Saturday, August 9, 2014

Western Military Power Is a Necessary Force for Good

There is so much distressingly negative news around the world that two items that are more positive deserve attention today. ~~~~~ First, a top pro-Russia separatist leader on Saturday admitted that Ukrainian forces have surrounded Donetsk, the stronghold of Russian-backed rebels trying to break away from Ukraine and approach Russia. He called for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds : "We are ready for a ceasefire in order to avert the humanitarian catastrophe growing," Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic, said in a statement posted on a rebel website, according to the Associated Press and AFP news agency. Igor Girkin, a senior commander of the pro-Russia militants, also acknowledged Saturday that Donetsk was surrounded and conceded that Ukrainian troops had gotten the upper hand in eastern Ukraine after four months of fighting. The appeal by Zakharchenko comes as Russia is urging that it be permitted to send a humanitarian convoy into Ukraine to parts of the besieged eastern regions, an offer that the Ukrainian government has labeled a ploy to cover a military invasion, while US Secretary of State John Kerry says that humanitarian efforts are being coordinated with Kiev. A Ukraine military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, told reporters Saturday that he could not confirm that a town near Donetsk is now in government hands, although the separatists say that Krasnyi Luch is under the control of Ukrainian forces. In Luhansk, which is in far eastern Ukraine about 20 miles from the Russian border, the city council said in a statement Saturday that its situation remains critical, with the city going without electricity, water, or most communications for a week. The report said only about 250,00 people remain in the city with a normal population of 425,000. With the Ukraine military consolidating its gains in eastern Ukraine, it appears that the separatists will be forced to sit down with the Ukraine government and work out a ceasefire and the terms of a permanent peace solution. ~~~~~ President Obama, who finally decided yesteday to help the beseiged Iraqi government, said today that the airstrikes he authorized in Iraq will continue for as long as necessary to protect both US personnel and religious minorities who are trapped on a mountain by ISIL militants in northern Iraq. Obama said : "I'm not going to give a particular timetable," for ending the airstrikes. He was standing on the White House lawn shortly before leaving for a summer vacation at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He added, "We are going to maintain vigilance." Obama again called on Iraq to form a unified government that is able to coordiinate the effort to save Iraq from an ISIL takeover. Administration officials believe the Iraqis are best-suited to deal with the threat of ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that is also called ISIS, over the long term. One Obama administration official told ABC News : "We're laying down a marker here that even though [ISIS] is not penetrating Erbil, just their presence on the periphery, and the potential threat they pose, could lead us to take action if the targets present themselves." US forces are conducting a difficult and dangerous humanitarian mission, with three US Air Force cargo jets escorted by two F-18 fighter jets dropping critical supplies to the Yazidi who are trapped in the Sinjar mountain area without food or water. The US is in a race to stop a catastrophe from befalling thousands of families who fled to the top of a mountain in Sinjar to avoid the ISIL threat to exterminate them unless they converted to the ISIL form of radical Islam. Senior administration officials said air drops and humanitarian aid will continue "as we see need," and the administration expects that need to continue. British airdrops are now also underway, being coordinated with the US. In addition, the Associated Press reported that US officials have confirmed that ISIL kidnapped and imprisoned several hundred Yazidi women so that they can be sold or married off to extremist fighters. The US military has also used airstrikes and drones to destroy armored artillery that ISIL had positioned to begin an assault on the Kurdish capital, Erdil, in northern Iraq. Some US military ammuniton and small arms and mortar already delivered to Baghdad have been diverted to the Kurdish Peshmerga army so that it can continue its battle against ISIL. More supplies are to follow. The Peshmerga took over the defense of northern Iraq after the collapse of the regular Iraqi army during the first days of the ISIL onslaught. ~~~~~ Dear readers, there is a lot to be said for strong Western military organizations. Yes, they are expensive. Yes, their extremely advanced technology makes them overpowering in a world that seems to prefer underdogs, no matter how vicious they are. Yes, they permit the West to maintain its control of the world in the face of complaints by those less democratic countries znd groups who would prefer to control the world themselves. But, when we consider the situation in Iraq, it is clear that US and NATO forces could defeat ISIL if they were allowed to do so. And if we consider Ukraine, we can see that even a modest but well-trained and equipped army with its role clearly defined can defeat separatists who would destroy the country, even when the separatists have help from Russia. And, beyond today's examples, we might add that the only well-trained and equipped professional army in the Middle East, the Israeli IDF, can defeat Hamas if world opinion would only permit it. So, the next time someone begins to complain about tbe costs of the US or any other Western military -- think Hamas, ISIL, al Qaida and pro-Russia Ukraine separatists -- and thank your lucky stars that these dedicated men and women are prepared to defend your God-given right to freedom and personal liberty.

