StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

There is nothing I can add to this but to remind, "There are none so brave who fight and die for their country."  This is worth the few minutes of your time.

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UPDATE: Why am I not surprised?  Pakistan is denying reports that bin Laden is in their country, contradicting DNI McConnell.

 Pakistan Denies Bin Laden’s In Country
Pakistan on Wednesday rejected a claim by the U.S. intelligence
chief that Osama bin Laden and his deputy were hiding in northwestern
Pakistan, and that al Qaeda was setting up camps near the Afghan
border.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, told The Associated Press
there were no al Qaeda training camps in his country and U.S. officials
had not provided any intelligence suggesting there were.

"We will act on any such intelligence, but so far they have not" provided any, he said…

[more, but who do you believe?]

Original Post:
We are 12 days short of five-and-a-half years since the attacks of September 11th.  We now debate and question the meaning of victory in Iraq (often referred to as a battlefront in the Global War on Terrorism), we discuss the meaning of "winning."  In my previous post, it was noted that the al Qaeda jihadist strategy in Iraq is to see the U.S. leave.  And in some camps, it is argued that this war will continue long after bin Laden is killed or is confirmed to have died months ago (I, for one, believe that this War on Terrorism - if you wish to call it a War Against Islamic Extremism perhaps I would agree with that, especially if at the same time, "you" don’t toss around the silly label of Islam being the "religion of peace" as I often see in more conservative locations on the Internet than this blog - if you haven’t already figured it out, I hate labels and I avoid extremes while trying to remain objective about most topics).  Long sentence warning.

Focus, focus, focus.  So now let’s address two somewhat related articles.

CIA: Bin Laden In Pakistan Establishing New Camps
Why Are We Surging in Iraq While Terror Threat Explodes Elsewhere?

In the Brian Ross and Z. Byron Wolf Report, it is suggested that bin Laden is in Pakistan re-establishing al Qaeda training sites.

In the most definitive statement in years, America’s top
intelligence official said Tuesday Osama bin laden is in Pakistan
actively re-establishing al Qaeda training camps.

The newly appointed Director of National Intelligence Jack McConnell
made the assertion about bin Laden and his No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri,
in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Referring to Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, McConnell said "to the
best of our knowledge that the senior leadership, No. 1 and No. 2, are
there, and they are attempting to re-establish and rebuild and to
establish training camps."

Anyone who has read my stuff for any period of time knows how often I have maintained that bin Laden was still alive, and that the tribes in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan/Pakistan were protecting the al Qaeda "seniors."  I simply have never trusted the tribes and warlords.

In Frank Rich’s editorial (apparently to appear in this Sunday’s New York Times), the question of focus is raised.  While I don’t always agree with Frank Rich, here, he makes the point that while adding troops in Iraq to fight the continuing violence (the "surge"), al Qaeda and the Taliban have resurged in Afghanistan, helped by our ceding the battle to NATO, predictable given our not understanding or recognizing the role of the
tribes and warlords, as well as the ridiculously failed Pakistani policy of handing Waziristan to the Taliban.

Frank Rich sounds a warning: While American are
obsessed with Britney’s baldness and the White House surges in Iraq,
the real terror threat is exploding in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The
Times sounds much the same alarm in an editorial on Sunday…

…Al Qaeda is “on the march” rather than on the run,
the Georgetown University and West Point terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman
told Congress. Tony Blair is pulling troops out of Iraq not because
Basra is calm enough to be entrusted to Iraqi forces — it’s “not ready
for transition,” according to the Pentagon’s last report — but to shift
some British resources to the losing battle against the resurgent
Taliban in Afghanistan…

Focus, focus, focus.

If bin Laden is in fact still alive (and new DNI Mike McConnell suggests that he is), reasonably well, and directing new training camps, then, now nearly 66 months since September 11th, we are in serious trouble.

Another related article: Qaeda Rebuilding in Pakistan, Intelligence Chief Tells Panel

Also see Going after the head of the snake @ Right Truth

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Even while the debate over funding of the effort rages in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, and most if not all of the Presidential candidates (especially the Democratic candidates) posture about "their" strategies to end the war, it doesn’t seem that enough people are examining the reasons why this war must be won.

From the outset, everyone, including many of the Democratic candidates for President, supported the invasion on the basis of what everyone believed was an accurate National Intelligence Estimate that, with certainty, claimed that Hussein’s government maintained a stockpile of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons (whether or not this was never proven to be true is not the issue here).  None, including Secretary of State, General Colin Powell who stood in front of the United Nations and presented the case for going to war, had any doubt.  Further, it was clear that Hussein fully intended to ignore any resolution passed by the UN (Resolution 1441 being, I believe, the last of a series of resolutions ignored by Iraq).  A few months after the invasion began, Hussein’s sons were "dispatched" and then we found the "rat bastard" himself in a spider hole, arrested him, and later had him hanged.

Regardless of any miscalculations, or mistakes, or strategic blunders, I don’t see any other alternative than to see this effort through to the point where there is a free standing and fully functioning government in Iraq (this, by the way, is the definition of winning, IMO of course). Is al-Maliki the guy to do it?  I have no idea, frankly.  But once the United States went in, the die were cast.  To leave the task unfinished, would not only be perceived as a victory for the Islamists who have made Iraq the issue…in addition to the fact that the President made it clear that Iraq was a principal battlefield in the War on Terror.

Rather than rant on, this post will grab information and perspective from three articles.

