandal there in 2005.

The current nonsense about closing Gitmo and moving the remaining detainees to the United States aside, it is treasonous at worst and pure folly at best to release any of them at this point.

As if by Miracle Grow, Islamists have become healthy and robust globally because of our lack of leadership and commitment in the Global War on Terror.

We must, like the Crusaders of Old Europe, and the Americans of the Barbary Wars, rise up in order to defeat the surging forces of evil that would destroy us.

Until all Islamists are dead, or no longer have the will or means to kill us we must defend ourselves. Gitmo is a small price to pay in that essential effort.

Back to Iraq? One Soldier’s View

Posted on June 12, 2014 by mjgranger

“The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” – Chris Hedges

That opening quote from “The Hurt Locker,” the Academy Award wining best picture of 2008, directed by Kathryn Bigelow and staring Jeremy Renner, is a truism that most soldiers who’ve been in combat can relate to.

Soldiering in general can be addictive, but even more so in a war zone. To be ultimately effective one must resign oneself to death. Accepting one’s death is an emotionally significant event that finds one mourning and going through the typical stages of accepting death and dying.

Shock. Disbelief. Anger. Bargaining. Acceptance.

For some each stage is distinct and vivid. For others, they blur. For soldiers, reaching the final stage, acceptance, can mean the difference between life and death, for oneself and/or for one’s comrades.

The addictive part is truly the essence of the culture of soldiering. Life is simple. You don’t have to worry about what you will be eating, where you will be going, or what you will be doing.

You have your uniform, your gear, and your weapon. Also known as your skin, your stuff and your best friend.

Every day is so similar that it’s difficult and even superfluous to count days or pay attention to the calendar until you get “short” and have very little time left. Time-wise, the battle rhythm in combat is the only thing that matters. Being on time and hitting start points and checkpoints is mission critical. And make no mistake; the MISSION isn’t just EVERYTHING it is the ONLY thing.

This is the root of the devastating pain of having left Iraq BEFORE THE MISSION WAS COMPLETE. We are still in Germany and Japan nearly 70 years after the end of WWII because the objective of the mission was LASTING PEACE. Those two countries, former deadly enemies, are now more prosperous and peaceful than nearly any other on earth.

The eradication of the enemy, unconditional surrender, and the taking away of the will and means for the enemy to resist, were military and political goals in the 1940’s. Today, the military and political goals of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) are polar opposites. Our president and his administration of rookies with respect to military and foreign policy matters are at war with our own military – ideologically speaking.

Barack Hussein Obama is completely ambivalent to the military mission in the GWOT, and even denies that it exists. He, cavalierly stated upon the exit of the last of the U.S. forces from Iraq in December 2011, “Anyone trying to derail the progress in Iraq will fail,” a completely impotent and foolish statement.

Today we are looking at an Iraq that has politically and militarily failed. Mozul and Tikrit have fallen to ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), an Al Qaeda off-shoot of Sunni Muslims, or, more accurately, Islamists, who claim responsibility for the taking of these Iraqi cities and forcing over half a million resident Iraqi citizens to flee for their lives.

The Islamists are threatening the capital city of Baghdad, now vulnerable and exposed.

Who will save Iraq?

Will the U.S. go back to finish the job it started and then abandoned?

I would; were I not married with five children, 52 years old and retired six years from the military, my addiction would have its way with me. The burning desire to FINISH the mission in Iraq would take me over and draw me back to the smoldering heat, dust, and infectious smiles and gratefulness of the Iraqi people.

You wouldn’t know it from reports by the Mainstream Media, but the average Iraqi was quite grateful for our presence in Iraq. We had helped them rebuild and then improve the entire infrastructure we destroyed upon entry in 2003.

We had suppressed Al Qaeda.

And then Barack Hussein Obama was elected and the whole thing went down the toilet. The military mission that had started so brilliantly, turned into SNAFU (firing of the Iraqi Army), and then was fixed (surge); and then after we left rapidly deteriorated and then just went away, like the end of a dust storm, quiet, so quiet, and clear, and still.

But, it didn’t take long for the wolves to smell the carcass and then come running for a taste. Bombing began almost immediately upon the dust settling behind the last U.S. military vehicle crossing the border back into Kuwait. And then a crescendo of killing recently when bombings murdered scores of innocent Iraqi citizens, paying the price for their ambivalence toward the lack of a deal with the U.S. for security and a lasting peace.

Everything was “fine” back in 2011, just like the eerie calm before the tornado hits. And hit it did, and hard, and it looks like the “Big One” is yet to touch down in that desolate place, a place of blood and sand.

I am the author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” and three times mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Retired). FB Twitter @mjgranger1

Obama, Bergdahl and the Betrayal of America

Posted on June 5, 2014 by mjgranger

Let’s forget for a moment that President Barack Hussein Obama negotiated with terrorists, broke the law requiring Congressional notification when releasing a detainee held at Guantanamo Bay, and by releasing five of the most dangerous enemies held at Gitmo. And let’s remember it cost American LIVES to capture those unlawful combatant Islamists in the first place

And it cost American LIVES (at least six) to look for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, for whom the Gitmo Five were released.