10 comments:

  1. Although the United States military is scarcely today what it was just a few short years ago. When ordered to perform and liberate the oppressed (De Oppressor Liber) they still manage to carry out the assignment no matter individual feeling for the Commander-In-Chief.

    Thank you to all involved directly and indirectly in this humanitarian effort.

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  2. We fight a war on terror like trying to kill a fly with a shotgun. Conventional warfare merely plays into the hands of asymmetric warfare by giving terrorists big, expensive targets. And after the shotgun blast to kill the fly, we scurry around to clean up the damage - more costly than waging the war. And we get killed while we clean up.

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    1. We have been through D̩tente, Cease Fires, Peace Accords, Withdrawals, Secret Wars, Public Wars, Humanitarian Actions, NATO Wars, UN Conflicts Рwe have bombed, blasted, battered, supported the wrong side, helped the right side, we have snatched defeat in the face of victory, we have been lied to, we have lied. DRAPA keeps turning out bigger and better weapons; our soldiers are trained and equipped than any military before it!

      But here we are back in Iraq - a place that Obama wrestled defeat from victory by his early evacuation. And here it is where Obama makes a stand not for the Kurds and their welfare, but for his need for attention and his need to take the pressure off his other recent mistakes.

      Some American will surely die in this Humanitarian effort. Yep, some good hearted American soldier will die for a cause that Obama finds necessary.

      Conventional warfare doesn't work in an unconventional war

      Will we at least win statehood for the Kurds in Northern Iraq this time?

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  3. De Oppressor LiberAugust 9, 2014 at 7:38 PM

    If you want to appreciate risk today, just surf the web for five minutes. Dramatic and dangerous change is happening everywhere in the international security environment. In some cases, the use of United States military forces or even the credible promise to act would help prevent hostilities, reduce and limit hazards, or mitigate greater harm. Increasingly, however, we appear unwilling to consider military tools to secure common goals — except under the most benign circumstances. To understand why, look no further than the Iraq War.

    Among our still-potent instruments of power, U.S. armed forces still have the most distinctive competitive advantage. One of the most effective apparatuses we have used against terrorists is a terror tool of our own - the drone – It silently reaches and kills the terrorist.

    Yet, Iraq’s long shadow has made consideration of even a modest use of force unpalatable to policy elites and the public at large. The decline of American military influence (or at least the thought of using it) actually began with 9/11 and the reflexive response to a growing threat the U.S. government never completely understood.

    The specter of Iraq has already fundamentally been clouding elite judgment on what is and what is not important in defensive affairs. Universally recognizing Iraq as “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time” — employing Omar Bradley’s judgment on widening the Korean War to China — will help clear heads.

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  4. The Yazidis are members of one of the world’s oldest religions. The jihadist totalitarians of ISIS want to sacrifice them to god. Without our help an entire religion is being exterminated from the face of the earth.

    As I have learned myself very painfully, there is an enormous amount the United States cannot do. It cannot solve Iraq’s political problems. It may not even be able to hold Iraq together. It cannot solve the horror in Syria. It cannot defeat the Taliban. It cannot stop Libya from descending into anarchy. All this we cannot do under the leadership of Obama But it can save the people in the Sinjar Mountains, both by dropping supplies to keep them alive, and by bombing ISIS so Kurdish forces can retake the areas nearby. And in so doing, it can stop this one genocide that’s in the making.

    Is there a risk that the U.S. will find itself sucked back into a costly and futile effort to impose the will of many Iraqi in Iraq? Perhaps! but nothing in war is a sure bet, ever.

