A Letter From a Marine Captain in Afghanistan

[Treasure_Hunter]

A Letter From a Marine Captain in Afghanistan (Geller, Atlas Shrugs)
Posted on July 23, 2013 by Pamela Geller


I wanted to share with Atlas readers a letter I received from a Marine captain I correspond with from time to time. His missive is tragic, and articulates all that I have warned of, predicted and worried so over for years. It bodes most ill ……..

Lioness of Judah,
I am back in Afghanistan.* There is no mission, no strategy. The Muslims have us pretty well figured out. They ask, ask and ask. We then give, give and give. The commander to balks at the cycle? He is replaced by someone who will go along. The Afghans are great allies— so long as we bribe them with goods, services, and money. They turn when we leave. Just recently, an advisor team was ordered away from an Afghan Uniformed Police team in the south because, as higher headquarters claims, they were fully trained and operational independent of ISAF help. Just the other day, the chief of police for that team was caught on our drone assets delivering a Humvee-full of weapons and ammunition to a Taliban member who is targeted for death. Of course we did not drone strike him because, after all, this is what winning looks like.

We work with allied local national linguists. Hazaras, Tajiks, and Pashtuns. Every so often, I have one of these men come to my door and ask to speak privately. They then explain— and beg me to not tell anyone— that they do not consider themselves Muslim, but have to go along or be killed. They ask me to help them with their visa packages to escape this Islamist hell. I do.**I prod these linguists with those questions that would perk the ears of an Islamic supremist. I have identified some whom I will not trust. But there are others who recognize that Islam is the problem in Afghanistan. One is a secret Christian. They want away from Islam and America is the last place where it is safe to go. For now.

I feel like these guys who have seen what Islam is are the survivors. We need them. They are like the survivors who escaped to America from the Soviet bloc and pled with tears in their eyes for America to not vote for Obama. They know what is coming because they have seen it. I do not think that Islam can be readily defeated through intellect. They are beyond it. Only sheer violence and force can stop them, only liberating those who will be liberated and using the superstition of their religion against them will work. General Pershing understood this 100 years ago.*I am afraid America will not*really get this until the most extreme circumstance arises.

My time in the Marine Corps is coming to an end. I could stay in the organization as long as I wish, but I feel there is no point. All the talented officers I know are resigning. We can’t bear to stay in and see what is happening. We are a social-experiment over and above the world’s premier war-fighting organization now. This is what America wants. This is what America has voted for twice.



Me and people like me look to get out and blend in with society at large. The consensus is that the time will come when America wants people like us again, but only after this new experimental drive has run its course. It will end how it has to end: in class war, race war, free men vs statists. Completely predictable.**At that time, the blood and sweat and broken hearts pressed from America’s fighting men and women over a decade of counter-insurgency warfare will rise up and be our nation’s salvation.

As always, please keep my identity secret. The system is no longer partial to my kind.

Captain, USMC

*

Pamela Geller is the Editor of Atlas Shrugs and a regular contributor to The D.C. Clothesline.

http://dcclothesline.com/2013/07/23...hanistan-geller-atlas-shrugs/?fb_source=pubv1



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[old digger]

The majority of Americans have no concept of the Islamic thought process and religious ideals. If you are a believer in Islam and decide to change your religion, you are literally marked for death. This is what I witnessed when I was younger in Africa.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

People still refuse to accept we are at war with radical Islam.....It is not a terorist war, it is a war with Islamist radicals..... The Muslim Brotherhood is the mother of all of the terrorists groups operating in middle east and our leaders want to sponsor and fund them....That funding of military weapons will come back to us and not in ways we want......

 

[old digger]

So true, Treasure Hunter!

 

[davest]

did President Obama actually start the invasion of Afganistan? Could you point out the dates he initially began the use of force? I know you guys are up on all this stuff so I'm really depending on your insight.

 

[Red James Cash]

It doesnt matter who started it,what matters more is that it still continues,illegally.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

did President Obama actually start the invasion of Afganistan? Could you point out the dates he initially began the use of force? I know you guys are up on all this stuff so I'm really depending on your insight.

