Tag Archives: Islamic State Iraq and Syria

Obama Frees Bin Laden’s Body Guard as Paris Weeps

Posted on by mjgranger

As sure as the sun rises hot and bright in the Syrian Desert, President Barack Obama has used another tragedy as cover for what is possibly his latest act of treason.

As Parisian’s weep and spread flowers and memory flames around a half dozen sites in their City of Light, Obama has released five more detainees from the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This time the list includes Ali al-Razihi, body guard to Osama bin Laden.

Paris Weeps

There is no shame at the White house. There is no etiquette. There is no stopping them releasing unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill us, not even as the fresh blood stains remain on pavement and floors where just days ago victims of terror lie wont and motionless in the time-frozen shock of sudden death.

When will Obama and his cronies awake to the reality of the Global War on Terror?

Releasing detainees will not win the Global War on Terror, nor will it degrade or defeat the Islamic State, who have the world on its heels. Despite many tons of munitions dropped on suspected Islamic State targets, they remain a deadly and viable force.

Bombing, missiles, rockets and drones only treat the symptoms of a murderous disease known as Islam.

Until all Islamists are dead or no longer have the means or will to kill us, we must defend ourselves.

In order to begin to defeat this enemy we must return to Iraq and Afghanistan in force, and then stay. We must implement a Middle East Marshall Plan and be as committed to it as we were at the end of WWII with helping to rebuild Europe and Japan. We are still in countries we defeated in WWII, not as occupiers, but as liberators and friends. Without our leadership and commitment, incidents like the one in Paris will continue and grow in their devastation.

George C Marshall

No one wants to say it, but how many internal attacks from the Imperial Japanese did the U.S. experience during WWII? None that I know of. Was it because of the internment camps set up by a reluctant but determined President Franklin Roosevelt?

We contained Japanese Americans during WWII in order to prevent insurrection, sabotage and terrorism. It worked. A human rights indignity now was an act of survival then.

Remember, it was Japanese posing as tourists who photographed and marked out targets in Hawaii prior to the launch of the attack on Pearl Harbor, one rationale for the internment.

Is bringing unknown “Syrian” refugees to the United States (or anyplace) a prudent thing to do given the mounting evidence that other “Syrian” refugees participated in the Paris attacks?

Should countries now place suspected Islamists in custody as an act of survival?

In the end, isn’t that what war is all about, survival?

Isn’t that why Gitmo exists in the first place?

World Trade Center Attacked

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)

As unlawful combatants, all Gitmo detainees could have been lawfully killed on the battlefield. Instead, we captured them and then began systematically questioning and then vetting their stories. According to former President George W. Bush, in his autobiography, “Decision Points,” a handful of detainees were waterboarded, which saved many lives. Information obtained from detainees at Gitmo is also suspected to have contributed to locating and then killing Osama bin Laden.

US-GUANTANAMO-JUSTICE

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)

At the time, waterboarding was an approved Enhanced Interrogation Technique, and did not meet the internationally accepted definition of torture.

When Obama took office he unilaterally declared waterboarding torture, and it went on the list of banned torture techniques. Waterboarding still does not meet the definition of torture, and it is still used as a training technique for those American service people who may be deployed overseas and may be at risk of kidnapping.

Waterboarding works. Maybe it saved YOUR life.

KSM

There are other things that work, too, that this administration is averse to using, such as boots on the ground. But for some reason, instead of doing things that work to protect the people of the United States, as every president is sworn to do, this president releases deadly detainees so that they can fight and kill again.

The office of the Director of National Intelligence reports that at least 30 percent of all released detainees are either known or suspected to have returned to the battlefield. My question is, what about the 70 percent of released detainees we don’t know about, where are they, YOUR neighborhood?

And what about those recently sent to the United Arab Emirates? How long will they be held there, and under what conditions? Where will they end up? Paris? New York? Your hometown?

What has happened to the five Taliban leaders released by Obama in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, the American deserter? Are they still in Qatar?

obamabergdahldetainees

I know one thing, if you’re fighting a war to win, you don’t release the enemy.

And therein lies the rub. Can releasing the enemy be considered treason – giving aid and comfort to the enemy?

The Obama administration must believe that the President is not responsible for what horrible things detainees may do after they are released from Gitmo. I beg to differ.

If you release a tiger from the zoo, shouldn’t you be held accountable for whatever the tiger does?

tiger-loose-490

With regard to the release of detainees and the Global War on Terror, we seem to be caught on the caboose of a runaway train, only able to see where we’ve been, and there are demons at the switches.

What will it take for us to gain control and then get ourselves back on the right track?

I am a three times mobilized Army Reserve major (Ret.), and former ranking U.S. Army Medical Department officer with the Joint Detainee Operations Group, Joint Task Force 160, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, February to June 2002, and author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior.”

Back to Iraq? One Soldier’s View

Posted on 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