Stratfor’s Iraq: Jihadist Perspectives on a US Withdrawal (follow it through the Google link)
Charles Krauthammer’s No Way To End A War
A foreign affairs piece from the Council on Foreign Relations, Iraq’s Civil War

First from Stratfor
…often missing in that discussion is the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq
were not entered into as self-contained discrete wars, but as fronts in
the wider U.S.-jihadist war. Therefore, though the Bush Administration’s troop srategy, the positioning of the Democrats 
and the anti-war statements of potential presidential contenders are by
no measure unimportant, the intense focus on these issues means that
another important perspective on the war — that of the jihadists –
frequently goes unmentioned…

Very clearly, the jihadists, led by al Qaeda and its very strong propaganda and media machine would see a withdrawal of the U.S. forces, or the coalition forces, as a victory.  Al Qaeda’s very philosophy is based on the premise that American resolve to fight and win the war will weaken…so the openness of the debate, certainly supported by the Internet and blogsphere that is open to everyone, including al Qaeda’s computer geeks, knows full well the trend of public opinion (they can see and read everything that we do).  They have seen how this public opinion has influenced war policy in Vietnam, Beirut, Aden, and Somalia (note that in the Stratfor article, it is noted that bin Laden characterizes each of these as an American defeat).

It is widely believed that the U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon, following
the 1983 Marine barracks bombing, and from Somalia in 1993 were
important precedents in driving the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers
in Saudi Arabia. The jihadists believed that if they killed enough
Americans, U.S. forces would leave Saudi Arabia.

So…it is imperative for us all to understand that not only are we facing an enemy mounting a purely opportunistic and asymmetric war, but also one that has an outlook of "system, not organization" ("nizam, la tanzim") - see earlier post: Afghanistan & the Taliban: The "Rule Book" (Layeha) but also, as explained by the Stratfor article, sees the conflict as a "Fourth-Generation War."

"Fourth-generation warfare, the experts said, is a new type of war in
which fighting will be mostly scattered. The battle will not be limited
to destroying military targets and regular forces, but will include
societies, and will seek to destroy popular support for the fighters
within the enemy’s society. In these wars, the experts stated in their
article, ‘television news may become a more powerful operational weapon
than armored divisions.’ They also noted that ‘the distinction between
war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point.’"

The premise is the the U.S. (and its allies) have neither the taste for, or the resolve, to fight a truly "long war" (see Ability to Wage ‘Long War’ Is Key To Pentagon Plan - Conventional Tactics De-Emphasized in which Ann Scott Tyson writes, "The Pentagon, readying for what it calls a "long war," yesterday laid
out a new 20-year defense strategy that envisions U.S. troops deployed,
often clandestinely, in dozens of countries at once to fight terrorism
and other nontraditional threats…"  In reality, the very fact that al Qaeda is not constrained by country boundaries and no permanent bases, then traditional war tactics will not work (again, bin Laden’s philosophy as explained by Stratfor’s article).  Further, bin Laden’s belief is that "the jihadists love death the way Americans love life."

In a July 2005 letter, al-Zawahiri  outlined a four part strategy:

1) Expel the Americans from Iraq.
2) Establish an Islamic authority or emirate in Iraq.
3) Extend the jihad wave to secular countries neighboring Iraq.
4) Initiate a clash with Israel.

The conclusion is ever so clear.  A retreat or withdrawal will bring victory in the eyes of the jihad.  That we cannot allow.  And in fact, Stratfor makes it fully clear that al Qaeda will not cease its jihad, even if or after a withdrawal from Iraq as they wish to rid the West from all of the lands of Islam.  As expressed by al-Zawahiri, the jihad "…seeks to liberate Palestine, the whole of Palestine, and to liberate
every land which (once belonged to) Islam, from Andalus to Iraq…"

Withdrawal should be out of the question…if you read nothing else.

Krauthammer’s article examines the implications of the slow bleeding pull-out that is now being debated.  He notes that in October 2002, both Houses of Congress ("with open eyes and large majorities") authorized the use of force in Iraq (at the time to enforce 1441, right?).

Now, more than four years later, the Democrats want out of the
resulting war. Most, such as Rep. John Murtha, want to do so for a
simple reason: They think the war is lost. If you believe that, then
getting out is the most reasonable and honorable and patriotic policy.

As will be discussed below, I don’t actually believe that the war has been lost.  I believe that the nature of the war changed.  We did not anticipate the "insurgency," I do not believe that we anticipated the conflicts between Shi’a and Sunni or the adamancy of the Kurds to maintain some control over the country’s natural resources and of Kirkuk.

The current effort to stifle spending could well leave the U.S and its Coalition "allies" handcuffed.  But Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, rather than reduce spending, may propose a redirection of the mission.

Levin has a different idea — change the original October 2002
authorization. "We . . . will be looking at modification of that
authorization in order to limit the mission of American troops to a
support mission instead of a combat mission," says Levin. "That is very
different from cutting funds."

While this idea is not as perverse
as Murtha’s, it is totally illogical. There is something exceedingly
strange about authorizing the use of force — except for combat. That
is an oxymoron. Changing the language of authorization means — if it
means anything — that Petraeus will have to surround himself with
lawyers who will tell him, every time he wants to deploy a unit,
whether he is ordering a legal "support" mission or an illegal "combat"
mission.

If Levin wants to withdraw our forces from the civil war
in the cities to more secure bases from which we can continue training
and launching operations against al-Qaeda, he should present that to
the country as an alternative to (or a fallback after) the
administration’s troop surge. But to force it on our commanders through
legalisms is simply to undermine their ability to fight the war
occurring on the ground today.

Mission?  As Krauthammer so ably states it: "Slowly bleeding our forces by defunding what our commanders think they
need to win (the House approach) or rewording the authorization of the
use of force so that lawyers decide what operations are to be launched
(the Senate approach) is no way to fight a war. It is no way to end a
war. It is a way to complicate the war and make it inherently
unwinnable — and to shirk the political responsibility for doing so."

