Time To Remember The "Global" In The War On Terror

Mark Steyn does it again, summarizing all I've thought about Obama's snitty response to Bush's Knesset (not Parliament) speech, and getting it just right:

Yes, there are plenty of Democrats who are in favor of negotiating with our enemies, and a few Republicans, too – President Bush's pal James Baker, whose Iraq Study Group was full of proposals to barter with Iran and Syria and everybody else. But that general line is also taken by at least three of Tony Blair's former Cabinet ministers and his senior policy adviser, and by the leader of Canada's New Democratic Party and by a whole bunch of bigshot Europeans. It's not a Democrat election policy, it's an entire worldview. Even Barack Obama can't be so vain as to think his fly-me-to-[insert name of enemy here] concept is an original idea.

Increasingly, the Western world has attitudes rather than policies. It's one thing to talk as a means to an end. But these days, for most midlevel powers, talks are the end, talks without end. Because that's what civilized nations like doing – chit-chatting, shooting the breeze, having tea and crumpets, talking talking talking. Uncivilized nations like torturing dissidents, killing civilians, bombing villages, doing doing doing. It's easier to get the doers to pass themselves off as talkers then to get the talkers to rouse themselves to do anything.

And those well-crafted words brings me to what I feel, increasingly, is wrong with our position in Iraq.

I read of the Druze "300" valiantly standing between the ambitions of Syria and Iran to overwhelm Lebanon in order to assume a power position over Israel and give Syria a port for transshipment of weapons from Iran and NoKo, and I think, why aren't we fighting alongside the Druze?

Why don't we have an adequate force on the ground with air support, to stop the advance of the Hezbollah - Syria - Iran front? Why aren't we using our military assets to give Lebanon breathing room?

We're not fighting this short war because we are tied up with the long war. There are similar opportunities in Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines and the Gulf -- like precise attacks on Iran Revolutionary Guard facilities near the Iranian border -- but the long war is limiting our options.

I'm reading Doug Fieth's War and Decision, and going back to the first days after 9/11, we see these bursts of short wars to very much be in the initial response planning. Remember, we are supposed to be fighting terror and those who support terror, not just al-Qaeda. The Pentagon planners envisioned military actions in Africa, Asia and even South America to take out terrorists and their support network.

Then Iraq and Afghanistan turned into long wars.

The fact that they did turn into long wars maybe shows that the short war option may not be viable. Can we strike here and there and change things? If we support the Druze, can we save Lebanon, or will saving Lebanon require another long war?

A good question, for sure, but perhaps the best way to answer it is to try the short war option. Seize the ship with the weapons. Knock out the training camp. Close the bank account. Stop the next Janjaweed attack in Darfur. Capture the terror-king and his henchmen and transport them to some unknown prison for a friendly debriefing.

Do. Do. Do. We are doing a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan; we are converting whole societies bit by bit, allowing them to taste freedom from extremism and tyranny. It's time to do more elsewhere. I don't hear any presidential candidates talking about this, but as we draw down our troops in Iraq over the next few years, transferring authority to a more stable Iraqi government and a better trained Iraqi army and police force, we need to consider "where next?" for our hegemonic military.

We can go anywhere and do just about anything, so let's do hurry up with getting a few tens of thousands of troops available to support freedom and trounce terror in theaters around the globe.

This is not going to be the Global War on Terror until we take it to the terrorists globally.

What Time Is It, Kids? It's Obama Doody Time!

The Lebanon news site Now Lebanon had some white electrons to fill, so it ran Senator Barack "Howdy Doody" Obama's recent statement responding to the latest round of ruthless blood-letting by Hezbollah:

Hezbollah's power grab in Beirut has once more plunged that city into violence and chaos. This effort to undermine Lebanon's elected government needs to stop, and all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately. It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment. We must support the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions that reinforce Lebanon's sovereignty, especially resolution 1701 banning the provision of arms to Hezbollah, which is violated by Iran and Syria. As we push for this national consensus, we should continue to support the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Siniora, strengthen the Lebanese army, and insist on the disarming of Hezbollah before it drags Lebanon into another unnecessary war. As we do this, it is vital that the United States continues to work with the international community and the private sector to rebuild Lebanon and get its economy back on its feet. (emphasis added)

Don't you finally understand why people flock to the Great Man? What insight! What a new way to look at things! Alas, C-SM is above rude snarkiness, however, so I'll look the other way while From Beirut to the Beltway expounds:

Oh the time we wasted by fighting Hizbullah all those years with rockets, invasions of their homes and shutting down their media outlets. If only we had engaged them and their masters in diplomacy, instead of just sitting with them around discussion tables, welcoming them into our parliament, and letting them veto cabinet decisions. If only Obama had shared his wisdom with us before, back when he was rallying with some of our former friends at pro-Palestinian rallies in Chicago. How stupid we were when, instead of developing national consensus with them, we organized media campaigns against Israel on behalf of the impoverished people who voted for them.