Honest military personnel don’t like it when their lives are taken for granted, or besmirched by a suspected deserter. It’s not good for morale to add to the already 600-plus RELEASED Gitmo detainees, 29 percent of whom are RECIDIVISTS. By the way, NONE of these detainees were executed, beheaded, hacked to death, blown up or dragged naked and lifeless through the streets, things our enemies did to previous captives, except for Bowe Bergdahl.

Among other ethos, the Soldier’s Creed insists that a U.S. Army soldier, “will always put the mission first,” “will never accept defeat,” and “will never quit.”

After just a few short days after his release, U.S. Army Sgt. (promoted in absentia from private during his captivity) Bowe Bergdahl’s warrior ethos is in question.

The circumstances surrounding his disappearance from his unit while serving in Afghanistan are suspect at best. In fact, there are no reports of him being taken by force by the Taliban. Sources contend that he left his post, walking away without his weapon, body armor or ammunition. Reports say he took only water, a compass, digital camera, personal diary and a knife.

From Wikileaks to those who say they served with Bergdahl, it appears that he just up and left his unit. In military terms, that’s called desertion, an offense punishable by death according to Article 85 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Furthermore, he may be suspected of committing treason, a Constitutional offense, also punishable by death, for providing “aid and comfort” to the enemy. This is something he may have done when questioned by his Taliban captors in relation to his unit’s strength, size and movements.

Reports also indicate that in the subsequent months, while his unit and others searched for Bowe,at least six U.S. soldiers died at the hands of the Taliban.

On Aug. 18, 2009, Staff Sgt. Clayton Bowen and Pfc. Morris Walker were killed by an improvised explosive device in the search for Bergdahl. Staff Sgt. Kurt Curtiss was killed on August 26; 2nd Lt. Darryn Andrews and Pfc. Matthew Michael Martinek were killed after being attacked in Yahya Khail District on September 4; Staff Sgt. Michael Murphrey was killed September 5 by an IED at the Forward Operating Base, Sharana.

His former unit mates indicate that after Bergdahl’s disappearance patterns developed in their searches for him, patterns that were immediately exploited by the enemy in increased IED attacks and base assaults when troops left to search for the missing American.

There are some who call for calm and empathy towards Bergdahl, including Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who said, “We will give him all the support he needs to help him recover from this ordeal.”

He also justified the exchange of five former detainees who were held at Gitmo, by saying, “Sgt. Bergdahl’s return is a powerful reminder of the enduring, sacred commitment our nation makes to all those who serve in uniform.”

This “sacred commitment” included the release of probably the highest-ranking enemies held at Gitmo who were not currently on trial for war crimes. The Long War Journal lists these detainees backgrounds and associations, but briefly they are:

Abdul Haq Wasiq, former Taliban intelligence official, central to the Taliban’s efforts to form alliances with other Islamic fundamentalist groups to fight alongside the Taliban against U.S. and Coalition forces after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Mullah Norullah Noori, senior Taliban military commander who was engaged in hostilities against U.S. and Coalition forces in late 2001.
Mullah Mohammad Fazl, one of the Taliban’s most experienced commanders prior to his capture in November 2001. Gitmo officials warned in a February 2008 memo that is Fazl was released “he would likely rejoin the Taliban and establish ties with [Anti-Coalition Militia] elements participating in hostilities against U.S. and Coalition forces in Afghanistan.”
Mullah Kairullah Khairkhwa was one of Mullah Omar’s closest confidantes, and directly connected to Osama bin Laden prior to his capture. He represented the Taliban during meetings with Iranian officials seeking to support hostilities against U.S. and Coalition Forces.
Mohammad Nabi Omari, senior Taliban official who served in multiple leadership roles, member of a joint Al Qaeda/Taliban Anti-Coalition Militia cell in Khowst, Afghanistan, and was involved in attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces. Also maintained weapons caches and facilitated the smuggling of fighters and weapons.

Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, has called the release of the Gitmo Five a “great victory,” which aligns well with Sgt. Bergdahl’s father, Robert Bergdahl’s, Tweet: “I am working to free all Guantanamo prisoners.”

President Barack Hussein Obama seems to be on the same team. Exchanging one dubiously loyal captured American for five of the most dangerous Gitmo detainees seems like the deal of the century, if you’re Taliban.

With this exchange, Obama has continued to nail the coffin shut on the War on Global Terror. He closed the lid when he withdrew all U.S. forces from Iraq and failed to obtain an agreement for a residual U.S. force to remain there.

Obama continues to deny we are at war with an enemy – that is gaining strength and shows no sign of weakness – through promises of ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan by 2016, and now the release of five high ranking Taliban officials.

