Israel v. Iran: A War of Words

By Alan Caruba

The debate over when or if Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities has been raging of late and I am beginning to suspect that much of what passes for news represents a charade being orchestrated between Israel and the United States to ratchet up pressure on Iran’s leaders.

President Obama will address the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday and no doubt his speech will be closely parsed for any indication of an official U.S. position regarding Iran’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons. The address by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will likewise be analyzed. Suffice to say, both oppose a nuclear Iran.

One fact stands out. U.S. efforts, in concert with other Western nations and aided by some Middle Eastern nations, have put tremendous pressure on Iran’s ability to sell its oil and to collect the revenues. It is having some success.

Another fact that is often overlooked is that Iran has avoided war since its conflict with Iraq from September 1980 to August 1988. It was costly in lives and treasure for Iran and ended in a stalemate. Later Saddam Hussein would attack Kuwait an act that played a role in the decision to put together a coalition to drive the Iraqis out and to later invade Iraq and depose Saddam.

Iran has preferred to use proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza to pursue its attacks on Israel. It supports terrorist activity. Its alliance with Syria is going to be affected by the outcome of the internal attacks on the Assad dictatorship. The bulk of the Middle Eastern nations are united in their condemnation of the Syrian leader. Except for pro-forma support from Russia and China in the United Nations, Iran is increasingly isolated.

As Prof. Barry Rubin recently wrote in The Jerusalem Post, credible observers and analysts of the Middle East believe that Iran wants nuclear weapons because “Iran’s main goal, like that of Pakistan, is to make itself immune to any reprisals for terrorism and subversion by having nuclear weapons.” Prof. Rubin asserted that “In part, the rationale for the nuclear program is outdated, though that certainly won’t stop Tehran from pursuing it.” Prof. Rubin is an Israeli scholar, a research director, and a member of the editorial board of the Middle East Quarterly.

Prof. Rubin noted that, “After 32 years in power the Islamist regime in Tehran has yet to do something really adventurous abroad.”

Then there is the belief by military experts that Israel may, in fact, lack the capability to effectively neutralize Iran’s nuclear program. Richard Russell, a professor at the U.S. National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C., has said that “The Israelis actually have limited means of attacking Iran’s nuclear program. This is a very, very difficult problem for the Israelis, and it’s getting more and more acute.”

While acknowledging that Israel’s air force is “capable of launching an attack on Iran and causing damage”, Yifah Shaper, director of the Military Balance Program at Tel Aviv’s University for National Security Studies, has said that “It is far from capable of disabling the Iran nuclear program. That would take at least a month of sustained bombing, That’s not something Israel can carry out alone.”

Retired U.S. Air Force General, Charles ‘Chuck’ Wald, calculates that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would require in excess of one thousand sorties. None of this is lost on the Israelis.

While Israel has previously destroyed nuclear reactors in Iraq in 1981 and again in Syria in 2007, the logistics of disabling Iran’s extensive nuclear facilities would be daunting. Israel would simultaneously have to invade southern Lebanon to deter Hezbollah’s use of thousands of missiles there.

While I have previously expressed the view that Israel would, if it lacked any other option, attack Iran, a closer examination of the many factors involved in such an operation suggests that it would only occur if there was credible evidence that Iran was preparing to launch nuclear-armed missiles. Current intelligence analysis suggests that Iran is still far from manufacturing the nuclear warheads for its missiles.

The question remains whether the ayatollahs running Iran would risk any attack by Israel and while, in general, that option exists, the economic weakening of Iran by current sanctions, they would likely exacerbate Iran’s leadership facing problem a restive, unhappy population that wants them out of power. An attack might serve to unite Iranians..

Finally, Iran’s military is far from capable of dealing with an Israeli air attack that might conceivably trigger support by the U.S. and allied nations. None of the Gulf nations has any love for Iran. There are lots of U.S. military assets in the region.

As the rhetoric heats up, Iran has been making a show of its military strength holding military exercises and by sending elements of its limited naval capability through the Suez canal and meaningless trips in the Mediterranean. It continues to threaten to close the Strait of Harmuz. Its Air Force is nothing to write home about either. It is composed of aged U.S.aircraft and Russian aircraft.

While a war of words will continue between Israel, the United States, and Iran, a cold calculation argues against an Israeli attack and against U.S. involvement after more than a decade of U.S. conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither nation wants a shooting war with Iran.

The odds, in this observer’s view, are against an Israeli attack despite my earlier concerns that it could or would occur in the near term.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Our Warrior Class

By Alan Caruba

I come from a generation, just as several before it, that was drafted into military service. The Draft, conscription, goes back to the days of the Civil War and, before that, it was understood that able-bodied men would serve in militias.

After the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, many American men lined up around the corner to volunteer to fight the Japanese. Others would be dispatched to the European theatre of war to fight the Nazis.

Still others waited to be drafted into service. During the years leading up to Pearl Harbor many Americans simply wanted to stay out of the Asian conflict that had begun with the Japanese invasion of China many years earlier and the European conflict that had begun when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. That changed in 1941.

The “greatest generation” fought and won. They did it by being absolutely merciless toward our enemies because that is the only real rule of war. Kill them before they kill us. Lose the war and you are their possession, their slaves.

World War Two was all-out war with civilians dying in the hundreds of thousands because the people’s will to fight on had to be extinguished. Dresden was bombed to dust; Berlin became a shell of shattered buildings. As American forces waited to invade the homeland of Japan, President Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and, when the Japanese emperor and generals still refused to meet the terms of unconditional surrender, he bombed Nagasaki. World War Two ended.

I often tell people that the history of mankind is the history of war. It is always the history of winners and losers. It may take a short breath, but war is a constant throughout history and in the life of each new generation.

Shortly after the end of World War Two in 1945, the Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. That war drew Americans back to a new battlefield until, on July 27, 1953, a truce was signed. The two Koreas are technically still in a state of war because no peace treaty exists.

Then, of course, for most Americans today there was the Vietnam War. Whether of the generation who fought it or those born after it, the Vietnam War remains the war we lost. It remains a cauldron of debate over its conduct. What emerged from that war, however, was an all-volunteer military, a warrior class.