(That’s why he does what he does and I write a blog commenting on what he writes.)

Civil War???  Civil war?  Yeah!  Isn’t that what we’re really facing now???  And no one, especially the Republicans, want to acknowledge that!  But shouldn’t that have been obvious if we were all paying attention to the religious, tribal and ethnic differences that became the hodgepodge of the country that was formed by Great Britain from the dismantled Ottoman Empire (see  Sykes-Picot Agreement)?

So, finally, from the CFR article, Iraq’s Civil War, we take this (noting that some readers will not agree with this perspective).

Summary:
The White House still avoids the label, but by any reasonable
historical standard, the Iraqi civil war has begun. The record of past
such wars suggests that Washington cannot stop this one — and that
Iraqis will be able to reach a power-sharing deal only after much more
fighting, if then. The United States can help bring about a settlement
eventually by balancing Iraqi factions from afar, but there is little
it can do to avert bloodshed now.

But even the last National Intelligence Estimate refused to outright call the "conflict" in Iraq a civil war.  Clearly, though, avoiding that label also avoids what could well be the question, "If it’s a civil war, what are we doing there, mixed
up in someone else’s fight?"

This CFR article is long and I have slogged through the whole thing, but I’m not going to rehash it now or here.

In fact, there is a civil war in progress in Iraq, one comparable in important
respects to other civil wars that have occurred in postcolonial states with weak political institutions.
Those cases suggest that the Bush administration’s political objective in Iraq — creating a stable,
peaceful, somewhat democratic regime that can survive the departure of U.S. troops — is unrealistic.
Given this unrealistic political objective, military strategy of any sort is doomed to fail almost
regardless of whether the administration goes with the "surge" option, as President George W.
Bush has proposed, or shifts toward a pure training mission, as advised by the Iraq Study Group.

Even if an increase in the number of U.S. combat troops reduces violence
in Baghdad and so buys time for negotiations on power sharing in the current Iraqi government, there
is no good reason to expect that subsequent reductions would not revive the violent power struggle.
Civil wars are rarely ended by stable power-sharing agreements. When they are, it typically takes
combatants who are not highly factionalized and years of fighting to clarify the balance of power.
Neither condition is satisfied by Iraq at present. Factionalism among the Sunnis and the Shiites
approaches levels seen in Somalia, and multiple armed groups on both sides appear to believe that
they could wrest control of the government if U.S. forces left. Such beliefs will not change quickly
while large numbers of U.S. troops remain.

James D. Fearon is the author of the piece, and it is worth the time to read it, even if you’re of the camp that doesn’t believe that Iraq is now embroiled in a civil war (a position that I hold).  Even with that belief, however, I believe that we must remain in Iraq until the government is stable.  We cannot withdraw without the risk of simply handing al Qaeda and the jihad a perceived if not real victory.  It is a dilemma for sure. 

We find ourselves now more than five years since the last attack on the United States on September 11th.  It is my contention that on that day, the rules changed and the conventional wisdom was no longer relevant.  And yet, we clearly ignored the religious, ethnic and tribal differences that now threaten the rend Iraq into parts (we similarly failed to recognize the tribal influences in Afghanistan).  If this "domino" falls, then I fear that others will also.  We chose Iraq to do battle against al Qaeda and against Terrorism to prevent that terror from coming back to the United States.  That is why "Winning is Everything" in Iraq.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for your patience and attention.

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Just what is happening in Russia these days, and why is it that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, clearly a very intelligent and qualified person, can actually state "I have a difficult time explaining that speech. It doesn’t accord
with either the world as we see it nor with the character of our
interactions with the Russians."  Something just doesn’t make sense, and I believe that it goes beyond the subtlety of Anne Applebaum’s article in the Washington Post, Our Strange Devotion to the Kremlin.

I have a feeling that some people took yesterday’s post and tossed it aside as a simple rambling of a blogger.  But please re-read The Second Coming- Cold War II in the context of the Stratfor article (follow the Google link), The INF Treaty: Implications of a Russian Withdrawal.

Russia is poised to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty (INF) signed by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S.
President Ronald Reagan in December 1987. The treaty prohibits
development and deployment of all land-based short-, medium- and
intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) with ranges of 300 to
3,400 miles, as well as all ground-launched cruise missiles.
Inspections verifying the treaty were completed in 2001, although
elimination was effectively concluded nearly a decade earlier.

Moscow has been dropping hints that it might withdraw from the INF 
since at least late August. However, two looming developments make this
appear to be more of a certainty than rhetoric. First, U.S. basing
agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic for ballistic missile
defense (BMD) installations now look quite likely to be approved.
Second, the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START 1, is set to
expire in 2009, and Washington has failed to respond to Moscow’s
numerous offers to launch negotiations on a replacement treaty . Having benefited from the decay in Russia’s military strength since the
end of the Cold War, the United States clearly has no interest in such
a treaty…[more]

Is all of this simple posturing and saber-rattling?  Or is it something else entirely?

 Russia threatens to quit arms treaty
…Yury Baluyevsky, the Russian army chief of staff, said Moscow might
unilaterally withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
treaty, which forced the US and the Soviet Union to ban nuclear and
conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges
of 500 to 5,500km…

…Gen Baluyevsky’s comments came days after
Vladimir Putin, Russian president, warned that US attempts to deploy
part of its missile shield in Poland could spark a new arms race.
         

Mr
Putin said the INF treaty was no longer in its interests because of
proliferation of short and medium-range missiles. He rejected US
assertions that the system was aimed at countries such as North Korea
and Iran, not at Russia.