What right-minded person could deny Obama’s complicity in handing Mullah Omar and the Taliban aid and comfort by the release of the Gitmo Five?

The nagging question is, “what now?”

What now shall we do to stem the tide of foreign policy contraction and near literal surrender to the forces of evil and death that flew planes loaded with innocent Americans into buildings full of more innocent victims, and into a field in Pennsylvania? These actions killed more Americans in one day than died at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, or on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

In the conflict that included those two days of infamy we finished the job, concluding World War II with the unconditional surrender of both Germany and Japan. But then afterwards created a road to redemption for both countries and others with our Marshall Plan of aid and infrastructure reconstruction, as well as military defense subsidies with our own troops and materiel. It was this and Ronald Reagan’s steadfast determination not to let the Soviet Union dictate global terms that won the Cold War.

With U.S. forces currently in over 150 countries world wide, to claim the Global War on Terror is over is pure folly, but Obama doesn’t even mention the global war, or terrorists, or the enemy. To him our presence overseas is a burden to other nations rather than a way to project power and influence to maintain security and to defend our interests and foreign policy goals.

In fact in May, 2013, Obama declared the war “over.” Only he forgot to tell the Taliban and Al Qaeda, who continue to this day to try and kill us.

In other words, the man who is Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States of America has abdicated his ultimate responsibility to defend this nation against all enemies – foreign and domestic.

Obama has defiled any semblance of following the Soldier’s Creed himself: he is not putting the “mission first,” has accepted “defeat,” and has “quit,” on his soldiers and on his fellow Americans.

I am the author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” and three times mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Retired). Twitter @mjgranger1

Force-Feeding Gitmo Detainees is Legal, Moral and Ethical

Posted on May 24, 2014 by mjgranger

Recently, U.S. Federal District Court Judge, Gladys Kessler, found in favor of a motion filed by attorney’s for Gitmo detainee Abu Wa’el Dhiab who asked that the intubation to keep him healthy and alive be stopped.

Why? The detainee’s attorney and liberal left, Islamist apologists say that force-feeding violates international law and “could amount to torture.” Although the judge stopped short of using the “T” word, she described force-feeding as “a painful, humiliating and degrading process.”

I was present when the very first two detainees at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were force-fed back in early 2002.

Not only weren’t these self-starving unlawful combatants not eating, they were also not drinking anything. A person can go for several weeks without eating before killing themselves or causing irreparable organ damage, but if a person were to go without drinking for just a few days there would be no turning back once vital organs, such as the kidneys or liver, shut down.

The military medical Standard Operating Procedures at Gitmo (which I helped write for the detainee mission) mentioned nothing about thirst strikes. We hadn’t thought about it. We only had protocols in place for a hunger strike. So when two hunger strikers were identified as having not had anything to drink for two days we performed an intervention, Gitmo style.

No, we didn’t waterboard them and say “suck it in!”

We appealed to their sense of religion first, if they had any. The detainees claimed to be Muslims, so we approached them with the Navy Muslim chaplain assigned to detainee operations, who spoke with the detainees through an interpreter about Allah’s instructions through the Quran that they should not willfully harm themselves.

The truth is most detainees were only pretending to be Muslims, their murderous and hateful values were acquired through Al Qaeda, the Taliban or other Islamists. In fact, the new official name for self-starvation at Gitmo is “Long Term Non-Religious Fasts.”

That failed to get the desired response, so we told them we would have to give them fluids intravenously. One detainee resisted to the point of physical refusal. We strapped him to a litter and then pushed fluids.

After several more days they were still not eating and refused to drink. We kept pushing the intravenous fluids, but it was becoming clear that we were going to have to intubate them and force nutrition into their stomachs before permanent organ damage, and then death occurred.

You see there are no military medical protocols that allow detainees to harm themselves, including self-starvation. The procedure for intubation, or forced feeding, is unpleasant, to be sure, but slowly dying because your body is feeding off of itself to the point of organ failure would probably be just a bit more uncomfortable, even torturous.

I pray you THINK about that for a moment. Is it absurd to tell someone to stop saving someone else’s life because it is potentially torturous to do so? We KNOW what happens to the body when it is not fed and nourished properly – it feeds on itself and then shuts down.

I know what you’re probably thinking: “So let the damn bastards starve themselves! It’ll save us taxpayers money and the bloodthirsty Islamists will get what they deserve – a painful and agonizing death! Remember Sept. 11! Remember Benghazi! Death to Akbar!”

We need to take a step back and then remember our values. We are the good guys. No matter what anyone else tells you, especially the left liberal, Islamist apologist uber-politically correct crowd who only want to manipulate American political will via self-starving unlawful combatant detainees, we have ethics and morals to uphold, even in the face of absurdity.

U.S. military personnel are trained to care for, and to treat with respect and dignity, any unlawful combatant that we detain, including those who wish to slowly and painfully off themselves. The majority of the U.S. military personnel working at Gitmo are professional, hard working, loyal and trustworthy individuals, who will never, ever disobey their orders to care for the detainees appropriately.