Over the years of the Iraq-Afghanistan conflict I had occasion to write that these were the wrong wars in the wrong places, that the U.S. was wasting its treasure and young men (and women) there. I think, on reflection that I was wrong.

I think, now, that even this veteran of the U.S. Army, drafted in the 1960s, simply grew weary of these wars and neglected the broad history of conflicts dating back to biblical times.

A friend of mine, a professional soldier who served for 25 years, had this to say:

“When I first came in, the drill sergeants, platoon sergeants and sergeants majors were all ‘Nam vets and they all told us the same thing; we are an all-volunteer Army, none of us were drafted; having served in a conscript Army they all said that we wouldn’t want to be in conflict with a bunch of draftees who did not want to be there. They told us about disciplinary problems in the draftee military you would not believe.”

“The war we are currently engaged in is The One Hundred Years War and the sooner the American people get used to that, the better. I do not differentiate between the ‘Iraq War’ and the ‘Afghanistan War’; they are simply different theaters of the same war.”

In his new book, “Kaboom”, Matt Gallagher traces his transformation from an ROTC college graduate to his battlefield experiences in Iraq. He wrote:

“As I watched the platoon joke, clown, and ramble their way through the holiday dinner, I couldn’t help but think about the country that had produced them. These were the men in the flesh that society only celebrates in the abstract.”

“The NCOs had served in the army long enough to stop caring about the whims of the American culture they protected so effectively; the joes were just removed enough to not fully recognize how the same society that reared us had detached itself from us the day we signed our enlistment papers. In a voluntary military, we fought for the nation, not with it.”

Americans, most of whom honor our troops, have not had our lives personally touched by the Mideast conflicts. The way of life they are fighting to protect has barely been altered as they put their lives on the line every day in a combat zone or service in any of the branches.

Under such circumstances, it is easy to forget there are countless enemies, mostly Muslim, striving to bring down America and to kill us in the same fashion as they killed some three thousand of us on a single day at the beginning of this decade.

Withdrawing from conflict zones in Iraq and Afghanistan may seem like a good idea, an end to our casualties in battle, but those who are there, our warrior class, know that it would just be a brief cessation of what will be a very long war we cannot dare to lose.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

America in Decline

By Alan Caruba

There are tipping points in people’s lives and in the life of a nation. More and more I am inclined to believe that America has hit a tipping point and that its decline has been in progress now since the end of World War II. How can that be? We were and are a superpower.

While it is true that we have the greatest military power in the world, it is equally true that many of the planes being flown were brought on line in the 1950s, despite the extraordinary aircraft such as the stealth bombers. When Russia can put in a $40 billion bid to build refueling tankers after a major U.S. aircraft firm dropped out of the process, you have to ask yourself whether something is terribly wrong.

Militarily, we have worn out our forces, many of which are National Guard units, with six years of conflict in Iraq and renewed conflict in Afghanistan. All the hardware needed to maintain our troops in conflict zones need replacing. And the President of the United States wants to sign a treaty to reduce our nuclear arsenal.

It goes even deeper, however, than the capacity to wage war, let alone the will to face off with our enemies. Since around the 1960s the nation’s education system has grown steadily more costly and steadily worse in its capacity to produce students with fundamental skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. American students consistently score behind students in other nations. An educated workforce is essential to maintain excellence, let alone parity with other nations.

At the heart of the Medicare reform battle was a very simple fact. The current Medicare program is broke. The current Social Security program is broke. Most of the States in the nation are broke. America must borrow a billion dollars a day to maintain its huge entitlement programs. The interest on treasury notes alone is daunting. Expanding Medicare under such conditions is sheer folly.

The nation and the States have become slaves of civil service unions and their government employees now make more than those in comparable private sector positions. The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees now represent 1.6 million workers. There are two million federal workers. The benefits that have been negotiated for these workers are extraordinary, particularly in the area of pensions. Many of the services they provide, other than police and fire, could be contracted to the private sector.

Unemployment continues to rise and the billions in “stimulus” programs are having no effect. The Federal Reserve continues to print money that will invariably have less value.

The exodus from States now famed for heavy taxation, California, New York, New Jersey, continues apace. The value of the nation’s housing stock continues to decline. Other States are becoming manufacturing wastelands as this essential factor of prosperity leaves the nation for others with less taxation and friendlier regulatory environments.

The other problem America has not addressed or solved is that of illegal aliens. There are differing estimates of how many reside in the nation ranging from twelve to over fifteen million. They represent a drain on education systems, medical facilities, receive a variety of social services, and crowd our prisons. Previous amnesties have only served to swell the numbers of those crossing illegally into the nation in hopes of more amnesties. The Obama administration is known to want yet another amnesty enacted.

Increasingly, parts of the nation’s economy have been absorbed into the government, the most outstanding example being the takeover of General Motors and Chrysler, and control of the financial sector through bailouts.

Huge tracts of land, often with significant natural resources, continue to fall under the control of the federal government while others ban any extraction of oil, coal or natural gas. In the energy sector, more than nine million jobs exist and millions more could if the government would permit further exploration and extraction. Meanwhile, offshore of Florida in Cuba, Russians and Chinese are beginning to develop oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Obama administration is totally devoted to the global warming fraud and the baseless assertion that human beings are influencing climate change through the generation of “greenhouse gases” such as carbon dioxide. The next major legislative initiation it proposes is the passage of Cap-and-Trade, a measure to impose the largest tax on the use of energy in the history of the nation.

At the same time, the electrical grid that is responsible for the distribution of energy has been aging and is in need of expansion. No new nuclear plants have been built since the 1970s and several are scheduled to be decommissioned. Nuclear represents twenty percent of the electricity used daily in the nation. The site in Nevada for the deposit of nuclear waste, built at the cost of billions, is still not open though it is ready to provide this necessary service.

The nation’s infrastructure of highways and bridges is in near desperate need of upgrade and continues to be neglected.

Nor should we ignore clear signs of moral decline as well. The abortion issue reflects the murder of millions of unborn babies. The push for same-sex marriage is a rejection of the ancient recognition that social stability depends on the marriage of a man and a woman. Pornography and violence permeate entertainment venues. Reality TV reflects the worst excesses of behavior. Illegal drugs are available anywhere in the nation.

