The Political Fish

What else can possibly be blamed on global warming? You guessed it, terrorist groups and drug lords. From ABC News, Charlie Gibson feeding the frenzy of global warming, and giving President Obama some cover as he continues to not make a decision on Afghanistan. Win-Win for the state-run media. Roll the tape.

Thanks to Newsbusters for a partial transcript.

Blakemore began his report: This study by eleven U.S. generals and admirals shows how global warming is playing into the hands of terrorist groups like the Taliban in many countries often because of worsening drought.

After some background from one of the CNA study’s supervisors, former Army chief of staff Gen. Gordon R. Smith, Blakemore continued:

BLAKEMORE: Afghanistan, eleven years into a drought with no end in sight. Snows vanishing from mountains that used to pour melt water down into orchards and fields now leaving young men with no money or work. Arian Sharifi worked with ABC News there, and recently in the Afghan government.

ARIAN SHARIFI, GRADUATE STUDENT AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: A lot of more people — young male — who are unemployed with nothing to do, and so the Taliban basically seems an attractive thing for them to join. The Taliban pays most of the fighters. In other ways they are protecting the poppy crops.

BLAKEMORE: And the poppy crops, which the Taliban encourage and tax, are making them and their al Qaeda allies very rich, an estimated half a billion dollars a year. Many farmers say they are now growing opium poppies because they need little water, good in the lengthening drought. So the rising temperatures are helping both heroin traffickers and their Taliban and al Qaeda supporters.

So, according to Blakemore, the problems in Afghanistan — drought, heroin production and trafficking, unemployment, AND the growth in the Taliban and al Qaeda — are directly linked to global warming.

Kind of ironic when you consider the BBC report that came out the same day as this little tidbit from our friends at ABC.

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.

The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).

For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.

But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.

These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.

So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.

In a totally unrelated story, the Major League Baseball playoffs had to be put on hold for a night as snow fell in Denver, postponing game 3 of the Phillies-Rockies playoff series. This of course following one of the coolest summers on record in numerous spots across the United States. I’m sure Nobel Laureate Al Goracle will be able to explain this in the grand scheme of things. I mean, Mother Earth is burning up, this must just be an abberation in the process.

Right, its not a scheme…its real.

The media’s favorite punching bag has inserted herself back into the debate. She has been picking her spots quite well. Mrs. Palin (who has clearly asserted herself as the complete opposite of Obama) wrote a short statement on the Afghanistan problem for her Facebook audience. She takes a solid swipe at the leadership (or lack thereof) of the President, waiting to see (much like myself) if the President will continue voting present, or will stand up and win this fight.

For two years as a candidate, Senator Obama called for more resources for the war in Afghanistan and warned about the consequences of failure. As President, he announced a comprehensive new counterinsurgency strategy and handpicked the right general to execute it. Now General McChrystal is asking for additional troops to implement the strategy announced by President Obama in March. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers in harm’s way in Afghanistan right now. We owe it to all those brave Americans serving in uniform to give them the tools they need to complete their mission.

We can win in Afghanistan by helping the Afghans build a stable representative state able to defend itself. And we must do what it takes to prevail. The stakes are very high. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Afghanistan, and if we are not successful there, al Qaeda will once again find a safe haven, the Taliban will impose its cruelty on the Afghan people, and Pakistan will be less stable.

Our allies and our adversaries are watching to see if we have the staying power to protect our interests in Afghanistan. I recently joined a group of Americans in urging President Obama to devote the resources necessary in Afghanistan and pledged to support him if he made the right decision. Now is not the time for cold feet, second thoughts, or indecision — it is the time to act as commander-in-chief and approve the troops so clearly needed in Afghanistan.

- Sarah Palin

 

Might I add here that the strategy that is apparently the one being debated, yes the one being pushed by the administrations crazy uncle Joe Biden, was tried and has failed in Iraq. Only when we supplied our military with what they needed did the situation stabilize, and the violence all but ceased.

Marc Ambinder seems to agree (in a very non-commital way, must be a liberal thing), and then of course there is General Wesley Clark who shows pretty clearly that his loyalties are now with politics, and no longer the military where he made his career.

From my estimation, this type of pressure being applied directly to the President by way of the US military seems unprecedented. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated very bluntly today what the problem in Afghanistan is all about. From Reuters:

The Taliban has the momentum in Afghanistan now because of the inability of the United States and its allies to put enough troops into the country, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday

So my question is, why does the Pentagon feel it needs to publicly pressure the Commander-in-Chief? I think the answer is pretty clear. They are well aware that we have a President who is, and has been voting present on the issue of Afghanistan, unwilling to make a decisive commitment one way or another.

Win or Lose. What will it be Mr. President?