Because of this commitment to honor and integrity, International Committee of the Red Cross physicians with whom I worked at Gitmo and in Iraq told me, “Nobody does [detention operations] better than the United States.”

The Gitmo detainees are LUCKY to be ALIVE, as any or all of them could have been legally killed on the battlefield. They are even LUCKIER to have been captured by the U.S. rather than some other group with far less compassion and humanity (i.e. Al Qaeda, Taliban, or other Islamists); one that might, say, behead them, hack them to death, blow them up or drag them naked and lifeless through the streets, like they did to Daniel Pearl and Lee Rigby.

The irony drips, in thick globs, as our sworn enemy insists on being slowly and painfully allowed to die because the method being used to keep him alive is tantamount to TORTURE.

I wonder what George Orwell would say about this? I wonder what someone in a coma would say if they could, about being forcibly fed while medical science sorts out the cause of their coma? Did you know they also intubate premature infants? Ever hear that called torture?

Of course not! The act of self-starvation is a CONSCIOUS DECISION made for POLITICAL reasons by a desperate person, in this case an illegal combatant detainee.

Judge Kessler has ordered a temporary cease and desist to the forced feeding of Abu Wa’el Dhiab, and has forbidden his forced removal from his cell at Gitmo for that purpose.

I’d like to see her medical professional credentials, or her crystal ball, which she can guarantee no permanent or life-threatening damage will be done to the detainee during the time the restraint is in effect. The appellate court that sent the original appeal to end the force-feeding back to the District Court mentioned that the force-feeding procedure would “probably be allowed if it is just to prevent injury or death.”

It used to be that courts never interfered with military procedures, policies or laws. Gitmo has risen to a level of incalculable interference by the federal court system because President Barack Hussein Obama mentioned, bathed in both pre- and post-election naïveté, that he would CLOSE Gitmo within a year?

Could it be that he and U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder re-wrote the Military Commissions Act of 2006, to include rights and privileges for unlawful combatant detainees virtually identical to what you or I would enjoy in a U.S. Federal court of law?

Back to the intubation: We had the Navy Muslim chaplains and interpreter bedside with the two self-starving detainees before going ahead with the procedure, done in a private section of the detainee medical facility (an integrated and climate controlled tent system called Deployable Medical System), with low lighting and near whispering conversation.

The Muslim Navy chaplain, through the interpreter, tried to convince the detainees that their self-starvation was against Allah’s wishes, and that it would not be pleasant, and would they please reconsider.

They quietly and timidly refused, and then the Navy nurses, assisted by corpsmen, with a physician standing by, gently placed the feeding tubes through the detainee’s nostrils and then down their throats into their stomachs.

The detainees moaned slightly, winced some, and then opened their eyes wide when the nutritional liquid was slowly poured into them. So tell me, what exactly is inhumane, unethical or immoral about that?

I am the author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” and three times mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Retired). Twitter @mjgranger1

Convicted Terrorists: Your Next-Door Neighbors?

Posted on April 16, 2014 by mjgranger

Son-in-law to Osama bin Laden, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, recently convicted of providing and conspiring to provide material support to terrorism and conspiring to kill Americans, in a federal criminal courtroom in New York City, was “the most senior Bin Laden confederate to be tried in a civilian court in the United States since September 11.”

The liberal left were unabashedly gleeful at the conviction, not because justice had been done, but that the trial took place on U.S. soil rather than by Military Commission at the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Location, location, location. This mantra is not lost on liberal Islamist apologists who act as though anyone ever held at Gitmo or accused of terrorism should be freed and compensated. This is similar to the 16 British nationals, including Moazzam Begg, who were awarded nearly 1 million pounds sterling each rather then be put on trial, which the British government said would have been “extremely expensive” and may have compromised “national security,” to hell with principle and true justice.

With the conviction of Abu Ghaith, we see repetitive behavior from the Obama administration with relation to giving aid and comfort to the enemy – this time in the form of a federal criminal court which could give him a light sentence and see him free to re-join his released and never caught brothers in years to come.

According to Human Rights First, the U.S. federal criminal courts have “convicted nearly 500 individuals on terrorism-related charges” since Sept. 11, 2001, yet there are only “over 300 individuals” in federal prisons on terrorism-related convictions.

My question is, where are the other nearly 200 terrorist convicts?

Were they deported? Did they go home? Did they go back to a life of jihad? Are they in your neighborhood?

We know some of the released Gitmo detainees have returned to the battlefield, such as Abu Sufian Bin Qumu, who planned and participated in the Benghazi attack which resulted in the murders of four U.S. personnel, including Ambassador to Lybia, Christopher Stevens. But the statistics on Gitmo recidivism, now at 29 percent according to the Director of National Intelligence, belie a troubling trend; releasing the enemy does not increase our safety.