The list of the indicators of decline is longer, but those cited are sufficient to suggest that an implosion is only a matter of time.

The truth that there is no free lunch remains in effect.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Islam's Legacy is Constant War

By Alan Caruba

The failed Christmas bomber attack was yet another wake-up call for Americans who have slipped into a self-induced coma regarding Islam’s constant threat to the nation and the West.

Despite the post-9/11 attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush and now President Obama have both repeatedly asserted the absurd notion that Islam is “a religion of peace.” It is, in fact, a religion of conquest and one in which the religion and the state are one. To live in a Muslim nation is to live under Sharia law in which conversion to another religion is punished by death.

“When Asia Was the World” by Stewart Gordon is an interesting book about life in Asia during the years 500 to 1500 of the Common Era. “Buddhism and Islam arose and spread along Asia’s far-flung trade routes. So did luxury goods, such as silk, pearls, spices, medicines, glass, and simple things like rice and sugar.”

“Two centuries before Ibn Fadlan traveled (921-922 CE) through this region, the overall borders of the Muslim world had been set in one of the fastest, broadest conquests in human history.”

“Between 630 CE and 680 CE, Islamic armies swept north from Mecca across what is present-day Jordan, Palestine, and Syria and east across Iraq, then fought in Persia and attacked south into Yemen. By 720 CE, Muslim armies had successfully attacked Egypt, North Africa, and Spain and had conquered several caravan cities, Samarkand, Tashkent, Bukhara and Khwarizm. There, however, the conquest stopped.”

As the memoir of Ibn Battula (1325-1356 CE) revealed, “Every king was surrounded by rivals, factions, squabbling nobles, and a necessary but unwieldy bureaucracy. Kings particularly wanted to know about the successful strategies, symbols, and ceremonies in other courts.” In other words, the worlds of these early kings was no safer than our own today when Western leaders must maintain vast intelligence gathering agencies to know what is being plotted in the Middle East and everywhere else in the world.

It is therefore essential for America to be led by a President who understands the threat posed by Islam in general and by al Qaeda’s network in particular, but in contrast to that we have a President who intends to close the Guantanamo detention center for non-state enemy combatants, extend the protections of the U.S. Constitution to admitted terrorists given civil trials instead of military tribunals, and was slow to respond to the Fort Hood murders and the Christmas day attempted airliner bombing.

On such events and attitudes does the safety and fate of the nation hangs.

It is therefore vital that we pay attention to the voices of those who understand that history turns on winners and losers.

“The greatest advantage our opponents enjoy,” writes Ralph Peters,”is an uncompromising strength of will, their readiness to ‘pay any price and bear any burden’ to hurt and humble us. As our enemies’ view of what is permissible in war expands apocalyptically, our self-limiting definitions of allowable targets and acceptable casualties, hostile, civilian and our own, continue to narrow fatefully.”

Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer, a journalist who has reported from various war zones, is widely traveled, and an author of 24 books. He is quintessentially politically incorrect.

Among the obstacles facing the present generation of Americans, as Peters sees them, are (1) “we simply do not feel endangered”, (2) American’s “collective memory has effectively erased the European-inspired horrors of the last century”, (3) “ending the draft resulted in a superb military, but an unknowing, detached population’, (4) Americans have come to believe in a “catechism of bloodless war”, and (5) “we have become largely a white-collar, suburban society in which a child’s bloody nose is no longer a routine part of growing up, but grounds for a lawsuit.”

Americans who passed through our nation’s schools since the 1960s have been neutered because, as Peters notes, “History is no longer taught as a serious subject. As a result, politicians lack perspective; journalists lack meaningful touchstones; and the average person’s sense of warfare has been redefined by media entertainments in which misery, if introduced, is brief.”

“We have cheapened the idea of war,” says Peters, forgetting or never knowing the price paid by previous generations to defend the nation and its principles. “More Americans died in one afternoon at Cold Harbor during our Civil War than died in six years in Iraq. Three times as many American troops fell during the morning of June 6, 1944 (D-Day) as have been lost in combat in over seven years in Afghanistan.”

While President Obama cited Gandhi in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Peters points out that “Gandhi would not have survived very long in Nazi Germany.”

The President made a case for the necessity of some wars, but returned home to spend three months making up his mind to increase our troop presence in Afghanistan and to then tell the enemy that they would be gone in eighteen months. That is astonishingly stupid and reveals the chasm that exists between Obama’s first year in office and the nearly eight years under George W. Bush in which America was spared another attack.

“The problem is religion,” says Peters. “Our Islamist enemies are inspired by it, while we are terrified even to talk about it.”

History teaches us that Islam has long since plunged those parts of the world over which it holds sway into centuries of backwardness while Europe and the New World grew in power, innovation, and dominance.

My view is that Islam is literally fighting for its life despite the more than a billion who subscribe to it. Far from its earliest years when it championed intellectual inquiry, it now holds desperately to the most primitive control over the lives of its adherents and cannot expect a Reformation such as took place in Christianity.

The wars to defeat it will take a long time, cost many lives, and be worth every dollar and every casualty.

Defeating Ourselves in Afghanistan

By Alan Caruba

It is a familiar question; why eight years after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, haven’t we found Osama bin Laden? And now the greater question before the President and the nation is why are we still in Afghanistan?

You are not likely to hear an answer from either the White House or the Pentagon. You can, however, find part of the answer in a recently published book, Hunting al Qaeda, whose author chose to remain anonymous. ($17.95, Zenith Press, softcover) Bob Mayer, a West Point graduate and Special Forces veteran, the author of more than seventeen books, participated in the writing of the book, based on the experiences of a Special Forces unit.

It is the story of Beast 85, Green Berets drawn from the National Guard special services that, following 9/11, were sent to Afghanistan to find, capture or kill al Qaeda and the Taliban. It is a story of disillusionment.

The foreword by Col. Gerald Schumacher, U.S. Army Special Forces (ret) says much about why the U.S. has not experienced anything resembling “victory” and is not likely to do so in any military engagement we undertake.

This is the real story of war as fought by men who can only be called patriots. They left families, jobs and a comfortable civilian life to go to the hell hole that is Afghanistan, a nation that has been defeating occupying armies since the days of Alexander the Great.

