It sure seems convenient that we have another bomb scare within a week of the election. Hmmmmm.
"Yemen officials arrested a suspect Saturday in the alleged plot to mail bombs to two synagogues in Chicago, but clues also lead to a bombmaker for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), reports say."
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Yemen somehow comes to the forefront again.
"How con-VEEN-ient!"
The Church Lady - Saturday Night Live
Showing posts with label al-qaeda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label al-qaeda. Show all posts
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Reducing The BOOT Print
The Boogeyman is everywhere and he's "comin' to get us". There's Al Quaeda, the Axis of Evil, all Muslims, Taliban, Pakistanis, Osama, Iranians, and whoever else we need to get the herd to come together. The fear factor is very powerful and effective. Newt is starting to use it to emerge as the frontrunner for Team Red. The idea below is contrary to the fearmongering and lowering the "boot print" would solve the problem. But, of course we can't. FOUR percent of the worlds population consuming 25% of the world's oil requires us to control "the heartland".
"The U.S. spends more on maintaining overseas government operations than all the rest of the world’s nations combined. While the cost of ending our involvement in perma-wars, turning off the lights at military installations, canceling aid and subsidies to foreign governments will cause widespread pain and misery – both at home for the dismissed soldiers and overseas for our allies – doing so is likely to improve our security by dramatically reducing our boot print on the face of the globe."
Source: Casey Research
"The U.S. spends more on maintaining overseas government operations than all the rest of the world’s nations combined. While the cost of ending our involvement in perma-wars, turning off the lights at military installations, canceling aid and subsidies to foreign governments will cause widespread pain and misery – both at home for the dismissed soldiers and overseas for our allies – doing so is likely to improve our security by dramatically reducing our boot print on the face of the globe."
Source: Casey Research
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Pakistani Boogeyman
"A U.S. drone attack targeting militants in Pakistan's troubled northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan has killed six of them, media reports quoting intelligence officials said. It was the fifth such attack by pilot-less U.S. aircraft in the area in the past 17 days."
SOURCE: RTT News
"For a White House that has been seeking a new relationship with the Islamic world, the prospect of another terrorist plot that appears to be connected to Pakistan will present a series of complicated -- and politically treacherous -- issues to confront."
SOURCE: The Washington Post
Is it a coincidence, or do we always find a culprit sourced from the country that we want to justify military action against? The "Christmas Day Pants Bomber" was from Nigeria, but somehow we immediately set our targets on Yemen. Is it a coincidence that Yemen sits just south of our major oil supplier, Saudi Arabia? It also has the Gulf of Aden off its coast where large oil tankers and pirates hang out? Have you heard of the Bab El-Mandab? Take a moment to understand the "chokepoints".
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/World_Oil_Transit_Chokepoints/Background.html
Now we confirm a Pakistani male linked to the Times Square incident. For the past month, we've been bombarding Pakistan with missiles fired from our military drones. Is there a correlation?
"How con-VEEN-ient!"
The Church Lady - Saturday Night Live
SOURCE: RTT News
"For a White House that has been seeking a new relationship with the Islamic world, the prospect of another terrorist plot that appears to be connected to Pakistan will present a series of complicated -- and politically treacherous -- issues to confront."
SOURCE: The Washington Post
Is it a coincidence, or do we always find a culprit sourced from the country that we want to justify military action against? The "Christmas Day Pants Bomber" was from Nigeria, but somehow we immediately set our targets on Yemen. Is it a coincidence that Yemen sits just south of our major oil supplier, Saudi Arabia? It also has the Gulf of Aden off its coast where large oil tankers and pirates hang out? Have you heard of the Bab El-Mandab? Take a moment to understand the "chokepoints".
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/World_Oil_Transit_Chokepoints/Background.html
Now we confirm a Pakistani male linked to the Times Square incident. For the past month, we've been bombarding Pakistan with missiles fired from our military drones. Is there a correlation?
"How con-VEEN-ient!"
The Church Lady - Saturday Night Live
Monday, July 19, 2004
The Heartland of Iraq
'Heartland' strategy in Iraq: Right idea, if done the right way
By William Hamilton
Some critics like to say American foreign policy is discernible only in retrospect. Even so, such opinion could be taken as a left-handed compliment for a nation that has done rather well in defending itself and its allies in the previous century, and now, at the beginning of the 21st century. Though it might be too early to put a name to the Grand Strategy we are employing with regard to Iraq, just "being there" suggests that our strategy aligns quite nicely with the Heartland Theory put forth in 1904 by Sir Halford John Mackinder, one of the great military strategists of the 20th century. Here's how the Heartland Theory would apply to Iraq: Get a globe and put your finger on Iraq. Notice how your finger is resting right in the middle, the "heartland," of the Middle East, halfway between Egypt and Pakistan.
In 1904, British geographer Mackinder placed his finger on Eastern Europe and declared that to be the "pivot area" or "heartland" of Europe. He declared: "Who commands Eastern Europe commands the heartland; who rules the heartland commands the world island; and who rules the world-island commands the world." (By world-island, he meant the Euro-Asian-African landmass.)
Did anyone buy the Heartland Theory?
Yes. Napoleon understood it even before Mackinder was born. That is why he attacked czarist Russia. Moreover, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and three generations of the world's foremost military strategists embraced it as gospel and acted upon it. Even now, the United States is steering NATO's drive into Mackinder's Heartland with the addition to its ranks of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Just being there is enough.
The essential element in the Heartland Theory is simply "being there." Properly applied, being there means Iraqi oil revenue cannot go to al-Qaeda. Being there means the Iraqis can choose whatever government they want, as long as it does not support terrorism. Being there means interdicting the radical Islamists' lines of communication that run across the Middle East from Cairo to Islamabad, Pakistan.