The
US official said Russia had privately told the US it wanted
medium-range missiles to counter Iranian threats while arguing publicly
that the lack of Iranian missiles meant the US did not need a defence
system…

OK, back to the Stratfor article (use the Google link to get there).

• …speaking before the Duma on Feb. 8, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei
  Ivanov (who at the time was defense minister) characterized Russian
  signing of the treaty in 1987 as a mistake…

• …On Feb. 19, Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russian Strategic
  Rocket Forces, went even further, threatening that Russian nuclear
  missiles could be targeted any U.S. BMD installation in Europe…

• …If Moscow has a means to legitimately threaten European states –
  likely using intermediate-reach ballistic missiles, as during the Cold
  War — it retains influence within the region and can leverage that
  against the United States, as Russia attempts to reassert itself as a great power…

• …For the Soviets, the INF was not to be viewed as simply a stand-alone
  treaty by either negotiating team. Behind the Iron Curtain, it
  represented a fundamental break with past ideology. Before 1982, the
  leadership had been convinced of the Soviet Union’s permanence. But
  with the rise of Yuri Andropov and, later, Mikhail Gorbachev, the
  Soviet leadership realized it was losing the Cold War…

• …Ultimately, the Russian decision to leave the INF is grounded in these
  last two factors in American thinking (-a- …Removing the intermediate missiles from service left the United States
  fully reliant on its home- and submarine-based ICBMs — weapons over
  which no one but Washington could claim influence… and -b- …ICBMs were expensive…) — as well as the simple fact
  that the rest of the world has pushed past the Cold War mentality…

• …For Washington, the war against jihadists has become an overwhelming
  priority. But even outside of that context, the United States, its NATO
  allies and indeed, the rest of the world, have already plunged into a
  pervasive post-Cold War restructuring that is indicative of a shift in
  defense priorities…

• …Russia is doing the only thing it realistically can: rattling its nuclear saber…

Please read the entire Stratfor article (if you can).  But in a large sense, I believe that what we are seeing is Putin trying to reassert Russia’s influence, especially over the "new" Europe in part made up of former states of the Soviet Union.  I just think that its beyond a lack of understanding of Putin’s posturing…and may well portend more than just saber-rattling.

But hey!, what do I know?  BTW, I am old enough to have lived through the Cold War, including those ridiculous drills where we were instructed to hide under our desks in case of a nuclear explosion.

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Somehow it suddenly dawned on me that Mexico is still one of the primary sources for oil and petroleum products in the U.S.  So, I suppose that it is entirely possible that the lack of strong immigration and border policy is related to the fact the Mexico was the third ranking supplier of oil to the U.S. in December 2006 (behind Canada and Saudi Arabia).

Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries
December 2006 Import Highlights:  Released on February 16, 2007
Preliminary monthly data on the origins of crude oil imports in
December 2006 has been released and it shows that three countries have
each exported more than 1.20 million barrels per day to the United
States. Including those countries, a total of five countries exported
over 1.00 million barrels per day of crude oil to the United States
(see table below). The top five exporting countries accounted for 69
percent of United States crude oil imports in December while the top
ten sources accounted for approximately 88 percent of all U.S. crude
oil imports. The top sources of US crude oil imports for December were
Canada (1.829 million barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1.471 million
barrels per day), Mexico (1.245 million barrels per day), Venezuela
(1.045 million barrels per day), and Nigeria (1.010 million barrels per
day). The rest of the top ten sources, in order, were Angola (0.610
million barrels per day), Algeria (0.421 million barrels per day), Iraq
(0.419 million barrels per day), Ecuador (0.254 million barrels per
day), and Kuwait (0.163 million barrels per day). Total crude oil
imports averaged 9.584 million barrels per day in December, which is a
decrease of 0.253 million barrels per day from November 2006.

Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum products in
December, exporting 2.409 million barrels per day to the United States,
which was a slight decrease from last month (2.598 thousand barrels per
day). The second largest exporter of total petroleum products was Saudi
Arabia with 1.491 million barrels per day.

Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries) (Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country	Dec-06	Nov-06	YTD 2006	Dec-05	Jan - Dec 2005
CANADA	1,829	2,064	1,782	1,900	1,633
SAUDI ARABIA	1,471	1,444	1,421	1,438	1,445
MEXICO	1,245	1,462	1,576	1,707	1,556
VENEZUELA	1,045	1,088	1,139	1,183	1,241
NIGERIA	1,010	919	1,043	1,174	1,077
ANGOLA	610	505	513	433	456
ALGERIA	421	253	357	212	228
IRAQ	419	573	553	390	527
ECUADOR	254	243	272	340	276
KUWAIT	163	253	179	268	227
RUSSIA	139	16	108	50	199
BRAZIL	130	156	133	159	94
CHAD	114	118	95	31	74
NORWAY	110	81	98	66	119
UNITED KINGDOM	93	119	128	33	224

Total Imports of Petroleum (Top 15 Countries) (Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country	Dec-06	Nov-06	YTD 2006	Dec-05	Jan - Dec 2005
CANADA	2,409	2,598	2,302	2,531	2,181
SAUDI ARABIA	1,491	1,491	1,461	1,472	1,537
MEXICO	1,359	1,584	1,700	1,797	1,662
VENEZUELA	1,271	1,275	1,409	1,532	1,529
NIGERIA	1,066	972	1,119	1,246	1,166
ALGERIA	677	462	650	405	478
ANGOLA	620	521	534	443	473
IRAQ	419	573	553	390	531
RUSSIA	369	223	370	275	410
VIRGIN ISLANDS	334	331	326	335	328
ECUADOR	256	248	278	340	283
UNITED KINGDOM	199	291	271	251	396
NORWAY	178	174	195	177	233
KUWAIT	169	259	184	291	243
BRAZIL	162	182	192	242	156

Note: The data in the tables above exclude oil imports into the U.S. territories.