Calling “Hunting al Qaeda” a disturbing book, Col. Schumacher says “it blows apart the myth that everything that can be done to find terrorists is being done. It illuminates the fact that even Special Forces are infected with micromanagement diseases, petty infighting, and the fear of making mistakes.”

The biggest challenge facing Beast 85, a tight-knit unit of ten highly trained men, was not finding al Qaeda. It is a military mentality that defines victory “as not having any accidents, incidents, or injuries. This culture of ‘playing it safe’ permeates much of the military, and it begins with many politicians,” says Col. Schumacher.

Whether you agree with him or not, he states that “Since the end of World War II, the political commitment to fight and win wars has evaporated.”

To whatever extent, this may explain why the conflict in Iraq lasted so long after the initial lightning invasion that put troops in Baghdad and then found itself without sufficient manpower to exert any control over the chaos that followed. Only the “surge” involving a large influx of troops saved the Iraq war from defeat.

Afghanistan is not, however, Iraq. The terrain, the people, its so-called government, and its seventh century mentality all militate against victory.

In Afghanistan, the slow and ineffectual war waged there has resulted in the return of the Taliban, when “the Taliban became wise to the debilitating elephantitis of U.S. military operations.”

The anonymous author of the book notes in its preface that “Afghanistan has been a special forces conflict more than any other conflict in U.S. military history.” Then, from his perspective, he reports that “during their time in Afghanistan they encountered commanders who were less interested in taking the war to the enemy than they were with keeping up appearances.”

At one point, Beast 85 captured Mullah Akhtar Osmani, the Taliban’s military commander, only to have “higher authorities” order his release!

The events related occurred in 2001-2002, but the lessons learned include the harsh fact that “The army has created a huge command structure that destroys any ability to act quickly or decisively.”

Many recall Special Forces troops on horses from that period, abandoning the armored vehicles we have come to associate with modern warfare. Despite having “conquered the entire country back in late 2001” the war slipped into a status that actually saw a three-star general directing forces as small as two battalions as command overhead “became so huge that it diminished our ability to accomplish our mission.”

The mission, to drive out the Taliban, locate and destroy al Qaeda, has ground to a point where the Taliban recently boldly attacked an isolated unit, inflicting death and injury at the precise time the general in charge was calling for more troops. The propaganda value, knowing that Americans have grown weary of the war, is incalculable.

President Obama now faces the question of how many troops, if any, to send to Afghanistan. It does not help that he the first president in a very long time to have never worn the uniform of his nation. He is caught between his own campaign rhetoric that called Afghanistan the new front line of the war on terrorism, a war "of necessity, not choice", and the growing belief among Americans that it is the wrong war in the wrong place.

His generals are telling him more troops are needed. This was Lyndon Johnson’s dilemma and the cost was more than 50,000 casualties during the long Vietnam conflict that lasted into the two terms of Richard Nixon.

Afghanistan is Vietnam Redux. It is a replay of the same factors in which America begins as a liberator and ends as an unwanted and/or distrusted occupier.

At issue is to what extent our national security and the security of the Middle East are at risk from al Qaeda if we continue to fight an increasingly unpopular and indecisive war.

The issue is whether continuing to fight the war there, given a bloated command hierarchy in which decisions are often made far from the battlefield, offers any hope of victory.

The issue is whether putting brave men and women in harm’s way and then encumbering them with rules of engagement that forbid active and effective combat is justifiable. The men of Special Forces Beast 85 wanted to win. They were not permitted to. That is our current “strategy” in Afghanistan. It is a bad one.

The issue, in part, is whether America will lose credibility among its allies and throughout the Middle East if it elects to withdraw.

Lacking any military insight, I fail to see any “strategic” reason for being in Afghanistan when the greater cause for concern is Pakistan, a place where bin Laden began his career as al Qaeda’s founder and where, presumably, he remains safe from attack to this day.

The ultimate and immediate cause for concern is Iran, rapidly making its way toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them via missiles.

Finally, what should we expect of President Obama who, in his book The Audacity of Hope, wrote “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction”?

Our Short-Term Memories

By Alan Caruba

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Arabs, Arab culture, or Arab history, but I do know a bit about our own as Americans. And that worries me.

While our American values are deep-seated and enduring, our short-term memories are such that we have to be severely provoked to call on them. We tend to forget the many attacks and abuses Americans have suffered at home and abroad at the hands of Arabs and others of the Muslim faith.

I was thinking about this while watching Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi, greet the returning “hero” of the Lockerbie bombing that, in December 1988, killed all 259 passengers on board, many of whom were returning college students and eleven on the ground in Scotland. A large crowd showed up to cheer for Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.

As this is being written, all across the Arab world, this acknowledged Libyan intelligence officer is being portrayed as an innocent victim of the Lockerbie bombing; someone wrongly convicted of being part of the plot. That’s what the Arab press is saying. There is virtually no crime an Arab commits that cannot be explained away so long as it involves revenge for one of their long-standing grievances.

My mind went back to the images of the Palestinians who went in the streets when they heard news of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They, too, cheered.

In Somalia, in the wake of the Black Hawk helicopter that went down in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993 some of our dead warriors were dragged through the streets while crowds cheered.

When news of the abuses at Abu Graib prison became known, Americans were outraged, but in prisons across the whole of the Middle East, such abuses and much worse are commonplace. American values, however, would not permit them to go unpunished.

For three decades, Saddam Hussein maintained rape rooms and executions proceeded without trials in Abu Graib and elsewhere within his prison regime. This does not excuse what a handful of American military did, but it does put it in some perspective.

By contrast, the detainees at Guantanamo have received humane treatment with the exception of those whose information served to protect and save American lives. Even our so-called “torture” methods (enhanced interrogation) do not leave those on the receiving end maimed or dead. Ironically, our pilots and other members of the military have been subjected to water-boarding in order to prepare them for this procedure if captured.

No, it is the cheers that bother me most. It is the joy that infuses Arabs and other Muslims celebrating the killing of Americans that is a reflection of some very bad values that have kept them despised for centuries. They are values embraced by those who join or support al Qaeda or the Taliban.