But because “there is no defined entity responsible for convicted and released terrorists,” no one knows how many of these released federally convicted terrorists have gone back to the fight, have turned over a new leaf, or are living in your neighborhood waiting for the next call from Allah to strike.

This is the epitome of left liberal Islamist apologist Pagan humanist utilitarian sentiment towards the enemy in the Global War on Terror.

Logic says that the number of terrorists caught represents only a tiny percentage of all terrorists. Imagine then if you will that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the living of the two brothers who set off the bombs in last year’s Boston Marathon massacre, had not been caught. Let’s say he was still out there on the loose, plotting his next attack.

How “safe” would you feel if you were a Boston resident knowing this accomplished terrorist was free? How safe would you feel living ANYWHERE if Tsarnaev were free?

How do you feel about nearly 200 federally convicted terrorists that are now on the loose, legally? How about the 170-plus recidivists from the over 600 released Guantanamo Bay detainees?

Say what you want about Gitmo, or our federal prisons, but none of the Gitmo detainees or federal terrorism convicts have been executed, beheaded, hacked-to-death, blown up or dragged naked and lifeless through the streets, like those of us they have caught or targeted with planes, bombs, explosive belts, vests or long knives and meat cleavers.

The fate of the likes of Daniel Pearl, Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded by Khalid Sheik Mohammad while being filmed on video, is an example of the barbarity of the Islamists who want us all dead, and are the opposite of remorseful. In fact, they consider beheading or hacking to death of “infidels” to be a religious prerogative and duty, such as revealed in the statements made by the assailants of murdered British soldier, Lee Rigby, admitting they were “Soldier[s] of Allah,” and that Rigby’s murder was “an eye for an eye.”

So-called human rights organizations, leftist Islamist apologists, and others who believe the U.S. must be a “beacon” for human rights don’t like to talk about the Daniel Pearl’s, the Lee Rigby’s or other victims of terror. They only want to discuss how “proud” they are that “justice” was done in the U.S. criminal courts.

They don’t care about how many convicted terrorists have been released, or about how many Gitmo detainees have been released and then have returned to the battlefield, because that would ruin their fantasies about righteous humanism, which is more devoid of moral foundation than had the September 11 terrorists.

We are not dealing with jaywalkers here, or even bank robbers. We are dealing with hard, cold, calculating murderers who have declared war on western civilization, making themselves unlawful combatants.

It’s not that the Taliban and al Qaeda can’t afford uniforms of their own, it’s that they CHOOSE to not let you see them coming. The Geneva Conventions were written to protect innocent civilians and property in time of war, not to protect those who PRETEND to be civilians in order to MURDER them. They are attacking overtly and covertly in an effort to TERRORIZE “non-believers” into accepting Sharia Law, and those who oppose them are better off dead. Simply, they are terrorists and should be tried in military commissions, not federal criminal courts.

How comforting is it to hundreds of the enemy that they are released to fight again, and to perhaps run off to a place like where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found, in your own backyard?

I am the author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” and three times mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Retired). Twitter: @mjgranger1

Obama’s Trust in Our Enemies Could Kill Us

Posted on March 30, 2014 by mjgranger

Punish Syria for using chemical weapons, President Barack Hussein Obama cried. Any resolution in Syria must include the removal of Assad, he insisted. Supporting the opposition was his strategy.

If blathering were a sport, the president would be world champion. And if using thoughtful common sense were a prerequisite for being Commander in Chief of the only world super power, Obama has failed out of the gate.

Instead of punishment, Vladimir Putin came to Assad’s aid with regard to Obama’s threats of military action, and now 49 percent of raw materials for chemical weapons in Syria have been removed. Had Obama had his way and perpetrated a military strike, there would be blood and bone strewn about and all chemical weapons materials would still be in Syria.

If the U.S. had armed and then trained the Syrian opposition there would be a very good likelihood that our recent Al Qaeda enemies, some fresh from Club Gitmo, would have been the beneficiaries. Now they just get logistical support from us.

Insisting upon the removal of a sovereign head-of-state while he deals with a civil war smacks of neo-colonialism. At least in Iraq the U.S. enjoyed a unanimous United Nations Security Council Resolution and 39 countries signed on to go in with us. Syria could well have been President Obama’s Bay of Pigs, with his “red line” nonsense, especially considering Syria is supported by Russia, Iran and China.

Remembering that in the First Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm) Assad provided the Coalition with the Syrian 9th Armored Division and a Special Forces Regiment to oppose Saddam Hussein in the liberation of Kuwait is far from Obama’s recollections, as well as from the memories of the mainstream media and most Americans. How soon we forget who our friends and allies were now that public opinion, shaped by the liberal media and an even more liberal Obama administration, has swung against the military and political actions of said Syrian former ally.