Note: For a look at how bad it's gotten in Lebanon with Hezbollah's latest initiative, see this WaPo story.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Mughniyeh Lionized By Iran

The soul of the Islamist revolution was there in all its putrid decay for the world to see, as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, eulogized Imad Mughniyeh, the dead Hezbollah terror-chief.

"I offer my condolences on this great martyrdom to you, his family, the glorious Hezbollah youth and all Lebanese," Ayatollah Khamenei said in the message to [Hezbollah Chief Seyed Hassan] Nasrallah after the killing of Imad Mughniyeh.

"It should make the Lebanese people proud to have given the world such great men in the fields of seeking freedom and fighting cruelty," he said. (Fars)

There's guilt aplenty to go around, but if Lebanon wanted freedom and wished an end to cruelty, all that would have to happen is for Hezbollah to let it occur. It is their inability to live with anyone who doesn't share their beliefs that is most responsible for tearing the country apart -- and that inability to live with others is best personified by Nasrallah and Mughniyeh ... and a few thousand others, according to the Lebanon Daily Star's report on the Mughniyeh funeral:

A congregation of thousands, ages 7 to 70, attended the service at the 20,000-seat mosque complex. Occupying all the seats, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, climbing on girders and sitting on scaffolding, they filled the football-pitch-sized corrugated facility to its maximum capacity. Outside the complex, thousands more thronged the streets, waiting to pay their respects to their beloved martyr, Mughniyeh. ...

"We are all your servants, Nasrallah!" the crowd in the packed compound cheered, as they pounded their fists into the air above their heads. ...

Chants of, "Death to Israel! Death to America!" roared through the Hizbullah stronghold as a dozen pallbearers carried Mughniyeh's coffin through the narrow streets of the southern suburbs. ...

Mourners who attended the funeral ceremony pledged their readiness to fight Israel to the death and die as martyrs.

"We are only waiting for a sign from Hassan Nasrallah to fight Israel until death," said Ali Zeidan, 28.

"We are ready to follow the example of Imad Mughniyeh and the other martyrs" who fought Israel, he added.

The Islamists have proven that there always has been another to step up to fill, or try to fill, the shoes of the departed martyrs Hell-bound pieces of filth. To stop that cycle, we can keep taking out their leadership as fast as a new one comes on the scene, as US forces have done with al-Qaeda in Iraq. Or I suppose we could try appeasement, or ignoring them and hoping they'll go away.

Too Bad He Didn't Suffer More

"The head of Hizbullah's military wing, Imad Mughniyeh," started the article in today's JPost, and since I already knew this scummiest of scum was blessedly dead, I was hoping the sentence would conclude, "rolled into the gutter, an expression of pained surprise still on his face, despite his body being blown to smithereens by a car bomb explosion."

But no; it just ends, "- considered the organization's second in command - was killed in a car bombing in Damascus late Tuesday night, Hizbullah's Al-Manar television reported Wednesday." Good enough, though, eh?

Mughniyeh's claims to fame:

• The Beirut barracks bombing that killed over 200 US Marines
  
• The bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires
• Possibly the hijacking of a TWA flight in 1985
• The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser
• Many, many attacks against Israeli civilians

A Jew-hater and America-hater dead. Too many remain.

Hezbollah blamed Israel, of course, to which Israel replied:

"Israel is sifting through the reports from Lebanon and Syria regarding the death of the high-ranking Hizbullah official and is studying, for the first time, the details emanating from their portrayal in the media in the past hours," the PMO statement read. "Israel rejects the attempt of terrorist elements to pin any involvement in this incident on it. Beyond that, there is nothing to add."

Who killed him? Another Jpost story says the line was long:

"He was wanted by 42 countries, most of the world was after him. Israel's official denial just adds another question mark to all the others raised by the assassination," Dr. Eyal Zisser, head of the the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University agreed. "It was pretty predictable that Israel wouldn't want to escalate the situation by claiming responsibility for the attack. Even the fact that the forces in the North weren't put on alert is probably intended as a signal, saying that we want no part in this."

Whoever killed him, the important thing is that he's dead, and that he didn't get to spend his latter years relaxing, enjoying his grandchildren and telling tales of the old days.

Now it's time to start planning how to take out his successor.