So, in the wake of the latest bombing in Baghdad, I was amused to see a man-in-the-street interview with an Iraqi who complained that the American soldiers had been withdrawn too soon. He wanted them and the security they provided back.

That is the case all over the world. Our military is seemingly never welcome until after they are gone and the same threats to peace in the streets and a nation occur again.

Then there is no cheering. Only pleas for our return.

America's Empire of Trust

By Alan Caruba

Though most Americans are unaware of it, the rest of the world is taking an active interest in the sometimes heated debate we are having regarding the alleged healthcare “reform” that is, in fact, yet another effort to push the nation further into the same socialist tentacles that have been embraced elsewhere.

Unlike Las Vegas, what happens in America doesn’t stay in America. As the world’s sole superpower, the man we select to be our president becomes the de facto president of the world insofar as his decisions reach into dusty villages in Afghanistan, affect global stock and commodity markets, and can determine the success or failure of movements toward freedom everywhere.

There would be no “Pax Americana” if we were seen to abandon our allies.

The similarities between the Roman Empire and the young American Empire are examined in an excellent book by Thomas F. Madden, “Empires of Trust.”

When I was born in the late 1930s America was a resolutely isolationist nation. We didn’t want to get involved in European wars. We had gotten into World War I because our ships were attacked by German submarines. When it was over, we pulled out our troops.

Not so for World War II, yet another conflict we resisted joining until the attack on Pearl Harbor. At the end of that war, we left troops in Europe to fend off the threat of the Soviet Union. We left troops in Japan to occupy it until democracy could be introduced to replace the emperor. In both cases, we spent billions to rebuild these shattered nations.

American troops are still in Europe and still in Japan. Though asked to withdraw from Iraq, a contingent of American troops will remain there long into the future and it is likely too that they shall be in Afghanistan as well. Americans were twice forced to invade Iraq; initially to force them out of Kuwait and, after 9/11, to remove Saddam Hussein, a threat to the entire region, but most particularly to Saudi Arabia, a major source of oil to the West.

While America always invades as part of a “coalition”, that is a charade because no other nation has the military strength and power to swiftly bring an offending nation to heel. It is not the conquest that is difficult. It is the clean up afterwards.

In point of fact, America maintains military units all over the world and they are there by invitation. Another element of America’s Empire of Trust is that the wars in which we have engaged since the end of World War II have all been in distant places. That pattern began with the Korean conflict in the 1950s. That was followed by the distress when America took over the conflict in Vietnam from France.

After initial enthusiasm for revenge following 9/11, our current participation in the Iraq and Afghan conflicts in Iraq has long since cooled. Americans, as did the citizens of Rome, do not like extended military engagements.

There are any number of similarities between the citizens of Rome who sought their own security by slowly having to conquer neighboring enemies in Italy, subdue the Carthaginian threat from North Africa, and disturbances in Greece.

The growth of the Roman Empire took place over centuries, but the reluctant Romans did not seek conquest; only peace for themselves. They did this by turning conquered enemies into friends and, since they were so successful in war, they were continually entreated to extend their protection further and further from Rome. The result was an Empire of Trust.

The Romans created the first republic in which power resided in its citizens. The American republic was, in many ways, patterned after the Roman republic, but the Founders also sought to avoid the errors of Rome, dividing power within government and ensuring that our military’s allegiance was to the Constitution, not a particular leader. Our wars must be approved by congressional resolutions.

Even in Rome there were early predictions that their empire would end. By 146 BC the Romans were the most powerful nation of those bordering the Mediterranean from Spain to Egypt and they would remain so for some sixteen centuries.

Most Americans draw their “knowledge” of ancient Rome from Hollywood films, but the scenes of decadence and apparent tyranny are wrong in many ways. A pious people, the famed decline in morality and the necessity to subdue religious chaos in the Middle East actually occurred by the time the empire had largely converted to Christianity as the state religion. They occurred late in its long history of having imposed the “Pax Romana” on the known world. The last elements of the empire would disappear in 1453.

A world at peace was always the Roman goal and, following World War II, it has been America’s goal. However, as Madden points out, “War—not peace—is the normal state of affairs in human history.” What is called peace “is an intermission, a time to prepare for more war.”

America was forced to enter two wars in Europe in the last century because, as Madden, notes, “The countries and leaders of Europe waged nearly constant warfare for more than fifteen centuries.”

This is why, too, that American soldiers and marines, assisted by troops contributed by a relatively few and greatly reluctant allies, are now fighting a “hot” war in Afghanistan after a lengthy engagement in an Iraq. Americans do not like long wars, but Madden bluntly says that “Americans need to accept that the War on Terror is going to be a long one.

Liberals always claim that “war never solves anything”, but history demonstrates that war always solves something. We have a United States of America because we fought a long, bloody Civil War. We are not subject to the dictates of a Nazi Germany in control of Europe or an Empire of Japan controlling Asia because we fought and won World War II. Our proxy wars weakened the former Soviet Union.

Former President Bush was right when, in 2002, he said, “We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign nonproliferation treaties, and then systematically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long…we must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.”

That is the definition of “Pax Americana” and it is the mission of the American Empire.

Gays in the Military

By Alan Caruba

When I served in the U.S. military I knew two closeted homosexuals were serving in my unit. My version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was not to tell because I saw no reason to “out” them and not messing around in other people’s lives has always been a policy of mine.

I was naïve enough to think that, if they wanted to serve and if they remained “closeted”, which is to say as long as their sexual preference did not interfere with their performance of duty, it was not my problem. Fifty years ago being gay meant staying in the closet or paying a price for being open about it. It surely meant not serving in the U.S. Army and these fellows wanted to.

Fast forward to the present when being gay has lost much of its former stigma. Ellen DeGeneres has her own popular talk show. “Will and Grace” was a successful sitcom. “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” was popular for a while. Barney Frank came out of the closet and apparently Massachusetts voters did not care. The level of tolerance is, in many respects, nothing less than astonishing.

But! Gays are now hell-bent to get same-sex marriage as the law of the land. The very idea is obscene and a thorough-going challenge to a rational society. It redefines what is normal and being gay is not normal in a heterosexual world and never was.