Just what is the Obama thought process on Afghanistan these days? During the campaign we heard over the top criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of the war against the Taliban, how it was ignored, how it was mishandled, how the Bush administration was overly focused on Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan. Now, 9 months into the administration, the momentum has swung over in favor of the Taliban, and it appears as if our commander-in-chief does not know how to handle it, in fact it is now engaging in what appears to be juvenile bickering with the top general on the ground Gen. Stanley McChrystal.  The General made statements last week about the Afghan strategy in London that shocked and angered the administration, as he effectively put the pressure on them to act decisively. Obama promptly summoned McChrystal for a meeting on board AF1, which was only the second time they had spoken since McChrystal was appointed.  McChrystal had directly rebuked VP Biden’s assertion that Afghanistan was better off using a strategy of covert special forces and Predator drone missile strike strategy against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda than what is currently going on. McChrystal flatly rebuked that idea, stating that it would lead to “Chaos-istan” and that he would not support it.

So what is the administrations strategy that they are looking to go with? Internal in-fighting with your commanders on the ground is certainly not going to help a situation spiraling out of control, and this seemingly unending strategy debate is causing more lives to be lost and casualties growing by leaps and bounds. The White House stated today that withdraw is not an option, which is wise given the potentially disastrous outcome of a complete cut and run. McChrystal had put in a request for a surge of up to 40K troops over a month ago. Something has got to give.

Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration, laid out a Cold War set of tests to be used in weighing the use of US combat forces. After re-reading these, I think it would be good to revisit what became known as the Weinberger Doctrine. It has since been revised for the post-Cold War era but contains the same set of tests.

Test One:  The United States should not commit forces
to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or
occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of
our allies.

Test Two:   If we decide it is necessary to put combat
troops into a given situation, we should do so
wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning.  If
we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary
to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all.

Test Three:  If we do decide to commit forces to combat
overseas, we should have clearly defined political and
military objectives.  And we should know precisely how our
forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives.  And
we should have and send the forces needed to do just that.

Test Four:  The relationship between our objectives and
the forces we have committed – their size, composition and
disposition – must be continually reassessed and adjusted if
necessary.

Test Five:  Before the U.S. commits combat forces
abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have
the support of the American people and their elected
representatives in Congress.

Test Six:   Finally, the commitment of U.S. forces to
combat should be a last resort.

These are six common sense plans to avoid another Vietnam and to protect our soldiers from never ending battle situations. The revised paper which was redone in 1992 is worth the read as it equates the Weinberger Doctrine to a post-Cold War world. The administration needs to revisit these tests to determine our real strategy in Afghanistan. 

If we are to believe President Obama, then he believes that Afghanistan is of utmost importance. The administration has thrown away the terms “war on terror” and even the term “terrorism”, but the fight in Afghanistan is the focal point of both. Pakistan has a fragile government that likely would not be able to withstand a Taliban takeover of its neighbor. The Taliban has already taken steps to overthrow the Pakistani government to no avail, but with a renewed confidence and resolve that would come with a US withdrawal, it could be catastrophic. The nuclear ramifications would be disasterous for the region, and US interests in that part of the world. Playing politics with this conflict is not the way. Throwing your commanders under the bus is not the way. If the US military is to continue, we need to take the handcuffs off of them and let them win this battle. If the General needs more boots on the ground send him more boots. If he needs more resources, send him more resources. The long-term stability of Central Asia, and the safety of the United States depend on it. Our kids deserve better. They are the greatest military force that the world has ever known. Let them win this war.

There are also some good insights from the NY Times op-ed section entitled “10 steps to victory in Afghanistan“. While I do not necesarily agree with it all, it brings out some good points certainly worth consideration. Sadly, only the talking heads are coming up with strategies instead of the Commander in Chief. Decisive action is needed, and needed quickly.

For all the heated political debate going on in our country these days, lets not forget to remember our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was a particularly rough weekend in Afghanistan as 10 US soldiers were killed in action, and many more wounded. From the Washington Post.

KABUL, Oct. 4 — Firing rockets and rifles, Taliban militiamen attacked American and Afghan military outposts in a daylong siege on Saturday that killed eight U.S. soldiers and two Afghan security forces in one of the deadliest battles in months, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.

The fighting began early Saturday morning and raged throughout the day in a remote region of eastern Afghanistan in Nuristan province, which borders Pakistan. Staging their attack from steep mountainsides that overlook the outposts in the valley below, on a morning when weather made visibility poor, the Taliban fighters attacked the small American and Afghan bases using rifles, machine guns, grenades and rockets, according to U.S. military officials.

By Sunday morning, when the U.S. military made the attack public in a statement, the area was “largely secure but I do think there is still some activity,” said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman.

