Sean Osborne : High Stakes: The War in Iraq, the Election and America’s Future
Sean Osborne : High Stakes: The War in Iraq, the Election and America’s Future
Posted by Sean Osborne on 2006/10/22 20:08:36
”Our use of ‘al Qaeda’ to describe our enemy is nearly medieval in its incoherence. It is everywhere, anywhere, can't be defeated, and is unlike any enemy seen in history. That is the mainstream line. But if such an enemy has never existed in history, maybe it does not exist now? ‘Al Qaeda,’ generally speaking, is the name we attach to the sophisticated part of the violence directed against us and our allies by a variety of hostile states in a variety of places.” Dr. Laurie Mylroie, 22 October 2006
By Sean Osborne, Associate Director, Senior Analyst, Military Affairs
sosborne@homelandsecurityus.com
23 October 2006: Once again America finds itself fast approaching a pivotal election in this most critical time of our modern history. The stakes are very high if not almost incalculable in their significance. The choices before voter enfranchised America are for the most part clear. However, I will use the following paragraphs to polish up certain facts. These are facts which are quite to the contrary of what most of the so-called mainstream media plates up for us each evening in their nightly news programs, in their bold, morning edition headlines or weekly magazine covers.
I am going to attempt to expose why the war in Iraq is a major issue before the American electorate but not for the reasons the mainstream media are telling you it is. America knows we are at war with terrorists, and that there are terrorists in Iraq as there are in many nations around the world, including our own. However, Iraq is the pivotal focus for America, and it’s not because of Al Qaeda or any other nebulous terrorist group. Iraq is pivotal for America because the Ba’athist Iraqi regime we and our coalition allies launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to remove is still largely intact, is calling the shots and is primarily responsible for the carnage throughout the country which continues to this day.
It is my firm conviction that well-financed former-regime Ba'athists, with probable clandestine foreign state sponsorship and support, continuing as it has from when before the war began, during initial combat and ever since (Russia, Belarus and Syria for examples). It is my contention that the remnant senior leadership of Al-Mukhabarat (Iraqi Intelligence Service), the Iraqi Republican Guards and Fedayi Saddam are the driving forces behind continuing Ba'athist regime resistance against American and Coalition military forces. This was Saddam's tactical plan from the beginning in the face of overwhelming US military power and it remains in execution.
I do not believe that Al Qaeda is leading the "insurgency" in Iraq as the so-called mainstream media is fond of declaring. And I do not accept the same media use of the term "insurgent" or "insurgency" as both are erroneous descriptors of what has been occurring in Iraq since March 2003.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/insurgent
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/insurgency
The use of these terms by the mainstream media implies that Al Qaeda is a defender of the former regime. Neither can Al Qaeda be described as rebels against the new order in Iraq. They are quite simply and have been all along terrorists and tools of the former Ba'athist regime, and therefore cannot be legitimately described as "insurgents" or as an "insurgency".
At this point I want to quote Dr. Laurie Mylroie, an acknowledged and world-leading expert on Iraq from an email exchange yesterday morning between us. “Our use of "al Qaeda" to describe our enemy is nearly medieval in its incoherence. It is everywhere, anywhere, can't be defeated, and is unlike any enemy seen in history. That is the mainstream line. But if such an enemy has never existed in history, maybe it does not exist now? "Al Qaeda," generally speaking, is the name we attach to the sophisticated part of the violence directed against us and our allies by a variety of hostile states in a variety of places.
In the 1980s, during the Regan administration, there was a huge debate about terrorism, or at least [about] major attacks on the US. The conclusion of that debate was that they were basically state-sponsored. That understanding endured through Bush 41, but was utterly lost during the Clinton administration, when the US counter-terrorism efforts focused largely on arresting individual perps. That had enormous intelligence consequences, because 1) the intelligence community didn't receive the results of the FBI investigation, because of the "wall" and 2) the job of a prosecutor is to secure the conviction of individuals. He isn't necessarily interested in the larger structure behind the terrorist attacks, and he is not interested in states.”
Dr. Mylroie concluded her remarks to me by saying, “Most Iraqi officials would say much what you are saying, but their very strong and clear emphasis would be on Syrian support for the Sunni terrorists and Iranian support for the Shia ones. There is also an interesting piece on Afghanistan in this week's New York Times Magazine, which both highlights the complexity of the violence there and the key role of Pakistan in supporting it.”
Indeed. The war we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is supported by state-sponsors. The terrorist enemies are proxy force multipliers for these state-sponsors, be they Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, HAMAS, Abu Sayyaf, or the Afghan Taliban. Yet, notwithstanding events in Afghanistan, it is in Iraq where this is most abundantly evident.
This has been evident to me since the beheading of Nick Berg. The individuals in that horrific video had the demeanor of military men and the use of beheading as a terrorism tool against the Iraqi population was long established and practiced on a virtual daily basis by the Ba'athists and Fedayi Saddam in the years immediately preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom. Al Qaeda adopted a Ba'athist terrorist tool and not vice versa.
In addition, there is also rampant Iranian involvement in exploiting and providing war materiel and personnel support to the sizeable Shiite population in southeastern Iraq from Baghdad to Basra. So when certain elected American officials make the totally partisan and ludicrous declaration of a need for America to embrace a “cut and run” stratagem, to unilaterally abandon our allies, to surrender and forsake the sacrifice of all of our fallen hero’s and those who remain in harms way, let me be very blunt, these politicians are talking the talk of yellow-bellied cowards, they provide lip service and tremendous damage by aiding and abetting all of these enemies and the state sponsors arrayed against us and our coalition allies.
Are these the people and the political party America will vote for? I think not.
As we move forward to this election I must state that the way forward is not to change the horse or its rider in the middle of the race. We need to send a clear message to the brave Iraqi people who’ve voted to stand with us and our efforts to completely liberate their nation from the dictatorial tyranny they endured for so many years. In my opinion, the trial of Saddam Hussein needs to be expedited and concluded. Saddam's expected execution for his crimes against humanity needs to be implemented immediately thereafter. Concurrent with the decision taken by our elected leadership to stay the course the US military needs to mount-up once again in full combat gear, with heavy armor support, in overwhelming force and be turned loose and finish the job which was prematurely declared ended in May of 2003 in eradicating ALL of the remaining elements of the Ba'athist regime resistance, just as we did with the Nazi's in Germany sixty years ago. Then we can focus on foreign interlopers like Iran and make foreign support from Russia, Belarus and Syria a moot point because the recipients of their support will no longer exist.
We must complete this mission as expeditiously as possible. Our enemies in Iraq are not idle as we have all seen in the past months, even robbing the Iraqi treasury of a half billion dollars to fund their resistance and come back hopes. If this is their version of a ‘Tet’ offensive then it must be militarily defeated as the original ‘Tet’ was defeated. Then we must build upon that victory and also win the political war before the Ba’athist murder squads can destroy the political leadership in Iraq, as is their current plan....continues