-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
DefenseWatch – December 5, 2001 Soldiers For The Truth (SFTT) Weekly Newsletter When we assumed the Soldier, We did not lay aside the Citizen. General George Washington, to the New York Legislature, 1775 In this week’s Issue of DefenseWatch: Next Moves in the War Against Terror ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- EDITORIAL and ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Ed Offley Editor, DefenseWatch Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] J. David Galland Deputy Editor, DefenseWatch Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] David H. Hackworth Senior Military Columnist Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chris Humphrey SFTT Webmaster Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Hack’s Target for the Week: It’s Time to Take Out Saddam Hussein Article 01 – Iraq: A Decade of Appeasement Must End, by Patrick Hayes Article 02 – It Is Time For Accountability For Sept. 11, by J. David Galland Article 03 – War & Religion: Islam’s Embrace of Violence, by Robert G. Williscroft Article 04 – Pearl Harbor Legacy Has Critical Significance Today, by Paul Connors Article 05 – Fight for Jointness Critical to U.S. Military’s Future, by Matthew Dodd Article 06 – Feedback: Readers Respond to Hack Columns on U.S. Army, Marines Article 07 – Feedback: One Guardsman’s Mobilization Tale Medal of Honor: Article 08 – ROEDER, ROBERT E., Capt. USA EDITOR'S NOTE: Your Support is Important! EDITOR'S NOTE: Article Submission Procedures/Subject Editors Sought ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Hack’s Target For The Week: It’s Time to Take Out Saddam Hussein ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- By David H. Hackworth Now that Round One of our war against terrorism – Afghanistan – is about 80 percent over, the generals should be positioning forces for Round Two. There's scuttlebutt aplenty about which country is next: Somalia, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, the Palestinian Authority or Iraq. Like the now-defeated Taliban's Afghanistan, the contenders are all training grounds for terrorists and major exporters of this particularly reprehensible form of warfare. Snake pits of hate that – as our president has articulated so well – must be defanged before we in the civilized world can even begin to contemplate getting back to our way of life. Happy days might be here again a lot sooner if Saddam Hussein were moved to the top of the terrorist hit list. While our fight shouldn't be with the people of Iraq – who have been tortured by this certified war criminal for the past 20 years – the head of the most dangerous state among the meanest of company needs to be knocked off next. When you get into a barroom fight, you take out the baddest dude first. Check out Saddam's track record: He used poison gas against Iran and his own people; he has huge stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction – bugs and gas and maybe nukes; and insiders say his death factories are churning out more. If that's not justification enough to punch out his lights, high-ranking Iraqi defectors say (and U.S. intelligence confirms) that his prints have been on all the terrorist strikes against the United States since Stormin' Norman stumped him, including running a terrorist training camp for members of Osama bin Laden's gang and other major players, complete with a mock-up of a 707 for some hands-on hijack simulation. A U.S. intelligence source told me it will soon be conclusively proven that he was a key player in the assaults on our embassies, our overseas military personnel, World Trade Center I and II and some of the anthrax attacks that have been coming down since Sept. 11. Now President George W. Bush has laid down the gauntlet to Saddam: U.N. arms inspectors must be allowed to return immediately to Iraq and continue the WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) inspections agreed to after Desert Storm. The Master of Miscalculation says there's no way this is going to happen. But most European and Arab leaders are against our taking out Saddam. The Europeans are worried about their gas tanks, pocketbooks and pacifists, while the Arabs paint us as a bully picking on one of theirs as an excuse for their own political instability. Well, let them come to New York City and visit our WTC national wound, where 4,000 civilians were having their first cup of coffee on the day they were fiendishly murdered. Let the politicians and peaceniks in Paris and Berlin sit on their hands and wag their diplomatic tongues as they did for years when ex-Yugoslavia was burning. Let them appease Saddam – as they did Adolf Hitler – while this century's mustached madman builds his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons arsenal, financed with the smuggled oil that runs their cars and factories. We didn't take out the Soviets because of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), and we were lucky that the Evil Empire imploded before one of theirs – or ours -- pressed the button in an insane moment and turned planet Earth into a radiated ash pit. We cannot allow Saddam to have such power. Employing the operational methods we used in Afghanistan – Air, Special Ops and limited conventional forces, but with an infinitely bigger sledgehammer – and the help of old and new foxhole pals along with the Iraqi exiles and Kurdish militias, we should clean his clock with similar dispatch. Then, as with Afghanistan, the people of Iraq will finally be free to rise up and reclaim their country. Clearly Saddam represents our most clear and present danger. You either stop terrorism or it will stop you. We must put Saddam and all other terrorists down or suffer the fate of Israel, a terrorist punching bag for 53 years. Taking out the Taliban, and then Saddam's evil regime, should cause other states to reconsider if they really want to bear the consequences of being in the terror business when Uncle Sam is on a roll. http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Sign in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- ARTICLE 01 – Iraq: A Decade of Appeasement Must End ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- By Patrick Hayes Frequently, U.S. strategic analysts, planners and decision-makers do a less-than-adequate job, with their collective, short-range actions often missing the mark. Recent history shows that the U.S. military has had the tendency of moving from one hemorrhaging conflict to another, when earlier preventive action – or acting in a different direction