In addition to the eight soldiers killed, several others were injured, said Rear Adml. Gregory J. Smith, but he did not specify the number. The American soldiers called in ground reinforcements, along with attack helicopter, airplanes and surveillance drones during the fighting. U.S. forces eventually repelled the attack while inflicting “a significant amount of casualties” on insurgents, Smith said.

Due to the “very challenging terrain,” the insurgents had “pretty effective firing positions,” Smith said. “It was obviously a very, very difficult day.”

“Virtually everything that could be thrown at it was thrown at it,” Smith said of the American response to the attack.

The U.S. military said it was not immediately clear how many insurgents were involved in the fighting. The attack involved Taliban fighters and appeared to be led by a local commander of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin insurgent group, which is run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former mujaheddin leader during the Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

The attack took place in a sparsely populated area of forested mountains near the town of Kamdeysh. The deputy police chief of Nuristan province, Mohammad Farouq, said the insurgents intended to seize control of the Kamdeysh area and that hundreds took part in the fighting. He said more than 20 Afghan soldiers and police have gone missing since the fighting began and may have been taken hostage.

“Americans always want to fight in Afghanistan,” said Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, who took credit for the attack by telephone. “If the Americans want to increase their troops, we will increase our fighters as well.”

He said the battle began about 6 a.m. Saturday and involved 250 Taliban fighters. He claimed that dozens of American and Afghan soldiers were killed, along with seven Taliban fighters. Mujahid also claimed that the district police chief and intelligence chief were among the hostages, but that could not be confirmed.

Two other American soldiers were killed when a member of the Afghani police force appeared to go rogue and open fire on his American colleagues, killing two as they slept and wounding three others.

It was unclear whether the policeman was working for the Taleban or simply ran amok but the attack fuelled the distrust that many Nato soldiers already feel for the Afghan security forces that they are supposed to be working with and training as part of the coalition’s eventual exit strategy.

There are a lot of questions surrounding the disappearance and capture of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl. Last night, the Fish ran an article documenting the disappearance and propaganda video dispersed by his Taliban captors. The many questions surrounding his disappearance have, as one might expect, generated a lot of speculation. There are multiple accounts of exactly how he disappeared, leaving much to the imagination

On July 2, two U.S. officials told the AP the soldier had “just walked off” his base with three Afghans after his shift. He had no body armor or weapon and they said they had no explanation for why he left. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

On July 6, the Taliban claimed on their Web site that five days earlier “a drunken American soldier had come out of his garrison” and was captured by mujahadeen.

In the video, Bergdahl said he was lagging behind a patrol when he was captured.

Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.

Afghans in contact with the Taliban told the AP that the soldier was held by a Taliban group led by a commander called Maulvi Sangin. They said the fighters initially planned to smuggle the soldier across the border into Pakistan but ruled that out because of U.S. missile strikes and Pakistani bombing attacks against militant targets in the area. Instead, they decided to move him north into Taliban-controlled areas of Ghazni province.

While all of these questions need to be hashed out, and are to be expected in this type of situation, this summation struck me as a bit over the top, and I am sure you would agree. Fox News had Lt. Col. Ralph Peters on today to discuss the issue. Sadly, Lt. Col. Peters never answered the questions posed to him, and went on a rant based on hardline conjecture, eventually leading up to his assumption that Pfc. Bergdahl deserted his unit, and even went so far as to suggest that the Taliban should do us a favor and kill him.  Watch this video, to me it was shocking. Many thanks to the anchor Julie Banderas for attempting to soften  his hardline rhetoric, indicating that we do not want to see any US soldier killed or captured. Lt.Col. Peters was doing his best not to allow her to do that, but she prevailed and got the last word in. If his claim is true, that Bergdahl is a liar and a deserter, than the US military should follow its protocall in dealing with this type of behavior. But Lt. Peters was way over the top in his implication that the Taliban should save us the legal hassle and take care of the problem for us. I mean, who is this guy!!!?

Here is the video, enjoy!

We should for the near future pray for the safe return of this young US soldier. The military is well equipped to deal with the facts when they come out, and they certainly will. If Peters is correct, than so be it..the military will deal with it. It is however, entirely too early to make the leap into these type of conclusions. The facts are not in. Lets just continue to hope and pray that Pfc. Bergdahl is brought back safely.

Here is the video clip from a CNN report followed by raw video at the 4:15 mark

The soldier is Pfc Bowe Bergdahl, from Ketchum Idaho.

The Defense Department said in a statement Sunday that the soldier is Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Ketchum, Idaho. The statement also says his status is now classified as missing-captured, rather than whereabouts unknown.

In a video posted online by the Taliban on Saturday, he’s heard saying he’s “scared I won’t be able to go home.”