Lebanon Biggie Praises Iran's Nukes

Here's an interesting tidbit from Fars, the Iranian news service Ahmadinejad mouthpiece:

Iran's N. Power a Back Up for Arabs against Israel

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran's nuclear capability brings balance of power to the region and strengthens Muslim and Arab world against the Zionist regime of Israel, a former Lebanese minister said. ...

Speaking in an exclusive interview with FNA in Beirut, head of Towhid Movement and former Lebanese Minister Weam Vahab viewed Iran's role in Lebanon and the region as significant and outstanding, and said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran plays a remarkable role in supporting the Islamic resistance movements of the region and Lebanon and renders support to the Lebanese nation and resistance without imposing its will and aspirations."

Vahab, who is among the respected heads of Lebanon's important Darouzi tribe, also defended Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, saying that Tehran's nuclear power brings equilibrium to the region and a point of reliance for the world of Islam.

Yeah, yeah, Iran is arming and training Hezbollah and Hamas to kill Jews; knew that, but what am I missing here? How do "peaceful nuclear activities," oh, like generating electricity or using nuclear medicine to diagnose disease, help create a balance of power and a "back up" against Israel?

I can hear it now; "Stop murdering innocent Palestinians, you Jew devils, or we'll ... we'll ... we'll turn on more lights in Tehran!"

The only ones stupid enough to buy Tehran's "peaceful" nuclear program are Western leftists and academics.

Lebanon's Dreams Slipping Away

Syria's heavy hand has nearly completely extinguished the spark of a hope for freedom in Lebanon:

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - President Emile Lahoud said Friday that Lebanon is in a "state of emergency" and ordered the army to take over security powers, hours before he was stepping down without a successor and leaving the divided country in a political vacuum. The government rejected the move, raising tensions.

Lahoud's announcement immediately raised further confusion amid Lebanon's political turmoil, which many fear could explode into violence between supporters of the government and the opposition.

The president cannot declare a state of emergency without approval from the government, but Lahoud's spokesman said the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora is considered unconstitutional.

Lahoud, of course, is a puppet of Syria, hardly any more legitimate than Saniora. It would be helpful of AP to point that out.

The UN's mandate to disarm Hezbollah has gone nowhere, so behind this instability is a threatening force to whom bloody civil war seems an entirely desirable option. The days of the Cedar Revolution are far behind Lebanon now and the future looks bleak, indeed.

Picking Up Where Israel Left Off

Don't expect worldwide protestations; there won't be a global tsk-tsk directed at Lebanon for picking up where Israel left off last summer, even though AP, perhaps erroneously, referred to the current attacks by the Lebanese Army on Fatah Islam as "the worst eruption of violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war."

Does that mean the shelling of the Palestinian refugee camp outside Tripoli was more intense than the Israeli military assaults last summer? Hmm. Whatever; it was intense:

Hundreds of Lebanese army troops, backed by tanks and armored carriers, surrounded the refugee camp Monday. M-48 battle tanks unleashed their cannon fire on the camp, sending orange flames followed by dense black plumes of smoke. The militants fired mortars toward the troops at daybreak.

An army officer at the front line said troops directed concentrated fire at buildings known to house militants in the camp. He said troops also had orders to strike hard at any target that directed fire back at them.

"Everything we know that they were present in has been targeted," he told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The strikes against the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp are, in fact, strikes against Syria:

On Sunday, Fatah Islam's spokesman in Nahr el-Bared, Abu Salim, would not say whether the group was linked to al-Qaida but claimed its aim was to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites, and to protect Sunnis.

"We are a Jihadi movement, and we have hoisted the banner of Islam,'' he told a local TV station -- language often used by militant groups associated with al-Qaida.

But Lebanon's national police commander, Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi, denied Fatah Islam's al-Qaida links, saying it was a Syrian-bred group.

"Perhaps there are some deluded people among them but they are not al-Qaida. This is imitation al-Qaida, a 'Made in Syria' one,'' he told The Associated Press.

Lebanese security officials said Fatah Islam split last year from the Syria-based Fatah Uprising, itself a 1980s splinter of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah. But they say the alleged split from Fatah Uprising was only a cover and that they are part of the Syrian intelligence security. ( emphasis added)

It's interesting that the Lebanese, who can't take the fight directly to Syria, also apparently do not have authority to enter the Palestinian camps on their own soil; that authority was ceded to the Palestinians. Welcome to "self-governing," Palestinian style.

The base problem, of course, is that there are Palestinian refugee camps anyway. Had Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and other Arab nations allowed the Palestinians to assimilate 50 years ago, they wouldn't be shelling camps today. And they wouldn't be getting this kind of criticism:

Ahmed Methqal, a Muslim cleric in the camp, told Al-Jazeera that five civilians had been killed.