Doing the math, Mexico represented 13.75% of U.S. oil imports in December 2006.  Just some food for thought.

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Not unnoticed in some circles was the bombast of Vladimir Putin’s speech last week denouncing the U.S. as "overstepping its boundaries" worldwide.  The question being posed, dear readers, is whether this White House understands the implications of Putin’s outspokenness.  At the time, I admittedly made light of it.

Last week: White House takes Putin to task… but lets Obama fend for himself
…The Russian president claimed that the U.S. has
undermined security in the world and prompted other nations to pursue
new weaponry with its "almost uncontained use of military force.”
Putin said that American ”unilateral, illegitimate actions have not
solved a single problem. They have become a hotbed of further
conflicts” and "one state, the United States, has overstepped its
national borders in every way…”

In response to Putin, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said
today: "We certainly disagree with the characterization of the United
States… acting unilaterally… In point of fact, the United States has
been working in every way, including with Russia, to work in a
multilateral fashion…”

OK, that was last week’s news.  But now, the possible implications of this event have sunk in, and there are a number of commentators voicing some very bothersome questions.

Start, as Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post did in her article, Our Strange Devotion to the Kremlin with Condoleezza Rice’s comments on February 15th: "I have a difficult time explaining that speech. It doesn’t accord
with either the world as we see it nor with the character of our
interactions with the Russians."  She has a difficult time?  And she is someone that some people want to run for President?

As Applebaum notes, it seems that loads of people are running around confused, and not knowing that the policy implications of Putin’s speech.  Putin accuses the U.S. of overstepping its boundaries, and yet Putin’s Russia is seemingly lining up its own business deals (e.g. with Iran’s nuclear facility construction efforts) and can’t avoid regularly blackmailing and manipulating its neighbors.  Further she notes that it is most surprising that people are surprised by Putin’s stance…its not so new!  This is a man who led the KGB and believes in "order and discipline" as a way to revive the country as a world power.

Putin, Applebaum writes, is paranoid about the United States, treats Western entities in Russia as "spies and diversionaries," and implies (if not stronger) that the West, or America was somehow involved in the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko (see the series of "Storm" posts on the subject) and 2004 Beslan school massacre.

Despite Putin’s background and his well-known views, President Bush
from the beginning of his term treated Putin the way all American
presidents treat all Russian leaders: as America’s new best friends.
Bush, infamously, looked deep into Putin’s eyes, found him to be " straightforward and trustworthy" and invited him to his ranch.

The serious questions must be asked…why are we trusting Vladimir Putin, and what are his true motives (if not to resurrect Russia as a revived Super Power)???  Appplebaum poses that "…Perhaps it’s a secret longing for the glamour of those Cold War
summits, for the days when it seemed as if the personal relations
between superpower statesmen could ward off the destruction of the
entire planet…"  Also as she notes, other Presidents have thought that they could "tame the Russian bear" and others thought that they "knew" their opponent.  The real problem that I have hear is that this is not 1960, nor is it 1980.  The post-September 11th world has been turned upside down.  We are fighting a War against (Global) Terrorism, but it is really a war against Islamic radical fundamentalism…and Russia has been clearly unable to quell the Chechyn rebellion.

One example of the bullying attitude of Putin’s Russia, and the potential effect on the new Europe is found in Russian missile "blackmail" won’t work, Czechs say (here is an additional link to the same article in case the Reuters’ link disappears, here).

…The Czech Republic said on Tuesday it would not be intimidated by
Russia over plans to site parts of a U.S. missile defense system on its
territory and said attempts at "blackmail" by Moscow would backfire.

Czech
Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said threats by Russian officials
over the plans, which would involve placing a radar system on Czech
land and a missile battery in Poland, would only make Czechs more
determined to defend themselves.

Russia’s strategic forces
commander, General Nikolai Solovtsov, said on Monday that Russia would
be capable of firing missiles at the Czech Republic and Poland if the
ex-communist states agreed to host the U.S. defense system.

He
said any decision to fire would have to be made by the Kremlin, but
that militarily it was possible to hit targets in both countries…

Quite the saber rattled, eh?  I can almost hear Khrushchev banging his shoe at the United Nations in 1960.

It is perhaps best said by Doug Farah at Counterterrorism Blog in his post, Time to Come to Grips with Russia’s Real Agenda.

…the time for treating Russia like a trustworthy ally in fighting
global terror, or having common interests with the United States in
Latin America, Africa or Europe has long passed. Only the
administration, perhaps still tied by Bush’s peering into Putin’s soul,
seems oblivious to what Russia really wants-to reestablish itself as a
world power whose interests will often collide directly with the
interests of the United States and its allies.

Russia is a sovereign state, and most (with important exceptions) of
its clients are also sovereign states, with the right to enter into
these international agreements. But it is time to stop pretending
Russia’s interests are anything but extremely hostile to combatting
Islamist terrorism, stabilizing key regions and ending regional
conflicts that pose the real threat of becoming much broader wars…

Farah’s full blog can be found here.  In this extended post, Farah notes that there is a connection between Putin’s Russian, Chavez’ Venezuela, and Ahmadinejad’s  Iran and that most of Chavez’ weapons are coming from Russia:

The Chavez government in Venezuela has spent some $4.3 billion on
weapons since 2005, placing it ahead of China ($3.4 billion); Pakistan
($3 billion); and Iran ($1.7 billion), according to the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA).