What has he done to end it?

Obama’s Policy Positions and Voting Record as State Senator, U.S. Senator, and Presidential Candidate:

The War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War:

In August 2007, Obama suggested that as a result of President Bush’s poor military leadership, U.S. troops in Afghanistan had done a disservice to their mission by “just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.”

Vis a vis the war in Iraq, Obama, as noted earlier, was an outspoken opponent of the invasion at the outset. Over time, however, he made a number of statements that seemed to indicate vacillation in terms of his views about the war. During the November 11, 2007 airing of Meet The Press, newsman Tim Russert reminded him of some of those statements:

"In July of '04 [you said]: 'I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know,' in terms of how you would have voted on the war [in 2002].

"And then this: 'There's not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush's position at this stage.' That was July of '04.

"And this: 'I think' there's 'some room for disagreement in that initial decision to vote for authorization of the war.'

"It doesn't seem that you are firmly wedded against the war, and that you left some wiggle room that, if you had been in the Senate, you may have voted for it."
​

In June 2006 Obama spoke out against the idea of setting a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops in Iraq. Immediately after the midterm election five months later, however, Obama declared that it was vital "to change our policy" and to bring home all American troops. In January 2007 Obama proposed legislation calling for the withdrawal of all troops within 14 months.

In early 2008, the Obama campaign website declared that Obama, as President:

“... would immediately begin to pull out troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of [2009]. He would call for a new constitutional convention in Iraq, convened with the United Nations, which would not adjourn until Iraq’s leaders reach a new accord on reconciliation. He would use presidential leadership to surge our diplomacy with all of the nations of the region on behalf of a new regional security compact. And he would take immediate steps to confront the humanitarian disaster in Iraq, and to hold accountable any perpetrators of potential war crimes.”
​

Claiming that the U.S. presence in Iraq was “illegal,” Obama campaigned publicly in 2007 and 2008 for a speedy withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.But in a July 2008 discussion he held with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, Obama privately tried to persuade them to delay an agreement on a timetable for such a withdrawal until after the November elections. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, “He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the U.S. elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington…. However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open.”

The political implications of delaying the troop withdrawal were clear: If Obama were to win the election and subsequently set the withdrawal in motion, he could claim credit for doing what President Bush allegedly had been unable or unwilling to do.

Obama also vowed to “fulfill America's obligation to accept refugees” from Iraq. “The State Department pledged to allow 7,000 Iraqi refugees into America,” said the Obama campaign, “but has only let 190 into the United States. [President] Obama would expedite the Department of Homeland Security's review of Iraqi asylum applicants.”

After President Bush announced in January 2007 that he would send a “surge” of some 21,500 additional troops to Iraq in an effort to quell the insurgency there, Obama said: “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” Throughout 2007, Obama continued to argue that the surge was ill-advised.

Three weeks after President Bush had announced the surge, Senator Obama introduced the “Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007,” which, if it had passed, would have removed all U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008. “I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground,” said Obama.

In July 2007, Obama said: "Here's what we know. The surge has not worked."

In July 2008, by which time the surge had proven to be extremely effective in reducing the violence in Iraq, newscaster Katie Couric asked Obama: “But yet you're saying ... given what you know now, you still wouldn't support [the surge] ... so I'm just trying to understand this.” Obama replied:

“Because ... it's pretty straightforward. By us putting $10 billion to $12 billion a month, $200 billion, that's money that could have gone into Afghanistan. Those additional troops could have gone into Afghanistan. That money also could have been used to shore up a declining economic situation in the United States. That money could have been applied to having a serious energy security plan so that we were reducing our demand on oil, which is helping to fund the insurgents in many countries. So those are all factors that would be taken into consideration in my decision -- to deal with a specific tactic or strategy inside of Iraq.”
​

In mid-July 2008, the portions of Obama's campaign website that had emphasized his opposition to the troop surge and his statement that more troops would not change the course of the war, were suddenly removed. Oops changed his mind..