"You can say there is a massacre going on in the camp of children and women who have nothing to do with Fatah Islam," he said. "They are targeting buildings, with people in them. What's the guilt of children, women and the elderly?"

Sound familiar? No matter who attacks them, the Lebanese, the Israelis, the Martians, it's the Palestinians who are always the suffering victims. If there were as many "massacres" as they say there are, how come there are any Palestinians left?

If they're not going to police themselves, someone will have to do the policing for them. The Lebanese Army has squished a few cockroaches; many more scurried into the dark shadows. Soon, they'll attack with bombs on buses and cafes and raids to capture Lebanese soldiers who will then be mutilated as cameras roll, so the tapes can be aired on Al Jaz.

Vermin are vermin, no matter who's trying to stomp them out.

Christians Fleeing A Deteriorating Lebanon

In a region full of basket-cases, competition for the title of most unstable country in the Middle East is intense. Iraq's an easy pick, but increasingly, it appears that Lebanon will be the first Middle Eastern country to fall into Islamist civil war.

The reason: The stabilizing Christian population of Lebanon is fleeing the country as fast as they can find a way out.

Under a longstanding agreement, Christians hold one-half of the seats in Lebanon's government even though historically they've been only about a quarter of the population. This over-representation forces a jittery peace between its roughly equal Shi'a and Sunni populations. But the rising and hostile tide of radical Islamism is threatening the demographic underpinnings of that balance, reports the Washington Times:

BEIRUT -- Christians are fleeing from Lebanon to escape the rise of radical Islam and growing fears that the trend will result in a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war, with minority Christians trapped in the middle.

In a poll to be published next month, nearly half of all Maronites, the largest Christian denomination in the country, said they were considering emigrating.

Of these, more than 100,000 have submitted visa applications to foreign embassies, according to the poll. Their exodus could rob the country of an influential minority, which has acted as an important counterbalance to the forces of Islamic extremism.

About 60,000 Christians have left since the summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah. Many who remain fear that a violent showdown between rival Sunni and Shi'ite factions is looming.

"If we love our children, we have to tell them to get out," said Maria, a Christian mother from the northern city of Tripoli who refused to give her surname for fear of reprisal. "When my daughter finished her high school, I sent her to Europe, and I will follow her if I can."

The rising tension between Shi'ite and Sunni factions and the rising anti-Christian actions of radical Islamists aren't the only things destabilizing Lebanon's Christian community. WashTimes reports that the Christians are evenly split between those who back the Sunni-dominatedcentral government and those who side with the Shi'ite opposition, led by Hezbollah.

It seems like the Christians have any number of ways to lose in this deteriorating situation, so get out they shuld -- just as we should open our doors to them. It is in America's interest to offer a special haven to Christians who are oppressed by Islam, because they would live here as strong allies for us in any future conflict with the Islamists, just as we could depend on our Cuban and Vietnamese populations to give a bit more in a conflict against Communists.

Of course, in our PC world, I'm pipe-dreaming. Somehow it's become incorrect for a nation founded by Christians on Christian principles to offer Christians in distress any sort of preferential treatment. Our doors must be equally open to Muslims and Christians.

In principle, that's a fine idea. In practice, it's as if our top immigration bureaucrats are drinking too much tea with the Mad Hatter.

Well, It's Not A Suspect, But ...

The fast-working U.N., in just two lightening-fast years, has come to the point where its crack investigative team thinks it knows ... not the killers of assassinated Lebanon leader Rafik Hariri ... but maybe the backdrop for the motive behind the murder -- well, they will in another few months.

The Seventh report of the International Independent Investigation Commission established pursuant to Security Council resolutions 1595 (2005), 1636 (2005), 1644 (2005) and 1686 (2006) by commissioner Serge Brammetz wonders on for 20 pages; think of it as a season of CSIs rolled up in a sheaf of bureaucratic dribble.

Here's the nitty gritty graf:

As indicated in earlier reports to the Council, the Commission had collected a significant amount of evidence and information related to Rafik Hariri during the last 15 months of his life. The picture assembled is complex and multilayered, and provides part of the backdrop for the motive behind the decision to assassinate him. This aspect of the Commission’s investigation is ongoing, and is unlikely to be completed in the next reporting period given the significant amount of work required.

They've checked out mobile phone SIM cards of many of the probable assassins; they've identified the exact time of the bomb's detinantion and confirmed it was a surface detonation, they've said they're going after DNA, blah, blah, blah ... endless bureaucratic thoroughness is a great way to avoid having to reach a conclusion.