In the White House, President Obama met with 150 members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Coalition of the United Church of Christ. He told them that “I believe preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security.” He wants “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repealed.

When the subject has come up with career military professionals whom I have known, they have uniformly opposed integrating gays. The general reason is “esprit de corps”, the need to ensure morale among the troops who must, in battle, utterly depend upon one another.

Having openly gay soldiers and other military share the same living quarters is a cause for concern among their heterosexual, “straight” comrades. It has nothing to do with “patriotism.” It has a whole lot to do with whom you’re sharing a communal shower.

More than 1,000 retired generals and admirals signed an open letter earlier this year supporting the ban on gays serving openly and predicted that a repeal of the current policy would endanger the prospects of an all-volunteer force.

Gays make straights uncomfortable to varying degrees. It’s not just bias. It is human nature. So, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” makes a lot of sense. It did when I served and it does today.

I suspect many gays have served in the military and are presently on active service and, for that reason, I think “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is the wisest policy.

Unfortunately, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is working with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) to draft legislation in the Senate to do away with the current policy. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has announced he will support the legislation and reportedly there are 150 co-sponsors of a similar bill in the House.

At this point, about 10,500 military personnel have been discharged for violating the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy from 1997 through 2008. Around 250 individuals have been discharged this year.

America has fought many wars, most of them successfully, by maintaining a policy that excludes the openly gay from being in the military.

If President Obama thinks he can change human nature or ignore history, he is very mistaken. He should listen to the generals and admirals, but he probably won’t.

Abolishing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will be just another nail in the coffin of America and President Obama has been busy wielding a very big hammer of late.

USN Destroyer Versus Somalis in a small Boat

The longer it takes the United States to dispatch Naval personnel to rescue the captain of a U.S. flagged merchant ship, particularly since it is standing off in clear view of the Somali pirates, the faster our reputation to respond to such insults to our nation will suffer.

Above is a photo of a USN destroyer. Either it has orders to do nothing but observe or it has orders to take action. Just how fast would the pirates surrender given the fire power and the other resources of a destroyer?

Doing nothing is not an option.

If a rag-tag bunch of Somali pirates are permitted to "negotiate" with us, it will be open season on every American in any nation on Earth.

Axing the Air Force

By Alan Caruba

Not long ago, a friend with whom I went all through grade and high school sent me a video about the F-22, one of the most remarkable fifth generation fighter jets I have ever seen. He is now a retired Air Force General.

You can see the video at http://vimeo.com/3437045.

What I know about military affairs you could put in a bug’s ear. I served in the U.S. Army so long ago that the last crisis I recall gearing up for was a possible 1962 invasion of Cuba because of the missile crisis.

The latest news from Cuba is that a delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus, eager to embrace Fidel Castro, just returned with glowing words for his communist dictatorship. That should send a chill up your spine.

The reason I thought of the video was a recent statement by Michael M. Dunn, president of the Air Force Association, in which he took note of how that branch of our Armed Forces is being hung out to dry by the Obama administration and, in the process, leaving America and our allies that much more vulnerable to our enemies.

Production of the F-22 has been terminated. It is a fighter jet that would give us complete domination of the skies. Fortunately, most of the contract has been fulfilled, but it’s worth noting that such cutbacks also mean layoffs and lost jobs at a time when the nation is in a recession.

Production of the C-17 has also been terminated.

Production of the Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter has also been terminated.

Production of the Multiple Kill Vehicle has also been terminated.

F-15s, F-16s, and A-10s will all leave the Force with no replacements.

The budget of the Missile Defense Agency has been reduced by $1.4 billion.

“This budget guarantees that the oldest Air Force in the history of our nation will get even older,” said Dunn, adding that “B-52s, built in the 1950s, will have to be kept on duty for a minimum of another 15-20 years.”

Did I mention that the missile defense cuts mean that there will be no increase of ground-based interceptors and that the Airborne Laser program has been terminated?

“The decisions,” said Dunn, “are not just programic nuance, but will impact core Air Force functions to include Air Force ability to deter, to conduct an air campaign, and to rescue our downed airmen.”

These cuts come at the same time that North Korea just tested a missile that could hit the West Coast of the United States. One would think that a robust missile defense, to include the anti-ballistic laser, would be a good idea.

We are all learning that President Obama is strong on tough talk, but the evidence suggests he is weak in respect to dealing with the hardware of defense.

If you’re thinking that the United States has become more vulnerable to attack in an era of non-state terrorism as well as places like Iran that keeps testing their missiles, you’re right.

Obama's War

By Alan Caruba

“I’m retired from the United States Air Force and couldn’t stand being away from the wars, so I signed up to become a defense contractor/military advisor here in Helmand Province—home to some of the fiercest fighting in this theatre.” From far-off Afghanistan, I heard from a gentleman who typifies the kind of warrior spirit that can be found in the U.S. military.

He is busy helping to train members of the Afghan National Army on matters of military human resources as part of the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO mission in Afghanistan. He was responding to a commentary I had written about the insurgency in Afghanistan.

I did not and still do not favor putting U.S. troops in harm’s way in Afghanistan and had pointed out that both a British and a French general had concluded the same. To put things in perspective, I wanted the troops that former President Bush had sent to be withdrawn and I now heartily disagree with President Obama’s plan to transfer some 14,000 more troops there.

In all candor I was among the many who grew disenchanted with the lengthening war in Iraq prior to the “surge” there and I was wrong. Moreover, I am not a military strategist, so I draw my conclusions from analysis by those who are and, better still, from people who have served or are serving there.

Here’s a snapshot of just how bad the situation in Afghanistan truly is. The day before President Obama’s special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, arrived in Kabul, eight suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the justice and education ministries, killing 26 and wounding 57, The ministries are just down the street from where Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, conducts business.

To suggest that a functioning government exists in Afghanistan is tenuous at best. From everything I have read, not only does it not control Kabul, it barely functions beyond the city limits of the capitol, although the Afghan army under U.S. training has gotten some good marks.