If we look at the slew of Arab teammates who helped perpetrate war against the rogue Hussein (Saddam, not Barack for those of you keeping score), we find Saudi Arabia (Islamist misogynists), Kuwait (same), Qatar (yup), United Arab Emirates (uh, huh), Oman (yes), and Egypt (not so much), all gave blood and treasure to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991.

Where are they now when the fire is again in their back yard, or at least in their neighbor’s back yard? Perhaps they are doing what we should be doing – letting the Islamists in Syria attrition themselves into extinction. And then, when there’s nothing left, do business again with Assad, their brother.

There is an old Arab saying: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Not in the case of Syria if Assad is our enemy. And if Assad is our enemy, what (or who) changed that between 1991 and 2011?

Islamists engaged in the Syrian conflict against Assad are not much different than Al Qaeda in Iraq; opportunistic “foreigners” trying to score credibility points by taking out “bad boy” Assad. It’s a bit cannibalistic, but leave no doubt that for us to get involved with any of the opposition factions is tantamount to playing the amphibian to the Islamist arachnida in the old proverb, “The Scorpion and the Frog:”

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.”

The frog is satisfied, and they set out. But in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”

Replies the scorpion: “It’s my nature…”

It is the nature of Al Qaeda and other Islamists to sting the frog, killing them both if necessary, for, according to one version of the parable the scorpion replies after the drowning frog protests, “it is better that we both should perish than that my enemy should live.” This is the common sense reason why we should never ally ourselves with those who would just as soon kill us as look at us.

Why then cannot the scorpions fight the king scorpion, Assad? Why involve the frog at all? Because the frog is prey.

Obama is being devoured by his own naïveté, and now by the wolves (Russia and Iran) as well as the Syrian opposition scorpions. And heck, all he did was offer them a ride across the stream, right? Ever hear Leo Durocher say, “Nice guys finish last?” Obama apparently has not.

So, Putin has his way with Crimea and Egypt (signed an arms deal with Egypt while the world – and Obama – were distracted by the Olympics), the Mullahs have their way with nukes in Iran, and Assad plays carrot with Weapons of Mass Destruction.

In the mean time, Assad waits him out, watching as the opposition scorpions keep trying to convince Obama to take them across the stream. Assad is supported by the Russians, who havemore reason than ever to thumb their nose at the U.S. (economic sanctions over the Crimea/Ukraine situation). Assad is supported by Hezbollah and the Iranians, and still apparently enjoys some gravitas from Arab neighbors due to Assad’s ganging up on fellow Ba’athist Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm.

Assad played that card to prevent Israel from taking advantage of Iraq’s instability and invading Syria during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Assad eventually gained approval from Syrians for that move, and bought himself twenty years of relative peace.

If he’s not careful, in the end, which is neigh, Obama will be left drowning in the middle of a stream, asking “why?” as his muscles turn to stone and his lungs fill with water. My question is, if that happens, where does it leave the rest of us?

I am the author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” and three times mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Retired). Twitter @mjgranger1

OBAMA’S ATTEMPT TO DISARM AND DISABLE THE US MILITARY

Posted on March 8, 2014 by mjgranger

Barack Hussein Obama seeks to use the teachings of ancient Chinese military genius Sun Tzu, as described in his famous quote: “One hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful, subduing the enemy’s military without battle is the most skillful.”

The question is: Are we going to let him?

Recently, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that he is proposing huge cutbacks in the military, especially with regard to Army personnel . The set-up for this fall included prematurely withdrawing from Iraq and announcing that all U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan would end by December 2014.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon, Wednesday, July 31, 2013. Credit: AP

We still have troops in Germany, Japan and Italy over 68 years after the end of World War II, although Obama removed the last of our Abrams M1-A2 main battle tanks from Germany last spring. The effect of removing troops from Afghanistan would be a reduction in our capability to project our power and influence in defense of our country and our best interests in the Middle East. That is a void none of our friends or allies will fill, and the vacuum created by our withdrawal will collect only those who can and will do us harm.

The most recent proposed cuts announced by Hagel amount to a gutting of an operational force to a level that would take at least a decade to rebuild, if that. I say “if that,” because the proposed cuts to future soldier benefits will help discourage the best and brightest from giving a damn about joining. If they survive their tour they might have to end up living on food stamps, like thousands of Army privates with families do today, or, if they don’t survive, their families and spouses will have crumbs to live on from reduced death benefits.

The danger of electing a president with no military experience, or respect for those who do serve, is coming home to roost. Obama hates the military and takes every opportunity to humiliate and endanger U.S. forces, especially our elite marines and Navy SEALs, and now is striking at the heart of our forces: The Army.

Imagine you are an enemy of the United States, and you are observing the behavior of our president, taking close note of even the most subtle gestures of disdain and contempt for his military, such as a Marine holding an umbrella, the famous “crotch salute,” and calling an admitted Islamists massacre of U.S. personnel and soldiers at Fort Hood “workplace violence,” denying those killed and wounded and their families the benefits and recognition they deserve.