altogether – may have changed the course of history in favor of the United States. Prime examples of this include our interventions in Beirut, Somalia, Haiti, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Balkans, and now Iraq – again! We face an old enemy let off the hook 11 years ago to appease our oil-producing Arab “friends” (the devil you know is better than the one you don’t). We are also in a war against transnational terrorists, which might have been avoided if decisive action had been taken against Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network earlier, when it became obvious he and his cadre were targeting American interests. But even with analyses and planning, the political will during most of the 1990s was not there. Much has been said about the consequences for those who ignore the lessons of history. German Philosopher George Hegel said, “But what experience and history teach is this – that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” American philosopher George Santayana said it more succinctly when he stated, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This could be said about American relations with Iraq, which, in 1990, could have gone either way. Since Sept. 11, we have learned that the oil sheiks, particularly the Saudis, whose assets were saved by U.S.-led coalition forces, have been less than dependable, even supporting Islamic terrorist organizations hostile to the United States. Given what we now know, would dealing with the devil we knew then (Saddam) be different than dealing with the current devils? We’ll never know for sure. What is certain today, however, is that Saddam must go. However, recent political rhetoric has conveniently forgotten earlier U.S.-Iraqi relations and that Iraq was once our ally in the region when we supported Saddam in his war against our then-enemy Iran during 1980-88. That war, too, was about border disputes dating back at least to the first recorded incident in 1639. The Iraqis claimed complete control over the Shatt al Arab waterway, which is Iraq’s only access to the sea. The Iranians claimed at least half the waterway. In addition to Saddam’s war with Iran, his Baath Party leadership was also not one of rabid Muslim clerics, but rather controlled a secular, albeit militaristic, society. During the Gulf War, Saddam hid behind being a “good Muslim,” calling for other Muslim states to come to his aid in a jihad against the West, but most in the region saw through the façade. The trigger for the Gulf War was the Iraqi relationship with Kuwait, which was also a historical conflict dating back to the 19th Century when Kuwait was part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1899, Kuwait asked for British protection, gaining its independence in 1961, at which time Iraq renewed its claim that Kuwait was historically an Iraqi province. The world community paid little attention to the claim, but the border conflicts continued. These issues came to a head in 1990, when Iraq accused Kuwait of pumping oil from the al-Rumeilah oil field that straddles both countries without sharing revenues, and for producing more oil than allowed under the OPEC quotas, thereby lowering oil prices and damaging Iraq’s primary export. Iraq after the Iran-Iraq war was in financial turmoil, with a debt of $40 billion. Although it requested assistance from other Arab states, it received little and when Baghdad sought to raise oil prices, Kuwait and the other Gulf states balked. The rest, as we say, is history: Iraq mobilized forces near the Kuwait border. An attempt was made by the Arab states to defuse the situation. On Aug. 1, 1990, Iraqi and Kuwaiti representatives were invited to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, to try and solve the conflict. The meeting only resulted in more angry charges from both sides. A second meeting was to be held in Baghdad the following day, but shortly after midnight on Aug. 2, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Whether the Gulf War rose out of oil prices, oil production quotas, or a last-minute change in U.S. strategic thinking, a key point is that at the time, Washington had shown little interest in Kuwait’s fate. Indeed, U.S. policy-makers considered Iraqi action nothing more than the re-taking of disputed border regions, therefore making the issue of little concern for American policymakers. Eight days before the invasion, Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990, summoned U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad April Glaspie for a meeting, which also included Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Based on transcripts of that meeting later released by Iraq and not challenged by the State Department, the meeting was cordial and may have left Saddam with the impression that the United States would look the other way if he invaded Kuwait. According to the transcripts, both Saddam and Glaspie made several interesting statements. Initially Saddam was defensive and threatened the United States if it pressured Iraq or sided with Kuwait. Using ominous language, he said, “If you use pressure, we will deploy pressure and force. We know that you can harm us although we do not threaten you. But we too can harm you. Everyone can cause harm according to their ability and their size. We cannot come all the way to you in the United States, but individual Arabs may reach you (emphasis added).” Saddam further stated that if Iraq could keep control over the Shatt al Arab, it would make concessions with Kuwait. However, if Iraq were forced to give up half the waterway between Iraq and Iran, then he would give up his claim to the entire waterway and press his claim that Kuwait was an Iraqi province. Glaspie replied, “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.” She added, “We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly.” Glaspie later told journalists, “Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.” Saddam moved from being a shaky ally to a threatening adversary, but how much responsibility for the invasion and decade-long tensions falls on the U.S. government analysts, planners and decision-makers who were then responsible? Given the swift and certain response by the Bush II administration to the al Qaeda terrorist strikes – and its explicit warnings to Iraq – it appears that in Washington, the right team is in the right place at the right time. Patrick Hayes is a contributing editor to DefenseWatch. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! Write to same address to be off lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