Before the Pentagon released Bergdahl’s identity, two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the 28-minute video was the captured soldier.

The military said on July 2 that a U.S. soldier had disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner

While the video itself is disgusting use of propaganda by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, it is good to see that Pfc Bergdahl is doing well. Continue to pray for our troops overseas, they need it. We can all join together in prayer for the safe return of this young American hero.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Greg Julian said: ‘We condemn the use of this video and the public humiliation of prisoners. It is against international law. We are doing everything we can to return this soldier to safety

Colonel Julian said Washington would not give in to the captors’ demands. ‘Basically they would like us to go home,’ he said. ‘That is just simply not going to happen.

What will we see from the administration, so far it appears not much has been said, and giving the sensitivity of the situation, that may in fact be the proper move. The Pentagon has received word from the WhiteHouse that they are to win his safe return, no matter what. Lets pray that is the case.

5…..4…..3…..2……1….. There it is everyone, the White House is starting to take a little credit for the uprising in Iran.  From the Washington Post today:

Obama’s approach to Iran, including his assertion that the unrest there represents a debate among Iranians unrelated to the United States, is an acknowledgment that a U.S. president’s words have a limited ability to alter foreign events in real time and could do more harm than good. But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic’s Islamic authority in its 30-year history.

One senior administration official with experience in the Middle East said, “There clearly is in the region a sense of new possibilities,” adding that “I was struck in the aftermath of the president’s speech that there was a connection. It was very sweeping in terms of its reach.”

There is more don’t worry…

Obama’s advisers say the outreach may have contributed to the defeat in Lebanese elections a few days later of a coalition led by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed party, that had been predicted to win. In recent days, administration officials have pointed to the Iranian demonstrations as further evidence of Obama’s possible influence in the region.

Asked Friday whether the administration believes Obama’s outreach to Iran and the Muslim world is affecting events on the ground, press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “You’re witnessing something that many people might not have presumed or imagined . . . just a few — even a few weeks or a few days ago.”

That didn’t take long. The arrogance of this self-proclaimed “world changer” is amazing to me. The Iranian population has stirred for a while now. The population of Iran is made up of youth, some say in the range of 65-70% of the population is under the age of thirty. These youth have grown up in an oppressive society in an age where information is available world wide. This is not a new movement in Iran. The youth of that nation have been stirring for years. There were similar uprisings in the late 90’s and the early 2000’s, the difference here is the size and gravity. These things were brought about and rallied around a blatant injustice on the part of the oppressive regime. It brought to the forefront the grievances that the populace carried against the inept governing. The current Iranian President went out of his way to irritate and provoke the West and thumb his nose at them, all the while isolating his country from the rest of the world. The Iranian youth witnessed these things as they have come of age. The election and the injustice that was served up on a silver platter to them was the straw that broke the camels back. Follow these things up with the handling of the uprising, as the Iranians were met with batons and teargas and murder and you have all the makings for a revolution. I said all that to say this. Iranians did not just learn that they lived in oppression. It wasn’t taught to them from behind the podium in Cairo. The love for freedom and the desire to go and get it doesn’t just spring up overnight. Frankly, Obama made the case in Cairo to embrace rogue governments such as the Ahmadi government. Overthrowing that government could be conceived as a rejection of that strategy. Its not, it just goes to show the flawed logic of taking credit for what is going on in Tehran.

When will the American government realize that its not always about them. At the same time that White House staff is talking about their great success in achieving this  new wave of uprising and hope, they are tamping down their statements, as not to meddle in the affairs of Iran. If you are going to take credit for it, how can you not in good faith support it with much stronger words? I for one have been on board with the somewhat muted response. He has said all the things that need to be said, support for the people, fraudulent power…all these things are the reality of what is happening. What more can really be said, other than strong demands against a government who is your sworn  enemy, and could embolden them to stronger force against their citizens. Frankly, the ayatollahs and Ahmadi really couldn’t care less what the American president has to say, it does however strengthen their propaganda.  Given Americas questionable history in the region, is this something you are willing to do? My support for that strategy dies however when I read the statements from the Post.

Since the administration has the idea in their head that they have had much to do with the Iranian uprising, let me give a counter argument. I am not going to get wordy, I am not going to research this all the way out. I will make it short and sweet.

Could the Iranian uprising be a vindication of the “hated” Bush doctrine of “planting the seeds of democracy in the region?” A democratic Iraq to the west, a democratic Afghanistan to the east. Now an Iranian population rising up against tyranny right in the middle. Just a thought, bring on the Bush-haters that want to shut that down. Both democracies mentioned are struggling for sure, but the people are largely free from the oppression they suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein  in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Just a thought.