You would begin to salivate and plan our ultimate destruction, gaining confidence with every marginalizing act.

Photo credit: Washington Post

Far from fantasy, this is the reality we see today, playing out before our very eyes. The saddest part of the military retraction is the complicity of those who obey unlawful orders to weaken the force, whose survival and our survival, depends upon its viability and strength.

Although the proposed cuts, which would take effect in 2016, slash and burn nearly across the board, Special Forces are strengthened with the rationale that a lighter more flexible force is required for future threats. What the civilians in charge of our military don’t get is that those forces require about six non-combat troops to support every one of them. Logistics is what keeps these elite fighters effective. Without bases and supplies, and people to run them, every elite soldier would fall flat on their face.

The main fallacy in this internal attack on our ability to defend ourselves is the left’s assumption that the “two major wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan are over. These were/are in fact “operations” in the Global War on Terror (Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom, respectively). This is the major rationale behind the cuts, and the biggest lie of all. Liberals are so desperate to turn a blind eye to those who want us dead that they are willing to perpetrate this fantasy on the rest of us, at great peril.

Today we have troops in over 150 countries worldwide, defending our country and our interests 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Two US soldiers walk at the site of a suicide attack On the Kabul Jalalabad road, in Kabul on December 27, 2013. A Taliban suicide attacker detonated an explosives-packed car next to a NATO military convoy in Kabul, killing three NATO personnel and injuring at least four civilian passers-by, officials said. The blast in the Afghan capital left the twisted remains of the attacker’s car spread across the scene along with several other badly-damaged vehicles, including a NATO sports utility vehicle, witnesses said. (AFP/Noorullah Shirzada)

In today’s most dangerous world, where Islamists pray to their god for our death and demise, we MUST defend ourselves until all Islamists are dead or no longer have the means or will to kill us. That’s not a would be or a could be or a should be, it is a MUST BE.

We MUST be willing to stand up to this infringement on the most sacred trust the American people have with their president, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The security of the people must not be marginalized or traded off for campaign promises and re-election gimmicks.

If we allow this president to continue unchallenged we will be the first (and last) generation to live under the powerful protection of the greatest military civilization has ever known, a military that liberates rather than occupies; a military that rebuilds rather than destroys; a military that seeks victory, not conquest.

Members of the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment ‘The Old Guard’ carry the casket of US Army Captain Andrew Pederson-Keel during a burial service for Pederson-Keel in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, March 27, 2013. Pederson-Keel, 28, was killed March 11 during an attack on a police station in Afghanistan. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

The liberal media, progressives, socialists and leftists all conspire to destroy our military dominance while at once pronouncing their “support” of the troops, but in reality they know nothing about us. We are mission oriented, trained to seize the objective, to never quit, and to never leave our buddy behind. These people claim they want all the troops to come home, but even though in their heart every soldier longs to be home, and safe, we know too, that it is our DUTY to COMPLETE THE MISSION FIRST.

The Global War on Terror rages on, even though we can’t see it, or taste it, or smell it every day, it is there, lurking in the shadows, and caves, and sick deeds and minds of our enemies. While it rages on if we do not continue to STRENGTHEN our military and CONTINUE to out think & plan, and out produce & perform our foes, we will be destroyed. And don’t think for one iota of a second that “our foes” do not include the president, his cabinet and compliant military and civilian appointees.

The morality of war is measured in the survival of those who are most adept at perpetrating it. Whether by battle or by subterfuge, we need to remain the best at staying several steps ahead of our enemies, lest we fall victim to the illusions of a peaceful state, perpetrated by our highest federal officials; sadly, those who swore to protect us.

Contact your elected representatives NOW and let them know how you feel about a reduced and weakened military. Tell them what you want our military to be able to do and that you expect them to make sure it happens.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

TO DRONE OR NOT TO DRONE: DOES CITIZENSHIP MATTER?

Posted on February 14, 2014 by mjgranger

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military genius once said: “The military seeks not conquest but victory.”

Militarily, using drones to eliminate enemies is economical. It conforms to the “economy of force” tenant of battle, whereby one seeks to eliminate a threat with the minimum amount of force necessary, preserving heavier resources for heavier tasks. The military would rather subdue the enemy without battle, thereby achieving victory with the least possible cost to personnel, materiel, and collateral.

Politically however, the “cost” is measured in unhappy allies and American supporters.

We saw in Vietnam that militarily, after the Tet Offensive of Jan. 30, 1968, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army over-committed themselves by attacking and then briefly taking all South Vietnamese provincial capitals, but at great cost. The U.S. counter attacked and within days or weeks successfully won back every single gain the North had realized, and then had the bad guys on the run.

In this Nov. 8, 2011 file photo, a Predator B unmanned aircraft taxis at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas. Credit: AP

Unfortunately, Walter Cronkite, the undisputed media voice for the American people, decided otherwise and told audiences in February 1968, that the war was “mired in stalemate,” and called for “negotiations.” From then on the U.S. looked for ways out of the conflict, eventually pulling out all U.S. troops in August 1973.