The question must again be asked, why are we trusting Putin and Russia, and maybe more incredulously, why is Secretary Rice surprised by Putin’s rhetoric?

According to Farah (see his paper on it for the International Assessment and Strategy Center) Chavez’ weapons and influence have supported the FARC in Columbia, and he has a reach of destabilization "…not only Colombia, but the rest of the Andean ridge, from Ecuador through Peru and to Bolivia…"

And we trust Putin, why?  So, it would seem that someone in the State Department or the CIA or the DIA or somewhere should be preparing Secretary Rice a bit better…and perhaps these agencies should be planning (and maybe they are) for the onset of a Second Cold War…even though Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday in a speech at a Moscow university that "Russia will respond to emerging threats to its national security in a
carefully weighed, adequate way, and won’t allow anyone to draw it into
a new confrontation, a new arms race."

The long-term effects of the attacks of September 11th are still to be felt.  The ultimate influence of Islamic terrorism and destabilization are yet to be seen (IMO, of course).  And yet, it is beginning to look like the coming of a Second Cold War…where are Russia’s true motivations?  They may well be to quell the Chechyn turmoil.  But their activities in South America might well be more of a threat to the U.S. than when Russia placed their missiles in Cuba in 1962.

The War on Terror is a Global and multi-front war.  We need to see all of these fronts as they are emerging, if not before.  So where are the intelligence analysts?  Are they talking to the Administration about this?  Are they talking to eachother?

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Here’s another one regarding Texas politics, but this time bringing the topic closer to "on-topic" when you consider the "home" in Homeland Security…and this time, supporting the Texas politician involved.

Supposedly, "a man’s home is his castle."  As Texas law currently stands, "if someone is breaking into your home,
you cannot use excessive force to protect yourself. So if a robber has
a knife, and you shoot him, you could be charged."

Trying to bring Texas into line with 15 other states, Texas State Senator Jeff Wentworth, has introduced legislation to give Texans broader power to protect themselves, their families and their property.

"Today, you don’t have a right to defend
yourself, to stand and defense yourself and your family," Wentworth
said. "You have an obligation to retreat and not use excessive force."

"Current Texas law effectively imposes a duty to attempt to retreat
before using force against an intruder," said Senator Wentworth.
"Texans who do not attempt to escape before using force to protect
their homes, their businesses or their vehicles may be criminally
prosecuted and face possible civil suits alleging wrongful injury or
death.

"I believe Texans who are attacked in their homes, their businesses,
their vehicles or anywhere else they have a right to be should have the
right to defend themselves from attack without fear of being prosecuted
criminally, and if unsuccessfully sued in civil court by the attacker,
all costs at court will be paid by the attacker."

No retreat - no longer would you have to make an attempt to run from the intruder.  "…No
one should be obliged to retreat when confronted with a very real threat."

Wentworth’s district in San Antonio lies approximately 150 miles from Laredo (across from Nuevo Laredo where Mexican drug violence rages), less than 300 miles from Brownsville (across from Matamoros where the Mexican drug violence rages).  Crazy or not, San Antonio is within unsafe distance of what the U.S. government is allowing to occur just across the border.  The "Castle Doctrine" may be intended to protect citizens against petty robbers, thieves and murderers.  Why not expand the vision?  Texas seems to be the first line of defense against drug narco-terrorism coming across the border from Mexico.

See update: Texas Castle Doctrine Effective Sept. 1

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OK, this has even less to do with National Security or Homeland Security or counterterrorism than any post on Michelle Manhart or Alexander Litvinenko.  This is about ignorance.  It is about a Texas State Legislator named Warren Chisum (Texas House Appropriations Committee Chairman), and for those of you not from Texas, it might expose to you some of the "brainiacs" that pass as politicians down here.

This starts with a Georgia legislator named Ben Bridges who now denies writing a memo that in part reads:

"Indisputable evidence — long
hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that
so-called ’secular evolution science’ is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year,
alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion," says the memo,
which has Bridges’ name on it. "This scenario is derived
concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’
Kabbala dating back at least two millennia."

What makes this worse is that the Texas State Legislator, Warren Chisum then distributed this letter to his colleagues in what he called "a Good Samaritan deed."

Group Demands Apology From Georgia Lawmaker for Memo Saying Evolution Is a Jewish Conspiracy

Anti-Jewish memo spurs apology

Legislature: Chisum says document he passed out doesn’t reflect his views 
The second most
powerful member of the House has apologized to the Anti-Defamation
League for giving colleagues a document that contains what the league
called "outrageous anti-Semitic material."[more]

His defense?

Mr. Chisum
said his colleague of 18 years in the Legislature, former Rep. Steve
Wolens, D-Dallas, who is Jewish, could confirm that Mr. Chisum is not a
bigot.

Mr. Wolens did just that Friday.

"I’ve always found him to be respectful of religions and respectful of my religion," Mr. Wolens said.

One is already a "former" and the other one should be made a "former."

Mr. Chisum was asked if Mr. Bridges’ memo reflects his own views. 

"No, absolutely, although I’m a Christian, and I believe in creation,"
he said. Creation science is the idea that the Earth was created in six
days some 6,000 years ago.

"You ought to teach creation
as well as the fact of evolution," Mr. Chisum said, though he said "all
of those kinds of sciences have holes in them. … But I’m not about
teaching religion in schools."

And they elected this guy?  I’m offended.  Even though this is about Texas politics, it is the Texas-Mexican border that represents a key element of National Security, and Chisum is head of appropriations?  [See how I tried to come back to the premise of this blog?].  Border security.