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  5. If you had known beforehand the devastation which would take place in World War 2, how would that have affected you? To know the evil acts of Germany led by Hitler, to know the great loss of life suffered by the armies on both sides, and to know the massive destruction against civilian populations and the attempt to wipe out a whole race of people, the Jews. What would you have done with the knowledge of World War 2 had you known the details beforehand?

    Yet as a human race we are facing a devastating future war with weapons of mass destruction far beyond anything even slightly imagined in the past. Armies today have technologically advanced electronics, nuclear weapons, satellite imagery, and the capability to deliver huge amounts of explosives by missile very accurately far from the front lines. Most threatening are the poor man's nuclear weapons, namely, highly advanced biological and chemical weapons. Small amounts of modern biological weapons could be used to wipe out entire populations without destroying the land or infrastructure. World War III will occur because of tribalism, national jealousy, and economic competition.

    The reasoning for the next Great War will be more sociopolitical rather than materialistic. Oil and borders will not be the focal point. The United States, NATO, EU countries, etc. need to be specific & committed to the level of involvement in regionalized/border eruptions and have a strategy for success. Anything less will lead to a calamitous effort.

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  6. Is there such a thing as a Western way of war? A bestselling book by the American historian and political commentator Victor D Hanson argues that there is. Western military cuts and swiftly rising defense spending in emerging economies are redrawing the global strategic map.

    The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said the shift in economic power was already beginning to have a real military effect and closing any strategic gap. Western states defense budgets are under pressure and their military procurement is constrained. But in other regions -- notably Asia and the Middle East -- military spending and arms acquisitions are booming. There is persuasive evidence that a global redistribution of military power is under way.

    It has become conventional perception bordering on cliché that interstate conflict were a thing of the past and now that view is being called into question. There are now practical limitations to what Western countries can do. The West cannot do everything all the time and we have to recognize that.

    The United States right now is being hindered by its lack of leadership via the Obama administration from doing anything at all. Response by the US is not tied to commitment and/or finances – it’s tied to a president that simply has another agenda that the defense of individual rights assaults.

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  7. In a seemingly intractable situation, it is tempting to throw up one’s hands in horror and cry “do something!” Sending in the American military is a satisfyingly dramatic “something,” but the respite it gives is extremely brief.

    So when the respite is over, when the first fighter aircraft is shot down and a pilot or two are drug through some dirt street in Iraq what will be the resolve of Obama to say the course? What will be the will of the American people to care about the Kurdish people or their oil?

    We can’t change history. We fought an eight-year war in Iraq to questionable and costly ends. However, we can effectively shape our forces and the rules or conditions for their future employment. Doing so most effectively will require some appreciation of our past experience but, in the case of Iraq, not necessarily how we came upon that experience.

    But is there anyone in this administration that can shape our military & conditions for us being there again?

    Tacitus: "the Romans brought devastation, and they called it peace."

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  8. "Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us."

    Gold Meir - 1957

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  9. Thanks to Obama's highly dangerous combination for ambition and ignorance, ISIS is now a terrorist nation-state within Iraq (and part of Syria) with a standing army, a command and control infrastructure, control of a 600-mile front in the North, and a half-billion dollars. It gets worse… With only his re-election in mind, Obama fled Iraq before the country was ready, and as a consequence, when ISIS attacked, the Iraqis dropped and left behind weapons, many of which are American-made. These American-made weapons could very well make the difference for the savage barbarians looking to wipe out Iraq's Kurds, the most pro-Western/pro-American part of the country and region.

    Iraq was won. All we had to do was leave behind an American force that would continue to mentor and hold the Iraqi army together, and work as a deterrent against terrorist adventurism.

    Obama and his media minions blame the Iraqis for the failure of the status of forces agreement, but it was Obama who didn't want the deal and only made a symbolic push to win a deal. Before Iraq started falling apart, Obama continually bragged that the decision to pull all our troops from Iraq was his decision -- the keeping of a campaign promise.

    And Obama WILL LEAVE Iraq again before the job is done, creating more death and destruction for the Kurds today, tomorrow, and after we split and run again sometime soon. This whole bombing facade is about Obama, not the Kurds our second best friend in the Middle East next to Israel.

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