Recently, the Defense Department has identified an American al Qaeda operative overseas, who is, in the words of an anonymous source within the department, “actively planning attacks against Americans overseas.”

The problem is, after the last targeted killing of an American overseas (al Qaeda operative and Virginia resident Anwar al-Awlaki, killed by a U.S. CIA drone in Yemen in 2011) there was an international and domestic uproar, especially by supporters of the president. This struck a nerve that could not be ignored, so Barack Hussein Obama fashioned new policies that somewhat quieted the crowd, but also tied our hands when seeking to eliminate known threats.

This Oct. 2008 file photo shows Imam Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. Credit: AP

The new drone policy preferred the Department of Defense, and not the CIA, using drones, and any American targeted needed to have substantial provable evidence against them, or proof of imminent danger before a mission could be green-lighted. Another complication, now part of the policy, is that we can no longer send a drone into airspace over a country that doesn’t want us conducting such an operation, unless that country is determined to be rogue.

Let’s go back to Sun Tzu for a moment. Remember that militarily, victory is the number one concern of any mission. That is the objective. If you want us to “win,” we need to be able to use every available asset to achieve victory.

If you want us to “win,” we need to be able to use every available asset to achieve victory.

Otherwise, you compromise your effectiveness and therefore your psychological advantage over your enemy. Once the enemy is emboldened by thinking you will not use your weapons effectively against him he becomes even more dangerous than when you were hunting him down like the rabid, running yellow dog he is.

The yin and yang of war is that whatever you fail to employ against your enemy’s weakness, becomes his strength. Whoever employs his weapons most effectively wins.

We were not defeated militarily in Vietnam, nor could we have been. Neither were we ever fully committed militarily. We limited our bombing of North Vietnam. We never effectively mined or blockaded Haiphong Harbor, the main route of shipping supplies to the North. And we never properly pursued the enemy after pushing him out of the cities and towns he took during Tet. We allowed Communist China to intimidate our commitment, let politicians limit our commitment, and then bent to public opinion and media sabotage of our military efforts.

Remembering also that the main objective of politicians is to get re-elected and then preserve a legacy for themselves, military victory is easily explained away as unnecessary conquest. As long as the enemy does not invade the United States or incite insurrection, all is well.

Pakistani protesters gather beside a burning US flag during a demonstration in Multan on May 25, 2012 against the US drone attacks in Pakistani tribal belt. The US is allegedly considering a drone strike on an American terrorism suspect in Pakistan. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Sept. 11, 2001 changed all that. Or so we thought. My orders for activation after Sept. 11 stated that I was being ordered to military duty “in support of the Global War on Terror,” which sends our forces to more than 150 countries world wide today.

So, which is it, a War on Terror, or unfortunate little conquests we have no business perpetrating on others in the first place? Do we limit our engagement, thereby emboldening our enemy, or do we strike when necessary to save lives from potential (planned) attacks?

What we have now is legislated indecision. Advantage al Qaeda.

Prior to Awlaki’s demise, both the CIA and Department of Defense conducted drone operations. Now only the Department of Defense is authorized to do so, but actions by both houses of Congress have resisted making funds available for the transfer of CIA drones to the Army. Great hand wringing and gnashing of teeth is going on amongst our elected cowards, uh, I mean officials. They can’t see the War on Terror forest for the terrorist trees!

In the old days, prior to Awlaki’s killing, having the CIA and military conduct targeted drone attacks kept the enemy unbalanced and unsure about where the threat was coming from. With only the military authorized to use drones we are “playing by the rules,” and tipping our intentions and take-off sites.

Advantage al Qaeda.

Does it matter if the enemy combatant is American or not? Should it?

In past conflicts Americans who were caught as traitors were summarily executed. Un-uniformed, or improperly uniformed spies can be lawfully shot on the battlefield in a hot war. Does it matter whether or not it’s from a field grade officer’s 9mm handgun or a drone?

Whether or not to use a drone may come down to whether or not you seek victory, with the only caveat being whether or not the target is more valuable dead or alive and at what cost you are willing to risk going and getting him.

Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay

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Tag Archives: al Qaeda

Obama vs. Bwazir the Gitmo Detainee Who Wouldn’t Leave

When Artistic Expression Equals Death

Al Qaeda’s “Goebbels” to Be Released From Gitmo

Back to Iraq? One Soldier’s View

Obama, Bergdahl and the Betrayal of America

Force-Feeding Gitmo Detainees is Legal, Moral and Ethical

Convicted Terrorists: Your Next-Door Neighbors?

Obama’s Trust in Our Enemies Could Kill Us

OBAMA’S ATTEMPT TO DISARM AND DISABLE THE US MILITARY

TO DRONE OR NOT TO DRONE: DOES CITIZENSHIP MATTER?