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It is amazing that this story is still going.  On the one hand, you have a woman who lives in a "very nice" part of San Antonio called the Dominion.  On the other hand, you have an Air Force drill instructor based on Lackland AFB who chose to pose nude in a Playboy Magazine spread.

The result of all of this is that Manhart was not only relieved of her duty, but last week announced that she was leaving the Air Force.  This has clearly become a clash of values (Playboy pics ignite a clash of values).

… Playboy’s
six-page spread of her disrobed in a Dominion home seemed innocuous
enough to former Lackland AFB drill instructor Michelle Manhart, who
didn’t think she would be punished — let alone driven out of uniform.

A feminist warrior nurtured by the modern society the Air Force
protects, she overlooked one critical thing in her drive to both train
young recruits for combat and craft a modeling career, experts say: The
mores of the armed services are much closer to 1941 than 2007…

Differing opinions:

• Former Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters: "I must say
  there’s certainly no reason for this woman to be surprised by this
  outcome.  It might
  seem antediluvian and Victorian, but there has been a long course of
  consistent disciplinary treatment for people who appear nude in public
  and affiliate themselves with the military."

• Air Force Master Sgt.
  Linda Farias (a mother of two): "I thank and
  applaud Playboy for giving her the chance to celebrate those of us who
  work hard at work and work hard to look good."

• Retired Air Force Staff Sgt. Ricky C. Watkins said he was "disgusted" with Manhart’s judgment…"This is one of the Air Force’s most elite jobs and it represents
  nothing but INTEGRITY, a word this young lady forgot before doing her
  photo shoot."

• Manhart’s attorney, Air Force Capt. Chris Brown, said the Air Force chose an odd way to discipline Manhart: an administrative demotion…Air Force Instruction 36-2503 historically has been used to discipline
  those consistently failing to meet standards, not for violations of the
  Uniform Code of Military Justice, he said. The proper course should
  have been for Manhart to face an Article 15 hearing, a form of
  nonjudicial punishment.

• Peters also said that Manhart’s
  actions were "inconsistent with that kind of respect for the military,
  respect for the uniform, respect for the institution that a military
  training instructor is trying to teach people to do…It’s a sad day for her. She obviously has some real love for her
  country and was doing some real good stuff. But it seems to me to be
  one of those sad, inexplicable events. I just don’t know what she was
  thinking."  

Just two observations:

After reading all of this, I’ve concluded that Manhart used poor judgment and at a minimum miscalculated the reaction that the Air Force would have when she bared her boobs for Playboy…even if the Air Force culture is seen as anachronistic or outdated.  That is not for a civilian to decide, nor is it for a military person to challenge, IMO.

I think that the Air Force, especially at Lackland AFB should have more important things to worry about…like whether or not the Force Protection Battlelab will be closed…Lackland battle lab may close by fall.

Pavlov’s dog says , "Woof!"

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Lest anyone believe that the new Mexican government of Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa is actually stemming the tide of drug violence plaguing our Texas-Mexican border, think again!  Its time to
take U.S. border security seriously, and realize that the drug wars
between the Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels are a threat to our national
security. Matamoros Mexico lies directly across the border from Brownsville Texas…similarly, Nuevo Laredo Mexico and Laredo Texas are simply "border cousins."

Drug gangs still control parts of Mexico, despite federal crackdown
Mexico’s powerful drug gangs still control parts of Mexico, despite a
nearly nationwide federal crackdown aimed at retaking control of the
country, one of Mexico’s top security officials said Thursday…

…Since taking office Dec. 1, President Felipe Calderon has launched an
aggressive federal campaign aimed at undermining the growing drug
trade. He has sent troops into Tijuana, Acapulco and Michoacan, all
attempts to drive out smugglers and destroy illegal crops.

But
the crackdown has mostly passed by the reported strongholds of Mexico’s
two main gangs, the Gulf cartel along the Texas border and the Sinaloa
cartel, based in the northwestern state of the same name…

In my opinion, Calderón is another in a series of impotent pretenders that will show initial action and never actually fight the problem.  And importantly (as well as unfortunately), what happens along the U.S. (Texas) border with Mexico, spills over into our country and effects us.

Hopefully this Google link to the new Stratfor article will remain "hot" for some time to come.

Mexico: The Looming Fight for Control of Matamoros
Hundreds of Mexican soldiers briefly patrolled the streets of Ciudad
Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas state, Feb. 15 as part of the
federal government’s response to the seizure on the U.S.-Mexican border
of a large weapons shipment that passed through the capital. The
contents of the cache suggest an effort is under way to equip or
reinforce a heavily armed unit of enforcers for one of Mexico’s two
main drug cartels. The cartels, in other words, appear to be gearing up
to fight for ultimate control of Matamoros…

Among the weapons seized:

• 18 M-16 assault rifles (one equipped with an M-203 40mm grenade launcher)

• several M-4
  carbines

• 17 handguns of various calibers

• 200 magazines for different weapons

• more than 8,000 rounds of
  ammunition

• assault vests and other military accessories

• a Nissan
  Titan pickup truck outfitted with armor and bullet-proof glass

…the Zetas — former Mexican elite soldiers who work for the Gulf cartel
as enforcers — stand out as the mostly likely intended recipient of
these weapons…the Zetas would want to
have a high degree of standardization in the weapons and equipment they
use, and they also would be more comfortable with M-16s, which are
standard issue in the Mexican army…

Paying attention yet?  I hope so, because despite a comment from a gentleman the other day suggesting that I was using media hype for my advantage in my post, Murder in Monterrey (Mexico), this is a serious situation, and the violence is spreading unabated.  And back in June 2006 I wrote another post, On the Border - Power Struggle Within the Cartel?.  This has been going on for some time now.  The real question is when the U.S. government is going to act as though this is a serious threat to our National security.