The primary “industry” in Afghanistan is the growing of poppy for the manufacture of heroin. It is a major source of funding for the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist group that provided hospitality to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda prior to 9/11 and likely still does. Here’s what you need to know about the poppy trade. Karzai’s government, such as it is, does not want to eradicate it. Neither does the U.S. The drug lords are allies because they do not want the Taliban to benefit and neither does the U.S.

“The irony of ironies here,” says a trusted source, “is that in flying over Helmand province you can see all the desired indicators of a devastated economy coming back to life; paved roads, small business shops, even electricity. Everything the U.S. is committed to achieving for the Afghans and seemingly a real role model of a successful counter-insurgency campaign and it all comes from opium profits!”

After 9/11, the U.S. retaliated by sending in the CIA and military to presumably chase the Taliban out of Afghanistan. It shares a long border with Pakistan and that’s where the survivors headed in 2001. It is Pakistan, not Afghanistan, that is the real hotspot in the Middle East these days.

Pakistan barely qualifies to be considered a nation. It was created when India declared its independence in 1947 as a place, along with Bangladesh, where Muslims could flee rather than become Indian citizens. Great numbers were slain and, although many remained in India, they are second-class citizens there. Wherever Muslims are not in the majority, they are heartily disliked by those who are. Bangladesh later broke with Pakistan to declare its own independence.

Simply put, Pakistan has almost always been ruled by its military, as was the case most recently of President Musharref, who also retained his rank as a general. The current president just agreed to a deal with the Taliban to relinquish control over a large portion of the nation. Even under Musharref it was never able to exercise any real control and it is the Taliban’s intention to take over all of Pakistan, imposing Sharia law.

Militarily, there is virtually no way the American military, even including NATO forces and the Afghan army, can effectively conduct a counterinsurgency there. The society and the terrain are not hospitable. Re-supply of our forces now comes through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as routes through Pakistan are viable, but increasingly lethal.

Writing jointly in Small Wars Journal.com, officers from the United States Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps offered a lengthy analysis of what would be required to win out over the Taliban. The question they addressed was “How Should the U.S. Execute a Surge in Afghanistan?” The paper does not reflect official policy.

They noted that the failure to execute an effective counterinsurgency (COIN) to date has resulted in a security situation that “has steadily deteriorated since 2006 largely due to the lack of forces required.” Keep in mind, Afghanistan is not Iraq and the two cannot be compared in terms of the application of a military solution.

It is not that the U.S. does not know how to conduct a counterinsurgency. The principles involved were known to the Romans who conquered Gaul. Afghanistan differs from Iraq in that it has “a predominantly rural population with strong tribal loyalties, a historically weak central government, and (a) large, porous border (that) make the operational environment in Afghanistan much more challenging.” Or, in other words, damn near impossible.

“There are approximately 42 million Pashtuns spread throughout the region with 14 million living in Pakistan. These Afghan Pashtuns serve as the center of gravity for the Taliban” that are estimated to number between 10,000 and 15,000 “hardcore insurgents.” Two-thirds of the Pashtuns live in Western Pakistan along a 2,430 kilometer border with Afghanistan. They were the original source of the Taliban movement and are “unlike any operational problem faced in Iraq.”

Now do the math. For a successful counterinsurgency it will be necessary to have a 20- to-1,000 security force density in the Pashtun areas. This would require more than 280,000 military personnel. There is simply no way the U.S. alone could achieve this “for an Afghan population well over 32 million, even with the help of NATO and Afghan National Security Forces.

The latest report from Kabul is that the International Security Assistance Force, established by the United Nations in 2001, now numbers about 55,000 troops of which nearly half are U.S. military. If it cannot even secure Kabul, what are the odds it can have any success throughout some of the worst terrain for battle to be found anywhere in the world?

The British forces in poppy-rich Helmand province have been trying without success for three years to establish a measure of security there.

The decision by the new Commander-in-Chief, Barack Obama, to move more troops into this situation ignores the reality of waging war in Afghanistan. If he had no stomach for the war in Iraq, it is doubtful he will be willing to sustain the increased casualties that will result from simply putting more of our troops in harm’s way.

Islamic militancy throughout the Middle East and extending its deadly intensions worldwide is going to be a long fight. The U.S. would do well to pick somewhere other than Afghanistan to wage that war. If the Russians with some 100,000 troops were eventually defeated by the local tribes (with weapons assistance from the U.S.) it seems clear that the current mission has little hope for success. The Russians had 14,000 casualties by the time they left.

We should leave now. The Taliban are analogous to the street gangs that every city in America has had for decades and longer. Meanwhile, the U.S. needs to protect the Gulf States, Iraq, and Israel. The odds are that we will have to engage Iran at some point and tying up troops elsewhere is a bad strategy. It is now Obama’s war.

A General Revolt

By Alan Caruba

He hasn’t been “the decider” very long, but the general outline of Obama’s governing philosophy so far as military and international affairs has already emerged. He’s all for talking to Iran, the Taliban, the Cubans, and any other known enemy of the nation.

I had serious doubts about Bush’s conduct of the war in Iraq. I was wrong. He not only saw it through to success, but he has given America a strong ally in a part of the world that is coming apart in places like Pakistan.

Why would the United States ever want to pull out any more troops from Iraq beyond that agreed to? Why would the United States commit more troops to the internal, external, and endless warfare of Afghanistan? And what the heck is the rush to leave all about?

That, however, is Obama’s game plan. Largely unnoticed by the public, however, is the unhappiness of our generals. Consider that the nation expended considerable treasure and the blood of our troops to produce a result few, including myself, predicted; an Iraq that just held its second, successful and peaceful election, and an Iraqi military that is increasingly taking over the duties of our troops.

In a report by Gareth Porter, a foreign policy analyst and author of several books on the warfare, he noted that CENTCOM commander, Gen. David Petraeus and Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, along with Joint Chiefs Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, met with Obama on January 21st and were unsuccessful in convincing him to reconsider his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops in 16 months.

As we have clearly seen, Obama’s campaign promises exist to be broken and the signing of a huge “stimulus” bill filled with thousands of earmarks is just the latest example.

“Obama’s decision to override Petraeus’s recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however,” said Porter. The generals are continuing to pressure Obama to change his policy and Obama is going to discover that dismissing the advice of senior generals is usually a bad idea.

