I have commented before, about the rather low key recognition that seems to be given the threat to these United States that is Iran.  We have recently seen

• Specifics about their nuclear weapons development.
• The ties that have been developed with Hugo Chavez, and the relationship being developed with Venezuela.
• The activities that they are taking in Nicaragua and the potential for infiltration of agents throughout the western hemisphere
• The questionable legitimacy of the recent presidential election
• The violent crackdowns within the country
• Actions to destabilize Iraq
• Sponsorship of Hezbollah, and their actions as an instigator within Israel and Lebanon.

Today – I see a piece in the WSJ, that reminds us that Iran really hasn’t changed all that much.  It seems that there is a great deal of fear from the security forces there, and that they seem to be very similiar to the old Savak organization.

Back during the Iran Contra investigations, we saw Oliver North give testimony that Usama Bin Laden was arguably the most dangerous man on the planet.  In 2009, we are struggling as a nation to combat the movement that UBL constructed and arrayed against those nations that are not predominantly Muslim.   I see some parallels here with the actions that Iran have been taking over the past several years and I fear that we are close to a tipping point where direct action will surface in the form of state sponsored terrorism within North America and Europe.

In addition, we are likely to see state level actions within the middle east that are driven by Iran.   Please recall that Iran and Iraq fought a war over oil.  It will not take much for Iran to roll up Iraq, particularly when US forces withdraw.  From that action, there is an easy road into the Kingdom of Saud from northern border, and across the gulf.

It is in the interest of these United States that the mission in Afghanistan be well defined and spelled out.  In my mind it is two fold:

1. Capture or elimination of UBL, and elimination  of Al Qaida and Taliban operations  in Agghanistan, and Pakistan.
2. Building of Infrastructure and government within Afghanistan to stabilize the region.  That means power plants, telecommunications, moving away from poppy production to other crops, bringing in some level of industrial base and educational system, eliminating (or reducing) government and police corruption, and instituting a viable rule of law.

That is a tough mission but it is one that can be accomplished and doing so would allow the US to focus it’s resources on Iran (and other areas) to defuse the situation that is currently simmering.  Our conflict with Iran goes back 3 decades (or more) and holds the potential to very quickly turn into a hot conflict.  My fear is that the Iranians feel embolden at this time and may be in a position soon to execute a broad, sweeping operation that will cause us a great deal of pain, and heartache.

Life has been intruding lately and I have been absent from meaningful posting.  Apologies.  Even though it is very near the holidays, and demands on the “spare time” are high, I am working to remedy my absence.

We start with the POTUS address last night.  I will wind up sending you to another blog that has dissected the address more carefully than I have, and brings you many of the same observations that I would.

Here are some of my knee jerk reactions:

1.  West Point, with and audience?  WTF?  Is this a presidential address or a campaign stop.

2.  Did you see the cadets?  Not a lot of enthusiasm from them to be there, or to provide applause.  I think perhaps BHO would have been better with a traditional oval office address.

3.  A TIMELINE??  It is great to have a goal but, to announce a definitive timeline for withdrawl that is just fucked up.  If I were the enemy, I would be celebrating my victory today.  Step 1, ratchet down operations and plays opposum for the next 24 months.  Concentrate on recruitment, training and planning.  December 2011, all hell breaks loose in Afganistan, Pakistan, Europe, and the US.

3a.  Alternatively, if BHO just lied outright and has every intention of fighting this thing to the finish.  Bringing UBL to justice, dismantling Al Qaida and the Taliban, and leaving a politically strong Afghani government in place then my hat is off to him for superb disinformation, deception, and comprehensive strategic approach to one of our greatest security threats.

Given 3 and 3a — which do you think is most likely.

As a leader POTUS is providing direction and leadership.  It has taken too long to make a decision, and in my opinion he has gone for a compromise decision.  The fence sitting decision if you will.  This is a long term “holy war” that has been hot and cold for centuries.  We are again in a hot phase, and have the opportunity to tip the scales and push it back into a cold phase.  It takes determination, fortitude, perseverance to complete this action.  When it is complete, all that will have been accomplished is a return to a colder phase of a centuries old conflict.  Our current course may result in a short term feeling of success but, the rebound from that initial success is going to be extreme and more painful than if we had done the job right the first time.  For the sake of this country, I hope that I am terribly wrong.

Take a few minutes to head over to Cdr. Salamander’s for his reactions.

UPDATE:  An interesting piece over at Hot Air.  I particularly liked this, “…Obama has made opponents more or less irrelevant, since he seems to be opposing himself.”

A lot of attention has been given lately to the piracy taking place in the Gulf of Aden.  Recently a US flagged merchant ship was attacked.  The crew were unarmed and unable to repel borders.  The US Government has taken a very measured approach to the situation with White House advisors indicating that POTUS is following the situation closely.

Hmm… there is something fundamentaly wrong with that message.  I harken back to Theodore Roosevelt and his famous quote, “Speak softly but, carry a big stick”.  It seems the current POTUS speaks loudly (with help of his telepromter (TOTUS)) and carries no stick.