What are the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels?  For a refresher course, try reading this piece, ”Mexico’s Internal Drug War.”

…Osiel Cardenas Guillen leads the Gulf Cartel. It has traditionally
controlled access to the Nuevo Laredo-Laredo smuggling routes, referred
to as "plazas." Joaquin Guzman Loera, also known as "El Chapo,"
currently directs the Sinaloa Cartel. Since escaping from prison in
2001, El Chapo has worked hard to increase the Sinaloa organization’s
control of the Mexican cocaine market…

These two bastards are running amok in Mexico…and until the Mexican government grows some "cajones" to crack down on this, it will only spread…across the border, too.

Many Mexican politicians claim that Mexico will never become as bad as
Colombia in the 1980s, when violence was widespread and men like Pablo
Escobar controlled a cash flow that rivaled the country’s G.D.P. What
many of Mexico’s leaders will not say in public is the opposite. The
reality is not too far away. Bodies continue to pile up even as
Mexicans wait to see who will be their next president, whose greatest
challenge may not be improving the Mexican economy, but convincing
himself that his country has not become a state controlled by the drug
trade.

Even though it was written almost 18 months ago, there is truth in the words.

Also disturbing is the recent shift to using the Internet’s YouTube for these two cartels to fight it out.
A congressional report announced on Jan. 10 that during the six-year
term of former President Vicente Fox more than 9,000 people were killed
in drug-related crime in Mexico. In just the first three months of the
Calderón administration there have been 250 executions, according to Proceso Magazine (14.02.07). This growing trend threatens the peace and prosperity of the United States’ next-door neighbor.

Rival drug dealers in Mexico have decided to use the power of the
Internet as a channel to vent their disputes, using the popular YouTube
video-sharing Web site…
[note that you cannot view the gruesome videos without signing up]

Drug rivals wage a war of grisly images
For months, video artists and videographers of varying skill have
been peppering the Internet with a gruesome cavalcade of images: a
woman slain in the cab of a pickup truck, an alleged Mafia hit man
being tortured and executed, an assassinated singer’s body splayed on a
coroner’s table.

Many of the videos are posted at one time or another on the website
YouTube. They seek to cheer on or denigrate the opposing sides in
Mexico’s drug wars, the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquín ”El Chapo”
Guzmán and the Gulf cartel believed led, until recently, by Osiel
Cardenas. Mexican authorities extradited Cardenas last month to face
charges in a U.S. courtroom.

Last week, assassins armed with assault weapons and cameras appeared
to take the cultural battle to a new level. Police said two groups of
gunmen videotaped themselves assassinating five officers and two
secretaries at police stations in Acapulco.

Those images have yet to surface on the Internet…[more]

Think this doesn’t affect those across the U.S. border (on our side)?  Think again!

Missing Laredo man subject of FBI search
The FBI is
investigating the apparent kidnapping of another U.S. citizen in Nuevo
Laredo, Mexico — the 64th such case reported to the agency in the past
21/2 years.

Dagoberto Saenz, a Laredo resident in his 20s, was last seen with three
friends early Feb. 3 at the red-light district known as "Boystown,"
said William Slemaker, a friend of the missing man’s family.

Slemaker, whose daughter disappeared in Nuevo Laredo, is a member of a
local advocacy group for those kidnapped in Mexico, called Laredo’s
Missing.

Saenz and his buddies got into a fight, were
arrested and were put in a holding cell within the Boystown compound,
Slemaker said.

Retelling the family’s account, Slemaker
said Nuevo Laredo municipal police picked the group up, but they
somehow ended up in the hands of people believed to be affiliated with
the Zetas, a paramilitary arm of the Gulf Cartel…[more]

The Mexican drug war…the war between the Sinaloa and Gulf drug cartels is terrorism…it is terrorism on our border.  It is terrorism, as though armed terrorists simply crossed our border and kidnapped and held any American citizen.  And yet, we stand by and do nothing, while the supposed government of Felipe Calderón takes steps to quell the violence.  Can we wait another 3 years to see if Calderón has any balls and mounts a serious offensive against the cartels?  I don’t think so!  Can we allow Los Zetas to continue to kill and terrorize on both sides of the border (who do you think attacked the border patrol agents a few weeks ago?).  If Calderón cannot stand against his problem, the drug cartels, then perhaps it is time for the U.S. to take action.  Perhaps a few selected Black-Ops into Mexico to eliminate the heads of the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels?  Clearly (IMO atleast) taking custody of Cardenas will not stop the Gulf Cartel.

Lets complete this post (for now) with a quote from a Michael Cutler article on Family Security Matters titled National Football Losers (protesting that the NFL refused to run a recruitment ad for the Border Patrol on the Super Bowl):

Clearly
the disconnect between the War on Terror and the need to secure our borders has
been disturbing, to say the least.  It has been especially vexing when you
consider that Border Patrol agents including the elite BORTAC (Border Patrol
Tactical Unit) have been sent to Iraq to help secure that beleaguered nation’s
borders while our own borders have remained as porous as a
sieve.  Indications point to corporate interests and the
politicization of immigration as the reason for our nation’s failure to
take the basic and commonsense approach of securing our borders.  As I’ve
said before, as far as our government is concerned, trade and profit has
trumped national security.

Its time to
take U.S. border security seriously, and realize that the drug wars
between the Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels are a threat to our national
security.  Hype?  My ass!  This is serious.

See previous posts regarding the Zetas and BORTAC:
Border Security - BORTAC and the "Zetas"
Border Security - Out Manned, Out Gunned and Wrong Rules of Engagement