But being there need not include the imposition of a Pax Americana on Iraq's cities.
The inevitable collateral damage of urban warfare creates a no-win situation for U.S. troops in a news-media world dominated by the hostile Al-Jazeera TV network and by a Western media that daily prove the dictum: Bad news will travel around the world before good news can tie its shoelaces. George Friedman, who runs a private intelligence service, suggests that the U.S.-led coalition can still be there while, at the same time, withdrawing its troops from Iraqi cities. By occupying a series of desert outposts, we retain the strategic advantage of being in the heartland of the Middle East. If al-Qaeda or the Iraqi insurgents want to fight our troops, they must expose themselves in the open desert, where their rusting, bomb-laden pickups are no match for our Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Our casualties would plummet. Theirs would skyrocket.
Bush administration's opportunity
But even as it becomes increasingly clear that our troops are being withdrawn from Iraq's troubled cities — especially now that governing power has been transferred to the Iraqis — the debate as to the wisdom of being there in the first place rages.
One way for the administration to answer its critics would be to explain the invasion of Iraq and our continued presence there in terms of the Heartland Theory. While that explanation might make a great deal of sense to armchair strategists and war-college graduates, it could be a difficult sell to a pop culture that cast more votes during the latest American Idol season than it cast in the most recent presidential election.
Meanwhile, the inescapable geographic truth is that we are occupying the heartland of the Middle East. If Mackinder's theory is correct, our mere presence there will have a major impact on how we fight, and whether we succeed, in the ongoing war on terrorism. But maintaining public support for our continued presence will require military tactics that reduce our casualties to more acceptable and sustainable levels.
If that can be achieved, the armchair strategists and the soccer moms may create the common ground of broad public support that will be essential to our successful occupation of a strategic base in the region's heartland.
William Hamilton is a syndicated columnist, retired Army officer and co-author of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy —two novels about terrorists targeting the United States. He lives in Colorado.
By William Hamilton
Some critics like to say American foreign policy is discernible only in retrospect. Even so, such opinion could be taken as a left-handed compliment for a nation that has done rather well in defending itself and its allies in the previous century, and now, at the beginning of the 21st century. Though it might be too early to put a name to the Grand Strategy we are employing with regard to Iraq, just "being there" suggests that our strategy aligns quite nicely with the Heartland Theory put forth in 1904 by Sir Halford John Mackinder, one of the great military strategists of the 20th century. Here's how the Heartland Theory would apply to Iraq: Get a globe and put your finger on Iraq. Notice how your finger is resting right in the middle, the "heartland," of the Middle East, halfway between Egypt and Pakistan.
In 1904, British geographer Mackinder placed his finger on Eastern Europe and declared that to be the "pivot area" or "heartland" of Europe. He declared: "Who commands Eastern Europe commands the heartland; who rules the heartland commands the world island; and who rules the world-island commands the world." (By world-island, he meant the Euro-Asian-African landmass.)
Did anyone buy the Heartland Theory?
Yes. Napoleon understood it even before Mackinder was born. That is why he attacked czarist Russia. Moreover, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and three generations of the world's foremost military strategists embraced it as gospel and acted upon it. Even now, the United States is steering NATO's drive into Mackinder's Heartland with the addition to its ranks of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Just being there is enough.
The essential element in the Heartland Theory is simply "being there." Properly applied, being there means Iraqi oil revenue cannot go to al-Qaeda. Being there means the Iraqis can choose whatever government they want, as long as it does not support terrorism. Being there means interdicting the radical Islamists' lines of communication that run across the Middle East from Cairo to Islamabad, Pakistan.
But being there need not include the imposition of a Pax Americana on Iraq's cities.
The inevitable collateral damage of urban warfare creates a no-win situation for U.S. troops in a news-media world dominated by the hostile Al-Jazeera TV network and by a Western media that daily prove the dictum: Bad news will travel around the world before good news can tie its shoelaces. George Friedman, who runs a private intelligence service, suggests that the U.S.-led coalition can still be there while, at the same time, withdrawing its troops from Iraqi cities. By occupying a series of desert outposts, we retain the strategic advantage of being in the heartland of the Middle East. If al-Qaeda or the Iraqi insurgents want to fight our troops, they must expose themselves in the open desert, where their rusting, bomb-laden pickups are no match for our Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Our casualties would plummet. Theirs would skyrocket.
Bush administration's opportunity
But even as it becomes increasingly clear that our troops are being withdrawn from Iraq's troubled cities — especially now that governing power has been transferred to the Iraqis — the debate as to the wisdom of being there in the first place rages.
One way for the administration to answer its critics would be to explain the invasion of Iraq and our continued presence there in terms of the Heartland Theory. While that explanation might make a great deal of sense to armchair strategists and war-college graduates, it could be a difficult sell to a pop culture that cast more votes during the latest American Idol season than it cast in the most recent presidential election.
Meanwhile, the inescapable geographic truth is that we are occupying the heartland of the Middle East. If Mackinder's theory is correct, our mere presence there will have a major impact on how we fight, and whether we succeed, in the ongoing war on terrorism. But maintaining public support for our continued presence will require military tactics that reduce our casualties to more acceptable and sustainable levels.
If that can be achieved, the armchair strategists and the soccer moms may create the common ground of broad public support that will be essential to our successful occupation of a strategic base in the region's heartland.
William Hamilton is a syndicated columnist, retired Army officer and co-author of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy —two novels about terrorists targeting the United States. He lives in Colorado.
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