Americans, historically, have almost always resisted going to war, but once engaged, they do not want to lose. Abandoning Iraq at this early and crucial stage of a hard won peace is a very bad idea.

Among other nations, Iraq borders Iran and Syria, as well as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for whom it serves as a buffer against Iranian expansionist ambitions. Nearby, Turkey is sliding toward an increasing Islamist future unless its generals secure its secular government against such a prospect.

Porter reports that “A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus (and Gen. Ray Ordierno, the top commander in Iraq) by mobilizing public opinion against Obama’s decision.”

In sum, President Obama is facing a potential revolt among his senior military advisers. Iraq is an essential U.S. bulwark in the Middle East and leaving it at a time when Pakistan is coming apart in the face of an insurgent Taliban effort to grasp control of its government is a very bad idea.

Add to this Iran’s bellicosity, complete with demonstrations of its offensive missile capacity and potential nuclear capability and you have an extremely dangerous situation brewing.

Obama has sent any number of signals to our enemies in the Middle East that he favors their point of view. Closing down the detention facilities of hardcore terrorists in Guantanamo by next year catered to the limp leftists that support him, but it demonstrated a lack of judgment, particularly since he has no idea what to do with the detainees. Some of those released have long since returned to the battlefield.

Offering nearly a billion dollars to rebuild Gaza when Hamas remains a terrorist organization also calls into question his judgment. This is further exacerbated by the fact that such funding could do a lot more good here at home. It ignores the estimated 6,000 rockets fired into Israel since it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Americans have a long tradition of electing generals to serve in the White House. Jackson, Grant, and Eisenhower come quickly to mind. If Petraeus whose successful “surge” put an end to al Qaeda ambitions in Iraq were to be forced out by the Obama administration, he could emerge as a candidate for President in 2012.

For now, however, the prospect of a quiet, but persistent revolt of the generals against Obama is very much in the cards.

Remember, military officers take an oath similar to federal civilians to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

The Academy Awards Farce

By Alan Caruba

First off, let me say that I did not watch the 81st Academy Awards. I watched “Patton” for the 172nd time because George C. Scott gave a great performance in a movie that clearly acknowledged the barbarity of war while also acknowledging that it is often the only way to defeat an evil, totalitarian regime.

I didn’t watch for another reason, a personal one. I went to high school with Frank Langela in the 1950s and can recall the skinny kid who was a member of the Parnassian Club along with other aspiring actors. In our 1955 yearbook, Frank was remembered for “his ability to make people laugh, his love for Italian lasagna, and those adlibs that livened up Senior Play rehearsals.” I remember Frank because I was the student stage manager at the time.

Frank was born to be an actor and his performance in “Frost/Nixon” deserved an Oscar. I think that among the reasons he didn’t receive it was that he was portraying one of the Left’s favorite bogymen. I guarantee you that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not have just been in China if Nixon had not opened up that nation to its potential as a trading partner.

Instead the Best Actor award went to Sean Penn who portrayed the slain openly gay mayor of San Francisco. Sean Penn who could not run fast enough to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to defend that psychopath or down to Venezuela to embrace Hugo Chavez. Penn is the quintessential Hollywood Leftist and that is why he got the award. I am pretty sure it wasn’t because “Milk” was a box office blockbuster because it wasn’t. Penn did get one thing right when he addressed the audience saying, "You Commie homo-loving sons of guns."

I used to do PR for Actors Equity and it is a tough profession. Most of that union’s members are out of work on any given day. I came to know quite a few actors, many famous faces from former times and, while there were surely some who were intelligent and would have been successful in any job, the fact is that people become actors in order to escape their own lives and enter into the make believe of fictional ones. Occasionally, between the screenwriter, the director, and the actor, we get films that inspire us; nothing wrong with that.

What is wrong is turning an event like the Academy Awards into a political or social platform. If I want politics, I can turn on the news. I don’t need it, nor want it in a film.

A case in point is HBO’s “Taking Chance”, a film based on the true story of a Marine Lt. Colonel who sees the name of a lance corporal killed in action in Iraq who came from the same town where he grew up. He volunteers to escort the body from Dover Air Force Base to where he is to be buried in Idaho.

What we witness is the deep regard and respect rendered to each casualty of war by both the military and by civilians, some of them veterans, along the journey. It is not a polemic about whether the war was right or wrong. It was about the sacrifice that warriors—mostly young men—make for their nation because they believe in what that nation stands for. It’s a superb film and cast led by Kevin Bacon. Don’t miss it.

The Academy Awards have become a farce. It’s sad because I loved going to the movies when I was growing up. I don’t go any more.

Memorial Day 2008

By Alan Caruba

Anyone who has ever worn the uniform of his nation feels differently about Memorial Day than those who have not had that privilege. There is a bond between soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen.

Whether we fought on the battlefield or just protected the nation during the Cold War, we took an oath, not dissimilar from that which the President takes, to protect and preserve the Constitution.

The great lesson of history is that democracy must be defended because it has many enemies. While it has spread to many parts of the world, vast populations still live under tyranny in Africa, in China, in Russia, in the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Sometimes I think the entire argument over the war in Iraq is one over whether this nation has the courage to defend and extend democracy. As unpopular as President Bush is and probably deserves to be, he is still right that the expansion of democracy is the best way to undermine the forces of evil that would enslave populations and would do harm to our nation.

It is much easier to do that harm these days. A single nuclear device could destroy an entire city. A biological weapon could sicken and kill thousands.

When a person like Mamoud Amadinejad openly calls for the destruction of the “Great Satan”, America, and the “Little Satan”, Israel, we need to take him at his word. It is not so much the millions of Iranians we need fear as the handful of despots who rule them through fear and intimidation.

Memorial Day is about courage.

If we lack the courage to defend our nation, even if that requires we send our best young men and women to fight on the other side of the globe, we will lose our nation here at home. If we lack the courage to fight for our beliefs, our values, we shall surely lose them to a conquering enemy, either within or beyond our shores.

We honor the courage of those from Valley Forge to Gettysburg, from Normandy to Iwo Jima, and now to Baghdad and Kabul, who fought and sometimes gave their lives for the freedoms we too often take too lightly.

It takes courage to be free. It takes none to be a slave.