On the matter of using enhanced interrogation techniques (such as waterboarding) on high-level terrorist suspects, Obama emphatically pledged to end that practice: “This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of law.... That will be my position as president. That includes renditions.” Oops changed his mind..

Obama also condemned the "flawed military-commission system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks and that has been embroiled in legal challenges." He preferred to try terror suspects and unlawfal combatants in civilian courts rather than in military tribunals. Oops changed his mind.

Moreover, Obama criticized the Bush administration's warrantless wiretaps of terror suspects: “This administration acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our security. It is not.” Oops Changed mind...

Obama commonly accused the Bush administration of trampling on the Constitution: “I taught constitutional law for ten years at the University of Chicago, so . . . um . . . your next president will actually believe in the Constitution, which you can’t say about your current president.” Oops missed this one a long ways..


Homeland Security / War on Terror:

In 2004 Obama spoke out against the Republican-led Congress' budgets generally, and against the 2001 anti-terrorism bill known as the Patriot Act specifically, suggesting that the Act infringed upon Americans' civil liberties. Said Obama:

"When you rush these budgets that are a foot high, and nobody has any idea what's in them and nobody has read them ... It gets rushed through without any clear deliberation or debate, then these kind of things happen, and I think this is in some ways what happened to the Patriot Act. I mean, you remember, there was no real debate about that. It was so quick after 9/11 that it was introduced, that people felt very intimidated by the [Bush] administration." Oops Changed mind...

Obama voted “No” on a bill to remove the need for a FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrant before the government may proceed with wiretapping in terrorism-related investigations of suspects in other countries. “Warrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional,” said Obama.[17] Oops Changed mind...

In Obama’s view, “the creation of military commissions” to try terror suspects captured in the War on Terror was, from its inception, “a bad idea.”[18] Oops Changed mind...


Such commissions are designed to adjudicate the cases of so-called “unlawful combatants” -- as distinguished from “lawful combatants” -- who are captured in battle. The former are entitled to prisoner-of-war status and its accompanying Geneva Convention protections; the latter are entitled to none of those things. Article IV of the Geneva Convention defines lawful combatants as those whose military organization meets four very specific criteria: “(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign [a uniform or emblem] recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; [and] (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.” Al Qaeda, for one, fails even to come close to satisfying these conditions. Obama opposes the distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants, and has called for the repeal of any separate standards regulating the treatment of each.[19]

Obama also voted in favor of preserving habeas corpus -- the notion that the government may not detain a prisoner without filing specific charges that can expeditiously be brought before a court -- for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. U.S. officials consider these prisoners -- captured mostly on the battlefields of the Middle East -- to be of the highest value for intelligence purposes, or to constitute, in their own persons, a great threat to the United States. Said Obama:
​

“Why don’t we close Guantanamo and restore the right of habeas corpus, because that’s how we lead, not with the might of our military, but the power of our ideals and the power of our values. It’s time to show the world we’re not a country that ships prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries.” Oops Changed mind...

On June 19, 2008, political analyst Dick Morris described Obama's prescription for dealing with terrorism as follows:
​

"[Obama has] urged us to go back to the era of criminal-justice prosecution of terror suspects, citing the successful efforts to imprison those who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. [He said] 'It is my firm belief that we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution.... In previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.' Oops Changed mind...

"This is big -- because that prosecution, and the ground rules for it, had more to do with our inability to avert 9/11 than any other single factor. Because we treated the 1993 WTC bombing as simply a crime, our investigation was slow, sluggish and constrained by the need to acquire admissible evidence to convict the terrorists.

"As a result, we didn't know that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible for the attack until 1997 -- too late for us to grab Osama when Sudan offered to send him to us in 1996. Clinton and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger turned down the offer, saying we had no grounds on which to hold him or to order his kidnapping or death.

"Obama's embrace of the post-'93 approach shows a blindness to the key distinction that has kept us safe since 9/11 -- the difference between prosecution and protection."
​