Over at “From my position…On the way“, Chuck breaks down the scenario a bit differently and demostrates that from time to time, it is okay to remind people that there is a big stick that can and should be wielded.  The pertinent part is below.

“President Chuck, Somali pirates just attacked a US-flagged vessel and took American citizens hostage. What should we do?”

Prez Chuck: First, I want an MEU launched in 4 hours to those waters, alert seal team six I want them airborne in two. Park a carrier group off the Somali coast within sight of the coast, with orders to search all non-commercial or suspect vessels. ROE: Any vessel not heaving to- for search will be sunk. No warning shots. Any vessel carrying arms related to pirate activity (RPG, AKs, etc.) will also be sunk. Floaters will not be picked up.

Tell the Somali government they have one hour to affect the release of our citizen, or the port we believe the pirates operate from will be destroyed.

Seal team six is ordered to find and secure the hostage, and eliminate the pirates. All US intelligence assets are available to the Team Commander to accomplish this mission. If the hostage is killed before they arrive, they are to locate the pirates and eliminate the pirates, their friends, families, and acquaintances.

Once all hostages are free, the Carrier Group will escort the relief supplies into the bay where they were to be delivered, and the containers carrying relief supplies will be dumped overboard. Cut a check to the companies that owned the containers. Cut all diplomatic ties to Somalia, place it on the list of countries who don’t do dick about terrorists operating in their borders, pull the credentials from their embassy and UN personnel, and drop them off the Somali coast in a lifeboat.

Submarine and Brown-Water assets will patrol off the coast of Somalia sinking any vessel larger than a canoe that operates within 5 miles of the coast, for the next year.

In my mind, if the world wants the US to be a police force then they need to accept that sometimes we will act swiftly and harshly.  Which is meant as a deterence to others, as well as a direct response to direct action.  In this case, an attack against a US flagged merchant vessel… the gloves come off.  You attack a US Embassy, a US Ship, a US Aircraft, a US Citizen the consequences should be clear, swift, and decisive.

I have been watching this BBC report scroll by on my ticker for a while now, it took a little bit for me to realize how momentous an event this really is.

COMMERCIAL AIRLINE TRAVEL FROM EUROPE TO BAGHDAD HAS RESUMED.

This is huge. The threat of MANPADs or other SAM weapons has always been significant. You have a fixed location for aircraft to land at, and realtively reliable routes that commercial airliners are going to take to reach that airstrip. It’s not like these planes are going to enter the pattern at high speed for a break turn and short final.

This is a SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENT and speaks to the normalcy that can be found in the country. But the MSM has closed all their news bureaus in Baghdad so the peace, security, and normalcy that is returning to that region of the world is being missed by those that have given so much to achieve this.

Nordic Leisure flew about 150 passengers from Copenhagen.

The first commercial flight between Europe and Iraq in at least 17 years has landed at Baghdad airport.

Swedish-based company Nordic Leisure says it expects to fly to the Iraqi capital once a week.

About 150 passengers, mainly Iraqis, arrived from Denmark on the first such flight since UN sanctions were imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Iraqi national carrier Iraqi Airways has said it hopes to start flying routes to Europe in the coming months.

More international arrivals are expected in the next two days, including one from Hong Kong, Iraqi Transport Minister Amer Abduljabbar Ismail told journalists, AFP news agency reported.

Typically, reputations are built on historical actions.  The Marine Corps has a reputation has the finest fighting force on this planet.  As a result there are always those who ask us to validate our reputation on a regular basis.  When that occurs, it generally does not work out best for those that ask.  Recently, we were asked again to provide evidence of our abilities.  The entire article is here, and below.

FARAH PROVINCE, Afghanistan — In the city of Shewan, approximately 250 insurgents ambushed 30 Marines and paid a heavy price for it.

Shewan has historically been a safe haven for insurgents, who used to plan and stage attacks against Coalition Forces in the Bala Baluk district.

The city is home to several major insurgent leaders. Reports indicate that more than 250 full time fighters reside in the city and in the surrounding villages.

Shewan had been a thorn in the side of Task Force 2d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Afghanistan throughout the Marines’ deployment here in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, because it controls an important supply route into the Bala Baluk district. Opening the route was key to continuing combat operations in the area.

“The day started out with a 10-kilometer patrol with elements mounted and dismounted, so by the time we got to Shewan, we were pretty beat,” said a designated marksman who requested to remain unidentified. “Our vehicles came under a barrage of enemy RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) and machine gun fire. One of our ‘humvees’ was disabled from RPG fire, and the Marines inside dismounted and laid down suppression fire so they could evacuate a Marine who was knocked unconscious from the blast.”

The vicious attack that left the humvee destroyed and several of the Marines pinned down in the kill zone sparked an intense eight-hour battle as the platoon desperately fought to recover their comrades. After recovering the Marines trapped in the kill zone, another platoon sergeant personally led numerous attacks on enemy fortified positions while the platoon fought house to house and trench to trench in order to clear through the enemy ambush site.

“The biggest thing to take from that day is what Marines can accomplish when they’re given the opportunity to fight,” the sniper said. “A small group of Marines met a numerically superior force and embarrassed them in their own backyard. The insurgents told the townspeople that they were stronger than the Americans, and that day we showed them they were wrong.”

During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone. What made his actions even more impressive was the fact that he didn’t miss any shots, despite the enemies’ rounds impacting within a foot of his fighting position.

“I was in my own little world,” the young corporal said. “I wasn’t even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target.”

After calling for close-air support, the small group of Marines pushed forward and broke the enemies’ spirit as many of them dropped their weapons and fled the battlefield. At the end of the battle, the Marines had reduced an enemy stronghold, killed more than 50 insurgents and wounded several more.

“I didn’t realize how many bad guys there were until we had broken through the enemies’ lines and forced them to retreat. It was roughly 250 insurgents against 30 of us,” the corporal said. “It was a good day for the Marine Corps. We killed a lot of bad guys, and none of our guys were seriously injured.”

“…opportunity to fight…” do not tie our hands with reams of rules of engagement, let us do our job as we need to to be tactically successful and we will be.  Give us the logistics train we need to meet your strategic objectives and we will.  The Marines have a long tradition of success, and the spirit, traditions, and fighting skills of this generation of Marines has not diminished.

Some people read history.  Some people make it.

Many years ago I read a book by Mercedes Lackey that got me thinking.  Being young and immortal at the time (at least in my own mind) I had never really given it any thought.  In any case it was one of those “fantasy / reality” stories featuring elves in modern settings and it was explaining a myth that holds about elves that they would kidnap children and leave a changeling in their place.  It went on to explain the elves held children precious above all else, and they did indeed remove children from abusive environments where ever they found them, and raised them in safer environments.

Since becoming a father, and working with kids both mine and others I fully agree with the sentiment that there is nothing so precious as a child.

Well someone has been compiling stats recently and pulled this one together.

From AKI

Baghdad, 1 Oct. (AKI) – Al-Qaeda has over the past two years used 24 children to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq, the director of military operations for the Interior Ministry, Abdelaziz Mohammed Jasim, told pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat.

“Of the 24 children, five had a mental disability. From analysing the others’ remains, we established that they were homeless,” said Jasim.

American soldiers stationed in Iraq have reported that the insurgency has armed children as young as 11 to fight against them.

Al-Qaeda is targeting orphans, street children and mentally disabled children as suicide bomber recruits as well as women, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

There have been at least 16 suicide attacks carried out by women in recent months in the volatile Al-Qaeda stronghold of Diyala province, north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Iraqi children (photo) in general make up 20 percent of the civilian victims of bomb attacks in the country.

Evil.  Pure evil.

Over at Rustmaster’s is an incredible small post, that says more than I ever could in less than 150 words.  Go read the whole thing.  Here is a taste,

“Somewhere a true believer is training to kill you.”

This anecdote popped up on Blackfive, and Watchcat recently.  Another one of those unheard stories from an infamous day not so long ago…

… Just came from the memorial ceremony here at NORTHCOM. LTC (CH) Robert Leivers led the group in a ceremony here at the headquarters. During the ceremony, he relayed this little-known story from the Pentagon on 9/11:

During a visit with a fellow chaplain, who happened to be assigned to the Pentagon, I had a chance to hear a first-hand account of an incident that happened right after Flt 77 hit the Pentagon. The Chaplain told me what happened at a daycare center near where the impact occurred.

This daycare had many children, including infants who were in heavy cribs. The daycare supervisor, looking at all the children they needed to evacuate, was in a panic over what they could do; there were many children, mostly toddlers, as well as the infants that would need to be taken out with the cribs. There was no time to try to bundle them into carriers and strollers.

Just then a young Marine came running into the center and asked what they needed. After hearing what the center director was trying to do, he ran back out into the hallway and disappeared. The director thought, ‘well, there we are- on our own.’ About 2 minutes later, that Marine returned with 40 others in tow. Each of them grabbed a crib with a child, and the rest started gathering up toddlers. The director and her staff then helped them take all the children out of the center and down toward the park near the Potomac and the Pentagon.

Once they got about 3/4 of a mile outside the building, the Marines stopped in the park, and then did a fabulous thing- they formed a circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy, like the covered wagons in the West. Inside this circle of cribs, they put the toddlers, to keep them from wandering off. Outside this circle were the 40 Marines, forming a perimeter around the children and waiting for instructions. There they remained until the parents could be notified and come get their children.

The NORTHCOM chaplain then said- “I don’t think any of us saw nor heard of this on any of the news stories of the day. It was an incredible story of our men there.”

I must say- there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. The thought of those Marines and what they did and how fast they reacted- could we expect any less from them?? It was one of the most touching stories from the Pentagon I’ve EVER heard.

There have been some very stirring September 11th posts out there over the past several years.  I have to say though that this one is brilliant.  A bit of a different approach.

After spending almost a year in Iraq, I perceive two central — and competing — truths about this war: First, because our enemy is more evil than I imagined, losing is simply not an option. Second, the strain of multiple deployments is very real, and any given individual can only give so much before the hardship is simply too great.

Go give it a read.

I have to admit that I missed this seven years ago. We may have had to revolt against their rule 232 years ago but they have always been there when we needed them, and vice versa,